Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) Read online

  Valentin ignored the taunt. "I wanted to extend you the courtesy," he said, and turned around and continued down the remaining steps.

  "St. Cyr!" Beneath Picot's sharp tone, Valentin heard something else, the slightest tense note. He stopped and waited. With a flip of his hand, the lieutenant sent his sergeant back to the squad room. Then he jerked his head for St. Cyr to follow him.

  They found a quiet place at the far end of the second-floor corridor, in the broad recess of the arched window that looked down on Conti Street, and took up opposite positions like boxers waiting for the bell to begin the first round. After a moment's grudging silence, Picot said, "We found this fellow Mumford's body, but it ain't been established that he was a homicide."

  Valentin stifled a smile of his own. "The man was poisoned."

  "It could have been an accident," the copper said, his face flushing red. "These sons of bitches will drink any goddamn thing, and you know it."

  Valentin thought to mention that Mumford was not the type to throw down whatever was put in his hand. He didn't, though.

  "That other one," Picot said. "What was his name again?"

  "Noiret."

  "And he was where?"

  "Philip Street. He was murdered in bed. His throat was cut."

  The lieutenant grimaced. "Philip Street ain't our precinct. And it's way out of your territory. So what the hell?" His eyelids came down to narrow slits. "I thought you was keepin' out of police matters. I thought you learned your lesson."

  Valentin wasn't quite sure what lesson Picot was talking about. Probably something having to do with the murders of the year before. In any case, he wasn't about to give up any more than he had to. "Both victims were playing in bands in Storyville," he said.

  "Tell me something," the lieutenant said with another spike of irritation. "If Tom Anderson wants somebody investigating these damn crimes, how come he don't call the police?"

  "Maybe he doesn't want to spend the taxpayers' money," Valentin replied.

  He had almost said "waste," and Picot was sharp enough to catch it. His face darkened. "Well, then...," he said tightly. "There ain't much I can say, is there? This is Storyville. He can do anything he wants." He crossed his arms and turned to stare out the window.

  "I'd like to see the report on Mumford, if I may," Valentin said, keeping his voice even.

  Picot gave him a cold look, then walked away abruptly, without a word.

  Valentin stood by the window for twenty minutes, watching the traffic moving in jerky eddies on the street below. For all he knew, Picot had gone on to other business and had left him standing there like a perfect dunce. He was thinking about how much longer he would wait when the lieutenant reappeared, carrying a police file in his hand. He snapped it at the detective and resumed his position on the opposite side of the recess.

  Valentin opened the folder and began to read. There wasn't much to the report, and he covered it in a matter of minutes. He had forgotten his notebook, so he could only make mental notes of the sparse entries and commit the sketch of the position of the victim's body to memory. The whole time, he felt Picot's icy stare resting on him.

  According to the scribbled comments, Mumford had ingested a toxic substance, an acidic that went down and caused internal hemorrhaging. It also caused sudden nerve paralysis, leading to lung failure and asphyxiation. Or so whoever had written the notes opined. There was something about the scrawl that suggested it was done by rote, and Valentin wondered if a doctor had reviewed the case at all.

  With just enough information to meet the minimum requirements, it was obvious how little effort had been invested in Mumford's file. A Negro musician who turned up dead in a Storyville alley in the middle of the night was a minor problem to be dispatched, and the quicker the better.

  Valentin closed the folder, handed it back. "Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant," he said, and started moving away.

  "St. Cyr!" Valentin stopped again, but whatever Picot had on the tip of his tongue stayed there. He waved the folder like he was swatting at an insect. "You know the way out," he muttered, and stalked back to his office.

  The lieutenant was at his window when St. Cyr stepped out onto the banquette below. As soon as he saw the detective turn north, he knew where he was going. He cast a quiet curse, then called two of his men, telling one of them to hurry downstairs and throw a tail on St. Cyr and the other to get Chief O'Connor's office on the telephone right away.

  A half hour later, Valentin stepped to the mouth of the alley that cut from Marais Street through to Villere, the very one in which Jeff Mumford had coughed out the last bloody drops of his young life.

