‘But you said Fryer Jones—’
Lorraine slapped the table again, this time with the heel of her shoe.
‘Rosie, I don’t take everything he said as gospel. He’s a stoned old bastard I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him. What I do take very seriously is that Rooney, as my back-up, just blew it.’
Rosie pursed her lips. Sometimes she really loathed Lorraine, but before she could say anything, the waitress brought the coffee.
‘He fucked you yet?’ Rosie blushed. ‘Oh, come on, what’s all this? Being coy doesn’t suit you, Rosie, and the sneaky little glances that pass between you both, plus the pats and the sniggers, get on my nerves.’
‘Maybe you’re jealous,’ Rosie snapped, meeting the curious glances of their fellow guests as Lorraine sat down again and reached for the coffee pot.
‘Where’s my sandwich? I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich.’
The waitress tightened her lips and said it would be right there. Lorraine slurped at her coffee.
‘I’m jealous, jealous} Got to be kiddin’, Rosie. But you didn’t answer my question. Has he? Can he?’ She laughed, adding sugar to her coffee and spilling it down the front of her shirt. Rosie leaned close.
‘That is my business, not yours, and you should apologize to him for speaking to him the way you did. In fact, you should take a good hard look at yourself, Lorraine, because what you are is a hard-nosed, drunken bitch.’
The slap came so fast it made Rosie stumble back. She clenched her fist to give one back but held back. She could hear people murmuring all around her: everyone was staring at them.
‘Now you’d better apologize to me, because we don’t need you.’
‘No, just the cut of the one million bonus that I’m doing all the work for.’
‘Don’t worry, Rosie, we’ll split it three ways, as agreed. That’s if we get it.’
Rosie couldn’t stop herself: she punched Lorraine in the shoulder, having meant to hit her face, but missing. Lorraine took the punch and then slowly fell off her chair to the floor. Rosie made no effort to help her get to her feet.
‘Yes, if. Anyone blowing our chances was you falling for Robert Caley.’
Lorraine took hold of the table to help herself up: she was beginning to feel sick.
‘But even if we don’t get the money, it won’t matter to us, because we’ve got something else going for us, and it’s something I doubt you will ever have. We’re getting married, Lorraine.’
Rosie walked away, leaving Lorraine holding on to the edge of the table. Everything was spinning, blurred and unfocused, and as the waitress returned with her sandwich, Lorraine passed out.
Rooney saw Rosie standing by reception and walked over to join her.
‘I carried her up to her room, well, me and the bellboy. She’s out cold,’ he told her.
Rosie nodded and passed him a computer print-out of their account. ‘She’s been putting it on the bill, look at it. Vodka, bottles of it.’
‘Shit,’ Rooney mumbled.
‘We’re going to have to dry her out, maybe try and find a meeting,’ Rosie said impatiently, taking her anger towards Lorraine out on Bill. ‘Why did you let her talk to you that way?’
‘Well, in some ways she was right, and, I mean, I knew something was wrong with her.’
‘I could smell it as soon as she sat down,’ Rosie fumed.
‘Well, I guess we just let her sleep it off and talk to her when she’s got herself together.’
‘What if she doesn’t get herself together?’ Rosie snapped.
Now it was Bill’s turn to turn on Rosie. ‘Then I take over and I mean take over, because I’ve had just about enough of her crap. I’m not prepared to lose my cut of the one million, even if she is.’ Before Rosie could apologize, Rooney had walked out, letting the swing doors into the lobby bang behind him.
Lorraine had been violently sick and now had a headache to end them all. She had soaked a towel and packed it with ice, and was lying flat out on the bed, hardly able to raise her head from the pillow. She sighed, not knowing why she’d been so hurtful, so cruel. She’d make it up to Bill and Rosie tomorrow. Tonight she was too tired.
She tried, too, to digest all that she’d been working on that day: she must find out who made the doll. Find that out, and she’d know who gave it to Tilda Brown. She winced at the noise as the door opened suddenly and Rosie barged in and banged down a tray of sandwiches and a pot of black coffee.
