Mississippi Roll Read online

  Over the years, thinking back on what happened the day that Carpenter had fired his revolver at him and how he’d felt as the steam enveloped him … well, he had to wonder. Maybe he wasn’t a haint. Perhaps he wasn’t even technically dead. After all, if he was a ghost, then why hadn’t he ever come across someone else like him?

  Maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been spared from the wild card virus that day in New York City. Maybe instead he was one of them. He’d heard that the virus could manifest much later in an infected person, generally during a moment of extreme emotion. Being scalded by steam and then shot certainly qualified as such a moment. There was no way for him to know, though, nor would it make a difference in his life if he were a ghost or a joker. He was what he was.

  There was another blast from the steam whistle as Gimcrack finished playing and launched into “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Wilbur looked up to the large glass windows of the pilothouse, where he could see Jeremiah Smalls at the wheel. Behind him were Captain Montaigne and JoHanna, who had evidently finished dropping off the other group of refugees. Wilbur went up the stairs to the pilothouse and allowed himself to sink through the closed door. He left behind a dripping mess, but none of the three were looking that way.

  “… should be interesting between the refugees, the jokers and aces we have aboard, and those damn ghost hunters,” Captain Montaigne was saying. “Everyone who needs to know about the Kazakhs already knows; we need to make sure no one else finds out. Period. And there are certain crew members who absolutely can’t know.”

  “Mickey Lee’s absolutely one,” JoHanna said, her wide face set in a scowl. “He’d call the Feds in a heartbeat.” Wilbur agreed with that entirely; the man was a jerk.

  “And Kitty, too,” Jeremiah grunted. His gaze remained on the river in front of him and the gauges and lights of the panels. “Can’t say she’d do anything, but I don’t think she’d like it, either. She doesn’t seem to care for jokers, so it’s better she don’t know.”

  “Let’s hope we can keep things settled,” the captain said. “We’re in for a long haul before we get to Cincinnati, and we still have the other little problem with the Natchez Consortium to worry about. But that’s for later, I suppose. JoHanna, both you and I have social duties we need to get to, and we should leave Jeremiah to his work now that we’re under way.” She turned as if to leave but stopped. Wilbur saw her staring at the door and the water still streaking the painted wood. She glanced at Jeremiah, who nodded but said nothing. Montaigne opened the door so that JoHanna could leave ahead of her, and walked out behind her, shutting the door once again.

  Wilbur knew that Captain Montaigne was aware of his presence aboard the ship, but she’d never tried to speak to him, even when she must have known or suspected he was in the room with her. Wilbur had overheard her talk to Jeremiah once about him: “All those stories about Steam Wilbur get us decent publicity and more passengers, and that’s fine with me. Beyond that, I don’t want or need to know any more about him.…”

  Jeremiah flicked off the interior light in the pilothouse so he could more easily see outside; only the glow from the control panel in front of him illuminated the small room. “Wilbur?” Jeremiah said to the air, his attention still on the river and the wheel of the steamboat. Wilbur, in answer, went to the pipe connected to the boat’s steam whistle. He curled his fingers around and into the pipe, drawing the steam from it (and hearing the calliope suddenly lower in pitch as the pressure in its supply pipes dropped in sympathy). Wilbur took in just enough steam to make himself easily visible to Jeremiah, then released the pipe. The calliope went back up to its normal pitch in a wail. At the keyboard, they saw Gimcrack shaking his head. Wilbur imagined that down in the boiler room, Cottle was cursing.

  Wilbur went to the whiteboard hung from one of the window frames, with a marker tied to it with a string. He uncapped the marker. Captain noticed I was here, he wrote.

  Jeremiah glanced quickly over to the board at the sound of the marker’s squeaking. “Yeah, she did,” Jeremiah said. “Didn’t seem happy ’bout it, neither.”

  She doesn’t like me.

  “It ain’t that. She just don’t like complications, ’specially right now. So y’know ’bout our new passengers?” Jeremiah asked. Wilbur nodded. “You comfortable with what we’re doin’?” Wilbur nodded again.

