Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  They walked along a narrow corridor with brick walls and wooden floor and electric lamps glowing overhead. Their footsteps echoed eerily in that narrow space. The attendant stopped at the first door and held it open. Valentin walked into the room.

  "So, we meet again." Dr. Rall seemed to enjoy Valentin's startled look. But the smile could have been a product of rye whiskey, obvious at once from the smell of Raleigh Rye that mixed with his words and the way he swayed on his feet.

  Valentin recovered and gave him a perfunctory nod. He took a moment to look around. The room was small, twelve by ten feet. Wooden shelves lined the walls, all filled with small bottles of chemicals and larger bottles containing body parts suspended in murky formaldehyde. The centerpiece was an enameled gurney with a body outlined under a sheet of muslin. The room reeked of acrid solutions, of the stale whiskey sweating sourly from the doctor, and what he recognized as the sweet, heavy odor of putrefying flesh. His eyes watered and he blinked to clear them.

  "You ready?" Rall said. Valentin took off his coat and put it on a hook, then undid the top button on his collarless shirt. He nodded to Rall. The doctor pulled the cloth away and Valentin looked upon the corpse of Jennie Hix.

  Her deep eye sockets, Semitic nose, and mouth painted in a cupid's bow proclaimed her one of the sporting girls who clustered in houses along the 900 block of Bienville, known as the Jew Colony. Her face was unmarked, save for creeping bruises, blue and purple and red and black. But the left side and the top of her head were all wrong, dented like a hard-boiled egg that had been bullied. Or like a doll that had been dropped and broken, a strange, unnatural sight. The curls of her thick black hair were still matted into the wounds and dried blood covered her ears and the back of her neck.

  Valentin looked at the doctor, an excuse to avert his eyes for a moment. Rall was staring at the body while his left hand dove into his coat pocket to retrieve a flask. With a hypnotic motion, he pulled the cork and took a gentle swig. His eyes, bleary as ever, looked at the detective as he held the bottle in the air. Valentin shook his head and the doctor helped himself once again. "Awful, ain't it?" He replaced the bottle in his pocket. "What sort of crazy nigger would do a thing like that?" he mumbled.

  "What sort of what?" Valentin said.

  Rall blinked slowly. "I said, who'd do a thing like that?"

  Valentin watched him for a moment, then said, "Do you have the weapon?"

  "No, but I can guess what it was." The doctor clutched at the air. "Piece of pipe. Or wood, maybe. Probably pipe. Somethin' heavy, to cause them kind of contusions."

  Valentin had surmised the same. Indeed, he wondered if it was the same piece of pipe that had put the lump on his own skull. "Three wounds?" he asked. Rall nodded. "Anything else?"

  "No. No signs of struggle. No sexual battery." The recitation was quick, probably not much longer than the examination that had produced it.

  Valentin studied the body of Jennie Hix, rubbing his forehead in concentration. "So a left-handed person would have come up from behind, swung the weapon and caught her here," he said, pointing to the left side of the prostitute's head, talking more to himself than the doctor. "Either a short person swinging upward or a taller one swinging from the hip. The wound goes upward, back to front." He straightened, but kept his eyes on the body and he moved around to get another angle.

  "She would have gone to her knees," he murmured, noting red and purple bruises on her shins. "Second blow from above, to the top of the skull. That would knock her to the ground, certainly unconscious. Maybe already dead." He moved around to the other side of the body and saw a patch of scrapes on her upper arm. "So she landed on her right side. Third blow to the temple, while she was on the ground. And if the second one didn't do it, that one would have killed her."

  Rall was staring at Valentin, even through the whiskey fog appreciative of the detective's attentions. "That's probably it, all right," he said. "Don't tell you who did it though..."

  "No."

  The doctor's gaze shifted. "Don't matter, does it?" he commented.

  The attendant let Valentin out and stepped into the alley behind him, closing the heavy door. Valentin was about to walk away when he caught the attendant staring at him. He stopped, let out a long breath, and leaned a shoulder against the brick wall of the building. The mulatto dug in the pockets of his laboratory coat and produced a package of Dukes and a box of lucifers. He offered the pack and Valentin plucked a cigarette out, muttering a thank you. The attendant held a flame in cupped hands and two plumes of gray smoke drifted into the night air. Valentin appreciated it; his nerves needed a balm and the rough tobacco partially masked the smells of the putrid fluids on the attendant's apron.

