Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  He heard the arrhythmic shuffling of feet behind him and the little man moved to lean against the table and then wheeled around like a broken toy.

  He had stopped staring at Ernest Bellocq years ago, and he now took in the globe of a head and the back curling under its weight, the spindled arms and legs, the huge, milky white eyes, the bowl of yellow hair that hung in a fringe over the forehead, the turtle mouth twisted-up in a more or less constant sulking grimace, without a second glance.

  He fixed instead on the walls around him. Dozens of Bellocq's photographs, most of Storyville prostitutes, hung framed in open spaces and lay flat on every available surface. The Frenchman had created a haphazard museum of his images.

  Valentin moved slowly along the perimeter of the room. Bellocq listed to one side as he settled on his metal cane, his wide, pale eyes blinking as he watched the detective review the collection. Valentin recognized some of the women in the photographs, but he often had to look twice because they appeared such different creatures when viewed through Bellocq's lens. He was at a loss to understand how the choleric little man could make his camera peer backward through the eyes of his subjects and look down into their empty souls. Even to a cynical type like Valentin, it was magic, a special kind of voodoo.

  He happened upon a new print and stared at it for a long time. The girl—she looked vaguely familiar—was stretched on a divan for a camera that framed her from overhead. Her legs were scissored and her arms flowed away from her body like a ballerina's. She was naked, of course, the thighs and bosom plump, long hair in a single braid, the face young but the eyes blank, age-worn. She reminded Valentin of nothing so much as a bird plummeting from the sky, just as the arc of her flight was broken.

  Bellocq watched Valentin closely. "So?"

  "I do like this one," Valentin said and the French made a small sigh.

  He pulled his eyes from the print. "You heard about this girl Martha Devereaux?" Bellocq muttered something, nodded. "You know her?"

  The photographer glanced at him sideways. "No. I didn't know her at all. Poor miss."

  "Terrible business, eh?"

  The photographer allowed that it was as he turned away and began arranging a stack of photographs on his table. Valentin resumed his inspection of the prints on the wall. "I wanted to talk to you about the night you went to see Gran Tillman," he said over his shoulder.

  The little man stopped his busy hands. "Talk about what?" His voice took on an edge. "You was up there. You saw what I saw, no?"

  "You recall anything odd?"

  Bellocq let out a sound that might have been a laugh. "The District," he muttered in his weird voice. "Everything is odd."

  Valentin walked over to stand by the table. "Anyone about that you remember in particular?"

  The response was a finger raised to one china blue eye. "Me, I remember every face. Always."

  "And?"

  The huge head shook once. "It was early. What, seven o'clock? Couple sports in the parlor, the usual ones, complet."

  Valentin nodded as if it was what he expected, then turned around, crossed his arms and gazed blankly at the collage on the wall before him.

  Bellocq stared at his visitor's back. "Am I suspected?" he asked and when Valentin didn't answer directly, said, "I didn't hurt no woman, Valentin."

  Valentin half-turned toward the little Frenchman. "I never thought you did," he said.

  Bellocq's wide eyes opened wider. "Then what you want? You come here to look at pictures of the naked girls?"

  "I should have talked to you sooner."

  "Why?" Bellocq said. "I couldn't tell you nothin' more." He once again busied himself with his papers.

  "Why her?" Valentin asked.

  Without looking up, Bellocq said, "Eh?"

  "How did you come to ask Gran to pose for you?"

  "I didn't, no," the photographer said. "She asked me. She want to pay." He shrugged. "You know, I don't care to do that kind of work. But the money..."

  "How much money?"

  "Twenty-five dollars."

  Valentin looked at Papa Bellocq, who nodded slowly and said, "I tell her that, I thought she would say no. But she don't mind. She said, 'Bon. Good.'"

  "What was it you were about to tell Picot that night?"

  Bellocq gave him a sly smile and waited. Valentin narrowed his eyes and conjured the room, corner to corner. "That dress," he said suddenly. "The purple one that was hanging on the wall."