  “That’s good,” Jeremiah said. The relief was obvious on the reflection of his lined face in the glass in front of him. “Y’can help us keep an eye on ’em. And maybe scare off anyone who gets too curious, huh? I’ll tell the captain you’re on our side. That’ll ease her mind.”

  Good. You’re busy. Talk to you later.

  “You do that, hear?” Jeremiah answered.

  That afternoon at Baton Rouge a slow and persistent storm front was pushing dark thunderheads from west to east across the river—not that rain bothered Wilbur at all. However, that meant that most of the passengers were crowded into the saloon, the Bayou Lounge, and the dining hall areas of the boiler deck, or staying in their staterooms.

  But Wilbur saw Captain Montaigne, open umbrella in hand, coming down the stairs to the main deck to stand at the head of the gangway as a black limousine pulled onto the dock. The driver got out, opened his own umbrella, and went to the rear passenger door, holding the umbrella as a man emerged from the car. Wilbur recognized him immediately. It was hard to mistake the thick white hair and neatly trimmed goatee, the wire-frame glasses, the stocky build, and the expensive cut of his three-piece suit: Kirby Jackson, the majority shareholder in the Natchez Consortium, and as such, essentially the current owner of the Natchez. Another suited man emerged from the front passenger door and went to the trunk, pulling out a pair of large suitcases as Jackson’s driver accompanied him up the gangway in the rain, holding the umbrella over the man until he ducked under Captain Montaigne’s umbrella. The man with the suitcases handed them off to a deckhand who came scurrying out to take them, then headed up the nearest stairs with them. Jackson spoke briefly to the driver and the other man, then the two made their way back to the limousine as Captain Montaigne shook hands with Jackson and escorted him up the stairs. The captain’s expression was tight-lipped and sour, though Wilbur had the sense that it wasn’t the weather that had put her in a bad mood.

  Wilbur followed, making certain that he remained invisible. Jackson, from what Wilbur had seen and overheard, had no passion for steamboats or the Natchez, per se. He was strictly an “investor,” pure and simple, interested only in making money from his shares in the Natchez. In that, he reminded Wilbur uneasily of Marcus Carpenter and his ilk. Gliding unseen behind the two, Wilbur followed them up to the texas deck, where JoHanna was already standing at the open door of what was generally referred to as the “owners’ stateroom”—a well-appointed chamber at the opposite end of the deck from the stateroom that contained the Kazakh refugees, and one that usually remained vacant unless one of the Natchez Consortium shareholders or their family decided to take a jaunt on the river. Wilbur slid inside the open door ahead of Jackson and the captain, going to the back wall near where the suitcases had been placed.

  “You should be comfortable here, Mr. Jackson,” Montaigne said. “If you need anything, please let me know personally, and I’ll take care of it. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy our trip to Cincinnati and the Tall Stacks festival.”

  “I’m sure I will, Captain,” Jackson answered. His voice had a sandy growl, and his white-toothed smile was that of a man used to deploying it as a weapon. “And we should be frank here. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors by now. I’m here to tell you that they’re true. Cincinnati will be the last and final port of call for the Natchez. We’ve made arrangements to berth the boat permanently at the Public Landing. We’ll be converting the Natchez into an entertainment hub, with the thought of obtaining a casino license.”

  “Mr. Jackson, JoHanna and I—”

  Jackson cut off the captain’s comment with a lifted hand. “I know. The two of
you made an offer to purchase my shares from the consortium, and I and the consortium board appreciate your interest in having the Natchez continue on as usual. I’ve considered your offer, but I’m afraid I’m not interested in selling my stake—the Natchez is worth far more moored in Cincinnati.”

  Wilbur saw JoHanna and Montaigne exchange glances. “We might be able to raise our offer,” she said, “if you can just give us a little time.”

  “Time is a commodity I don’t have, unfortunately,” he answered. “In fact, I already have a buyer interested in buying up the boilers for scrap.” Wilbur let out a hiss at that statement. The boilers gone. No steam … “But I do have an alternate offer for the two of you. Stay with the Natchez, as co-managers of the new venture. Why, Marjorie, you could even remain as ‘Captain’ Montaigne—that would be a nice image for the patrons, I think. And you’d both be well compensated, I can guarantee you that.”

