Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries)

by David Fulmer

  It was a generally slow night at the Café. Valentin saw Tom Anderson as he made his usual rounds. When the King of Storyville came down from his office, he didn't have a word to say. He simply glanced, nodded, and moved on. By now, his spies would have told him that the detective had paid a visit to Robertson Street. He would be satisfied with that.

  Valentin took a seat at the end of the bar and listened to the band. Later, when they stopped for the night, the detective ambled over to talk to them. He asked if anyone had heard any talk about the jass players who had died recently.

  A saxophone player named Raymond DeVille was the only one who had.

  "It doesn't bother you?" Valentin said.

  The Negro shook his head absently. "Why should it? When your time's up, you're gone."

  Valentin left him and the others to pack up for the night. DeVille wasn't finished, though. He called, "Mr. Valentin!" Then gestured for him to wait.

  They stood at an empty spot in the middle of the floor and DeVille bent his head confidentially. "I did hear that a copper's been poking around, bracing fellows, asking about Mumford and Noiret and all."

  "Picot?"

  "That's him." He leaned closer. "He's been askin' about you, too."

  Valentin was putting the key into his lock as the bells tolled four. When he got upstairs, he crept into the bedroom, went to the closet to pull down the blanket Beansoup always used, and carried it to the couch. He was aware of Dominique on the bed but didn't look at her. He could sense that she was awake, her eyes open, watching him as he walked in and out.

  He went back into the front room and settled on the couch, wrapping the blanket around him. He heard the bedsprings squeak once as she moved and then no more.

  Later, it was light out when he came half awake to find her standing next to the couch, completely still, watching him. He gave a start and she said, "Sorry, suh," and moved away. He pulled the blanket over his head and dropped down again.

  ELEVEN

  Picot's man was a corporal named Tyler, a nervous little drunkard who could not decide whether he was a New Orleans police officer or a Pinkerton agent, stumbling back and forth between the two careers on something like a yearly schedule. He had been lost in the shuffle some time ago, and so the lieutenant could use him without having to account for his time.

  This morning Picot fidgeted as the corporal reported on the Creole detective's movements from the sporting house on Robertson Street to his visit to the morgue.

  Tyler blinked his rheumy eyes and ducked his head up and down like a pecking shorebird. "I went in after he left and talked to the mulatto that works there. He said St. Cyr wanted to know about what all musicians had turned up dead. Don't make no sense, but that's what he said."

  Picot nodded, sorting the information. There was no telling whether or not St. Cyr had learned anything about the thugs who had visited Robertson Street. He had gone to the morgue and threatened or bribed the attendant to gather the information. The lieutenant knew he could call him on it, but that would only show his hand. With a grunt of frustration, and a warning to stay sober, he sent Tyler back to work.

  ***

  Dominique was all ready with breakfast and coffee when Valentin woke up. She had gone out early and bought a copy of the Picayune and laid it next to his plate. When he sat down, she moved about him in gentle circles, then hovered as he worked his way through his eggs and coffee. She kept watching his face, then jumping to his every need and generally making him nervous. He hurried to finish eating and escape into the bathroom.

  He took his bath, got dressed, and slipped out the door with a quick explanation of business to attend to. She waved a good-bye from the balcony. It was all very sweet and too much for his taste.

  As he made his way along the banquette, he tried to reassemble the exact sequence of her coming to his door. It had happened so quickly. Wasn't she Jeff Mumford's woman less than a week ago? Why wasn't she grieving? What did she want from him? His thoughts jumped to Justine and what she was doing in her new home with her Frenchman. He pushed the images away as he went through Bechamin's door. He had more pressing matters at hand.

  It was Friday, his day for rounds. He started off for Basin Street, then changed his mind. For some reason, he felt oddly apart from Storyville. The banquette seemed to be shifting under his feet. It was an alien place, the streets familiar and yet different. Even the money he took from there seemed tainted in a strange way, and on this morning he didn't want to walk from house to house like some beggar.

  He didn't want to face Lulu White and her prying, snooping questions. He didn't want to go to the Café and spar with Tom Anderson. So he just dismissed that entire piece of his day. He had not done a thing all week at any of the houses, anyway. He hadn't even paid them a visit. He could collect his pay envelope from Anderson when he went to work that evening. As for the others, they could pay him, if they wanted and when they wanted. He had a spice can full of Liberty dollars that would carry him for a while.

  As he glanced at his reflection in a storefront he passed, it occurred to him that he was developing a bad attitude of late. It was a relief. It meant he was getting his skills back, too.

  Something had begun forming in the back of his mind, the beginnings of a pattern. A year ago, or two, the random pieces would have already fallen into place and he would be seeing the construction of the murders of at least two musicians, more likely all three and the landlady. He came to the rueful realization that he had been away so long that his sharp mind was operating more like a rusty old pump.

  The mulatto attendant was standing just inside the alley door, smoking a Straight Cut that was all but turning into tatters in his nervous fingers.

  "Fellow come by from the police," he stuttered by way of greeting. "Askin' what you wanted."

