interrupted. “You say he’s on a roof?”
“That’s Jim Leger,” the third boy spoke up.
“Why you tellin’ them?” his buddy complained.
“I don’t like it none neither. That crazy motherfucker always coming out and wavin’ that rifle soon as you step on the sidewalk. Lives close by, right over there.” The boy waved toward the main street.
Charbou gave him a little salute of thanks. Before setting a course toward the intersection, he called out, “Y’all know if lots of people still down there?”
The boy who’d named the shooter was the only one to reply. “We don’t know. Things ain’t so bad right here, but they sayin’ the lower part of the Ninth disappeared. Storm knocked the houses right off they foundations. Most of the folks living down there is old as hell, so I hope they holed up ahead of time in the Superdome.”
Dupree felt a sharp pang at the mention of the Superdome.
“Nobody thought anything like this could ever happen,” Charbou said unhappily.
“Bullshit!” the second youngster in the rowboat answered. “For sure we thought it could, ’cause what happened is the white folks opened up the floodgates.”
Bull couldn’t let that pass. “What kind of crap you talkin’?”
“What I said: those sons of bitches up north, they be high and dry, but our city underwater now; those white folks opened up the gates to save they nice houses, never mind worrying about us down here. Everybody here saying that!”
“That’s not true,” Dupree intervened. “Water is rising everywhere, in the north too; they still don’t know why.”
“They don’t know? Well, I sure do!” the boy insisted. “That’s how things always been here in this town. Soon as the water rises, they blow up the levees to save the goddamn French Quarter.”
Charbou shook his head as they moved away. “Y’all take care.”
“You folks is the ones that needs to take care,” the boy replied. His words might have been parting advice, but they could just as easily have been a threat.
Charbou kept shaking his head. He looked at Amaia, his lips grimly pursed. She smiled, admiring his patience. Bull steered them toward a cross street, and after a while they again emerged onto North Galvez.
Charbou got to his feet and steadied himself against Bull’s shoulder as he scanned the distance. He burst into laughter and pointed to a rooftop where an African American woman was sitting at ease beneath a yellow-and-white-striped umbrella, patiently awaiting assistance.
He cupped his hands into a megaphone. “Oceanetta! You awright?”
She waved both hands. “Awright, baby!” She raised a can of beer. Maybe Robin Hood of the ghetto had already passed her way.
Bull explained. “That’s Oceanetta Charbou, Bill’s aunt. We couldn’t get her to leave the city, no matter how hard we tried.”
Oceanetta Charbou never married, and she’d always lived in the house where she and her four siblings were born. She was the youngest sister of Bill’s mom and looked to be in her midfifties, maybe a bit older. Wiry and alert, she was just as decisive, able, and attractive as her nephew. From her perch on the roof, she tossed down two plastic shopping bags full of candy, granola bars, and little bottles of water. She slid on her bottom down to the edge of the roof, where the two cops caught her. Once they’d settled her in the Zodiac, she introduced herself to each of the FBI agents in turn. This lady wasn’t about to be intimidated by a hurricane.
Charbou glanced up at the umbrella abandoned on the rooftop. “I didn’t know you had a hatch in the attic to get on the roof.”
“And indeed I didn’t, baby, not before today. Don’t you ’member what old Vic Schiro told people to do?”
“Hey, give me a break,” Charbou said. “Of course! I’m from NOLA too, remember.”
“But I’m not!” Amaia spoke up.
“Vic was mayor of New Orleans when Betsy smashed us up back in 1965. He died a while back,” Dupree explained. “Lots of our folks drowned when they got trapped in their attics as the water rose. Vic Schiro said everybody in New Orleans ought to keep an ax in the attic.” He bent over and took Oceanetta’s hands. Her palms were covered with blisters.
Johnson was astonished. “You chopped a hole in the roof?”
Oceanetta didn’t reply. She was entirely focused on Dupree. “You from New Orleans, and you was here when Betsy smashed us up. You musta been just a little fella back then.” She peered into his face the way some women do when trying to guess age,