by David Fulmer
The two madams sat stiffly on the edge of a horsehair couch that was threatening to burst along its seams. Shafts of pale, dusty sunlight drifted through the tall, narrow street-side windows over Valentin's shoulder and across the thick rug. He sipped his coffee, feeling awake for the first time this day.
Cassie Maples paused in her fretting over the dreadful business upstairs to study the visitor. So this was the dangerous fellow Miss Antonia had whispered about. She looked him frankly up and down. She noticed the frayed cuffs of the suit jacket, a shirt collar gone yellow with wear, a haircut of no recent vintage. He was on the short side and put together like a banty prizefighter. She caught the distant set of his eyes and the way he settled in his chair, lazy and tense at the same time. A pint of Cherokee blood there, she guessed. Indeed, the man displayed a Creole that was odd even for New Orleans: light-olive Dago skin and curly African hair hanging down to his collar in back. A jagged nose like an Arab and eyes the gray-green color of the Mississippi. Though mustaches and beards were the fashion of the day, this one went cleanshaven. He was one of those types who missed being handsome, but would catch a woman's eye anyway, something about the way he—
"What has Miss Antonia told you about me?" The visitor interrupted her thoughts. His voice was slow and even, with a rough, almost hoarse edge to it. His gaze had settled on her.
"Only that you were a copper," the darker woman said, her hands now assuming a nervous flutter. "Before, I mean. But that now you are a Pinkerton man and you help out over in the District."
Valentin nodded. "That's right, except I'm no Pinkerton. I work on my own. I provide protection and fix disputes. Handle confidential matters, investigations and whatnot." He tilted his head toward Miss Antonia. "And I help my friends. When I can," he added, letting her know he hadn't crawled out of bed to spend his Sunday with her dead Ethiopian girl.
He sipped his coffee with its bitter hint of chicory. Miss Maples was staring at him anxiously and Miss Antonia narrowly, so he softened his tone. "I understand you want to keep this quiet," he said. The black-skinned madam let out a grateful sigh, but her frown returned when he said, "That's not possible. You'll have to call in the coppers. But we do have a little time. You can tell me about the young lady upstairs."
Miss Maples clasped her hands in her lap. "Her name," she began, "is Annie Robie."
As the madam recounted it—and as she had herself heard it late one night from the dead girl's own mouth—Annie Robie was descended from slave stock, her grandparents recognized as property of the family of the same name of the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, which was where she grew up, pretty and long-legged, with her mother's black-on-black skin and her father's high, West African cheekbones and slanted eyes.
She had been swept up one dizzy Delta night by a handsome Negro with pomaded hair, a gambler and moonshiner wandering far from his Georgia home and carrying a two-dollar Sears 6c Roebuck guitar, like many of the young men did nowadays. She was delivered two weeks later on Cassie Maples' doorstep with nothing but the rough cotton dress on her back. The guitar player had gotten all he wanted and had run off and left her as soon as they reached New Orleans. She was wandering along the riverbank when a local sporting woman found her, took pity, and carried her to Cassie Maples' South Franklin address directly.
Because, like all the bordellos in New Orleans, Miss Maples catered with an eye to color. It was a matter of specialty, and Cassie Maples' back-of-town door was open to the deep browns and "Ethiopians," as some called the true black-skinned girls like Annie Robie.
She was nineteen, the madam explained, and except for when she went off for a few days with some fancy man, she had been a regular for two years, first as a maid to the working girls, later as a full-fledged member of the house, paying her fifty cents a night for the use of the room.
She was well liked and she did not cause trouble. She did not drink whiskey in excess, was never a hophead, and did not get into brawls with other girls and cause the police to be called.
"What about her male guests?" Valentin inquired.
"Only the better class of Negro gentlemen," Miss Maples replied with quiet pride.
"Creoles of Color?" The madam nodded. "White men?" She hesitated, glanced at Miss Antonia. "Now and again, yes," she said in a low voice.
Nothing odd had been heard or seen last evening. Miss Maples had gone off to bed, and the maid, making late rounds, had found Annie lying in that posture, complete with black rose. The maid had run to rouse the madam.