  Valentin was neither surprised nor very interested. "Did you tell him?"

  "No, goddamnit! I lied! To a copper, yet!"

  The detective knew that the mulatto had told the copper exactly what he was up to. He had expected it. "Do you have the information?" he asked.

  "I can't be doin' this kind of thing." The attendant was almost moaning again.

  Valentin extended his hand, palm up. The mulatto made a show of refusing, then let out a grunt and went into his pocket for a folded sheet of paper. "They's all on there," he said. "All right, then? Just take it and go. I ain't doin' this no damn more. So don't ask."

  Valentin looked at the paper, then slipped it into his pocket. "You won't see me again," he said, and turned away, hoping that it was true.

  ***

  By early in the afternoon, Justine found that she couldn't get her mind off the news about Valentin that Beansoup had delivered. It danced around every thought in her head, a moving picture. The kid's last strange words about trouble brewing had her worried, too, and she wanted to see about that as well.

  She caught a streetcar down to Magazine Street. On the way, she thought that would be just her luck of late to run up on him. Then what would she say? There could be no other reason for her to be there. She decided to take the chance anyway. She had to see for herself what the kid had described.

  Once she arrived, though, she wished that she hadn't. She walked down the opposite side of the street, hoping to avoid any neighbors who might report her appearance to Valentin. As she came close, she saw a black-skinned woman in the act of sweeping the little balcony. Justine stopped, staring, nursing a throb of jealous rage. That was her balcony and her broom; it was her dust from the floors of her rooms. Of course, none of it was correct; she had been replaced, and in a matter of days.

  Valentin had never paid too much attention to younger girls; he preferred women who knew the ways of the world. Or so she had thought; this one didn't appear to be much beyond twenty. The heavy breasts and hips would be to his taste, though. She looked like she was built for hard work in the bedroom and for childbearing, too. Maybe that was it; he had decided that at twenty-four, she was too old and too used
up by the sporting life to please him.

  The thought made her stomach churn so sourly that she had to stop and lean in the space between two storefronts for a moment.

  She wanted to run away and yet at the same time she was tempted to cross over for a closer look. For one crazy moment, she imagined banging through the street door, running up the steps, grabbing the bitch by the hair, and dragging her down to the street. She felt her blood begin to race as she pictured the scene. Then she let out a grim laugh: she wouldn't do any such thing. She wasn't some common whore, after all. Anyway, the girl on the balcony could probably handle herself. Worse than starting a tussle would be starting one and then losing and having to skulk off in shame.

  Her heart stopped aching long enough for her to ponder how Valentin had captured the girl so quickly. The same way he had trapped her, she guessed: by staying still and drawing her in like a snake waiting motionless for its prey.

  Whatever happened, she was out and the black-skinned girl was in. There was nothing she could do about it now, except to turn tail and go back to her Girod Street rooms and her rich weakling of a Frenchman. On her way to Canal Street, she took one last glance over her shoulder and saw that the girl was now gazing her way, the eyes as dark and still as stones. She walked on.

  At the same moment she was lifting her skirt to mount the back step of the Canal Line car, Valentin was getting off the front. She didn't see him, nor did he see her. She was lost in her thoughts and his eyes were fixed on the banquette. And so they passed each other.

  Two boys who decided to go fishing instead of to school saw the body in the water near one of the bridge pilings. At first they thought it was just some old clothes that had gotten caught up. Then a wave from the wake of one of the heavy freighters came through, and they found themselves looking down at a bloated black face. They dropped their bamboo poles as one and went screaming up the bank.

  Dominique had a midday meal waiting for him when Valentin came in, chicken, yams, corn, and the rest of her island bread. Though he didn't eat very much, he made a point of telling her it was very good. His mind seemed to be miles away as he finished his meal and sat sipping a glass of water.

  After she cleared the plates, she sat down again. She studied his face anxiously, watching for signs, wondering if he had already changed his mind and was trying to think of a way to put her back on the street. Or maybe his quadroon girl had gotten to him out of her sight.

  "What's wrong?" she said when she couldn't stand it anymore.

  He looked at her, blinking, like he was surprised to find her sitting there. "Nothing ... It's just ... I'm thinking."

  "About me?"

  "About you?" He gave her a vague look. "No, about this case I'm working on. The murders of Jeff and those others."

  She sat back and crossed her arms in a posture he knew all too well. He saw suspicion tinged with worry in her eyes. "What is it?"

  "She was here."

  "Who?"

  "Your woman. What's her name? Justine. I saw her."

  "She was where?"

  She tilted her head toward the front of the house. "I was on the balcony and I saw a woman come walkin' along real slow. She stopped when she got right across the street. She was watchin' me, I could tell. And I knew right away it was her."

  "Are you sure?" He described her, taking pains not to speak too highly of her features.

  "It was her, all right." She stiffened and stuck out her chin. "What's she doin' round here? I thought she took her t'ings and left out."

  "She did."

  "Then what's she want?"

  "She does know other people in the neighborhood."

  She shook her head. "No, she was spyin'. She's up to somethin'. Now what if she wants back in?"

