The Map of Moments Read Online Free PDF Page B

his eyes half-closed. Another tall man walked the room, collecting empties, chatting with the dozen people there, and fetching more drinks. These, Max assumed, were the Coopers. They had refused to let their place go to rot, and had instead reopened it as best they could. No illusions here, no pretense; this was a place to drink and talk. It stank of sweat and spilled beer, becausethere was no power for air-conditioning. It stank of defiance.
    Everyone here lifted their bottle or glass before they took a first drink, toasting their barkeepers.
    A few people glanced around at the new arrivals, then returned to their conversations.
    “Bother you, bein’ the only white face?”
    “I thought you'd been drinking here for thirty years?” Max asked.
So where was the welcome? Where were the raised hands from the Cooper brothers, or the other patrons?
    That shrug again. “Keep to myself.”
    “Okay,” Max said, unconvinced. “And no, it doesn't bother me.”
    “Good,” Ray said. “ ’Cos if you looked bothered, it'd bother them. Drink?”
    “Yeah,” Max said. He wondered whether Corinne was drinking now, and what she was thinking about, and why she'd left him with Ray.
    “Water?” Ray said, a twinkle in his eye.
    “Whiskey.”
    “Partial to Scottish single malt myself. But hereabouts it's mostly bourbon. Folks are suspicious of anythin’ that goes down too smooth.”
    “Whatever.” Max looked around and spotted a plastic table in the corner of the room, two old school chairs upside down on its yellowed surface. He nodded that way, then left Ray to buy their drinks.
    Max walked between tables, nodding a greeting as a couple of men looked up. They tilted their beer bottles inapparent welcome, but watched him a moment longer. He remembered walking into Roland's Garage for the first time with Gabrielle on his arm, how all the eyes had settled on her and he'd felt as though he hardly existed. But she'd looked at him and made him glow, because that night she only had eyes for him.
    He took the chairs down from the table and sat, and Ray came across with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and two glasses. Max wasn't a big drinker. But right now, it was just what he wanted.
    Max had a hundred questions about Cooper's, but a thousand about Gabrielle. And Ray saw that. The old man sighed and sat down, pouring them both a double shot, and lifted his glass.
    “What?” Max asked. “A toast? To Gabrielle?”
    “If you like,” Ray said.
    “For now I'll just drink. And listen.”
    Ray nodded, his face suddenly serious for the first time since they'd met. Max wondered whether this was his natural look.
    “Gabrielle's truly one of New Orleans’ lost souls,” Ray said. He drank his whiskey.
    “You mean a hurricane victim?”
    Ray shook his head. “I'm not talkin’ about that, not now. This goes deeper, and further back. Right to the heart of this place.” He smiled, and gave a more casual version of that annoying shrug. “But you ain't from New Orleans.”
    “No buts, Ray,” Max said, trying to keep his voice level and low. “And no more of this mystery man crap.”
    “Oh, I'm not sayin’ I'm not going to tell you. Alreadydecided that, in this old head of mine. All I'm sayin’ is, you won't understand.”
    Max wanted to stand, leave Cooper's Bar, and walk as far and as fast as he could, following the terrible tide marks to higher ground and finding his way out of this city once and for all. When he'd lived here, he'd enjoyed being an outsider, trying to learn the city. Now Corinne's talk, the way Gabrielle's family had abandoned her, and Ray's condescension just made him want to get the hell away.
    “She could have been so special,” Ray said.
    “She
was
special.”
    “You can save her, boy. If you choose to do as I say, if you're willin’ to follow the path and go here an’ there, now an’ then, you can save her from herself.”
    “She's dead,” Max said. “By now, she's in the ground.”
    “Dead now, yeah. But