Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story Page B

knuckles on the table. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry. As a child, and then more proficiently as a young man, he’d learned to freeze his mind—block out every thought—to steel himself against erupting emotions that might trigger tears. He did that now.
    Sylvia went on, telling Julian about the hole Rashad had found in the roof, probably made with a pickax. Simon must have gotten out onto the roof and waited for help from one of the helicopters or good Samaritans in makeshift boats, who’d trolled the murky waters looking for people in distress.
    “Did your father ever talk to you about Silver Creek?” Sylvia took a long sip from her Bloody Mary, then put it down.
    He almost laughed. When had Simon missed a chance to burn Julian’s ears about Silver Creek? “There was five feet of water in the street.” Julian said. “Silver Creek’s farther than Baton Rouge. No way he could have gotten there without his car. And his car is still at the house. Rusting away.”
    “He could have gotten a ride there.”
    “You know I tried to call Cousin Genevieve at Silver Creek. Bunch of times. Nobody there, Sylvia.”
    He’d also continued his daily check of the Red Cross list of the missing online at the hotel, and gotten a list of twenty-eight more hospitals in every parish between New Orleans and Silver Creek. Nothing.
    Sylvia pondered this, took a small bite out of her sandwich, then another sip of the Bloody Mary. She stirred the drink with the stalk of limp, brown-edged celery the bartender had placed in it.
    Finally she reached into her purse, pulled out a thick fold of papers, each one with hand-written names and phone numbers. She waved them in the air. “I don’t know what else to do. Between the two of us, we must have made four hundred calls all over the state. I think we need some help now if we’re ever going to find out what happened to your father.”
    In her next breath came the words, Matthew Parmenter . The man had wealth, and therefore, power. Like a lot of restaurant owners in the Quarter, he’d been friendly with the police for years.
    “Remember, the man’s got connections, and he’s your father’s best friend.” She leveled her gaze at him. “No matter what you think about him.”
    How did she know? Simon must have told her. Or had he given away his feelings at the mere mention of the man’s name? Julian had often wondered whether if he saw Matthew Parmenter lying on his back in the street, how much time would pass between spotting him there and reaching out a helping hand? Well, he’d been raised right, so not that long. But he probably wouldn’t lift a hand until the scolding fire in his father’s eyes filled up the back of his mind.
    It was nearly noon, and the door continued to open and close intermittently, sending flashes of light against the dark interior like a slow-motion strobe. Someone had brought in a CD player, and from the front of the bar upbeat music streamed. The cheap speakers blasted the bassy beat of Koko Taylor’s “Wang Dang Doodle,” lightening the mood. Three of the guardsmen lifted their glasses for a drink, and whoops of laughter went up after one of the men yelled out a loud punchline to a joke, “And he wasn’t even wearing any!”
    There was so little laughter in town these days that even those beyond earshot of the joke laughed along—its sound bubbling like a tonic, a much-needed bromide everybody in town seemed to crave. The door opened again. More volunteers, Red Cross employees, government workers—three young college-age women in baseball caps, two young men in faded cutoff jeans, and a man with silver hair and shorts poured into the room, along with another long shaft of hard, white light.
    The intruding sun glowed on Sylvia’s face, outlining her sharply angled bones, the deep hard crease between her brows.
    “Will you go see him?”
    A heavy sigh forced from Julian’s chest. “I’ll do it today.”
    “Good.” She took another drink and her