"If it wa'nt for that rose, I would have thought she was just sleeping," Miss Maples told him, her voice trembling.
Valentin drank off his coffee and stood up to stretch his back. The madam dabbed her eyes with one hand and gestured tragically with the other. The maid scurried from the shadows to replace his cup, bringing a gamy cloud of sweat. She shook some more, rattling the china, then ran back to her corner and faded into the furnishings. Valentin glanced at his pocket watch, replaced it and said, "Did Annie have any special friends?"
Miss Maples pondered. "Well, there was that fellow that brought her down here in the beginning. I believe his name was McTier or McTell, something like that." She saw the strange look the detective gave her at the mention of the name. "But I haven't seen him around in a year or more," she finished.
Valentin was staring down at the worn carpet, seeing a handsome Negro with pomaded hair stretched out on a saw-dust floor, blood bubbling from the hole in his chest. "That would be Eddie McTier," he said. "And he had no part in this. He was shot dead in a card game over in Algiers some months ago." The news was delivered in such an odd, muted way that the two women exchanged a glance that produced a question mark.
"What now, Mr. Valentin?" Antonia Gonzales said.
It took him a moment to raise his head and meet her gaze. "Now you can call the coppers," he said. "But don't worry, they won't cause you any trouble. They'll have a look around and write a report and ask after her next of kin. Then the girl will become an entry on a page which will go into a file and be forgotten." The women stared, astonished twins, at the muttered oration. "When they get here, send them up to the room," he said. "I'll be waiting." He turned for the stairs.
A half-hour later, a horse-drawn New Orleans Police wagon turned the corner at Gravier and pulled up to the banquette. Lieutenant J. Picot stepped with a grunt of irritation from the seat of the wagon and raised heavy-lidded eyes to the balcony. St. Cyr, the private detective, leaned there, one languid hand on the railing. Picot muttered something under his breath and motioned the two blue-uniformed patrolmen to follow him inside.
The copper quite filled the doorway of the room. He glanced over at Annie Robie's body and then his eyes, dusty marbles, turned on St. Cyr. "You are going to have to go easier on these girls," he said, smirking. He stepped across the room, stood over the divan, and shook his head. "No, she's a bit dark for your blood, ain't she?" Valentin didn't bother to answer.
The policeman raised both of the girl's eyelids, felt for lumps about the head and looked for finger marks around her throat, all the while yawning with disinterest. Finally, he picked up the rose, frowned, and glanced at the Creole detective. "What's this about?" Valentin gave a shrug. Picot peered at the tiny thorn pricks on Annie's breast, then tossed the flower aside.
He spoke over his shoulder to the patrolmen, who stood on either side of the door with their tall, round-topped helmets in the crooks of their arms. "Carry her downtown," he said. "Maybe we'll have them take another look at the morgue, and maybe not." He yawned again. "Nigger sluts is one thing this city has in surplus." The two patrolmen walked out of the room.
"And what do you have to do with this?" Picot asked St. Cyr.
"Nothing," Valentin said. "A favor for a friend."
"Well, just so you know, there won't be no investigating here," the policeman said. "Not by me, not by you, not by nobody." He waited, but Valentin wouldn't rise to the bait. "We got more important things to do. And more important peo
ple to serve." He drew himself up and took a last look at Annie Robie. "Kinda pretty," he said. "But, by Jesus, she's black, ain't she?"
The rose was kicked aside when the policemen stepped up to wrap the body in a sheet of muslin. After they carried it away, Valentin picked up the flower and laid it on the divan. He went downstairs.
Picot had spoken briefly and with a barely veiled disgust to Cassie Maples and now closed his leather-bound notebook with a sharp snap. He threw a last cold glance at the Creole detective, who had just reached the bottom of the stairs and left to see the body downtown.
Valentin stood at the parlor window, watching the police wagon roll off, sipping the fresh cup of chicory coffee that the homely maid had pushed into his left hand even as he held a lukewarm one in his right.