‘You are going to sober up,’ she said, pouring out a cup. ‘You are going to get in that shower, drink all of this coffee, eat these sandwiches, and you are then going to accompany me to a meeting. I got an address and there’s one in an hour’s time.’
Lorraine began to cry, sniffing and wiping her face. ‘Leave me alone, I’m not feeling well, it’s just something I ate.’
‘Yeah, liqueur chocolates, you said. Lies won’t work, Lorraine, I know you were as drunk as a skunk, in fact, the whole hotel knows. I’m surprised they didn’t ask us to leave. Now, SIT UP.’
‘No.’
Rosie hauled Lorraine to her feet and shoved her fully clothed into the shower. Lorraine howled as the jets of ice-cold water hit her, yelling that she would kill Rosie, knife Bill Rooney, twist his testicles off. Her threats became more and more ludicrous, but eventually she stopped trying to fight Rosie off.
Afterwards, Rosie helped her into a nightdress and forced her to finish the coffee and sandwiches, refusing to allow Lorraine to go to sleep until she had promised that she would attend a meeting next day and sworn on the hotel Bible that she would not touch another drop of alcohol and that she would call Bill or Rosie if the thought even entered her head. Lorraine was apologetic now, weeping like a chastised child.
‘I didn’t mean to do it, Rosie, I swear before God I didn’t, it was just Fryer offered me something at his place, I thought it was Coke. I give you my word I won’t touch another drink, all I need is sleep, please.’
Rosie sighed, cleared up the mess in the room and checked there were no more liquor bottles. By the time she was through, Lorraine was drowsy, and Rosie sat beside her on the bed for a moment.
‘You also got to apologize to Bill, you hear me? He really liked Nick and he took his death very hard. So first thing tomorrow you make up with him – me, I’m used to it, but he isn’t. You were downright rude.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Lorrraine’s voice was like a child’s.
‘Yeah, you should be, with all we got at stake.’ Rosie stood up and Lorraine held out her arms.
‘Give me a hug, Rosie, please, I feel so bad about this.’
Rosie hugged her, then gave her a warm smile as she fluffed up her pillows. ‘You sure test your friends, Lorraine Page.’
‘But I’m a lucky lady to have them,’ Lorraine answered softly.
Rosie left her, thinking she was sleeping, but sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually Lorraine got up and looked at her messages – several of them were from Robert Caley. Part of her wanted to call him because if he asked her to she would go. It wasn’t enough to be hugged by Rosie, by a friend, she wanted to be really loved by someone – by Robert Caley. Why could Rosie and Rooney find comfort with each other when she could find none? But she kept on making lame excuses why she shouldn’t call Robert Caley.
She opened her briefcase, taking out the soiled towel and opening it to stare at the grotesque doll. Someone had stuck the photograph of Tilda Brown’s face over the plastic doll’s head. Someone had glued blonde hair to the cloth body, covered it in excrement and urine, and then that someone had taken a long thin pin and pierced it right through Tilda Brown’s face. That someone had to have access to a photograph. That someone had to know the curse would terrify anyone who believed in spiritual evil and its powers. Lorraine wondered if that person might be Elizabeth Caley, or even her missing daughter, Anna Louise. It might perhaps be Juda Salina or Edith or Ruby Corbello, or even, and she didn’t want to accept the possibility, Robert Caley.
<
br /> The unease remained as she changed and got ready to go to bed. The telephone ringing made her physically jump, but she didn’t answer. When it stopped she called down to reception; the call had been from Robert Caley. She closed her eyes and felt it again, the warm rush of feeling she’d had when he had kissed her again, told her that he was leaving his wife. She was falling in love with him, and it scared her. She couldn’t help but remember the pornographic magazine, the Valentine cards she had found in Anna Louise’s bedroom, all from Caley using the nickname ‘Polar’. Who had taken the diaries, if there were any, from Anna Louise’s Polar bears? He had said none had ever been found. But he knew their hiding place, so he knew that if Tilda Brown had a diary it would have been hidden in the same place. Round and round in her mind went all her suspicions until she felt like weeping from tiredness.