  "Ah..." Bellocq wagged a stubby finger. "That cost some money, too."

  "She was going to wear it for the photograph?"

  "I think so, yes. She want a proper portrait." The turtle mouth fell back into a frown. "Too bad. She didn't get it, did she, eh?"

  Valentin dropped his gaze and began thumbing absently through another untidy pile of photographs, musing absently on the transaction between photographer and sporting girl, when he came upon a curious item. He picked it up and studied it, his brow furrowing. A heavy-breasted whore was posed at the foot of a four-poster bed in only stockings and garters. It was a classic Bellocq composition, but the whole of the woman's face had been scratched away by some frantic hand.

  Valentin held up the print. "What happened here?"

  The photographer glanced up, then produced what passed for a crooked smile. "My brother," he said. "Broke up the plate, too."

  "Why?"

  "He was angry." He waved a lofty hand in the air. "He's a priest, you know, and he took offense."

  Valentin was astonished. "You have a brother who's a priest?"

  "You didn't know that?" The Frenchman chortled darkly. "Yes, Father Bellocq. Oh, he's a good man, my brother. Good shepherd to his flock. He honors his vows, non?" His smile grew a little. "But he don't like what I do at all. He think what I make with these women, it's against God." Color rose to the round, protruding face and he held a hand to the heavens. "What I do is against God, eh?"

  Valentin stared at the mutilated photograph until Bellocq reached out with crabbed fingers and took it away. "I tell him, what would we do if there wasn't all this kind of mal... this evil out here? We both wouldn't have no work." He gave up a gnome's laugh, all small teeth with wide spaces. "He didn't like that at all. So I think he won't be visitin' me again, not no time soon."

  Valentin picked up another photograph, a simple study of a girl in a long white dress standing in a doorway. Bellocq had captured the moment when a fleeting look of hope met a dark fate, because it so happened the setting was the social disease ward at the "Ice House," the isolation hospital. Which signified that the subject might well be crossing the threshold into death's anteroom at that instant.

  He heard the creator of this wonder say, "I got work to do."

  He handed the print back and was heading for the door when he thought of something and stopped. "Your brother..."

  Bellocq pursed his lips. "Yes?"

  "He's a priest in New Orleans?"

  "Metairie."

  "Would he know Father Dupre?"

  The photographer frowned. "From St. Ignatius? Bien sur. Who don't?"

  "Has he ever talked about him?"

  Bellocq, puzzled, said, "No. Why you want to know that?"

  "I was curious," Valentin said. "It's nothing."

  The photographer studied his visitor. "I hope that's right." He picked up the slashed-up photograph, dangled it in the air. "Them church people got no humor for some things."

  Valentin opened the heavy door and early evening light slanted into the dusty room. He murmured a good-bye and from the shadows heard Bellocq say, "Whatever it is you lookin' for, I believe you in the wrong place, Mr. Valentin."

  "Where, then?"

  "I don't know. But not here." He held up the print in his hand. "This here's all I know about," he said.

  Valentin stepped outside and the door closed behind him.

  He followed the steps that Bellocq would have traveled, west on Dauphine, then north on Iberville. It must have taken the little Frenchman a good ho
ur (he couldn't ride a bicycle or horse, of course, hated hacks and streetcars), but Valentin covered the distance in ten minutes, arriving at Lizzie Taylor's house at just before six o'clock.

  All the way across town, he had the feeling there was someone dogging his steps. He glanced around and saw nothing. A half-block later, he turned to scan the street, hoping whoever it was would bolt in surprise and give himself away. But nothing happened. He wondered if it was his imagination. He took one last look around from Lizzie Taylor's gallery, then went inside.

