Chapter 4 - The Anatomy of a Parasite
The brownstone on Long Street was silent, save for the ticking of an antique grandfather clock in the foyer. The apartment smelled of beeswax, lemon oil, and old paper. It was vast, quiet, and warm—a world away from the drafty, water-stained two-room flat on Constance Street where the pipes rattled like dry bones whenever the neighbors ran their bath.
Clara had put Ellie to bed in the guest room two hours ago. The child had fallen asleep almost immediately, her red notebook tucked firmly under her pillow, her breathing deep and untroubled for the first time in months.
Clara could not sleep.
She walked into the dimly lit library wearing a borrowed wool cardigan over her work clothes.
Grant Mercer was sitting behind an oval desk of dark walnut, a green banker’s lamp casting a pool of emerald light over stacks of manila folders. A glass of whiskey sat untouched at his right hand. Silas stood near the French doors that opened onto a rain-slicked balcony, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a small penknife.
Clara stopped at the edge of the Persian rug. "She's asleep."
Grant looked up, closing the folder he was reading. "Sit down, Mrs. Ward."
She hesitated, then chose the straight-backed leather armchair opposite him. She sat on the very edge of the cushion, her feet tucked beneath her, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
"I need to know what you did to Nolan," she said.
Grant leaned back. The shadows of the room accentuated the hollows of his cheeks and the sharp line of his jaw. "He is currently on a shrimp boat heading toward the barrier islands. He will spend the next three months sorting bait for sixty dollars a week under the supervision of a captain who doesn't care for conversation."
Clara blinked. "You... you didn't kill him?"
"Killing Nolan Vance would create a legal nuisance," Grant said dispassionately. "A missing body invites inquiries from municipal inspectors who have nothing better to do. A man who voluntarily took a seasonal contract in Terrebonne Parish to avoid his gambling debts is simply a coward who ran away. Silas ensured he signed the ship’s manifest himself."
Silas gave a dry, raspy chuckle from the balcony door. "He was real eager to sign once Marcus showed him what the anchor chain looked like up close."
"Silas," Grant murmured without looking at him.
Silas closed his knife with a soft click and went silent.
"What about Callahan?" Clara asked, her voice tight. "Nolan worked for Jimmy Callahan. If Nolan disappeared, Callahan will look for his money."
Grant pulled another folder toward him. He opened it, revealing several photocopied bank slips, land deeds, and photographs of a warehouse near the Industrial Canal.
"Callahan does not care about Nolan Vance," Grant said. "Callahan cared about the six hundred dollars a month Nolan was bringing in from three different families in your district. Nolan was pocketing four hundred of it and telling Callahan that you were only paying two."
Clara’s lips parted in shock. "What?"
"Vance was skimming from his own boss," Grant said. "I had a brief conversation with Callahan at two o'clock this morning. When I presented him with these receipts, Mr. Callahan apologized for the intrusion upon my guests at the Monteleone. He also agreed that David Ward’s estate owes nothing to anyone in Orleans Parish."
Clara stared at the desk. The lamplight reflected in the polished wood, mirroring the exhaustion etched into her features. "Just like that? One conversation, and it’s over?"
"Power in this city is very simple, Mrs. Ward," Grant said. "It is an arithmetic problem. Nolan Vance had neither the numbers nor the leverage. He was an infection that only survived because nobody with sufficient penicillin cared to look under the bandage."
A tear slipped down Clara’s cheek, hot and sudden. She wiped it away with the heel of her hand, angry at her own weakness. "David fought him for a year before he died. David went to the precinct. He went to the union hall. They all told him there was nothing they could do because Nolan hadn't broken any windows yet. David had a heart attack on the docks trying to work double shifts to pay off a debt that didn't exist."
She looked at Grant, her eyes blazing with an agonizing mixture of grief and fury. "And you solved it in two hours with a phone call."
"Yes," Grant said.
"It isn't fair."
"No," Grant agreed. "It is not."
"So what do you want?" Clara leaned forward, her voice dropping into a desperate, hushed demand. "Nobody does this for a game of cards. Don't treat me like a child, Mr. Mercer. Men like you don't step into the gutter to pull someone out unless you want them to work the shovel. What do you want from me? What do you want from Ellie?"
Grant Mercer picked up his whiskey glass, swirled the amber liquid once, and set it down without drinking.
"David Ward was twenty-four years old when he worked the riverfront during the river pilots' strike of 2012," Grant said quietly.
Clara froze. "What?"
"My father was running the freight lines then," Grant continued, his voice devoid of emotion, like an archivist reciting an ancient treaty. "A group of contract breakers from Baton Rouge tried to set fire to the grain elevators on Wharf 4. My younger brother, Thomas, was sixteen. He was inside the scale office doing inventory when they padlocked the exterior doors and dropped road flares through the air intake."
Clara’s breath caught in her throat.
"David Ward was the night mechanic on that shift," Grant said. "He didn't run. He took an oxyacetylene torch, cut through four steel hinges while his own jacket was on fire, and pulled Thomas out through the loading chute. He spent six weeks in the burn ward at Charity Hospital."
The room became utterly still. The rain tapped against the glass like a hundred tiny fingers.
"David never asked my father for money," Grant said. "My father offered him a house, a foreman’s post, a percentage of the slip fees. David refused. He said he didn't pull boys out of burning rooms for a tip. He said if he ever needed something he couldn't earn with his own two hands, he’d ask."
Grant looked Clara straight in the eye.
May you like
"David never asked. But his daughter did."
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