Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  "No, not yet," Valentin said. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Chief O'Connor's stare.

  "What do I pay you for?" the King of Storyville barked.

  "I thought it—"

  "You thought!" The slap of Anderson's flat palm on the marble-topped bar echoed through the room. "Let me tell you what I think. I think your friendship with that lunatic is affecting your judgment." He glared for another moment and then said, snappishly, "Perhaps you're not the man for this job."

  "If you say so," Valentin said, keeping his tone neutral.

  In the brief silence that followed, Anderson's blue eyes fixed on the detective. "You have other matters to attend to," he said. "Lulu White is fretting. She's afraid that one of her girls is next in line. I suggest you pay her a visit."

  Valentin was puzzled. He'd heard nothing like that from the Basin Street madam. But he said, "All right."

  "And you make damned sure you don't get in the way of the police." Anderson said, too loudly, "They want to put a stop to this awful business." He turned away and walked back to join Chief O'Connor at the table.

  The two roughnecks and the Chief of Police watched as Valentin made his way to the door and stepped outside. Tom Anderson didn't look up at all.

  She was a short, rotund woman, medium-brown in color, with distinct African features, broad nose and high cheekbones. She wore fine clothes from New York and Paris and dripped with jewelry from her ears to her toes. She liked to wear wigs over her kinky black hair; she preferred varying shades of red. Her vanity was a legend around the District. Though her skin was the color of Delta mud, she denied African blood to anyone who would listen, creating instead a history of Jamaican gentry.

  The truth was she had been born and raised in a sharecropper's shack outside Selma and had simply used her considerable wiles to become the most successful madam in New Orleans. Her mansion, Mahogany Hall, was the showpiece among the sporting houses of the District, catering to the carriage trade, with the most exotic women, octoroon, quadroon and white, staffing rooms furnished with the finest decor—including mirrors over every bed—and the likes of LeMenthe and Professor Tony Jackson at the parlor piano. Her name was set in stained glass over a front door of solid oak.

  Lulu White was a born trader who now sailed on the veritable ocean of money that ran through Storyville, New Orleans.

  In a given month, over a half-million dollars passed from the hands of sporting men and suckers into the pockets of the madams and pimps and crib girls, and from there into the private coffers of landlords, lawyers, and a multitude of city officials. Profits from the sale of beer, wine and liquor amounted to another hundred thousand dollars a week. Gamblers, dope pushers, musicians, and other fringe characters took in some thirty thousand in the same period. All told, one million dollars cash floated through the twenty blocks every month. And Lulu White claimed her share.

  Other madams frittered their fortunes away in foolish investments. Some got into trouble trafficking in virgins and children. Some allowed pimps to infest their houses like money-eating rats. Some gave coppers, landlords, lawyers, and greedy officials leave to bleed them dry. Some stood by as drunken rowdies and those with depraved tastes ruined their good names. And some got fixed on morphine or rye whiskey or some no-good rounder and ended up on the streets.

  Miss Lulu White fell prey to none of these dangers. She indulged no vice. She kept a dignified first-class house and plotted her business affairs like a scarlet Rockefeller. But she was not made of stone. She had one weakness: a particular fancy man by the name of George Killshaw, a slim, sharp-faced fellow who, though at least a quadroon, looked so truly white that he could pass even when Valentin got second looks. Lulu White treated Killshaw like a pampered pet, buying him clothes from the best stores, cocaine from the apothecary, and whiskey that came directly from Ireland. She turned her head to his pursuit of every new girl in the District. She loved him madly and her normally sharp eyes went blind when he was about.

  But not so blind that she couldn't cast an appreciative gaze upon the Creole detective as he crossed the floor to greet her. He, in turn, smiled respectfully as she waved to him from the alcove just off the deserted parlor. She patted the cushion of the satin-covered love seat next to her. Valentin sat down. She shook a hand, jingling her vulgar jewelry, and a young Negro boy in white shirt and white linen trousers appeared with a coffee cup and an envelope, both of which he handed to the detective. Valentin pocketed the envelope, which was heavy with gold coins, with a small nod of thanks.