  Again, the two women looked to each other. “I don’t know,” Montaigne said. “Not being on the river … I’d have to think about it. JoHanna?”

  JoHanna only gave a grim shrug, and Jackson smiled again. “Then do that,” he said. “I don’t need your answers until we get to Cincinnati. Let me talk with the other shareholders, and I’ll get you more firm details on what we’re offering, and we can talk again…”

  Wilbur didn’t wait to hear more. He stepped backwards into and through the wall of the stateroom, out into the weather once more. The music from the lounge a deck below was painfully cheerful.

  Wilbur took the stairs up to the hurricane deck.

  Jeremiah was on duty. The rain was lashing the windows of the pilothouse, the wipers squeegeeing it away, though Jeremiah’s attention was more on the instruments in front of him rather than the view. Passing through the closed and locked door, Wilbur picked up the whiteboard’s marker and uncapped it. He set the cap on the instrument panel in front of Jeremiah, setting it down with an audible clack. Jeremiah snorted at its sudden appearance.

  “What’s up, Wilbur?”

  Kirby Jackson’s aboard. Says Cincinnati is the last stop. Ever.

  Jeremiah scowled and spat. “Fuck,” he said. Wilbur found himself agreeing entirely with the sentiment.

  “So all those lousy rumors were true, huh?” he said aloud. “I shoulda known. What do you think about all this, Wilbur?”

  Sucks, he wrote on the whiteboard.

  Jeremiah managed a short, unamused laugh. “Amen to that, brother. I’ve been piloting this old boat since before Captain Montaigne got here. Twelve years now. It just don’t seem fair, I tell ya.”

  Life’s not fair, Wilbur scribbled on the board. Neither’s death, he added. No, none of it was fair: it wasn’t fair that Carpenter stole his life and Eleanor and their child from him; wasn’t fair that he was somehow bound to this boat; wasn’t fair that now it appeared that the Natchez would never get steam up and plow the rivers again.

  Jeremiah grunted as he glanced over at Wilbur’s comment. “Damn straight it ain’t,” he said. “I get tossed out on my ass like a piece of garbage, and you … you’re going to be stuck in goddamn Cincinnati until the Natchez finally rots.”

  The captain and JoHanna were trying to buy the boat and keep it running, Wilbur wrote. Jackson turned down their offer.

  “Yeah, the captain mentioned that to me. And it don’t surprise me none that Jackson said no if’n he thinks he can rake in more dollars with the boat parked. All the man cares about is making the most money for himself, and he don’t care who gets hurt in the process. Bastard.”

  Maybe the captain can still come up with a better offer.

  Jeremiah snorted at that. “Yeah, and we might see a flock of pigs flying over the Mississippi tomorrow, too.” He shook his graying head and glanced at the clock. “Kitty’s due up here for her shift in a few minutes. Me, I’m going to try to get some sleep—after I take some medicine to help me get there, if you take my drift. If you want to join me…”

  Wilbur shook his head. He was cooling rapidly, water puddling on the pilothouse floor underneath him. Goodnight, he wrote on the board, then recapped the marker and erased the board with the rag Jeremiah kept there. In a flash of lightning, he could see Kitty, the second pilot, near the top of the stairs to the hurricane deck, holding an umbrella against the pounding of the rain, dressed as usual in a baggy sweater and long pants, and wearing her sunglasses even in the dark and rain. Wilbur shook his head at the sight.

  Wilbur left the pilothouse the way he’d come in, moving from the pilothouse, down the stairs from the hurricane and the texas decks to the boiler deck, carefully avoiding the people on his way. He thought he might make a stop in the Bayou Lounge. The Jokertown Boys hadn’t impressed him, but he’d heard some good comments about the duo called Sylvia and the Fox—the Fox being some guy that Caitlyn Beaumont, the cruise director, bragged about once having been on some TV show that Wilbur had never seen: American Hero. “He’s gorgeous and he’s actually an ace,” Wilbur overheard Caitlyn telling one of the female passengers. “Not hard to look at, if you know what I mean.”

  He needed a diversion about now, anyway. It might stop him from thinking about the Natchez and Cincinnati. Aces and jokers … Curious, Wilbur passed through the wall into the lounge just as their show was starting.

