Chapter I

Bourbon Street was noisier and smellier than usual that Fourth of July.  Dixieland, race music and rock ’n’ roll blared from every doorway, adding to the din of exploding fireworks and the shrill screams of young girls. A mélange of vomited-up Hurricanes, fried oysters, whiffs of Brylcreem, Aqua Velva and piss cut through the humid air like a switchblade.

A youth looked out from a darkened portico, scanned the banquette, wrinkled his nose at the foul air, and then moved back into the shadows.  He wore dungarees, a white tee shirt, Converse All Stars and, despite the summer heat, a Korean War bomber jacket.  Even in the dim light women promenading down Bourbon noticed how extraordinarily good-looking he was.  His perfect skin flushed pink and he’d styled his hair in a shiny black ducktail. The darkness, however, concealed his most arresting feature, his eyes. They were the kind of orbs women thought wasted on a man, pools of still water framed by heavy brows and lashes.

Girlish titters and a whiff of the fragrance of sordid pleasures, Tabu, enticed him from the darkness.  Two beauties had poured themselves into skin-tight peddle-pushers and Calypso blouses that displayed their silken shoulders and nubile bosoms. Bangle bracelets jingled from their wrists.  The two goddesses looked no more than seventeen, one a blonde, the other titian-haired.  Both had consumed one too many Daiquiris and staggered down Bourbon Street.  The blonde spied the youth, tossed back her ponytail, thrust out her breasts, and took a wobbly step forward.

“Excuse me. Did anyone ever tell you that you favor Mr. Tony Curtis?”

The boy moved into the light.  His cheeks reddened and a smile danced on his lips.  He broke into a shy grin, but then stepped back into the colonnade. The red-headed siren noted the soft contours of his face, his peaches-and-cream complexion and the absence of an Adam’s apple and a five o’clock shadow. She grabbed her companion’s arm. “Come on, we need to go!”
The blonde pulled her arm away. “Leave me alone, I’m in love!”

Her friend cried out in alarm. “You’re drunker than I thought you was! Can’t you see she’s a morphadite, a bull dagger?  She’s a girl!”

The words roused the blonde from her rum-fueled haze. She took a good look at the young “fellow.”  The lines of his jacket emphasized a small waist and rounded hips. This “boy” even had breasts, small ones, but they were there.  Her pal hadn’t lied.  He was a she.

“But he does look like Tony Curtis!”

The effects of the Daiquiri vanquished in an instance and the blonde remembered how much her companion loved spreading gossip.  This could mean a social disaster of epic proportions.

“Girl, you better not say nothing to nobody about this or I’ll call the Picayune and tell them you let Junior Dupree stick his fingers up your honey pot!”

Her friend puffed up with righteous indignation. “Heifer! I’ll never trust you with no secret ever again!”
The blonde staggered off with her companion careening after her.

The dark girl watched the would-be seductresses disappear down Bourbon.  One had called her a morphadite, the local slang for a queer.  Her face betrayed nothing, perhaps because she’d heard the word before.  Look deeper, however, and the pain was there, trapped in her beautiful eyes.

A man approached her, a predatory smirk on his face and she shoved off.  Fellows looking for a dalliance with a boy often closed in only to move on when they realized she was female.  There were times however, when johns hunting the dimly lit alleyways looking for male companionship chose her instead.

“You are one pretty little dyke. How about I give you five bucks for a hand job?”

The girl wasn’t interested in giving hand jobs, not even for ten dollars.

She looked past the maze of neon signs on Bourbon to one flashing from the roof of the Mason-Dixon Line, an imposing place with Grecian columns, its second-story encircled with wrought-iron balconies. In the magnolia-scented days of mint juleps and hooped skirts, the building had been the plantation manor of wealthy estate.  Bonnie Blue flags celebrating the glory of the Old South still draped its walls and a banner welcoming all and sundry ran across the entrance.

The Mason-Dixon appealed to the carriage trade.  Ladies swathed in chic evening gowns and clouds of Joy perfume, crossed its portal on the arms of gents in custom-tailored tuxes. Gourmets from across the South touted its cuisine and liquid refreshment as the best in New Orleans.

A poster inside a glass kiosk showcased the charms of the current headliner, a ravishing platinum blonde dancer, Honey Thibodaux, the Bayou Volcano, Queen of the Afro-Cuban Beat.  Her head tilted at a seductive angle, lips open in invitation, a fringed bikini barely concealing her curves.

The dark girl stared at the image then glanced at her timepiece, a tank watch from the War.  It was nine on the dot. Two cops walked through the crowd, brass knuckles and blackjacks dangling from their belts and she backed into the dimness.  Clomping police horses and strident police sirens caused her jaw to tighten.   She turned to leave but the scent of Canoe after-shave engulfed her before she took a step.

