Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) Read online

  "You goin' to be home?"

  "Yes, I'll—" He caught himself and looked around. There was a workman's diner across Carondelet. He realized that except for two bites of the egg sandwich from Bechamin's, he hadn't eaten anything since the night before. He pointed. "I'll wait for you over there."

  The kid was giving him a searching look that made him appear in that moment wise beyond his years.

  "Well?" Valentin said.

  The two boys turned and ran away, all full of purpose, leaving the detective standing in the shadow of the building.

  An hour later, he had finished a midday breakfast of boudin and eggs and was sitting over coffee and the Sunday Sun, staring at the page without absorbing any of the text, when the two boys came through the door and hurried to his table.

  "Mr. Anderson's at Miss Burt's," Beansoup reported breathlessly. "He said he'll be there for a while if you want to come around." Valentin folded his paper and went into his pocket for money to pay his check. He glanced up to see that Beansoup had taken a step closer to the table. Louis stood back, his pop-eyed gaze wandering toward the ceiling.

  Beansoup regarded the detective with a serious expression. "I didn't want to start no trouble," he said in a pronounced whisper. "Thing is, I don't know for a fact that that was Miss Justine I seen last night."

  "Oh ... it's all right," Valentin said.

  "It coulda been anyone. There's lots of women on Basin Street. It was dark."

  The kid's earnest intent was almost comical, and Valentin nodded seriously in response. "I'll go see Mr. Anderson now," he said.

  "You want us to come, too?" Beansoup said, still fretting.

  They escorted him down Magazine to Canal Street, where they all climbed on a car, riding in back out of consideration for Louis. It brought stares from some of the passengers, but Valentin was used to it. People assumed that he was one of those odd types who either didn't know any better than to ride behind the Colored line with the niggers or didn't care about the proper order of things. Occasionally, some ill-advised citizen, usually a drunk, would accost him about it. He met these accusers with a hard gaze that sent them back to their seats in the front of the car, muttering about what the world was coming to.

  Valentin looked at the two boys. They were a funny pair. Beansoup, all pale faced and gangly, his hair like wheat straw, and Louis, a short little fellow, his eyes and smile wide and white against his chocolate skin. It was still permissible that they were friends, though it couldn't last much longer. Beansoup was getting too old; one day soon he would have to walk away from his small companion, and their days running the streets together would become a hazy memory.

  As they pulled away from Burgundy Street, Valentin caught a glimpse of chimney stacks poking up from roofs along Basin Street. The clouds coming around from the southwest were getting darker, more animated. He watched them for a while, thinking about how he was going to present the matter of the deaths of the two jass men to Tom Anderson.

  ***

  When they got off the car, he went into his pocket and dropped another Liberty quarter into each boy's palm. Beansoup gave him a searching look, then shrugged and jerked his head. The two of them sauntered off to find some likely place to spend their rewards.

  Valentin crossed the quiet street, climbed the steps to Hilma Burt's gallery, and rang the bell. He was ushered inside by a Negro maid, who then led him to a sitting room with a sofa and two chairs of French design. While she went off to fetch Mr. Tom, Valentin went to the window, pushed the curtain aside, and looked out on Basin Street.

  He only had to wait a few minutes before Anderson stepped through the door. The King of Storyville had been to church and was wearing a fine Sunday suit, complete with vest and watch and chain. It was part of his political genius to check his critics with sanctimonious displays, attending a different service every week, plus the occasional temple visit on Saturday. It also provided him an opportunity to spend a few private minutes with the priest, minister, or rabbi and offer assistance with the inevitable problems that came up in a sector where sin rubbed shoulders with piety.

  It benefited both sides. On the King of Storyville's orders, Valentin had corralled parishioners who had left their wives and children to chase after a floozy. Or made sure that the erring son of a prominent church elder couldn't buy a card of hop anywhere in the city. Or saw that two young ladies who were developing what the parents thought was an unnatural interest in each other were kept apart. Most importantly, he regularly checked on the churches' real estate holdings in and around the red-light district, of which there were many, including some of the fanciest bordellos.

  Anderson waved the Creole detective to one of the chairs and settled himself in the other. He reached into his pocket for one of his favored Cuban cigars, went digging for a lucifer, and blew a mighty plume of smoke. He took another moment to unbutton the pockets of his vest and tug his tight collar away from his florid neck. With a sigh of relief, he sat back and raised his eyebrows, a signal.

  "Thank you for taking time to see me," Valentin said.

  "Is this about the fellow they found dead last night? What was his name? Mumford?"

  The detective was surprised. "That's right."

  "He was in Bolden's band, if I recall correctly."

  "He was."

  "What about it?"

  Valentin said, "I think there could be something to it."

  Anderson raised a polite eyebrow. "Oh? Why's that?"

  "Because another musician was murdered, just a few days ago."

  Anderson held his cigar in the air. "Where?"

  "On Philip Street."

  "Philip Street!"

  "But he was playing over here," Valentin said quickly. "At Tournier's."

  Anderson cocked his head, looking vexed. "Yes, and?"

  "I just ... I'm just thinking that there might be a connection between the two."