  Already the parlor was filling up, the girls at their freshest this early on, the rooms as clean as they would get all week. Which didn't say much; in the evening light, the whole of the house had a run-down look, and no amount of scrubbing would wash the stench of stale cigar smoke, cheap whiskey, cheaper perfume, and dirty sweat from the walls. Valentin went through the front rooms, noting the air of frivolity amongst the sporting girls and their first customers. If anyone was still mourning the death of Gran Tillman, he saw no sign of it. There was business to be conducted, money to be made.

  He was ushered into the kitchen where Miss Taylor was having a cup of tea. She was an emaciated little woman who seemed always in some state of agitation, all nervous motion, her skin glowing red. Dressed in a worn gray Mother Hubbard, she looked up with a peevish frown when he entered, but after an exchange of greetings, gave him leave of the house.

  He mounted the rickety staircase, thinking what a wonder it was that Bellocq had managed that task, and weaved through the traffic down the corridor to the room. He stepped inside and looked around. The bare bed, the Café chair, the single clothes hanger on a nail were just as he had seen them last. The purple dress was gone.

  He walked from wall to wall, peering down along the baseboards for any tiny item that might give someone away, but there was nothing to catch his eye. In fact, the floor looked like it had just been swept. No doubt it was the cleanest room in the house.

  He stepped into the hallway, closed the door and went back down the steps. Miss Lizzie was putting fresh water on the stove. Valentin refused her offer of tea, as he sat down at the table.

  "What happened to the kimono Gran was wearing? Did the police take it?"

  The madam swallowed. "Yes, but then I got it back in a paper sack."

  "And?"

  "It was burnt," Lizzie Taylor said.

  He nodded. It was no surprise; hoodoo would have required it. He marveled for a moment at how badly the police (and the detective St. Cyr) were bungling, letting important evidence be destroyed. The more this day progressed, the more he wondered if Tom Anderson had the wrong man on the job after all.

  "What about the dress?" he asked. "The purple one."

  The madam look startled for an instant, then came up with a vague look. "I don't know what happened to it," she said.

  She knew, of course, and so did Valentin. Such an expensive item would have been snatched away by one of the other girls at the first opportunity. So another piece went missing.

  He asked about the activity around the house that day and got the answers he expected. It was mid-afternoon and everyone was out or still asleep when whoever had murdered Gran Tillman slipped inside. Later, there were all sorts in and out, street kids running errands, delivery boys bringing the liquor, the first of the dockworkers, teamsters and common laborers that made up the clientele of the house. Amidst the bustle, the evildoer could slip back out with bare notice.

  "No one thought it was odd when Gran didn't come out?"

  "Nossir."

  "She doesn't show her face all afternoon and no one wonders why?"

  Miss Lizzie got annoyed. "That ain't it at all," she snipped. "We didn't give it no thought because the last week or maybe two, all she did was loll about her room. She wasn't working no more."

  Valentin said, "Ma'am?"

  "She wasn't working no more. Said she was leaving. Giving up the life. Told me she wa'nt gonna be around past the middle of the month. Said I could go on get someone else to take her room."

  "Where was she going?"

  The madam shrugged her thin shoulders. "She didn't say. She was leaving, all right." Her expression turned tragic. "Poor Gran. God rest her soul."

  The madam couldn't tell him much more. She had been off the premises when the cripple Bellocq arrived to discover the body, so what little she could relate was secondhand. Her girls had been questioned up and down and could add nothing. Did Gran Tillman ever mention knowing Martha Devereaux? No one could recall. But dollar-a-trick whores working on the District's tawdry fringes were not generally acquainted with the pretty octoroons in Basin Street mansions.

  That was all. The moment was passed and no one was likely to talk anymore about Gran's death. Superstition had stilled every tongue. Valentin shook his head in dismay; he was too late.

  "How long was she with you?" he inquired, changing tack.

  "Maybe a year, maybe less," the madam said.

  "And before that?"

  "She was around," Miss Taylor said.

  "Around," Valentin said. "Around where?"

  The madam tapped nervous fingernails on the sides of the teacup. "I believe she spent a few months with French Emma," she said.