Miss Antonia and Cassie Maples were whispering near the front door. He didn't have to hear to know what it was about. There had been a death in the house and a remedy was required immediately. The madams were discussing which hoodoo woman should be called in to rid the premises of whatever foul spirits were lingering.
Valentin set his coffee cup aside. The maid hurried from a corner to snatch it up and replace it. When he shook his head, the girl dropped her eyes and turned away, but he caught her by a dry, rough hand. Country. Country, and in grave need of a bath. "What's your name?" he asked, so startling her that she said it twice.
"Sally. Sally." Her eyes blinked crazily.
Valentin let go of the trembling hand. "You got any idea what happened to Annie?" he asked her. Sally shook her nappy head. "You remember the last man to see her?" he said, holding his breath.
The girl managed to find her voice. "She was up and about after that last one left," she squeaked. "She walk him to the door and then come back in. She was downstairs for maybe a half-hour after. Then I didn't see her no more."
"That so?"
"Yessir."
Valentin lowered his voice. "You know the man? That last one?" The girl's eyes grew wide. "You can tell me," he said and bowed his head like a priest at confession. Still, it took a few moments for Sally to decide to go ahead and whisper the name. Valentin raised his head and looked at her sharply. "You're sure?"
"Oh, yessir, I'm sure." He could barely hear her. "Miss Maples and the girls get all excited when he come in. Yessir, it was King Bolden, all right."
Valentin walked out of the park and onto the quiet, sultry Sunday streets.
King Bolden.
Kid Bolden.
Buddy Bolden.
Charles Bolden, Jr.
The names were like stepping stones that wound back to morning-bright avenues that fanned out from the intersection of First and Liberty. That was when they were kids, students at St. Frances de Sales School for Colored on Second Street. They had been best friends all through their childhood and until they were young men, until things changed for both of them.
Even then, in those long ago days, amid the grinding, grating, clanging, banging noise of the city, Buddy heard things. He would stop in the midst of their frantic play and pose suddenly, his ear cocked to the wind. "You hear that?" he'd say. "You hear?"
To Valentin it was just a wash of city noise bursting around his head, but Buddy caught something there. Even when it was quiet, when the darkness had fallen and the streets had gone still and their mothers had not yet stepped out on their galleries to call sweetly for them to come home, he would hold a finger to the night and whisper, "You hear, Tino? You hear?" Valentin tried, but only Buddy heard.
Later on, he became a family man who attended church socials and a cornetist of no particular distinction. He gave lessons to young boys who would rather have been playing baseball. His horn announced, in stately tones, births and confirmations and weddings and funerals, all the momentous occasions of life in the Uptown neighborhoods.
But then he got hired for a job with a band that worked a Rampart Street saloon, a dank, sweaty, bucket-of-blood patronized by no-good rounders, cheap whores and assorted minor criminals who didn't give a good goddamn what he played, as long as it was loud. Which suited him just fine; he was sick to death of polite music and polite audiences. And so he began spending long nights in that smoky back-of-town beer hall, turning New Orleans music upside-down.
He left the standard styles in the dust and stumbled onto his own sound, a crazy quilt that was sort of like ragtime, sort of like the gutbucket music that some now called "blues," with touches of the old quadrille and schottische dances, and fat chunks of loud and happy church music thrown in for good measure. All of it blasted out at maximum volume in a frenzy of motion, like a one-man drunken parade.
Within a year, he was filling the Rampart Street saloons every night and people all over the city were talking. A local newspaperman, after venturing a trip back-of-town to witness the spectacle, reported that what Bolden played was musical "chatter," using the French jaser to dramatize his disdain. It stuck; and soon everybody back-of-town knew what it meant when a band went to jassing a tune.
But nobody jassed like Buddy, especially late at night, when he'd find himself a gutbucket moan, blowing his horn so deep blue it was almost black, and so hot it was like the pit of a burning coal; that, or he'd be in one of his famous rants, rushing up and down the stage like he was about to run right out of his mind, tearing jagged holes in the night, loud enough and rough enough, some swore, to rattle the bones of the most recently deceased in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.
