Deadly Pedigree

28



“The rumor is he can’t buy a new Mercedes-Benz this year,” Una said.

“Tragic, tragic,” lamented Dion, from deep in his glass of Young’s Old Nick Ale.

The bizarre label on the bottle of English brick-red brew pictured the devil in Edwardian evening clothes.

They had all ordered one to toast the flesh-and-blood Nick on his recent triumphs. The Folio featured hundreds of such odd beers from around the world; for years, Nick and Dion had been trying to drink their way through the list.

“Here’s to Nick,” Hawty said. “Our lucky devil.”

“Lucky to have such pals,” Nick added, choked up as they drank.

Natalie Armiger had not outlasted the wail of the ambulance siren that ushered her to the emergency room. Soon, official inquiries uncovered startling facts about Artemis Holdings. Armiger had been a loose cannon not only in her private life, but also in business affairs. The catalog of her securities transgressions and other crimes over the course of several decades ran to more than a hundred pages.

Her death and, in the following weeks, the implosion of Artemis Holdings would not have been earthshaking news in the insular world of Freret University–another high-roller benefactor would be found–except that a professor of high rank in the English department was among those who had lost the savings of a lifetime in the debacle: Frederick the Usurper Tawpie. The student-run newspaper did a hard-hitting issue on the scandal, and the word was that Tawpie lurked about campus confiscating any stacks of the free publication he found.

It was two months after the crash.

“But there is something good that’s emerged from these ashes,” Nick said to his friends. “The lawyers have salvaged a generous deal for the Balzars. Twice, the old man, has cable television and all the ice cream he can eat; Erasmus has better health care; and Dora has a new kitchen.”

“And Shelvin’s much better,” Hawty added. “I visited my family over Thanksgiving break, and I stopped by Natchitoches. I think the boy’s gone crazy, but now he wants to be a cop! He’s already applied to the police academy here in New Orleans…can you believe it? After what those”–she clamped her mouth shut until her anger allowed her to continue in civil language. “After what they did to him and Ronald.” She looked intently at the beer bottles on the table, perhaps to hide the mistiness in her eyes; but after a moment, she sniffed away the outward signs of her sorrow. “Dora puts fresh flowers on Ronald’s grave every Sunday, rain or shine.”

Ivanhoe’s heirs had indeed won a substantial settlement; though considerably less than the fifty million Nick had demanded from Armiger, it was an impressive figure, nevertheless. There was to be no Max Corban Foundation; but Nick hoped that, through his efforts, the old man’s soul was now at peace.

In a separate matter, the state highway department had re-examined a certain land deal in Natchitoches and had discovered old and more recent fraud. Several Chirkes were headed to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. An anonymous call–from a K&B payphone–to the attorney general’s office had done the trick.

“Let’s not forget the diary,” Una said, bragging about Nick’s latest literary feather in his cap.

He’d persuaded Coldbread to finance publication. The day before, he’d received a letter from the quixotic, crotchety scholar, who was in Paris, hot on the trail of his obsession. Coldbread had found that the man he was searching for had actually been called Balayeur, not Balazar; a series of transcription errors was responsible for centuries of misidentification.

“Thus, you must not expect half, or indeed ANY, of MY TREASURE!” Coldbread had written Nick. “However, if OUR book about Ivanhoe Balzar does well, I would be amenable to employing you on other such NON-SENSITIVE projects.”

Dion leveled a searching gaze at Nick. “You’re going to have to tell us one day. We can’t be put off forever. Were you working for the Bad Witch or the Good Witch or the family in Natchitoches or the old Holocaust survivor? Come now, we’re your friends.”

“Yes, and how did you know so much about the old man’s demise?” Una said.

The two goons were arrested not long after Armiger’s death. Nick had given a tip to the detectives working Ronald’s murder; Hawty later provided positive ID on the suspects. They were, in fact, rogue cops, with reputations much worse than the tarnished norm of NOPD. Now they were ratting on each other, competing for plea bargains on murder raps and a few dozen other charges. There would be cells at Angola or a federal prison waiting for them, as well.

Nick had scrupulously kept Zola’s name out of everything.

“Hey, I plead client-genealogist privilege,” he said.

His three questioners groaned in disappointment.

A series of beeps emanated from Hawty’s new chariot.

“E-mail,” she said. “For you, Nick. The computer system we ordered is ready. The shop wants to know when we’ll be at the office for delivery.”

Una and Dion looked at Nick in silent raillery.

“Your apostasy shocks and grieves me,” Dion said. “How many times have I been witness to your philippics against the growing hegemony of the Almighty Gizmo? Yea, even here in our beloved Folio, in this hallowed retreat”–he spread his arms wide in practiced Shakespearean hyperbole–“the very name of which suggests our guiding humanistic ideal of the unique glory of the individual in history. Nick, you were one of us, once! Have you now abandoned us, your erstwhile fellow humble servants of knowledge?”

“Forgive him,” Una said. “He hasn’t been able to flex his rhetorical muscles today. His first class isn’t until this afternoon. But tell us, seriously–you haven’t mentioned your Miranda. What happens to her now that she’s cast out of her island paradise?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “I got a letter about two weeks ago, from one of her secretaries. She wanted to know the appropriate places to send all that genealogical source material I told you about, all the stuff in those cases. Since then, nothing.”

“Oh, so it was a professional matter?” Una said. “You aren’t…seeing each other?”

“Seems that way,” Nick replied, making sure to give a lovelorn sigh.

“Look,” Hawty said. “Is that who I think it is?” The Usurper, in a dark far corner, gesticulated impressively in intimate conversation with an enthralled female student probably less than half his age.

Nick caught the attention of a waitress. She wore the current youthful uniform of drab castoff clothing hanging from her like skin in the process of being molted. There was a shiny ring threaded through a hole in her nostril.

“See that red-haired man way over there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Please take him and his companion another round, and leave whatever money’s left.” He gave her a bit too much money for the drinks, along with a generous tip. “And tell him–now this is important–‘Keep the change. You need it.’ You got that?”

“Uh-huh.” She wandered off.

“Hey, you three,” Nick complained, “what’s happened to the communicative skills of the students since I left? They’re sliding back into a pre-verbal stage. You’re teachers of English, remember? Aren’t you supposed to be the life preservers keeping our civilization afloat in the rising tide of imprecision, claptrap, and technobabble?”

“Thomas Carlyle lives!” Una said. “Would you, sir, consider lecturing my classes on your theories of social decline? That is, if we can disguise you sufficiently to get past dear Frederick, who hates you almost as much as you hate him.”

The waitress, for all her seeming earlier inattention to Nick’s request, was now delivering the drinks and the message across the crowded barroom. Tawpie at first seemed to think there was some mistake; but he soon realized someone was making fun of him. He scrutinized the dark, cavernous barroom for the culprit.

Nick waved, flashing a big phony smile. He could just detect Tawpie’s jowls jiggling as he launched a fusillade of invective his way.

Tawpie’s curses were drowned out by the laughter of the four friends and by a new song whining at high volume about the difficulties of being twenty.

“All right! The Rotting Fish-heads from Pluto!” Hawty shouted, waving her arms to the frenetic beat. And then to Nick, who was the only one close enough to understand: “I played that. A local band. They’ve really hit it big. I think they’re hot!”

Una and Dion put their fingers to their ears.

Nick almost explained that he’d seen the band live–with Keith Richards–in the company of Zola, and that he now owned the entire Rotting Fish-heads output on cassette…but he decided to keep quiet. He just smiled and nodded, tapping his foot under the table. After all his elaborate lies, they probably wouldn’t believe the simple truth from him.





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