  Valentin was immediately alert. Emma Johnson was the proprietor of Storyville's best known French house, but she was better known for staging what was commonly called "the Circus," shows that involved crude displays of the wildest sexual acts. It was common for gossip in the local saloons to wind directly and with much gusto to whatever awful new debauchery had gone on at French Emma's the night before. The more cautious would hold their tongues, because the madam was also known as a dark queen of the voodoo.

  "I don't take that kinda trade," Miss Taylor said, breaking into his thoughts.

  "What was that?"

  "Women with women. Children and such. Animals." Her red face was a mask of disgust. "I tell 'em, keep it outta here. They's plenty places around for that."

  Valentin nodded, putting the information away. He stood up, shoved his chair under the table, and murmured a thank you.

  "Poor Miss Gran," the madam said. "She almost got away."

  "And she never said where she was going?"

  "No, she didn't," Miss Lizzie said, growing petulant again. "I don't know nothin' more about it!" She pushed her teacup away with an angry motion. "How many more people I got to put up with over this?" she said. "First the po-lice, then that other man, then King Bolden, now you come round, how am I supposed—"

  "What about Bolden?" Valentin interrupted.

  She jerked her head toward the back gallery. "He come round all drunk a couple nights ago. Come pounding on the door, but when I went and opened it, he just stood there. Just stood there starin', like he didn't have no idea where he was. I closed the door and when I went out again, he was gone."

  "That's all?" The madam nodded. "What about this other man?"

  "What's that?"

  "You said the police, Bolden, and another man."

  "Oh, him," she muttered. "I don't know. He didn't say his name. Said somethin' about bein' from City Hall and lookin' into these women bein' killed. Tall fellow. Wore a derby hat. Kept it on indoors."

  "Did he ask you about me, by chance?"

  The madam gave him a puzzled look. "You? No, he didn't say nothin' about you." Then, as he made ready to leave, she said, "He did ask about King Bolden, though."

  ***

  He found the front door of Jessie Brown's South Basin mansion locked and a small sign tacked to the door announcing that the residents of the establishment had moved to an address on Bienville Street. He glanced at his pocket watch. It was almost seven o'clock and the banquettes would soon be filled with all sorts of rascals and giddy young men from decent families out on frolics. He thought about going home, since it seemed the trail could not get any colder. But what would he do? Read a book as he waited for the next murder and the next summons from Tom Anderson? Or for a call to bail King Bolden out of troubl
e one more time?

  He walked along the narrow space between the houses and to the tiny backyard of the property. He raised his eyes to study the second story. Martha Devereaux's room was near the center, now closed up behind shutters. He looked over the back gallery, the tiny plot of dirt that passed for a back garden, and the alleyway that ran along its edge. He sensed something in the air and for a moment thought he felt Bolden's presence hovering somewhere, as if Buddy had been there and gone. He let out a quiet laugh. The falling shadows were getting the best of him if he imagined he could sniff a suspect like some hound.

  He went up the steps to the gallery and found the back door locked. He bent down and saw no light through the keyhole. With a quick glance down the line of galleries, he pulled his sap from his back pocket and tapped one of the panes of glass. A web of cracks spread to the frame. Another tap knocked a triangular shard onto the kitchen floor where it shattered with a tinkling sound. He jiggled another shard loose, then reached through and felt about until his fingers found the key. The bolt rattled and he opened the door and slipped inside.

  The house was still. He took a step and a small battalion of roaches scattered across the floor and into the baseboards. He crossed the kitchen and walked through the downstairs rooms. All the furniture was covered in white sheets, an eerie sight. It would stay that way until a new tenant stepped up to sign a lease. But this house, so polluted with a ravaged girl's wandering spirit, might stay empty for a long time.

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and peered upward. The second floor was as dark as if it was the dead of night and the air from above was heavy and stale. He listened for any untoward sound. He put a hand into the pocket of his jacket to touch the grip of the pistol. At the same time, he felt the chafe of the sheath that held his stiletto at his ankle.