New Toulouse

The government men examining the matter of the improper use of city funds have ended their investigation, and most questions remain unanswered. The officials of New Toulouse have not been jailed, and the investigators are unwilling to discuss the matter.

Late on Saturday I saw one of the government men waiting at the docks, suitcase in hand. He refused to discuss the investigation in detail. He said that it was over, that he had rarely seen such a welcoming and warm community, and that he was sorry for all of the trouble.

I asked him about his new crutches, casts, and bandages, and his missing partner, and he said, “Streetcar accident. We were walking out of Spiegel Hall, and the streetcar ran over us. The mayor was aboard, and he took us to the clinic. Leave it be, Jack, there’s no story here. Burn your notes. I need to get out of here.”

When I asked him about the midnight movement of goods between the bayou and the Land Office, the tankers hiding in the canals north of the bayou, and the strangers walking around town, he said nothing. When I offered to show him pictures, he put down his crutches and sunglasses and gestured with a shaky finger. “You don’t want to go there. Let it rest. My official report will say that this place is as clean as any I’ve seen. Burn those photos with your notes.”

It was midnight when I left him at the docks, and I never did see his partner. As I walked home I noticed city workmen putting in a new garden at the mayor’s place, and it looked like they were planting catnip.

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.

The Slammer

New Toulouse Parish Police Department
Pontalba Street, New Toulouse

Ah, the city jail. Who among us has not spent the occasional night in its warm embrace? Who among us is so staid as to have avoided any brushes with John Law?

Realizing that the answer is probably “a whole lot of you,” I headed to the parish police department to talk to some of its current guests. My camera was confiscated by an officer, so you will have to make do with this snapshot of the station’s exterior:

Meet Mr. X, inhabitant of the first cell. Estranged from his wife because of his sottish tendencies, and unable to afford a room because of his prodigious thirst for the demon rum, each night he drinks heavily and publicly misbehaves just enough so that he is collared by the law and thereby has a place to sleep. It’s a terrible solution, but one might have a grudging respect for the man’s ingenuity.

In the next cell over is a fellow accused of insulting a lady’s dignity. He loudly denies having insulted anyone’s dignity (“Whatever that means!”), and he equally denies ever having met a lady.

The other cell was unoccupied when I arrived, but I was quickly booked in for a comfortable stay. Earlier I hadn’t really been all that inebriated when hunger pangs struck as I was passing a vegetable stall at the market. For the record, potatoes aren’t meant to be eaten raw, and always pay the merchant when you take her wares. I don’t know if the potatoes were responsible, but I had the distinct feeling that my cell was haunted by a ghostly presence. I asked the officer on duty, and he said that yes, my cell was completely haunted. I ended up spending a restless night and checking out as early as possible.

All in all, the local lockup isn’t a terrible place to stay. The food is passable, the cots are firm and solid, and the rooms are pretty clean. Just try to avoid Cell #3.

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Jack Mondieu is a bon vivant, a flâneur, a belletrist … but he also needs to pay the rent.

Dr. Guenivere D’Avalon will host an air show in New Toulouse on Monday, June 2. Aviators and aviatrices are invited to try the treacherous course designed with the help of Mayor Henri Godenot. Racers will fly around pylons in the sky, which in initial tests proved to have deadly, difficult turns, according to Dr. Avalon.

There will be two categories of race: “Airship” and “Anything Goes.” Pilots will meet at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, and spectators can watch the races from Kari’s Bar and Dance, conveniently located at the third turn. The festivities will run from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. For more information, phone NT-290.

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Jack Mondieu is a figment of your imagination.

New Toulouse jockey Cavalco drove to third place in the Awesome Breed Creations “Crown Cup” for sulkies on April 27. Cavalco drove the American Standardbred “Gallant Gray” for Little Ascot Stables but wore the colors of New Toulouse from the Old Spanish Stable, and his steed emerged from a chaotic field to place third, by one ten-thousandth of a second. The owners (breeder Nikita Pantland and trainer Zacklol) had retained Cavalco at the beginning of the racing season, and he was able to post two of the fastest times, which allowed Gallant Gray to be included in the final field.  He also qualified the Little Ascot horse Toulouse Rendezvous—named for our fair city—for the Crown Cup final.