  "What is it?" he said presently.

  "What is what?" The attendant's voice was lazy.

  "What is it you want to tell me?" The response was a crooked smile. "All right, then, what is it you want to sell me?" Valentin inquired and the attendant snickered, enjoying the quip.

  "Bet you been wonderin' what she was doing in Chinatown," the man said.

  "I know what she was doing in Chinatown," Valentin replied. The man's smile went away. "She was buying hop." He blew another little cloud of smoke. "Let me guess. You found it on her. You might even have it in your pocket right now. I mean if you haven't already smoked it or sold it."

  The mulatto crossed his arms. "I got it," he admitted, sounding a little miffed.

  Valentin dug into his vest pocket and came up with a half-dollar. He held it out. "You can keep it," he said. "I just want to see the package."

  The attendant glanced at him sharply, as if he couldn't believe his good luck. Then he grabbed the coin with one hand while the other dipped into a pocket to produce a little rectangle wrapped in decorative gold paper embossed with a design of two dragons entwined, their heads facing inward. Valentin felt two horse-pill-sized pieces of opium through the paper. That settled one question. He handed the package back to the attendant. "Where did you find it?"

  The attendant leered. "It was hid down in her, uh, brassiere. You couldn't hardly see. She was big there. She was a Jew, y'know, and them women is often—"

  "I understand," Valentin said quickly. "Did anyone else see this?"

  "I was all by myself." A wink. "Just me and her."

  Valentin felt a hasty need to change the subject. "Doctor Rall," he said.

  "What about him?"

  "You tell me."

  The attendant rolled his eyes. "He ain't nothin' but a goddamn drunk. And I believe he takes a needle now and again. Good thing I got to this one before him. Hell, I bet I'm a better doctor than he is."

  "So, what is he doing here?"

  "He's one of them they call after hours when we got a body like this one. No one worth a shit would come in late like that. For a dead whore, I mean."

  Valentin sensed something more. "Is he the type to cooperate with the police?" he said.

  The attendant nodded. "Yeah, that's right. Whatever the coppers want, Rall gives 'em. You know, 'wasn't no murder, it was a suicide.'" He mimed a scribbling motion. "He writes it down."

  Valentin thought it over for a moment. "Three weeks ago," he said. "It was a Sunday morning. Early. They brought in a black-skinned girl."

  The man shook his head. "Not in here, they didn't. The nigger corpses go round the other side."

  "And who examines them?" Valentin asked.

  "Whoever they call."

  "Then it could have been Rall?"

  The attendant nodded. "Yessir, it coulda been. But I can't tell you for sure. I don't work no mornings."

  Valentin nodded. "Well, then, a week after that. A Saturday night. A white woman. You remember that one?"

  "I think I do," the mulatto said. "Kinda fat, was she?"

  "That's right. Rall get called on that one?"

  The attendant thought about it, and then came up with a half-smile. "Yessir, I believe he did. The other one, too. The one got all cut up in that house on Basin Street
. Rall did hers, too."

  Valentin tossed the butt of his cigarette away. "Thank you for your help," he said.

  "No, thank you, sir," the attendant said, clicking his tongue with familiarity.

  Valentin walked out of the alley and onto the street. His progress was marked by J. Picot, who stood in a third floor window and watched until the detective reached Corondolet and crossed over. There another pair of eyes followed him, the eyes of a tall man who leaned in a darkened doorway. St. Cyr's footsteps faded away and the man stepped out and walked down the alley where the morgue attendant in the filthy apron was standing, his cigarette glowing in the darkness.

  Valentin was walking along, staring vacantly at the banquette, his coat slung over his shoulder, his shirt collar open, one thumb hooked in his trouser pocket. He turned right at the next street corner, lost in his thoughts, not really looking where he was going.