  He sipped his coffee and waited. He was pleased that Killshaw wasn't lurking about. In fact, he recalled that he hadn't seen the fancy man about in some time.

  "What a mystery is brewing out there," Miss White said in a most casual voice. Her gaze drifted to his face, then away again. "Someone is taking pleasure in killing our girls. And leaving a black rose behind."

  Valentin glanced at his host. She laughed and laid a hand on his thigh. "Did you think I'd lost my touch? I still make it my business to know everyone else's. I have a very dependable source in the police department." Her smile faded and her expression grew somber. "I knew before that first poor girl's body was cold," she said. "I know about Gran Tillman and Martha Devereaux. And now he's taken one down in Chinatown." She began twirling a strand of her auburn wig around a finger that displayed two rings. "Or maybe this is not the same fellow."

  "It's the same fellow," Valentin said.

  "Yes, I believe you're right. If you ask me, I think he saw you pursuing him, so he moved." Valentin gave her a curious look and she shrugged her regal shoulders. "Who else? Our police couldn't find their shoes in a closet. This is Anderson County and you're his man."

  Valentin sat back. "Maybe not." The madam waved an impatient hand and he said, "Did you tell him you were worried over this fellow attacking one of your girls?"

  Lulu White raised her hennaed eyebrows. "I never said that! Some murderer come here? He wouldn't dare!" She treated him to a sly, laconic smile. "Mr. Tom has his own concerns."

  Valentin allowed himself a smile in turn. "Chief O'Connor was at the Café when I went by this morning."

  "And Anderson put on a show for him."

  He thought about it a moment longer. "The coppers want me out of the way," he said.

  "Of course they do," the madam said. "If it wasn't for Mr. Tom, you'd be out of the way for good." She let out a little laugh. "My God, Valentin, you're walking proof that they're bumblers. What do you expect?" She settled her round shoulders against the velvet cushions. "Now what's this about King Bolden?" she asked.

  "It's nothing but talk," Valentin said. "He's someone to point fingers at."

  "And you're sure he isn't involved?"

  "I don't believe he is, no."

  His tone was less than firm and the madam gave him a sidelong glance as she slowly stirred the coffee in her cup. "I'd like to help you," she said. "The police could make a terrible muddle of this. It would not be good for the District. So, anything I can do..."

  "If there's information you could share. I'd appreciate that."

  "Like what?"

  "This last victim. Jennie Hix."

  Miss White sighed sadly. "Yes, poor girl."

  "I don't know her," Valentin said.

  "It might help if I tell you she had a 'J' after her name," the madam said. In the code of the District and the listings in The Blue Book, "J" meant "Jewish," as "W" meant "White," "C" meant "Colored" and "Oct" meant octoroon. It was all rather straightforward, with the exception that "French" did not refer to women from a country in Europe.

  "I'd like to see the body," Valentin said. "And the weapon, if it's been found."

  "I think that can be arranged," Miss White said. "I'll send you a message later." Her gaze wandered away once more and she was silent for a long minute. "There's another matter I want to discuss with you," she said, now plainly ill at ease. "It's George."

  "What about him?" Valentin was careful to keep his voice neutral
. In truth, he didn't like Killshaw at all. He thought him nothing but a skilled bloodsucker who had found the host of hosts in Miss Lulu White. He was one of those rounders known to have taken money from the likes of Emma Johnson for beating some sense into whores who had the audacity to try to escape the life. And then there was the night at The Big 25 when the two men had tangled. Valentin might have cut the fancy man a new profile had not the fat old bartender fired a pistol over their heads. Yes, George Killshaw was a sly, charming, handsome leech, but Lulu White adored him.

  "I have a great interest in the moving pictures," she was saying. Valentin blinked, coming back to the present and puzzling over what seemed another change of subject.