Cavalco is an employee of the Old Spanish Stable, providing farrier services along with whatever stable owner Pazzo Pestana needs to keep his enterprise afloat.  Horses may be available for sale, depending on the market. Pestana and Cavalco are proud to carry the colors of New Toulouse onto whatever field of competition may present itself.

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.

Photos courtesy of Pazzo Pestana.

I opened my wallet this afternoon and a moth flew out of it. It was time to get in touch with Miss Niki about an assignment, if I was going to keep living in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed: in a tiny shack with my bottle collection.

Go talk to some people doing the egg hunt, she told me. Egg hunt, I said. Don’t eggs pretty much just sit still? How hard can they be to shoot? Miss Niki threw a shoe at me as I headed out the door. (She has a desk drawer filled with shoes for exactly this purpose.)

As I wandered around, hunting for hunters, I saw a sign that explained, “Eggs with gifts inside are hidden all around New Toulouse!” It offered a list of known egg locations. (View the list on page 7—Ed.)

By this point I figured Miss Niki had left the office, so I headed back there for some pre-interview fortification. And then my famous luck came into play: an egg hunter was at the Tattler office, and she sent for her friend, and we had a nice little chat.

It was Miss Kandinsky Beaumont’s first visit to New Toulouse. She’d had trouble finding a ghost egg, but she was enjoying exploring the town. Miss Thirza Ember, an old friend of our Capt. Pestana (“He took me for a carriage ride the other day. He was one of the horses. You can’t get more chivalrous than that.”), was a little nervous about Tunnel Man. Asked about the egg gifts, Miss Ember said the sofa from La Petite Mort was particularly nice.

Then events took a strange turn, and somehow I ended up admitting to actions I’m not proud of. These women had cast some kind of spell on me! I had to get out of there—and fast—before saying anything else.

On Shotgun Row I ran into Miss Liza and her friend Miss Reana, but evidently the magic spell was still in effect, because by the time Miss Reana left to attend a concert somewhere, I had developed the impression that goats lay eggs and that there are rhinos in the bayou. Also I’d developed a wicked thirst, so when Miss Liza suggested we go to her nearby apartment to see some of her egg gifts, I readily agreed.

Miss Liza Veliz is an egg huntress extraordinaire. It is believed that she has found every egg so far. She pulled out treasure after treasure, and boy was I relieved when one of them turned out to be a bottle of “Miss Niki’s spring tonic,” which was definitely alcoholic but which I suspect Miss Niki concocted as a sneaky way to get me to drink my vegetables.

In addition to hunting, Miss Liza has hidden eggs containing rare books in multiple locations in the city and bayou. At her French Market reading cafe, there are also two eggs containing New Toulouse art by Jon Chen.

Many of the bunnies at the hunt locations provide excellent clues to finding eggs. What’s the strangest egg gift so far? “At the mayor’s,” explained Miss Liza, “I got a lecture.”

Before I left, another egg hunter poked her head in the door. “I think you have a dead rabbit out here,” she said. “It’s upsetting Baby Jesus!”

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is beginning to think he’s a figment of his own imagination.

In yet another unfortunate Desire-fueled accident, an impromptu funeral party was flattened by the streetcar. At about 10:30 Friday night, Armand was driving his handsome hearse, transporting—along with several pallbearers-cum-joyriders—a corpse, thought to be that of Miss R. Beedit. (Details on her pending undeadness pending.)

Miss Karima Hoisan stood on the coachman’s step of the hearse alongside Miss Maggie Hawksby. When the carriage paused by the cemetery, says Miss Hoisan, “I was talking with Doc Avalon, who was in the street offering one of her experimental therapies for our dubious corpse, when suddenly I felt a very powerful sensation in the vicinity of my backside, as though a powerful force was in fact jolting me from behind!”

In short, it’s a miracle that every party at that intersection were not sent to his or her respective end. In short order, the whole mess was consumed by a big fireball, with the terrified horse hauling the whole thing.

Since the streetcar isn’t powered by anything particularly flammable, it’s speculated that the doctor may have propagated some kind of experimental electrical current with the idea of corpse “reanimation,” when in fact the entire coach was blown up. (They say Armand makes great floats, and now it’s official: Armand can also maintain great exploding floats.)

Miraculously, all—including the infernal streetcar—were accounted for afterward. The citizens sat in Armand’s parlor, enjoying some stiff beverages whilst puffing Miss Hawksby’s oracle pipes. The circumspect group mused on the afterlife, which pretty much made Armand yawn.