  "Is this what you came all the way up here to tell me? That a couple of musicians died?" Anderson shook his head in annoyance. "The one was stabbed in some damn boardinghouse and the other one drank who knows what up on Marais Street. Do I have that right?"

  Valentin's face flushed a little.

  The King of Storyville puffed his Cuban. "We have enough trouble around here and we don't need to manufacture more. Speaking of which ... did you go to St. Louis Street like I asked you?"

  "I did," the Creole detective said. "There's been no sign of those fellows, whoever they were. I believe they're gone."

  Anderson nodded, mollified. "Well, keep an eye on it anyway."

  Valentin heard the dismissal in his tone and rose to leave.

  "Wait a minute," Anderson said. He smoked for a quiet moment, his eyes wandering off with discomfort. "Have you got trouble at home?"

  "Have I..." Valentin was flustered, wondering how the man knew. "It's ... it's nothing," he stuttered. "I can take care of it."

  "Very well, then." Anderson waved his cigar, showing him the door. "I wish you a pleasant afternoon."

  On the way back to Magazine Street, Valentin stewed over the visit. He had been overtaken by his feelings going to the morgue and seeing Mumford and had let it get the best of his reason. Tom Anderson had officially deemed it a waste of time. It didn't explain how or why Anderson knew the details of both murders. Valentin was used to that; the King of Storyville knew almost everything about everything. Finally, he revisited Anderson's question about Justine. He was willing to bet money that he already knew about her being on Basin Street, too.

  He stepped down at Magazine Street, not knowing what to expect when he got home. He wondered if he was the only person in New Orleans who didn't know what Justine Mancarre was doing.

  He unlocked and opened the door. From the other side of the front room, she raised a hand to stop him from coming any farther. She had rolled the rugs and pushed them to the walls and was mopping the floor. The lemon soap she had poured into her bucket of water made the hardwood glow with an oily sheen and sent u
p a fruity scent. She worked the mop, her hair tied back with a few wet strands hanging down as she sweated right through her thin cotton housedress.

  He leaned in the doorway to watch and wait. The balcony door was open and the arched windows were pushed wide, so that the afternoon air was already drying the moisture on the floor. She worked on, intent on the task, as if he wasn't there, as if nothing existed outside the old mop and the floor she was attacking. She huffed with effort and he looked to see if there was some stubborn stain before her. The floor was fine, spotless and shiny. Still, she went at it, her eyes blazing and arms pumping.

  She finished the last bit that took her up to the bedroom door and leaned the mop against the wall. She took a moment to study her handiwork. Then, with a wave of her fingers, she gestured for him to make his way around the street side of the room, where the floor was all but dry. As he got closer, she cocked her head and gave him a kittenish smile. It was a look he knew well, though he hadn't seen it in a while, and he did his best to hide his astonishment.

  She backed into the bedroom and with each step she undid a button on her dress, so by the time she got to the side of the bed, it was loose all the way down the front. She was wearing nothing underneath. He came up on her and reached out with slow fingers. The dress dropped in a swirl to the floor. He rested his palms on her bare shoulders and she dropped down on the mattress.

  Afterward, they lay together in silence, letting the air dry the sweat off their bodies. They didn't speak at all. Justine twirled one of her curls and gazed up at the ceiling, as if she had forgotten that he was there.

  It had come to her suddenly, in the midst of their frolic. She knew him well enough to understand that there were times when the mix of blood in his veins distilled out and one or another of his histories would stand out in stark relief. This was one of those moments.

  He had his mother's gray eyes, but it was his father's proud will that had lit them up. That was what she saw: a look of contempt mixed with anger and injury. Giving herself to him like that was a small gesture, something to appease his injured Sicilian pride, a token of apology and obeisance. And yet it wasn't near enough. She had shamed and insulted him before all of Basin Street, and no quick dalliance on a Sunday afternoon was going to change that.

  When more quiet moments went by, she shifted a few inches away and slipped down a private path. A pall descended over the bed and she felt a soft blow in her gut, an odd sensation that something had just broken between them. Like a boat that had lost its mooring, she drifted off.

  The sun was down when Valentin locked the door behind him and descended the stairs to the street. He stood on the banquette for a long minute. Nothing was moving. It was a cloudy night and the only light on the street was the golden glow of electric lamps through the windows of the Banks' Arcade.

  He passed back over Common Street. He didn't stop when he got to the river, but kept on, heading west along Decatur Street, keeping a steady pace and gradually leaving the downtown lights behind. The moon hid, then peeked out from the silver strands of cloud, casting intermittent shadows. His profile stretched out long and thin at his side. He didn't have any idea where he was going, as he let his steps carry him away.

  Four pairs of tracks came out of Union Station and followed the course of the river, turning north to Baton Rouge. Standing near the sweeping curve of rails, he heard the chugging engine long before it emerged from the darkness. He could tell from the sluggish huffing sound that it was moving slowly, still building up steam. It would still be at a slow creep when it got to him. A quick trot would bring him alongside the tracks and it would take nothing to pull himself into the first empty car, and just like that, he could leave it all behind like discarded clothes: Justine, Anderson, Morton, Mumford, Storyville, all of it. Just like that.