A Zippo flared in the darkness and a voice whispered, “Hey Desiree, over here!”
A slender fellow, his black hair combed into an oily pompadour, took a drag on an Old Gold then smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Where you at, girl?”

The girl turned and looked into the handsome face of her uncle, Louie Ozan, pimp and stick-up man extraordinaire.  Louie usually imitated the style of black musicians and was a flamboyant dresser.  In a failed effort to be less conspicuous, Louie had worn a black satin shirt and pleated trousers instead of his usual iridescent suits.

“Why you so late, Uncle Louie?  Maybe you got time to lollygag, but I don’t. I could’ve been with my friends, but instead I’ve been twiddling my thumbs here for over an hour.  How come you wanted to meet on Bourbon anyway?  The cops are crawling around here like roaches.”

Louie took another drag then ran his fingers through his pompadour.  “Cops ain’t nothing.”

She didn’t hide her anger even when he planted a cursory peck on her cheek.  “‘Cops ain’t nothing’?  Let one of those fellow kick your ass and tell me they ain’t nothing.  They nearly killed Papa when he got drunk two years ago on Mardi Gras.”

Louie smirked at her.  “The cops won’t do nothing to a kid, especially a girl.  Sorry about being late, boo, but a big shot needed somebody to show a few fellows around the city, take them to places of interest.”
Desiree snorted a response. “Stop the bull crap, Uncle Louie! Nobody’s fixing to use you for no tour guide! I’m here for Papa’s money. Where is it?”

He took another drag, tossed the half-smoked butt to the ground and stubbed it with the toe of his patent leather Stacy Adams. “You can’t tell your mama he loaned me the coin. She’s pissed enough at me and I don’t want her raising Cain with your papa for helping me. I got half of it.”

Louie pulled three ten-dollar bills from his pocket and jammed them into her hand. “Come on, baby. We got to go to the Lucky 13 to get the rest.”

Her face lost color. “Huh? You said the Lucky 13?”

Everyone in New Orleans knew the Lucky 13. Strippers with flaccid breasts and paunchy stomachs performed there when they couldn’t find work anywhere else.  It didn’t matter what the exotic dancers looked like.  No one cared about the floorshow - the back rooms brought in the business.

The Lucky 13 was a Mecca for the degraded and profligate, the most jaded and dissolute in the city. The sex shows went beyond usual New Orleans aberrations.  Baby Ruth, a beauty with the face of a cherub, the breasts of Venus and an enormous penis, was a new favorite, rivaled only by Miss Vee, a young lady who could do remarkable tricks with her private parts.  There were others too but their talents were too repugnant to mention.

“Uncle Louie, you just got out of Angola.  If the police catch you in that place, they’ll send you back.  Swear to me that you aren’t doing nothing wrong.  Swear it or I’ll be through with you just like Mama is!”

Louie was silent and Desiree knew he was up to his neck in something.  “You need to be ashamed of yourself, Uncle Louie, but I know you aren’t.  I guess you belong at the Lucky 13.”

She stomped off. Louie ran after her, entreating all the while. “Desiree, don't do me like that. You know you’re my heart, girl. Please, baby!”

Her pace slowed.  She knew for once that Louie spoke the truth.  She was his heart and in his own way, he was hers. No matter how much he angered her, Louie was the only one, besides her father and younger sister, who understood she couldn’t help being the way she was.

Louie saw an opening and pressed his case. “I got something to tell you, something nobody knows.  The new owner of the Lucky 13 is Mr. Otis LeBlanc, himself.”

At the mention of the most powerful man in the city, Desiree came to an abrupt stop.  A LeBlanc-Ozan connection was comical. Louie took her arm and she shook him off.   “What kind of a sucker do you think I am?  Otis LeBlanc wouldn’t have nothing to do with a dive like the Lucky 13. Hell, he wouldn’t wipe his shoes on the likes of you! You don’t know Otis LeBlanc, you’re telling another lie!”

Louie grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Cher, I know Otis LeBlanc and I tell you he owns the Lucky 13! Come with me, won’t take a minute of your time. I turned over a new leaf, I swear.”

Desiree tried to read his face in the dim light. “For true?”

He grinned as if he knew he had her. “For true! I ain’t pimping no more, just playing craps with some of the guys. Come on, baby.”

She had already wasted an hour, what more did she have to lose?

“All right, I’ll go with you.”

Her gut told her to run in the opposite direction, but Desiree followed anyway.

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