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.

Mr. Octave Hollier (not the rice farmer, but spelled the same) contacted this reporter about some strange goings-on in the bayou.

“We were warming our chilled selves at the radio station when all of a sudden the tower lights started to flash blue,” Mr. Hollier said.

“Me and Robicheaux were frogging late last night, and when we got finished, we detoured by the old radio station. Sometimes we just ride that ferry all through the bayou, then we get off at the small dock and take the Missedabracket ferry back to town, but on cold nights it’s nice to go by the old radio station. I love that old radio station, I can feel it warming my liver when I’m still fifty feet away. And it’s safe, too—none of the snakes around there are alive.”

Mr. Hollier continued, “So we were there by the old radio station—no, I don’t know why we have a radio station. We don’t have an operator, or music, or nothing. That thing hasn’t broadcast in years, but I like how that whole area around the transmitter is nice and warm.

“Anyhow, it started to glow blue. I’ve been walking by that thing for years, and it’s never glowed blue before. The lights on top have always been red, except last night, when they were turning blue. So me and Robicheaux, we looked all around, and we didn’t see anything until Robicheaux pointed out the lights in the sky. And the humming got louder, and then that tower, she just disappeared.

“And then it came right back. And then it disappeared again. And came back. It started to speed up, and it was flickering faster and faster, and the lights in the sky were flashing at the same speed, and then they just sped away. We looked all around, but we never saw nobody, us.”

Mr. Hollier did not appear to be drinking. After he left the Tattler offices, he walked straight home.

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.

This past weekend tenants of the Tarantula Arms boarding house on Rue du Bayou were asked to move out, because the business is closing. The sudden announcement came as a shock, although as of this writing, most of the tenants have moved into new quarters, well before the deadline of March 23.

Mrs. Ethel Varnish, the former owner of the establishment, agreed to an interview. Seated outside the Green-Eyed Fairy next door to the Tarantula building, she downed a large whiskey before exclaiming, “I can’t wait till that thing comes down! The crumbling walls, the spiders, the odors! The underwear,” she added darkly. “I’m shut of all that now, thank goodness.”

This reporter expressed surprise on hearing that the building was to be torn down. “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Varnish. “Lost it in a card game at Shooters & Liars. Best thing that ever happened to me, doll-face. The new owner must be pretty savvy to see that thing ought to come down.”

Where will she live? “Miz Ethel” paused to light a cigar. “Well,” said she, glancing down the street, “I suppose I’ll go to St. Louis to visit with my cousin Poppy for a while.” She puffed away, gazing into the middle distance for some moments. “I can’t stay away from New Toulouse too long, though. Believe me, sweetie, I’ve tried.”

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.

New Toulouse Samedi Gras,
An Island of Joy Between Nights of Despair

I heard the drums outside before I could pry my eyes open. I listened for a minute, trying to figure out where I was. Were they Namib? Zulu? Haida?

Zulu, I was sure they were Zulu. As the fog between my ears began to clear, I realized I was on a featherbed, not grass. And the room was hot. Not dry hot like South Africa, but the hot, wet, smelly heat of New Toulouse, and those drums were not tribal, they were Mardi Gras. Or Samedi Gras, the day of the big parade.

I knew I had gotten lucky in the city that forgot to care, when the girl I woke up with was prettier than the one I thought I went to bed with.

Moving carefully so as not to have to explain myself to the pretty redhead next to me, I found my clothes in the dark and slipped them on. Going through her purse, I found two twenties—score! If I add those to the two twenties in my wallet left over from last night, I’ll have … two twenties. Damn, she stole these from me! I checked her voter registration card, to make sure I didn’t know her, or her husband, and nope, never met her before. Whew. Time to meet the sun and get this story written.

* Click here for more of Jack’s report, and parade photos! *

The Ancient Order of Carricre will parade through the city on Samedi Gras (Fat Saturday), March 1. The parade, made up of the floats of several different krewes, begins at 12:00 noon SLT.

Miz Carter Denja will act as parade emcee and DJ for the post-parade party in Laveau Square. Afterward, Kari’s Bar & Dance will host a concert by popular musician RoseDrop Rust starting at 2:00 PM.

A spokesman for the AOC declined to disclose the identity of this year’s king or queen.

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Jack Mondieu, Ace Reporter, is a figment of your imagination.