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She rubs a finger across Gonzo’s smooth cheek. “Um-hmm.”
“We don’t want to drink. We just want to see the place where Junior played. My friend Eubie told me I had to if I was ever in New Orleans.”
“Zat so?” She takes a good long look at us through her exhaled smoke. “Did your friend tell you how to find the Horn and Ivory?”
“No,” I concede.
“Uh-hmm, um-hmmm.” Miss D says, like it means something. She drops the cigarette to the sidewalk and crushes it daintily with that huge, basketball-player-worthy foot. “Can’t have you going back with nothin’ to tell, can we? Don’tchoo worry, cher. Miss Demeanor’s gonna get you in to see Junior.”
I don’t know what she means by that. Eubie told me Junior Webster’s dead. Maybe she means she’ll get us in to see the club.
“Well, come on, then, churren.” Miss Demeanor sashays down the sidewalk, and we fall into step behind her.
“Man, you sure are tall,” Gonzo says.
“Yeah, baby. I surely am.” She laughs out loud.
“Gonzo,” I whisper a minute later. “I’m pretty sure Miss Demeanor is a guy.”
“Right. I knew that.” But I can see that he didn’t, because now he’s trying to steal a look at her, to make sure.
Any other place in the world, we’d be a real spectacle, but I’m coming to realize that the more you stand out in New Orleans, the more you actually blend in. It’s like a circus of a town. Within a block or so, we’re back in the nonstop party that is Mardi Gras.
A bouncer calls out from a shadowed doorway. “Hey, Miss D, where y’at, dawlin?”
“How I always am, baby—fiiiine!” She laughs when she says it, and he laughs, too.
Miss D leads us off the chaotic, crowded street and down a private, narrow alley that dead-ends at an elaborate double gate that’s exactly like the one we saw on the Morpheus float, with one side completely white and the other etched with the outline of a trumpet symbol. Just beyond the gate is a red door.
“The Gates of Horn and Ivory,” Miss D says. She opens them up and then gives three quick knocks on the red door, followed by a pause, and then a fourth knock. A little window in the door opens. A pair of eyes appears.
“You know me?” she says.
The eyes move up and down, yes.
“So you know I’ve always been a good friend to this club.”
The eyes nod again.
“I need a favor. These here my nephews come all the way from …” She looks down at us. “Backwater. They want to see the Horn and Ivory.”
The eyes dart over in our direction, take in the state of us for a good long time. They move slowly back to stare at Miss Demeanor.
She sighs, throws her hands in the air, heavenward. “I know. Bless ’em. They’re my ugly sister’s kids.”
The eyes don’t even blink.
“The little one’s doing that last wish thang. He’s got cancer of twelve different organs. Some you ain’t never even heard of. We’re all just broken up about it.”
She purses her glossy lips. The window remains quiet.
Miss D points a finger. “Okay. Okay. But you mess with his last wish and he’ll come back to haunt yo’ ass.” The door doesn’t budge. Finally, Miss D holds up the matches. “These boys got business with Junior, cher.”
The little window closes, and the door opens.
“Thank you, baby,” Miss D says, leading the way.
I don’t know who let us in, because there is no one standing at the door when we go in. It’s like it’s opened all by itself.