  "That's not going to happen," he told her. "Don't worry about it."

  She sulked for another moment, then got up to do the dishes. Valentin's vacant gaze rested on her back as he thought through this news. Somehow Justine had found out that there was a girl on the premises and, just like Dominique said, had come spying. She would be thinking how little time he had wasted in bringing another woman to his bed. To her bed.

  The whole thing was a crazy mess, like one of those stage comedies where one misstep led to a next. The whole thing was preposterous. Justine had no sooner left out than Dominique had shown up and talked her way inside. So a beautiful island girl began by cleaning house and cooking his meals and was now staking out her territory, looking ready to do battle over it. It was completely ridiculous. He couldn't help himself and let out a cracked laugh.

  Dominique looked over her shoulder at him. "What's funny?"

  "This." He spread his arms to take in the whole tableau. "All of this. Me. You."

  "You t'ink I'm funny?"

  "I think this is all so odd." He laughed again.

  When she realized that he meant well, her frown changed into a smile that began as grateful, lingered, and then turned smoky.

  He said, "What?"

  She pulled her hands from under the water tap, turned around, and drew her palms down the front of her dress, leaving wet prints. The water soaked through the thin cotton and he saw that she was wearing nothing underneath.

  She came away from the sideboard and pressed herself against him.

  "I been feelin' so bad, suh," she whispered.

  "It's all right," he said.

  "Please, I been feelin' so bad. I don't know what's gonna happen to me..."

  He could feel her heart thumping close to his ear, and when he reached down to lift the hem of her skirt, she shivered and let out a soft sigh.

  An hour later she was sprawled across the mattress, her arms and legs splayed like they had no bones. Her eyes were soft, half-lidded.

  He got up and lurched through the front room, where he saw the trail of clothing they'd left behind. He went into the kitchen, took down the bottle of brandy from the cupboard, poured two glasses, and carried them into the bedroom.

  She took a sip and fixed him with her black sleepy eyes. "I was wonderin' about you," she said. "I thought maybe you didn't like me this way."

  "I didn't know if you..."

  She smiled drowsily. "No, it's all right, suh."

  "Can't you call me Valentin?"

  "Yes, suh. I mean yes, Valentin." She settled back, holding her glass in the hollow of her stomach. "Valentin," she said it again. "So you one of them French Creoles."

  "That and some other things, too."

  "What other things?" she said, and lay back with her arm crooked behind her head, watching him with interest.

  He knew he would have to tell her at least a little bit of his history. He had just spent an hour frolicking with her, after all, and she wasn't some back-of-town dove who had spread her thighs just for a Liberty dollar.

  He remembered that when he had told Justine the story, he had drawn out all the details and then felt poorly for days afterward. It was too much, a purging that he didn't care to repeat. So he related it to Dominique in an abbreviated form.

  He had been born in New Orleans, near First and Liberty streets, to a Creole mother and a Sicilian father. He had lost a younger brother and sister to Bronze John, the yellow fever. There were few families in that time and place that hadn't buried at least one child.

  Then came the troubles of the early 1890s, when white hatred for Italians was at a fever pitch, with certain American factions fomenting violence out of jealousy over the Sicilians' control of the produce business on the docks. There had been rioting in the streets that ended horribly in the framing and the mass lynching of eleven innocent Sicilians inside Parish Prison. As the violence raged on, his father had avenged an insult and was abducted and murdered as well, hung from an oak tree on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

  His mother had sent him away and then descended slowly into madness—or so he had been told. When he came back to New Orleans, she was gone and no one could say where. He searched for her, throughout the city and then far beyond,
but she hadn't left a trail. He joined the police force in hopes of tracking her and finding clues to his father's killers. He had failed on both counts. His career as a police officer was mercifully short and he found himself in the employ of Tom Anderson, the King of Storyville, where he had remained for the past eight years.

  He did not tell her about any of his cases. He did not talk about the Black Rose murders or King Bolden. It would have been too much.

  She listened without moving or making a sound. Her eyes were so dark it was hard to read anything there. The only reaction he could discern was the slightest little breath of pity, a near-silent sigh. "That's so sad," she said after he had finished. "About your family, I mean."

  "Lots of people have sad stories," he said.

  She nodded. It was now true for her, too. She was quiet for another little while. Then she said, "And what about her?"

  "Who?"

  "Justine." All the vitriol was gone, and the question came out in a vague way, as if she was satisfying some small curiosity.

  He shrugged. "She's taken up with a rich Frenchman."

  "And you don't care?"

  "He's a man of means. She's lucky. She's in no danger." He realized that was more than he could say for the time she'd spent under his roof.

  "I wonder what she wanted here," Dominique murmured, her eyes drooping.

  "Who knows?" he said, and smiled at her. "You look like you're ready to go to sleep."

  She smiled back at him, a sweet bowing of her full lips. "Maybe just for a little while." She closed her eyes and pulled the sheet around her. "You won't have to stay on the couch tonight," she whispered. A half minute later, she had dropped off. He watched her for a few moments, then got up to dress for work.