Louisiana Lament

by Julie Smith

  That was as far as she got. “May I see your ID, please?” the woman demanded.

  “Sure.” Talba popped out her license and badge.

  Dufresne studied it carefully. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “I’m working for a good friend—”

  “Look here, missy, this is my place of work. Who do you think you are, barging in here on non-city business?”

  “I thought perhaps—”

  “I need you to leave right now.”

  “But I have some news about—”

  “Now!” The woman was yelling and pointing at the door. Talba figured she’d better get out before Security showed up. But she was about to pop with sentences that hadn’t come out. If there was anything she hated, it was someone who interrupted.

  However, there was more than one way to skin this cat. Dufresne had to leave the building sometime. Talba looked at her watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock—she was betting she wouldn’t have to wait too long. She went out to the little plaza that was one of the few amenities City Hall had to offer and settled down to wait.

  It was only about half an hour before Dufresne burst smartly through the door, walking briskly and thankfully alone. Talba simply stepped in front of her, forcing her to skid to a stop. She spat out the words quickly: “Rashad called my sister yesterday. You know he’s been shot, don’t you?”

  Granted, it was a shock tactic, but she was hardly prepared for what happened next: Felicia Dufresne burst into tears. Wasting no time on sympathy, Talba seized the advantage. “Ms. Dufresne, I really am trying to help him.”

  Dufresne grabbed her by the wrist, snapped, “Come on,” and pulled her away from the building. “Where’s my baby?”

  “Are you his mother?” Talba asked. “My sister’s in love with him. I’m trying to help her find him.” She wished she’d said that in the first place.

  “Tell me who you are and what you know.”

  Talba told her about Janessa’s hiring her, and about the phone call. “What I don’t know,” she concluded, “is who you are to him. Are you his mother?” she repeated.

  “I’m his aunt. He’s always been my baby. And he always will be.”

  It was such a strange answer that Talba was momentarily nonplussed, but this was no time to hesitate. “Here’s what I need to know,” she said. “Has he called you? Has he been in touch at all?”

  Sorrowfully, Dufresne shook her head. “What I know, I know from Marlon. He called last night and said my baby might have been shot, but he didn’t know how to reach ya sister. Give me her phone number.”

  “I can’t just give it out. I have to get her permission.”

  Again, she grabbed Talba’s wrist, this time with such force that Talba wondered if she was capable of violence. “You give it to me right now.”

  Talba snatched her arm away. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a business card. “Write down your phone number. I’ll call you when I’ve talked to Janessa.”

  Dufresne produced a cell phone. “Call her now.”

  Talba said, “Look, just keep the card. Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “I don’t need ya damn card. I need Janessa’s number.”

  There didn’t seem anything to gain from sticking around. Talba said, “I’m sorry. I have to go now,” and walked away. It took all her will power not to look back, so strong—and evidently so volatile—a personality was Felicia Dufresne. She half expected the woman to jump her from behind, but she couldn’t show fear; of that much she was sure.

  She was shaking when she got to her car. After taking a moment to compose herself, she realized there was a lot wrong with that encounter—a lot more than Dufresne’s strangeness and semi-violence. Dufresne hadn’t pleaded for Talba to call the minute she knew something.

  Which meant she must know something herself. She must want to get to Janessa to call her off.

  If Dufresne didn’t need her card, fine. She didn’t need Dufresne to give her her home number. She had it at the office. She walked back, thinking, deciding what to do next. First, she called the number, just to see what would happen. A man answered.

  Rashad, she thought, and hung up. She retrieved her car and set out for Dufresne’s house, wondering how long Rashad and Marlon had lived with this woman, and whether it was on Chippewa Street. Dufresne was beautiful, like the mother Rashad painted in the poem he called “Mama,” and she said he’d always been her baby. Could he have been writing about her instead of his birth mother? Talba made a mental note to read the poem again.

