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she
was
alive,
so
alive. More'n any woman I ever met.” Ray stared into his glass for a moment, seeing unknown pasts in the swish of the amber liquid. Then he drank the remnants of his whiskey and poured some more. He filled Max's glass as well, which Max was surprised to find empty.
    “I don't know what I'm listening to here,” Max said, drinking the whiskey in one swallow. It tasted good, felt better. It burned his insides, and he imagined parts of his body glowing when the lights went out.
    “There's a man who can help you, name of Matrisse. He's a conjure-man.”
    Max paused with his empty glass halfway down to the table. He looked away from Ray, glancing around the bar at the other drinkers. Most were in pairs, a couple drinkingalone, and they all found something amazing in their glasses, whether empty or full. When they were tired of looking at each other, they could look into their drinks and see themselves.
    “Magic,” Max said. “Right.”
    “Not magic like you know it. Not that tourist shit. Ma-trisse, he don't have a shop front on Bourbon Street selling charms and magic dust. He's known in the city, but only to some.” Ray leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice. “True magic, boy. None of this meddlesome fakery peddled to wannabes. His heart is tied with the heart of this city.”
    “And he's still here after the storm?”
    “Yeah, boy, still here. His heart aches, but he can never leave this place. It's a New Orleans thing.” Ray sat up again and smiled, pouring more whiskey into his glass. They'd got through a third of a bottle already, and Max was feeling the effects stroking the extremes of his senses. The candlelight looked brighter, the outlines of the other patrons sharper, but the door looked much farther away than before.
    “True magic's an oxymoron, Ray. No such thing. Even if there was, what do you think this guy can do for Gabrielle? Make her a zombie?”
    “Hollywood!” Ray spat, his smile no longer holding any trace of humor. “Forget all the stories you think you know. Matrisse, he has ways an’ means to do more than you can imagine, boy. An’ one of those things …well, he can open a door to the past. Maybe get a message through.”
    His chin tilted down, so his eyes were lost in shadow.“Maybe get a
man
through. It ain't easy, and he don't do it too much …but he'll do it for you.”
    “For Gabrielle, you mean?”
    “Yeah, for Gabrielle. He don't even
know
you.”
    “Why?”
    “I told you why. ’Cos she could have been special.” Ray drank more whiskey and filled his glass again, no longer topping up Max's.
    It was a hell of a fantasy. Send a message back to Gabrielle, warn her what was coming. But fantasy couldn't raise the dead.
    Max stared at Ray. “Even if I believed any of this, how would I find this Matrisse?”
    “He'll find you. First, though, there's a map you have to follow. You got no magic about you. No aura. You're from outta town, but in cases like this that can be good. An advantage. You're a clean slate.”
    So sincere, and already talking like Max had agreed to go along with this bullshit. Max almost scoffed, but stopped himself. He was asking the questions, wasn't he? Maybe it was the whiskey talking, but he couldn't prevent his mind from following where Ray's words led, and wondering.
    “Clean slate for what?” Perhaps it was their surroundings, lending that honest power to everything the old man said. Or maybe it was just the deadly combination of grief and Jack Daniel's.
    “For gatherin’ magic to you. I can give you the map, if you commit to following it. Follow it, magic yourself up, like runnin’ your feet along a carpet to build up static, andat the end of the map you'll find Matrisse. Then maybe he'll help you through.”
    “And I can get a message to Gabrielle, back before any of this happened?”
    “Or maybe you bring it yourself.” Ray raised his glass and looked into the liquor again, hypnotized by the candlelight