  A Big Break in the Small Time

  by Carrie Vaughn

  THE BAYOU LOUNGE DIDN’T have a green room so much as a closet behind a curtain where performers could leave their things during their acts. The space had just enough room for Andrew and Sylvia to perch on folding chairs before going on for their late-night set. The late set was turning out to be not so great a slot, even with the captive audience en route between Baton Rouge and Natchez. Andrew didn’t have to move to peek behind the curtain. Maybe a dozen people out there, sipping drinks and not paying attention to the stage. He sighed.

  “How’s it look?” Sylvia asked.

  “It’s great. It’s looking great,” he said, sounding more dispirited than he’d intended. She caught the tone and squeezed his hand.

  “Aw, honey, I thought we were treating this as a vacation. Easy gig, testing out new material on a new crowd. Watching the scenery go by during the day. Maybe not worry so much.”

  Yeah, he definitely didn’t used to worry so much. That was before he hit thirty and realized he wasn’t going to be Disney cute forever.

  At least he had Sylvia.

  “I know. I’m just losing perspective.”

  “You miss Vegas.”

  “Yeah.” His tail drooped to the floor.

  This certainly wasn’t the cabaret at the Flamingo, but it was a gig. Couldn’t very well turn your tail on that. But for four years they’d been Sylvia and the Fox, playing two shows a night, six nights a week to a packed theater. For a while, they’d been on a dozen “don’t miss” entertainment lists for their “retro cabaret act” filled with “charm and some real talent.” He was the charm, she was the talent. He had no illusions about that. He still had the best reviews memorized.

  But it couldn’t last. Nothing ever did, not even in Vegas. They’d gotten a ton of mileage off the sheer novelty of a couple of joker lounge singers who were actually charming and attractive (once again, Andrew knew which was which)—or at least not offensive—in a kind of old-school feel-good show that was supposed to be out of fashion. Kind of thing you could bring your grandmother to.

  Trouble was, grandmas died off.

  At least they’d closed that gig mostly on top, not waiting until they’d been shunted off to a stage in the back of some Fremont Street casino, hoping for whatever audience trickled in for gin and tonics at the bar. At least they’d landed a couple of steps up from that. They had a couple of videos up on YouTube edging close to a million hits. By all measures, they were doing okay.

  He sighed again.

  Andrew used his old ace name from way back on American Hero, Wild Fox, because it was appropriate: he had ruddy fox ears and a luxurious thick brush of a fox ta
il. So rather than just being another average skinny Asian guy with floppy black hair and a manic disposition, he was almost a walking, talking cartoon. For a certain group of people who’d watched the animated Robin Hood at an impressionable age, he was very nearly a fetish object. He banked on it.

  Sylvia Otto—she was beautiful. Smashing. Amazing, talented, kind, funny … the most perfect, perfect woman Andrew had ever met. At five-seven, she was an inch shorter than him. She had creamy skin, big hazel eyes, and a body that curved and dipped and was made for spandex. Sylvia the ocelot. Fuzzy, triangular ears, brindled light and dark, peeked up through her thick chestnut hair. A slender, slinky tail curled out her back. Just a hint of whiskers at her nose. Some people might call her a joker, but Andrew called her adorable. A perfect match to his fox.

  He’d fallen hard for her backstage at a corporate entertainment junket and woke up every single day shocked that she chose to spend time with him. She picked him! How did that happen? He was a nerd. A dork. Lame. Weird. He got by on schtick and little else. And yet, when he walked into a room, she smiled. They’d been together for six years now and he’d just about gotten to the point where he believed she didn’t stay just to be nice. Maybe, just maybe, she liked him, too.

  Dogs and cats, living together. He made that joke every night and people always laughed.

  She glanced at her phone, slipped it back in her bag, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Showtime, babe. Ready?”

  He couldn’t go on in a funk so he smiled broadly and spread his arms. “I’m always ready, hon.” He swished his tail, wiggled his ears. Yeah, he was ready.

  First, before they even went out onstage, he started with an illusion. Besides Sylvia’s music, this was what set them apart: Andrew could conjure illusions that looked and sounded like anything he wanted. They didn’t hold up to physical contact, but he didn’t need them to.