‘Please don’t let it be him,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 16
ROONEY HAD had to wait for more than an hour as the printers took away the shreds of newspaper wrapped around the voodoo doll. It was almost eight when eventually a small crumpled man with ink stains on his hands and apron emerged from a back room, holding a full sheet.
‘You know there is a price for this?’
Rooney nodded. ‘How much?’
‘Well, I’ve had to go back into the files and double check the photographs for you . . . say, fifteen bucks.’
Rooney smiled, he’d expected to be asked for a lot more. ‘Sure, that sounds fair to me.’
He took out his wallet and laid out fifteen dollars. The printer pocketed it, and gave a furtive look around: he had, as he’d said, gone through a lot of back issues, but it was on his employer’s time.
‘Okay, this newspaper issue was out on February fifteenth last year, ’cos of the casino pictures and the—’
Rooney interrupted, taking the sheet. ‘That’s all I wanted to know, thanks.’
He stood outside the printers, folding the single sheet of last year’s paper into a small square. The evening was hot and clammy, and he was sweating all over, so he trudged down the street until he saw the streetcar, and stepped up inside. He sat on the bench seat close to the entrance, hoping for a bit of a breeze, but the air was hot and sticky. He ran his finger around his collar, not sure if it was the heat that was getting to him or the fact that he had made up his mind to propose to Rosie.
Shaved and showered, he tapped on her door. She opened it, wearing a big bath towel around her plump body.
‘How did it go?’
‘Well, it was the date we all wanted, Feb fifteenth last year. Can I come in?’
‘Sure.’ She stepped aside, drawing up her towel. ‘I just had a shower.’
He sat on the edge of one of the many beds in her room, waiting as she dressed in the bathroom. He told himself he was a lonely old fool, and tried to make himself back out of what he wanted to ask Rosie.
‘You divorced?’ he blurted out as she returned.
She looked surprised. ‘Yes, I told you, years ago. Why?’
He took a deep breath. ‘No reason,’ he said grumpily, unfolding the newspaper print-out and passing it to her.
‘That’s a lie, there is a reason.’ She was looking at the double-folded centre-piece. ‘What?’
‘You want to get hitched to me, Rosie?’
‘You bet I do.’
‘What?’
She sat next to him and took his big hand. ‘I said yes, I do . . .’
‘Shit, you do?’
‘Yes . . . you worried about that?’
‘Hell no, that’s what I wanted you to say.’
There was a moment of silence and they slowly looked into each other’s face.
‘So, we’re engaged?’ she asked coyly.
‘Yeah, I guess we are,’ he said flatly. It had all gone as he had hoped, but a fraction too fast!
‘We’d better tell Lorraine,’ Rosie said, and he hesitated.
‘Maybe don’t rush it, wait until we both get used to the idea, okay?’
She nodded, smiling. ‘I meant about the newspaper article, Bill!’
Lorraine was deeply asleep when Rooney called to tell her the newspaper date coincided with the day Anna Louise had arrived in New Orleans. She refused to go and dine with them, saying she needed a good night’s rest. It was after nine and she couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time. She thought about going to see Robert Caley but decided against it. Instead she tossed and turned, pushing him from her mind, going over what had happened during the day – with the exception of her lapse back into drunkenness.
She got up, feeling restless, and began to pace the room. She came to the conclusion that only one person could have hated Tilda Brown enough, and that person was Anna Louise Caley. But how in the hell could she prove it without Anna or Tilda alive? And Tilda Brown’s suicide must not be given priority over tracing Anna Louise, unless they were linked. And Lorraine intuitively knew that they were . . . but how?
She wanted a drink and searched round the room for any bottle that Rosie might have overlooked, still convincing herself that she was in control, and that the problem had been caused by the bourbon at Fryer’s bar, not the dilute vodka she had been drinking all day. She knew though that she was going to have to be a lot smarter, as Rosie and Rooney would be watching her every move. She couldn’t call down to reception for a bottle, as she was sure that Rosie had found out about that, perhaps had even warned them not to send anything up to her room, and she didn’t have the energy to leave it.