  Dufresne certainly didn’t look like someone who’d ever lived a stone’s throw from the worst project in town, but a lot could have happened between then and now. Curiously, if she had, she hadn’t moved far away from Tchoupitoulas, and she’d never escaped the Irish Channel. Yet the house she occupied now had to be a thousand times better than the one Rashad had grown up in. The neighborhood was nicer by far than the old one and the house itself was the best one on the street. Clearly, Felicia Dufresne had pride and, if not education, at least a healthy respect for it. If she’d raised Rashad—even for a few years—it could explain a lot about the way he was—his love of literature, his ambition, in fact, his brains. She was the sort who’d make a kid do his homework.

  Talba banged on the door, which was answered fairly promptly, not by Rashad, as she’d hoped, but by an unkempt man in pajama bottoms. He must be a night worker who hadn’t yet gotten up. “Oh,” he said. “Thought you were the mailman.”

  Talba didn’t bother introducing herself. This man was half asleep; that could be good. “I’m a friend of Rashad. I mean, a really good friend.”

  The man smiled. “You Rashad’s girlfriend?”

  “Yes. Is he here? I’ve got a whole lot of stuff for him—information, I mean. The po-lice are looking for him.”

  “No, he ain’ here.”

  Talba did her best to look shocked. “But Marlon said—”

  “Marlon don’t no more know where he is than we do. Came looking for him last night, but Felicia wadn’t home. Kept callin’ till he got her; she say go to his grandfather. Rashad love his grandfather even more than he love her. Anybody know, she said, it’s his grandfather.”

  “Where does his grandfather live?”

  “Place called St. Elmo’s. It’s a nursing home, like.”

  “Oh, by the way, is this his mother’s father or his father’s?”

  “Father’s, maybe.”

  “Well, just in case, what’s his mother’s maiden name?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “Dufresne. Whatcha think?”

  So Felicia was his mother’s sister, not his father’s.

  Talba stopped at a corner store for a sandwich and looked up the number while she was there. St. Elmo’s was on the Chef Menteur Highway. She went over to Julia Street, bought some flowers, and wended her way to Grandpa.

  It was instantly obvious that St. Elmo’s was no modern “senior residence” or “assisted living” facility. It was a place where poor people went to die, the old-fashioned kind of nursing home, where withered husks of humans sat around in pajamas, looking as if they’d rather be in bed; where the walls were painted puke green or petunia pink. This one had both colors.

  At the front desk, she waited for an attendant, watching the old people nod and pretend to watch television. One couple played cards—a man and a woman who seemed more alert than the others. Finally, a fortyish female attendant appeared, African-American and very brisk, wearing a medical smock printed with scythe-like objects that seemed to be faded blue and pink boomerangs. Who designs these things? Talba wondered.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Daneene,” she said.

  “Are you a relative?”

  She must have guessed right on the name. “I’m his granddaughter. I was supposed to meet my brother, Rashad Daneene. Is he here yet?”

  “Oh, yes, we know Rashad. I didn’t know he had a sister.”

  “Did you say yes?” Talba was
excited. “My brother’s here?”

  The woman frowned. “I don’t recall saying that. Mr. Daneene hasn’t had a visitor in nearly a month.” It sounded like a reprimand, and probably was.

  “Oh.” That was probably all the information Talba needed, but she couldn’t think of a graceful way to leave. “May I see my grandfather?” she asked.

  The woman smiled. “You’re in luck. He’s having a good day.”

  Talba knew that, for Alzheimer’s patients, a good day was one on which they were slightly more lucid than others. She hoped the old man didn’t realize he didn’t know her.

  She was relieved to see that he wasn’t one of the sad-looking people grouped in the living room, if that was what they called it here. He was sitting up in bed with newspapers all around him.

  “He looks at those papers all day,” the attendant said. “But when you ax him what the news is, he never knows. You be okay?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman leave. She turned her full attention to the old man in the bed, wondering if he was ever going to look up from the papers.