  "There's going to be plenty of money made in that business," the madam went on. "It's already begun. They fill theatres night after night in New York and Pittsburgh, places like that. They're setting up all kinds of studios to make the shows in Southern California. They say it's for the weather, that the sun shines every day. It's actually to avoid lawsuits by the Edison people, who are in the state of New Jersey and own the patents." She smiled slightly in admiration of such cunning. "I wanted to get into the business while it's still young. I believe it has a potential."

  Valentin caught the look on the madam's face and could not help but surmise that she already saw herself bathed in flickering light, a bejeweled Grand Dame for all the world to worship. Valentin had heard about the moving pictures, had read accounts of audiences bolting from their seats as a speeding train bore down on them from a sheet of canvas. It all sounded like a cheap novelty to him, or something they'd put on at Carnival.

  The madam sipped her coffee, cleared her throat. "I acted on my impressions," she went on. "I sent George to Los Angeles where these moving-picture people are settling to make inquiries and maybe an investment."

  Valentin sensed what was coming. "How large of an investment?" he asked.

  "One hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  Valentin didn't blink. He knew the answer but asked the next question anyway. "Was that in cash?"

  "In cash, yes." He knew the rest of the story, too, but let her tell it to him. "I have not had any word from him and I'm concerned. So I'm wondering if perhaps you would be interested in traveling out there and seeing what you can find out."

  For a moment, Valentin entertained the thought that this was a ploy to get him out of New Orleans and away from the murders for a good long time. But one look at Lulu White's carefully composed visage told him the madam was sincere. Her concern was a face-saving gesture. She knew, as he did, the likely fate of her fancy man and her money; and whatever lingering doubts he had went away when she said, "But it can wait until this other unfortunate business is resolved. Perhaps by that time, there'll be no reason for you to go west."

  "I hope that's the case," Valentin said, meaning it.

  The madam took his arm and walked him through the parlor. "All this about King Bolden," she said, dropping her voice to a dramatic whisper. "Voodoo, Valentin. The air is full of spirits. And a fellow like that is ripe for the picking."

  Once again, he was astonished. The same woman who had the steely nerve to handle hundreds of thousands of dollars without blinking an eye also embraced the voodoo. But, then, if she had fallen prey to a confidence man like George Killshaw, her judgment wasn't near that perfect.

  "It would be worth your while to pay a visit to someone." She glowered. "And I don't mean Emma Johnson. Someone with good intentions. Someone who can help you." It was a heavy hint, delivered just as they reached the foyer. He felt like a marionette whose strings had been rightly jerked.

  "Anderson can't let this go on," she said curtly. "He's depending on you to fix it. But you'll need some help." Before he could reply, Lulu White said, "Please give my regards to your young lady," and closed the door behind him.

  Walking home, he mused on the latest series of twists and turns, beginning with his visit to the scene of Jennie Hix's murder. Then came the summons by Tom Anderson and the scolding—delivered mostly for the benefit of the Chief of Police—in which he was dispatched to Lulu White, who offered her hand, but only if he would do her bidding and consult a voodoo woman.

  He guessed that Jennie Hix had known Bolden. It seemed to be the prime qualification for becoming a murder victim. But Valentin didn't buy into the notion that Bolden himself was the killer; it was more like he was leading the lambs to the slaughter. Someone was trying hard to make Bolden look guilty.

  He switched his thoughts to Tom Anderson's little tirade. A little too much of a performance for that grand operator, even with the Chief of Police in the room. The King of Storyville was trying to communicate something.

  On to Lulu White. Now, no matter how formidable a figure that madam cut around the District, no matter how much money she handed out, from the coppers on the street to the commissioners downtown, she was a colored woman and did not have the leverage to get him, of all people, into City Morgue to view the corpse in a murder case. That would require the hand of someone high up the ladder. Someone like Anderson. But why was the King of Storyville now hiding behind a madam?

  Valentin mulled it over for a few moments more and then shifted his thoughts to the George Killshaw business. Though it was urgent enough to sway Miss Lulu's attention from the brutal slayings of the four scarlet ladies, it begged no thought at all. George was one fancy man Lulu White would never see again, and her one hundred fifty thousand dollars was gone right along with him. Somewhere beneath the California sun, he would be beginning a new life as a very wealthy white man.