She didn’t realize that energy was nothing to do with it, but she was moving into another phase of the addiction – that of fear. She was frightened to leave the hotel room, frightened to face Rosie and Rooney, and her confidence in her ability to analyse the case was wavering badly. The more she sorted through her notes, running over details, the less confident she became, not knowing what the next move should be. It was later, when the sweats began, that Lorraine knew she needed something to get her back on her feet: she called down to ask the receptionist to see if her driver, François, was outside the hotel, and if so could he be directed to her room.
It was over half an hour before François was tracked down, and by the time he had seen Lorraine, agreed to buy her a bottle of vodka and brought it back to her, more than an hour had passed. She called down then to reception for a six-pack of Coke, assembling everything she needed, but didn’t open the bottle immediately. Just knowing it was there was enough: she’d be all right now.
But still sleep eluded her as she continued to turn the case over in her mind for hours, and she eventually fell asleep planning to see Ruby Corbello first thing next day. In the morning, she told herself, everything would be all right again.
Robert Caley left the city that night and drove up the coast to a casino in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he and Dulay had often played in the private rooms. High-stakes gamblers rarely bothered with the riverboat casinos in New Orleans, but once the casino in which he would now be a partner was open, all that would change. A lot of things were going to change for him now. By 9.30 he had lost more than 10,000 dollars, but that didn’t matter now: he was going to be rich. There was no limit to demand for gambling, and he knew he would never have to worry about money again. Dulay came in after ten o’clock and it felt good to see him smile warmly, falsely, a cigar clamped in his mouth. Even Dulay had not succeeded in cutting him out in the cold because he had put his money where his mouth was: the leases that had been such a millstone round his neck had saved his skin.
‘Hey, Robert, how are you doing?’
Caley smiled. ‘Fine, I’m doing fine.’
‘Well, looks like we’re both in the money . . . after the announcement, I mean.’ Even Dulay’s polished manner betrayed a trace of awkwardness. ‘We’re all on the same side now – the way it ought to be, hey Robert?’
Caley smiled; the man was a snake. There was no reason why the Doubloons group should have been cut in on the deal, but clearly pushing the Governor’
s golf cart was a useful skill. Still, it felt good to come out a winner, and he was sure, very sure, that at long last he had played with a full deck.
‘Yes, Lloyd,’ he said with equally false graciousness. ‘It seems like we are. You’ll excuse me now, I was just on my way out.’
He checked his watch, wondering if Lorraine had called. He wanted to see her, wanted her to know and to celebrate with him. He drove back to New Orleans, thinking of the new world they would share. He wanted her tonight, because it was all going to be different now – he was dependent on no one, he was free. He had been trapped for years, caught in Elizabeth’s Caley’s secret nightmares, but that was over. Besides, they were nightmares he had never understood or cared to find out about.
Caley called Lorraine but was told she wasn’t taking any calls so he left a message to say he had returned to his hotel and had arranged for her usual suite to be waiting. He called again at midnight but the message was the same – Mrs Page was not to be disturbed. He let the receiver fall back on to the cradle, confused. He would wait for her to come to him, he would make no further calls.
Early the following morning, before Rosie and Rooney had even come down to breakfast, Lorraine had left the hotel. She had got herself dressed and out with just a couple of shots of vodka and half a pot of coffee: she’d been shaking badly and had a hell of a hangover, but at least she was able to get out of the room. She sat in the parked car, looking out of the window at the Corbellos’ house.
‘Wait here, François.’
She knocked three times before the door was opened.
‘Hi, I’m looking for Ruby Corbello.’
The young girl was wearing a barely decent slip dress and rubber flip-flops.
‘You from the festival organization?’
‘No, but I need to speak to her, and if necessary I can pay.’ Lorraine took out a twenty-dollar note.
‘She’s getting her picture took for a magazine this afternoon. She’s not seeing nobody unless it’s press.’
‘I’m a reporter,’ Lorraine lied.
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