  The headlamp pierced the night. Then came the rhythm of the steel wheels, and the long, low moan of the whistle. Valentin stood watching it go by, a freight with no coaches, rolling iron, long and dark. He could see empty cars with doors standing open. It would be so easy: a few long strides, a quick hop, and he'd be on his way.

  It was five minutes before he saw the lights of the caboose. The train went by, one red light and one blue blinking into tiny dots as the clacking and rumbling faded into the night. It was a long minute before the last small echo died away.

  Justine had breathed a sigh of relief when, after an hour of discomfiting silence, Valentin put his clothes back on, gathered his things, and went out the door, mumbling something about needing a walk. It sounded like he was talking to himself.

  She lay thinking for a long time. She got up to look at the clock once and found that it was evening. The next time she looked, night had fallen like a dark drape, and somehow she knew that he wasn't coming back for a good long while, and when he did, he probably wouldn't want to see her there. With that thought in mind, she put on a frock and went downstairs to knock on Mr. Bechamin's door to ask to use the telephone so she could call Miss Antonia Gonzales.

  She went back upstairs, took a dose of her prescription, and fell into a slumber that was traversed by vagrant shreds of dreams, shadows that rose, took shape, then dissolved into darkness again.

  Valentin started up the western edge of the city at an even-paced ramble with only the most general direction in mind. He saw few pedestrians at this hour, mostly low-down types skulking along the streets like furtive rodents. A police wagon went by and the two coppers treated him to narrow-eyed stares. The moon had gone away and the streets were so blankly dark that he wondered if they would ever see the light of day again. He drew a vague picture of himself walking around the city through a darkness that never lifted, like a blind man. He thought it would not be too bad a way to live. Then he thought how foolish he was to let his mind wander so.

  He turned south again, walking along Conti Street until he reached the walls of St. Louis No. 2. He roused the night caretaker and asked to be let in. The old Negro refused until Valentin identified himself. He remembered; the Creole had been there before. He turned the key in the heavy lock and held the iron gate open.

  Valentin located the biers of his younger brother and sister. He read the names and the dates on the bier and tried to recall their faces, but he couldn't conjure anything. Next to them was his father's larger bier, as solid as the man himself. That face he remembered too well, olive dark, with dancing black eyes and wide white teeth capped by an expansive black mustache that he had always waxed with care.

  Valentin felt the silence engulf him like a dark hand. As he stood there, the moon came out to wash the city of the dead in silver. He heard footsteps from the shadows and wondered if now, at long last, he was going to get a visit from a ghost. Who would it be, among so many candidates? It was only the caretaker, though, coming to see if he was all right. The old man escorted him back to the front gate. It closed with a soft metallic creak.

  He walked through the night, barely noticing where his steps took him, except that he stayed on the darker sides of the streets, away from the lamps. A little before dawn, he came upon a café owner standing on the banquette as he sent his son off to the French Market. Valentin imposed on him for an early tin of coffee. With a grudging sigh, the gentleman poured from his own percolator.

  Valentín was walking along, sipping the bitter coffee, when the first clap of thunder sounded. Some minutes passed and there was another, like the echo from a distant cannon. The wind kicked up, smelling heavy and fetid, as if the cloud that lingered over the bayous was moving in, bringing the smell of green decay with it. There was more thunder and then lightning crackled in a green morning sky. The day arrived with the first sheet of rain that crossed the river and swept along the city streets.

  Valentin started trotting, his head bent down as the rain soaked his clothes, until he found the welcome light of a café that was open early. He went inside and ordered more coffee. The girl brought him some thick slices of bread with pots of butter and honey.

  He ate a
nd drank, then went into the privy and stood before the cracked and dirty mirror. Even in that dim light, he could see that his skin was pale and drawn and his eyes were all bloodshot. There was a shadow of beard appearing on his jaw and over his lip. He was tired and he looked it. Actually, he looked about a half step from one of the derelicts that wandered the uptown streets like shabby buzzards.

  He tried to imagine what Justine was doing at that moment and had a vision of her standing by a window, looking out at the rain, and wondering in turn if he might be gone for good.

  He splashed some water on his face and then went back to his table to wait out the rain or the morning, whichever ended first.

  SEVEN

  Justine stood in the middle of the room in her best walking dress. The French doors were standing open and the autumn breeze, still wet with the morning's rain, was like a gentle hand caressing her face.

  It was very quiet. The morning traffic had come and gone, and the stillness of the street made it seem like she could be anywhere. Though the rain had passed, the eaves went on dripping, making a pattering kind of music, like someone tapping on bamboo.

  She felt like she was in one of her half dreams, aware that she was dreaming but unable to break the spell and come out of it. There were images, fleeting little snippets, at the edge of her vision. It happened this way sometimes. Tiny pieces of memory would swirl around her like windblown rags, then begin to form into pictures. The grays and reds and whites of the city gave way to the deep, moist green of the bayou where she had grown up. The sun was never clear; it was always dappled through the tall oaks and cypresses. There was the squalid shack, tilting on the poles that supported it, the room caving in at one part, the small windows covered over with burlap so that no one could see inside. It all reeked of wet decay.