  “Hello,” she said. “Do you know me? I brought you some flowers.”

  He was a thin old man, but despite his thinness he had tiny jowls around his mouth, and his hair was graying—not yet white, but on its way. His eyes were a little sunken, as if he were slowly receding into himself. She suspected that he had long since lost his appetite for food, perhaps for most things.

  When he looked at her, she saw something like fear on his face. “Joy?” he said. “No, you ain’t Joy. Cain’t be Joy.”

  “No, I’m not Joy,” she said, and she was about to introduce herself, but relief appeared so suddenly on his face that she was startled into silence.

  “Well, then, you must be Felicia. I get confused. Felicia, you put on weight. I thought Joy done come to see me.” He smoothed the newspapers with a hand so thin the skin looked like a scrim of tissue. “The boy come sometime. Tha’s about all.”

  “Rashad?”

  He nodded. “My grandbaby. He a fine young man. His mama never was no good. Needed killin’.”

  Talba had no concept of how to talk to someone who lived in a different reality. She wanted to follow up on that in the worst kind of way, but she didn’t dare risk alienating the old man. He might not have his marbles, but if she threw him off balance, he might figure out she wasn’t Felicia. “That’s fine talk coming from a nice man like you,” she said blandly.

  “You live as long as I have, you see most everything. Mmm, mmm. Nothin’ ain’t black and white no more. Everything happen for a reason.”

  She sure didn’t want him to get on God and it looked as if that was about to happen. “I don’t think I remember Joy,” she said. “Who was she?”

  “What you talkin’, girl? You don’t remember ya own sister?”

  “Oh, Joy. Rashad and Marlon’s mother.”

  “Marlon, yeah. He come see me, too. He gettin’ big. Must be nearly grown by now. Pretty soon he’ll be down at the hirin’ hall like his daddy and his granddaddy before him.”

  “Marlon’s got a painting business, I heard.”

  The old man shook his head. “He be workin’ on the docks. He be down there. You live long enough, you know the way of things.”

  “Well, Marlon never was the bright one in the family. Rashad got the brains, didn’t he?”

  At that, the old man started. “They all smart,” he said, and there was no mistaking the anger in his voice. “All us Daneenes, we smart. Cain’t get ahead, that’s all. Just workin’ for the dollar; all we can do.”

  “I was wondering if Rashad’s been here lately.” Even as she said it, she realized the futility of looking for him here. Where on earth could he hide in a place like this?

  “He here earlier today.”

  Talba felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. It was possible. The attendant hadn’t been there when she arrived. Rashad could have just walked in. “He was here today?” she repeated.

  “Umm-hmm. He come most every day.”

  Well, that couldn’t be true. Probably Grandpa’s mind was just wandering. “Did he say where he was staying?” she asked.

  Daneene looked puzzled. “Don’t he live with you?”

  “Not anymore. He’s been gone a few days. I thought you might know where to find him.”

  The old man turned back to his papers, apparently ready for the visit to end. “ ’Spect he be down at the hirin’ hall.”

  “What hiring hall?”

  “Down by the docks. You know, where his daddy and I work.”

  “I don’t think his daddy’s been there lately.”

  To her surprise, Daneene laughed. “Nobody seen my son in twenty years. Left ya sister with those two little boys. I always felt responsible.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” She figured she was on safe ground here.

  “Shoulda raised him better.” Tears appeared in his soft brown eyes; she saw that the whites were faintly tinged with yellow.

  This interview wasn’t helping her, but she couldn’t bear to leave without trying to cheer him up. She scurried around for a vase, something to put the flowers in, glad for the opportunity to check the bathroom (which was empty both of skulking grandsons and vases). “You did the best you could,” she said.

  “Everybody knows that. He was who he was, that’s all. I can’t seem to find a vase.”

  “Shoulda married you instead of Joy. You got a way with kids.”

  “Well, still, I don’t know what you mean when you say Joy needed killing.”

