601: The Big Easy

Synopsis

The case opens with the Keeper's monologue on rhythm, balance and Themis, goddess of justice, asking where justice tips over into revenge, and ending: those debts "are paid in blood."

Late on the night of January 2, 1926, Major Bakersfield steps off the train at the L&N Railroad station on Canal Street in New Orleans, at the edge of the French Quarter. It has been an infuriating week since Goodman Gray contacted him with the first tangible lead on Corbitt since his escape from the Arkham Sanitarium on November 22, 1925. One of Gray's men in New Orleans spotted a man matching Corbitt's description among the onlookers outside the police investigation of the latest Axe Man killing and tailed him back to his hotel. The Major is joined by Tallahassee, by his old army comrade Grant Jameson, and by two companions Gray thrust upon him: Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico, the biologist from Miskatonic University, and Devin Black, whose knife wound in the Major's shoulder is still healing. Devin says he is there because Goodman Gray made him come, to provide muscle and keep the others in line, and he has been keeping track of everything the group has done to him. Gray's organization is paying for the expedition.

The Keeper explains that the group is arriving the night before Dom and the others leave by train for Salem. He shares a New York Times article from December 30, 1925: the Axe Man, whose killings in 1918 and 1919 were never solved, appears to have returned after seven years, with brutal slayings since early December that include voodoo practitioners, a prominent university professor and a police inspector killed in his own home. Witnesses speak of wild jazz music in the mist before the screams. The Keeper notes that the Axe Man of New Orleans was a real, never-caught killer. Gray's man phoned in his report from the hotel, and about thirty minutes later he jumped from its roof and impaled himself on the wrought iron fence outside.

A porter named Rockwell helps them unload their baggage, including a sizable crate that Tallahassee has brought along, and directs them to their hotel, the Couronne Creuse ("the hollow crown"), off a narrow side street called Rue Saint Jacques between Burgundy and Rampart. It is a faded yellow, three-story Creole building with sagging balconies and an iron-fenced courtyard, a hotel that has seen better days. On a foggy, oddly subdued night, the group rides there in a convoy of taxis, one of them just for Tallahassee's luggage.

The night clerk, Michelle Casey, a thin, middle-aged woman who sketches behind the desk, first insists that she has never seen the man in Corbitt's photograph, but after several bribes from Devin and a psychology roll she admits that he stayed there. The ledger shows him as Victor Franks in room 5011, checking in on November 30 and checking out on December 22, the night Gray's man, Agent Saavedra, died on the fence. She started work only about three weeks earlier, after the previous clerk, Emil Roux, vanished without showing up for his shift. Franks kept to himself, left first thing in the morning and came back late at night. In the room's message box she finds a note asking for the address of Brigitte Girouge, whom she describes as a voodoo practitioner with a shop, the one people call the voodoo queen, and she offers to get them the address. The group takes five room keys, including 5011, which goes to Tallahassee, and heads upstairs.

Funny Moments

• Asked whether Goodman Gray made him come in the sense of being his father, Devin agrees: "He's my dad." He then lists everything that has happened to him so far: pistol-whipped, stabbed in the shoulder, slapped, knocked unconscious and stuffed into a trunk.
• The Keeper describes Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, and the table "flashes" him in the spirit of the city. He counts only five nipples; one was blown off in the war, and the Major wears his eye patch over it.
• When the Keeper says that Corbitt's sanitarium escape was six weeks ago, Shrimp Puerto Rico asks to go with the other group, then shudders and morphs into Simeon.
• Tallahassee claims to have six large cases. He actually has one large chest, attached to Mary Beth, who said "what's up girl" the moment Simeon's taxi left. He agrees to leave the Deadlight at home.
• The table learns on air that one of the players cannot whistle. "Have you tried growing balls?"
• The porter has read "all 105" of Tallahassee's books, and his favorite is Tallahassee Turner and the Bald Crooked-Nose Man. Shrimp later claims to have read "278 thousand" of them.
• Grant Jameson is mistaken for the Major because he idolizes Bakersfield, dresses identically and wears his own eye patch flipped up.
• Asked whether the hotel stocks guns, ammo and chicks, Michelle says that it once tried a promotion with nets: "They're trying to net cars."
• Victor Franks sounds familiar because he appeared in Tallahassee Turner and the Butthole Monster. Shrimp found it far-fetched and complains that a whole chapter is spent on the diamond skin.
• Michelle says that Franks checked in on November 20, then admits the ledger says November 30: he had paid her 27 dollars to say the 20th.

Notable Quotes

• "He's my dad." —Devin Black
• "Of course he's the one that created them smoothies that destroyed my cabin." —Grant Jameson
• "I am a man of science. I believe in science." —Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico
• "I've read all 105 of your books." "Oh, you're missing about 103." —Rockwell and Tallahassee Turner
• "Have you tried growing balls?" —the table
• "They're trying to net cars." —Michelle Casey
• "Those debts, and they are paid in blood." —Alex Morrison