  Now, in the hazy light of the New Orleans afternoon, the detective stopped to consider that it was not too late to stop. No one was paying him a dime, and he didn't owe the bunch at the Frenchman's a damn thing, Morton in particular. No matter what he had said in that smoky saloon in the middle of the night, he could quite easily stroll to Canal Street, catch the next car rolling south, and be done with it.

  Then he thought about walking away only to find out that there was something to it after all. Unlikely, but anything was possible in Storyville. After another few moments, he imagined going back to his empty rooms and spending long hours waiting for night to fall.

  As he gazed blankly at the dusty floor of the alley, these thoughts gave way to the image of Mumford laid out on the cooling board, his handsome face twisted into that awful grimace, his eyes blind and half lidded in death. He saw Noiret with that obscene wound like a red and festering mouth. Two musicians who had played in the same band dead in the space of five days. Tom Anderson was right; it didn't add up to much. Still...

  He hesitated for another moment, then stepped off the banquette. Marais and Villere streets were producing the usual bustle of city noise, the clamor of carriages and automobiles mixing with human shouts and the neighs of horses. All of it faded away as Valentin fixed his attention on the plot of dirt before him, eight feet wide and twenty feet deep. He let his gaze roam vaguely over the space, searching for any bit that was out of place. As he expected, there was nothing to find. The coppers had swept the alley clean.

  He made his usual intense inspection anyway, from one side to the other and ten paces back from the banquette. He remembered the sketch of the location of the body and pictured it there. After ten minutes, he saw nothing more of value, save for a slight discoloration in the dirt, a last stain of blood that told him where Jeff had fallen in his death throes.

  There were no signs of a scuffle, no scrabble of footprints in the dust, no shreds of torn clothing. That pointed to a careful execution, with the victim drawn in and then surprised. That was really all he could say, since officers of the New Orleans Police Department had been diligent in cleaning the alleyway of anything that might benefit a private detective who might come along later.

  With no evidence to collect, he leaned against one of the walls and imagined the scene that night. The killer would have been lurking in the shadow beyond the light from the streetlamp. He wondered why Mumford had stepped into such a dark cove. Perhaps he recognized the party calling to him. Or maybe it was some woman, beckoning like a Siren, a street whore looking to make a last dollar or some floozy too drunk to care who lifted her skirts.

  Would Jeff Mumford, a handsome sport with a good-looking woman waiting at home, fall prey to such a crude temptation? Not likely. If it wasn't a woman, then who or what had drawn him to the killing floor? Only the killer and the victim knew.

  It added up to exactly the kind of puzzle that no one else, certainly no police detective and no Pinkerton, was likely to crack. They'd take one look, give up, and walk away. Because they didn't possess Valentin's combination of sharp wits, knowledge of the streets, and gut instinct about the way people behaved. And because they wouldn't care about a dead nigger jass player in the first place.

  The detective took one last survey of the space. Then he stepped out of the alley and back onto the banquett
e to cast an idle eye up and down Marais Street.

  He caught sight of the fellow standing in the doorway of the apothecary a few doors down on the opposite side of the street. He was small and thin and nervous, and he gave himself away by turning his head too quickly when Valentin's gaze found him. The detective smiled quietly; he would have been frankly surprised if Picot hadn't sent a man. He headed down to Basin Street, and ten minutes later was stepping onto a streetcar heading west.

  As the car rumbled away from downtown and into the darker reaches of the city, the scenery changed. From his seat by the window, he viewed Black Storyville, a shadow of the legal District, a four-block square of narrow brick sporting houses, starting at Freret and Gravier streets, and serving a mulatto and Negro clientele. The next few blocks beyond were crowded with cafés, saloons, barbering parlors, and corner stores, mostly of a seedy sort, with dark-skinned men in cheap suits lounging around their doors. The storefronts gave way to a stretch of wood-framed shotgun doubles that showed the sagging, peeling, and rotting of poor construction in a damp climate.