  He heard a woman's voice yelling, "You get it the fuck outta here!" and then a harsh laugh. He glanced up to find himself on Robertson Street, but he walked on anyway. Cribs crowded the banquette and as he passed, he heard voices muttering orders, grunts like happy pigs, curses and laughter. Shadowy forms beckoned to him from shadowy doorways. "C'mere, daddy." The woman sounded weary. "You'll like what I got." A second, all but lifeless, called out, "Twenty-fi' cents. Do what you want. Twenty-fi' cents." He passed a silhouette through an open doorway, a man standing and a woman on her knees before him.

  He was almost to Canal Street when a last voice spoke out of the darkness. "Well, look who's hangin' about down here."

  Valentin glanced around. A white woman was perched in a wide window frame, sallow-skinned, short black hair in curls raggedly undone, circles of dark mascara around pale blue eyes, crooked teeth with gaps between. She was naked under a worn and torn kimono. One leg hung outside, swinging in a lazy arc. It reminded Valentin of a stationary version of one of the waffle carts that rolled the New Orleans streets, dispensing tawdry sugared confections.

  It was also a perfect Storyville tableau; the crib girl could perch there all but naked, offering entry to any opening in her body for small change, but always sideways, because the law said facing the street was a "wanton display" and could bring a fine.

  Valentin kept his eyes from the places in the garment that exposed the woman's pale body. "Alice Kane," he said finally. "I haven't seen you since you were up with Bertha Sullivan."

  The crib girl spat on the sidewalk. "Bertha can kiss my ass, for sure." She fixed an eye on the detective. "And what are you doin' out here, Mr. Valentin?" she said. "I heard you got yourself stuck onto some young brown one uptown."

  Valentin smiled and said, "I guess I got lost," and turned to move on.

  "You caught him yet?" Alice asked. Valentin stopped and gave her a look. "Maybe you ought to pay your quarter and come inside," she said, then chortled at her pun. The laugh descended into a rheumy cough. "Maybe you oughta just do that," she said, her eyes watering.

  "A dollar, if I can I get you to cover up a bit."

  Alice Kane laughed again and held out a bony hand. Valentin dug into a vest pocket and produced a dollar coin. The crib girl took it and with slow fingers made it disappear between her legs. "If you want change, you can help yourself." She let herself down from the window and motioned him inside.

  It was an eight-by-ten foot room, with rough-hewn clapboard walls and a single candle for light. A narrow iron bed with a stained mattress was pushed to the wall just inside the door. Next to it was a washstand that held a basin, a few rags and the usual bottle of purple permanganate of potash. There were thick spider webs in the corners and shiny black water bugs scurried along the baseboards. It smelled bad, all close and gamy, a mixture of sweat and sex and a heavy, too-sweet perfume, so that he had to hold his breath for a moment.

  Alice Kane sat down on the stained mattress, the sash of the kimono tied loosely around her middle. Valentin leaned against the wall, his face half-hidden in flickering shadow. The woman reached under the bed and came up with a bottle of Raleigh Rye.

  "Drink?" she said, offering the bottle. Valentin shook his head. "Don't blame you," the woman said. "No tellin' what I had in my mouth." She laughed again, then became suddenly serious. "I asked have you caught the one been killin' them girls?" she said.

  Valentin tilted his head slightly. "Why, you worried?"

  The crib girl crossed her legs and studied her broken fingernails. "Funny, ain't it, how they all come outta houses?"

  "How so?" Valentin said, suddenly impatient. It was late, and after the scene at the morgue, he was more than weary.

  "No streetwalkers," Alice Kane was saying. "Nobody outta no crib."

  "Yes, so?"

  "You think women is gonna be gettin' murdered, it's gonna be round here," the crib girl said. "We ain't got no madams mindin' us. We ain't got no pimps stavin' off trouble." She attempted an expression of wide-eyed innocence and came up looking like a carnival doll. "Just us little lambs out here, all by ourselves. If you wanted to do somethin' right now, who'd stop you? You get your hands around my throat or make one little cut with a straight razor or you pull out that pistol you got in your pocket and ... no more Alice. But all them that's getting killed, they all bitches outta one house or another."

  "Do you know something?" He was abrupt.