  Valentin arrived at the mention of voodoo. There was no way around it. The madam was firm: he would have to go seek out some likely party and waste his time with talk of curses, gris-gris, haints and powers beyond all knowing. He muttered a quiet curse, his own brand of hoodoo, as he turned the corner onto Canal Street.

  He tracked down Beansoup and sent him on an errand. Then he went home to get some sleep. Later in the afternoon, the ragged kid stood breathless at his door, telling how he had traveled all the way to the home of Willie Cornish at the Negro end of Ursulines Street. And then how the trombone player had growled out the answer to the question. Valentin wasn't at all surprised to learn that, once again, Bolden had not shown up to play with the band, this time at Masonic Hall. No one had seen him at all on the night of Jennie Hix's death.

  Valentin ate rice and beans in a workmen's Café on Common Street, a block east of Fulton, where Chinatown began. After he paid his ten cents, he went out onto the darkening street. From where he stood, he could see the river, see the lights of the tugboats on their slow swim to the docks and hear their mournful horns.

  Jennie Hix, the Jewish prostitute, would have walked this same banquette, coming south from Storyville. He wandered past laundries, restaurants and tiny grocery stores until he found the narrow alleyway where the girl's body had been found. He looked around. Diagonally across the street was a shop that was almost invisible unless someone was looking for it. He stepped closer to examine the tiny cove, with its narrow door and its one tall window with herbs and powders on display behind yellowed glass. Hanging from the door was a banner of rice paper decorated with a painting in red and black of two dragons entwined, their heads facing inward, eyes bloody, mouths wide open, tongues flailing, fangs like curved needles.

  A tiny bell tinkled when Valentin pushed inside. He felt the eyes on him before he saw the old Chinaman. The man stood stiffly behind the counter, his wrinkled chestnut of a face and wisps of gray hair framed in a small jungle of hanging herbs and shelves lined with ceramic jars and glass bottles. The parchment hands had stopped in the act of grinding something in a pestle made of alabaster. He muttered something under his breath.

  "My grandfather wants to know are you lost," a child's voice said.

  Valentin peered into the shadows to the right of the counter and detected a thin Chinese boy with a round, calm face. He was standing in a doorway that led to a back room, wearing a wh
ite shirt buttoned at the collar and loose black trousers. His feet were bare.

  "My grandfather asks are you lost?" the boy repeated.

  The detective's gaze moved to the grandfather, who was keeping his eyes averted. He bowed his head politely. "No, not lost. I'm here to ask a question." The boy translated in a voice just above a whisper. The old man said nothing and Valentin went on. "A girl came here last night. For opium."

  A few words into the translation, the grandfather began to shake his head. "My grandfather says no opium here. Opium no good."

  "A girl with dark hair. Dark eyes," Valentin said.

  The old man chattered rapidly. "No," the grandson said. "No girl like that here."

  "She was the one who was killed in the alleyway," Valentin said.

  The grandfather's black opal eyes were fixed on the contents of the pestle. He whispered to the young boy. "He asks are you from the police?" Valentin shook his head. The old Chinaman said something that had a ring of finality about it. "No opium," the boy translated. "No Jew girl. No nigger man. Nothing."

  The grandfather returned to his grinding. Valentin nodded a thank you and turned for the door.

  He stepped onto the street and turned north once more. He now knew that the last moments of Jennie Hix's life had been spent in the same shop where King Bolden bought his own hop.

  The message came from Lulu White and at ten o'clock he walked down the alley that ran behind City Hall.

  A cigarette glowed in the darkness. "Who's there?" a voice called out.

  "The one you're expecting," Valentin said.

  The cigarette was flicked away in a shower of tiny embers as a figure detached from the shadows. A moment later a door opened and white light poured into the alleyway. A mulatto wearing wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in a white apron covered with multi-colored stains was holding the door open. "You're goin' to make this fast, aintcha?" Valentin nodded. "C'mon this way, then," the attendant said and led him inside.