Though a nickname was an honor reserved for veterans, people started calling him "Kid" Bolden. Then he did what no other New Orleans musician, veteran or otherwise, would dream of doing: he put his own name on his band. No Pickwick or Eagle or Excelsior for him; that wouldn't do at all. It was the "Kid Bolden Band." Then it was "King Bolden," and for the better part of two years, he truly was the king of New Orleans music. And then it began to fall apart.
No one could say for sure whether it was the Raleigh Rye that flowed through the streets like an amber river, or the hop or cocaine they sold at the apothecary, or the sweet, beckoning lips and heavy breasts and wide-spread legs of those low-down whores, or some evil hoodoo woman, or even Satan himself that got to him. But whatever it was, his crazy business went into the street, and people were whispering to Valentin, back after a long time away, telling him how his mulatto boy Buddy Bolden was breaking into frantic pieces in front of uptown New Orleans and that maybe he just ought to look into it.
Valentin did, and discovered that Buddy had just stopped minding his manners altogether and was pushing his insides to the outside, right through the silver bell of his cornet. He did whatever he wanted, drank too much, fucked any woman he could get his hands on and hit the pipe when the yen came upon him. Meanwhile, he remained loving to his wife and daughter and kind to his friends.
But soon the cracks turned into gaping holes and Valentin heard regular reports of his fits and tantrums and blue funks. There were brawls in the music halls, spats with the fellows in his band, shouting fights that erupted from the windows of his house and echoed up and down First Street. The whispered word was that King Bolden was flat losing his mind.
Valentin saw it happening, but there was nothing he could do. Buddy, always headstrong, was a fast train careening down the track, all engine and no engineer, and God help anyone who got in the way. Anyway, Valentin had been gone too long, and things just weren't the same anymore.
The evening found him on the narrow balcony outside the rooms he let over Gaspare's Tobacco Store at the bottom of Magazine Street, a few blocks from the river. He sipped lemonade laced with rye whiskey as the darkness fell, bringing a cooling breeze. The Mississippi flowed by in the twilight, but he was conjuring the image of Annie Robie laid out on that divan. It was one of those things he should have gotten used to in his line of work, but never had. Maybe someone would write one of those mournful songs about her, he mused, a "blues" like all the guitar players were making up. Eddie McTier might have done it, but his singing days were over; Valentin had seen to tha
t; and what an odd happenstance that he should be called to the scene of Annie's death just months after sending her man McTier down that last lonely road.
Now she was gone, and she'd soon be forgotten. Once the hoodoo woman cleared the haunted air, Cassie Maples would have no trouble finding someone to take the room. Come next Saturday night, the rounders would fill the lamp-lit parlor, drinking Raleigh Rye, listening to the Victrola, playing cards or dice, and waiting for a turn at whatever new dark-skinned girl lay across the divan with the faded silk shawl.
He looked south down Magazine, and as he watched the moonbeams flicker off the surface of the river, something familiar began to take shape, rising like an unformed ghost into the New Orleans night. For a moment, his gaze was fixed on nothing. Then he took a step back and shook his head and the shape fluttered away as if chased by a gust of wind off the water.
He poured what was left in his glass over the railing and heard it splash into the gutter below. He went inside, through his front room to the bedroom in the back. He unbuckled the stiletto in its sheath from his ankle, took his whalebone sap from his back pocket, and put both atop the dresser, then drew his pistol from the pocket of his jacket and slipped it under his pillow. He stripped down to his undershirt and drawers and crawled beneath a cotton sheet worn soft and thin. The window overlooking the tiny back lot and the alleyway was open, and mosquitoes buzzed around the electric lamp overhead, but he left the baire folded up over the headboard. He reached under the mattress for a volume of O. Henry that he kept hidden there. He had read only a few lines before his thoughts turned back to Annie.
He wondered if she had made plans for her Sunday, to go to church, to walk along the river, to sit with her face to a hazy Louisiana sun. He wondered if, in her last minutes, she had lost herself in wistful homesick thoughts of her kin back on the Delta. Did she recall Eddie McTier, her first sly corrupter? Or did she think about Buddy Bolden, her last man, with his black eyes full of a wild, white light?