  "You asked was I worried," Alice said. "I'm tellin' you I ain't, because whoever's doin' this is doin' it for a reason. Not just to be killin' women. This ain't no Jack the Ripper cuttin'-up whatever whore he can grab aholt of. This man's got himself a plan." The crib girl nodded, agreeing with herself.

  "Do you know something?" he asked her again.

  She slouched on the mattress, propping on one elbow. "Naw, I don't know nothin'. I'm just sayin' what I think. And what I think right now is that you ought to put that coat down and shed them trousers and come and get some. Y'already give me a whole dollar." Valentin leaned away from the wall and stepped toward the door. Alice reached out a languid arm, but her hand fastened on his thigh like a claw. "Maybe you like some suckin'-off instead," she offered. Valentin peeled her bony fingers from his leg. "No? How come, Mr. Valentin? You get all you need from that little brown one? Is that it?" She sat up, letting her kimono fall open once more. "Well, you go ahead. You don't know what you're missin'. I ain't lost nothin' since I got run out of Bertha's. But you go on ahead."

  He stepped through the doorway and onto the street. The air was fresher there, but only slightly. Alice's voice called from the shadows of her crib. "Hey, now, you watch her, Mr. Valentin," she said. "I believe she's in a house, ain't she?"

  Instead of heading south to Magazine, he rounded the block and made a beeline down Conti to Antonia Gonzalez'. When he strode into the parlor, the girls got up to greet him, then sat back down when they saw who it was. The madam stepped up. "Valentin," she said, "what is it?"

  "Justine," Valentin said. "Is she...?" He pointed a finger toward the upstairs room.

  "She's not here," the madam said. "She left. Must be an hour or so now."

  "Where?" He was feeling uneasy.

  "She didn't say."

  "With someone?"

  "No, I don't think so," Miss Antonia said. "I was working on the books and when I came out for a glass of brandy, she was gone." She caught the look on Valentin's face, turned to the girls who were lounging on the couches and went about questioning them. One said simply that Justine had left without a word. And yes, she had been alone. Valentin turned for the door. "If she comes back, send her to my place. And send someone with her."

  "Yes, of course," Miss Antonia said.

  He hired a hack and offered the driver a quarter extra to crack the whip. Once again he found himself scouring the streets, trying to catch sight of a. familiar figure. After a half-hour, he directed the driver out of the District and twenty minutes later, they turned onto Magazine. In the light of the lamp outside Gaspare's front door, he saw her waiting.

  He went into the bath and scrubbed himsel
f until his skin glowed red. After he dried off, he walked through the shadows cast by a candle to the bed. She had already slipped between the sheets. He lay down beside her and studied her face. "What?" she said.

  "Please don't ever do that again."

  "But you didn't come by. You said you would come by."

  "I know. I was held up. But, please."

  "I'm sorry."

  He laid his head on his arm. They were quiet for a long time. Justine watched the flickering flame of the candle as Valentin studied the patterns it cast upon the wall.

  "I don't want you going back," he said at last.

  "Oh?" The statement flustered her and she tried to make light of it. "And how will I eat?"

  "I'll take care of that."

  She laughed, but her tone was tinny. "So you're a rich man now?"

  "Just until this is over," he said in a terse voice.

  She was silent for a few moments. "And what then?" she asked.

  He didn't answer. He reached over and snuffed the candle.

  TEN

  Windin' boy, don't deny my name

  Windin' boy, don't deny my name

  Well, I'm a windin' boy, don't deny my name

  I'll pick it up and shake it like Stavin' Chain

  Windin' boy, don't deny my name

  He took her to a proper café for breakfast, boudin, eggs, biscuits and coffee. Lost in his thoughts, he spoke barely a word while they ate. As they were finishing their coffee, she touched his hand. "Are you still cross with me 'cause of last night?" Valentin gave her a small smile and shook his head. "What, then?" She looked wary and a bit sad, as if the light of day was erasing what he had said in the candle-lit bedroom.

  She watched a shadow cross his face and she was about to save him the trouble and offer to leave when he said, "I want you to go to Miss Antonia's and get your things. I'll come by later to collect you." She saw a blush rise to his olive cheeks. "So you can stay with me."