  When the car stopped at the corner of Fourth Street, he hopped down and walked the four blocks to the Philip Street rooming house where Antoine Noiret had died.

  He found a two-story structure of gray clapboard that listed a bit to one side where the foundation was sinking in the soggy Louisiana earth. The windows were yellowed with grime, and the boards of the gallery bowed and creaked under his feet. A FOR SALE sign was nailed to a stake in the patch of dirt next to the gallery steps. Another sign announcing ROOMS TO LET, but almost weathered to invisibility, was nailed to a gallery post.

  The door swung open with a slap, and a homely, thick-bodied mulatto woman with a face cut by thick lines into lumps like blocks of dark clay stood glaring at him. She was wearing a frumpy Mother Hubbard and her woolly hair was tied back under a checked chignon.

  "Whatchu lookin' fo'?" she demanded roughly.

  "Are you the landlady?"

  "For one more fuckin' day, I am. I'm leavin' out tomorrow."

  "Because of the murder?"

  Her face tightened. "Thas right. Because of the murder."

  "My name's St. Cyr," he said. "I'm a private detective."

  "So?"

  "And your name is?"

  She hesitated, then snapped, "Cora Jarrell. Whatchu want here?"

  "What can you tell me about Mr. Noiret?"

  "I can tell you someone come in and cut his goddamn throat."

  "Do you—"

  "I knowed this was gonna happen!" she cried suddenly, and threw a cursing hand in the air. "I knowed this would happen if I kept lettin' rooms to these no-good jass players! The bastards! This is what I get. A dead body. And I'm out on the street. I'm lucky I don't have to go work in some damn crib."

  "What—"

  "Goddamnit!" she yelled again, and stomped her foot furiously. "I run a decent house!"

  Valentin gave her a moment to calm down, then said, "What about Noiret?"

  She glared. "What about him? He took a room here now and then." She crossed her arms.

  Valentin shifted to a comfortable slouch, as if he was ready to wait there all day.

  "You hear what I said? I didn't see nothin' and I didn't hear nothin', so I don't know nothin'." Her voice went to a hoarse whine, and she raked him with a hard glance that might have worked, except for the sliver of anxious, telling light that was lurking behind it.

  "What about Noiret?" he repeated quietly.

  She held the stare for another few seconds, and then her shoulders sagged into a shrug. "He played horn in a band. He drank plenty, but they all do. He toted a razor, 'cause I seen it onst. That's it. I didn't hardly know him at all."

  "Did he have a woman here?"

  "This is a house for gentlemen!" she half shouted. "Women ain't allowed in the rooms!"

  Valentin let out a quick laugh. He knew if he checked with the local police precinct, they'd tell him the rooms were used regularly for assignations and that Cora Jarrell was a well-known procurer with an impressive record of arrests. She had that look. Still, she kept the righteous front, her thick chin jutting. She was a tough customer. She would have to be to run a house outside the District. She'd no doubt seen and dispatched her share of trouble, including murders.

  Indeed, he saw the angry way she was eyeing him, all but putting up her dukes. He countered by locking his best stony gaze on hers. "You don't want the kind of trouble I can cause you," he said.

  She drew back, finally getting the message. "They was one in there with him," she said in a low voice. "I heard 'em."

  "Heard them what?"

  "Raisin' holy hell, that's what." She came up with a dirty smirk. "First I thought they was fuckin'. You know how some women do. But that wa'nt it. She was mad about somethin'. They wasn't fuckin'; they was fussin'. Least, she was. The fellow let the next room was poundin' on the wall, yellin' for her to shut up. It got quiet for a little bit. Then she started up again, cussin' him out. I heard the room door slam and the front door after that. And that was all."

  "Was this a sporting girl?"

  "I don't know what she was," she muttered.

  "Can you describe her?"

  "No, I can't describe her. 'Cause I didn't see her."

  He knew the moment that the words crossed her lips that she was lying. He didn't push it, though. She was already backing up, her eyes shifting away. He didn't want to lose her, so he let it go and asked instead to have a look at the room. This time she hedged only a few seconds before waving him inside.