  “Way she neglected those kids? And drink! Whoa, she could drink. You, too, in those days.”

  She took a chance. His emphasis—she needed killin’, not she needed killin’—made her think Joy was dead. “What makes you think somebody killed her?” she said. “She ran away, that’s all.”

  “Now, Felicia, you know that’s not true. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean you can make me believe what’s not true. Rashad didn’t mean to. He turned out fine—we both know that. It’s all that matters.”

  She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Rashad had killed his mother? It didn’t fit with anything she knew about him. Unless of course you counted the juvenile felony record. And one other thing, maybe—there was something in one of the poems. She struggled to remember it.

  “It’s all that matters,” he said again. “If you hadn’t got so drunk and took up with her boyfriend it never woulda happened. It’s time for you to go now.” He was getting heated up.

  “Well, I’ll just go get a vase for these.”

  She went out and asked the attendant for one. As she was arranging the flowers, she said, “Are there any vacancies here? I’ve got an aunt who’s going to need care soon.”

  The woman shook her head before the words were even out. “We got a two-year waiting list.”

  So much for Rashad taking over an empty room somewhere in the home. Talba took the flowers back to Mr. Daneene. “We had a nice visit, didn’t we?” she said brightly.

  He’d forgotten his anger; indeed seemed to have forgotten she was ever there. “Can I do somethin’ for you?” he asked politely, as if he’d discovered her trespassing in his living room.

  She walked over to the bed and put her hand on his arm. Smiling intently into his face, she said, “You can have a nice day, that’s what you can do.” She wanted to leave him with a good feeling.

  He smiled back at her for the first time since she’d made his acquaintance.

  Talba went back to the office to kill some time till after the work day. She hadn’t mentioned it to Eddie, but she was damned well going back to check out that wharf. She just had to bide her time till the boys and their toys had gone for the day. It would still be light between five and seven, say, and maybe a good time to catch Rashad—maybe the time he came back. If he came back.

  She tried to find the poem her conversation with Mr. Daneene had reminded her of, but she was shocked
at the unreliability of her memory. The “Mama” poem was still all sweet and gooey, just as she remembered, but there was something provocative in it:

  You made up for

  The other one.

  What’s done

  Is done—

  But for your beauty

  And your love

  I did my duty

  And maybe above.

  And she saw that she was wrong when she told Arnelle Halston that Rashad had written only nice things about his mother. It was the poem entitled “Parents” that struck her now. The poem that started:

  Mama so beautiful, Mother so scary

  Mother with the silver flash,

  Mother with a need to bash.

  It was curious that Rashad had changed from “Mama” to “Mother,” as if there were two mothers—a good and a bad, perhaps. If the bad one had a need to bash, maybe he had killed her. That silver flash thing bothered Talba.

  And so did the end of it:

  I’d like to know

  If I did right

  By all

  Of y’all.

  That’s what

  My fascination is.

  Just what had happened here? Had he stabbed his own mother to protect his aunt? And maybe the rest of the family? If he had, Crockett the Homicide guy was already going to know about it—even if juvenile records were supposed to be off limits.

  For a couple of hours, she busied herself with employment and prenuptial investigations (which she called “sweetie snoops”), feeling for the first time in days a sense of accomplishment. She and Eddie had worked on hardly anything but Janessa’s case all week—and it wasn’t worth a penny to the firm. She remembered Eddie’s ominous words, “Two days, Ms. Wallis.” But he hadn’t mentioned the deadline again.

  At five sharp, she said good-bye to Eileen Fisher, drove back to the Celeste Street Wharf, parked half a block away, and put her license in her pocket, thinking that if anyone saw her it might make explaining easier.

  The metal doors were closed now, but in some places, they’d separated from the building itself, leaving gaps filled in with pieces of wood more or less just stood on their ends from inside. They’d be easy to shove aside—especially for a young man in his twenties. Talba wondered if she could do, it especially in a skirt. She wished she’d gone home to change.