  She led him down the dim hallway to the last door on the right. Her hand went into her Mother Hubbard and came up with a ring of keys, and she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She stayed right where she was as he stepped over the threshold into a cramped box of a room.

  It was low ceilinged, the usual for that type of structure. There was no window, which meant the door was the only way in or out. He dug in his pocket for a lucifer to light the gas jet on the near wall. With the room bathed in a murky yellow glow, he made out the washstand that stood in one corner and the closet door hanging open. Patches of plaster had flaked off the walls and leaking water had stained the ceiling. It was close, with a mixed odor of sweat, musk, and unwashed linens.

  The bed had been stripped down to a rusting iron frame. Of course, superstition dictated that the mattress and sheets would have been taken out and burned. There were dark splotches on the floor next to the bed where Noiret's blood had run down and soaked in.

  "You keep the door locked?" he asked her.

  "In this here neighborhood? All the damn time."

  She cringed and fidgeted as he wandered about the tainted space. "Was it you who found him?" he said.

  She nodded grimly. "It was checkout time. Check out or pay. I knocked. Wa'nt no answer. I got that fellow next door to come rouse him. Man still didn't answer. I went and unlocked it. And there he was. Cut open like that. They was blood all over the bed." She stared at the stain on the floor and wrung her hands. "Look at it! They ain't ever gonna get it out. They gonna have to tear up the damn boards." There was nothing false in her voice or her look of distress.

  The detective took a last glance around, then walked out. He stopped and tilted his head at the door of the next room.

  "So who was this fellow?" he asked.

  The landlady looked askance; giving names was dicey business in this part of town.

  "I know you keep a book," Valentin went on. "Perhaps I could see it."

  He had guessed that she had been skimming and wouldn't want anyone inspecting the ledger until she was long gone. He was right.

  "Lacombe," she said, too quickly. "Negro. Plays clarinet in some band."

  Something about the way she spoke the name bothered him, a sharp blurt accompanied by shifting eyes. "He left out," she went on. "Nobody gon' stay in a house like this. Man's ghost is all back in there."

  "He was the only other one here?"

  "They was people in a
nd out, them ones that took a room for an hour or so. He was the only other one stayed. The only one here when the two of them was."

  "You know where I can find him?"

  She shrugged her thick shoulders and turned her face away. "He's somewhere back-of-town, I guess." Another lie; or at least an evasion.

  "Anything else you can tell me?"

  She shook her head resolutely in one quick jerk. "No. I tole you all of it."

  They reached the front door and Valentin opened it and stepped out onto the gallery. A welcome breeze stirred along the street. He was about to thank the woman for her trouble when she said, "Whatchu doin' here? Coppers come by, said it's over and done and they ain't ever gonna find who did it. So what the fuck are you lookin' fo'?"

  He didn't see any harm in telling her. It might even raise a reaction. "Another musician was murdered just a few days ago."

  She gave him a sharp glance, then broke out another cold smile. It was not a pretty sight. "Mister," she said. "You are wastin' your damn time." She let out a raw laugh and closed the door.

  He walked away from the house, more annoyed with every step about the way he'd handled her. If he'd been on his game, he would have pried loose everything she knew about the woman and Noiret, along with the tiniest details of what happened that night. He would have taken the time to scour the room inch by inch for evidence. Then he would have visited the houses on either side to ask if anyone had heard or seen anything. He would not have told her why he was there. In other words, he would have handled it like a professional detective. He didn't though, and he would have done about as well beating her with a club. He'd give it some time and then come back to pick up the pieces he'd missed.

  Walking on, his head bent to the banquette, he wondered if the wags who were whispering that he had lost his notorious skills were correct.

  He rounded the corner at Liberty Street and stopped at the first saloon he came upon. He peered through the grimy window to find the establishment midafternoon quiet, without a single customer inside. It looked like a good place to disappear and ponder his mistakes for a while.