Refusing to argue with Frank, Madame turned her back on him and walked into the parlor toward the fireplace. She reached up to the mantel and stroked a fancifully painted figurine.
“This is an interesting piece,” she went on. “It’s called a Chelsea cat. Sailors often brought them home to their sweethearts. We believe this one was a gift from Captain Blanchet to his wife.”
“Wrong again!” Frank stated bluntly.
Carol fully expected Madame Yvette to eject them from her premises at that point—six dollar donations or no.
“Well, perhaps you would like to tell me about this cat,” Madame said to Frank, her sugary tone overlaid with sarcasm.
“That was a gift from a sailor, all right, but it never belonged to the Blanchets. It was Ivory’s.” Frank went over to the mantel and picked up the fragile antique cat, bringing a gasp from Madame. There were calligraphy cards everywhere, reading: “Please do not touch!”
“See?” Frank said, ignoring Madame’s fierce gaze. “Two sets of eyes—green on one side, red on the other. This cat sat in the window, right over there.” He pointed to the place. “If Ivory was open for business, the green eyes were turned to the street. Red eyes forward meant stop—don’t knock.”
“Well, I never!” Madame Yvette cried. “I have been showing my home for nearly thirty years, but no one has ever been as rude as you, young man. I believe this is the end of the tour. You may retrieve your donation from the basket on your way out.”
“Oh, please, Madame Yvette,” Carol begged. “You must forgive him.”
“For what?” Frank demanded. “For correcting the fallacies in her tale? Seems to me she’d be grateful. This is the way history gets written all wrong, by people not telling it right. Ivory was a nice lady! And if her story’s going to be told, it ought to be told accurately.”
Tears were brimming in Madame Yvette’s eyes. She reached out a trembling hand to touch Frank’s sleeve. “Why, sir, you come gallantly to my great-grandmother’s defense as if you knew her personally.”
“Your great-grandmother?” Frank stared at Yvette, his mouth agape.
She patted his arm. “Yes. You are a kind man. Forgive me for being sharp with you. I’m afraid we lose patience as we grow older.”
Frank stared down at the withered hand on his arm. His eyes went wide when he noticed the ring for the first time. “Where did you get that, Madame Yvette?”
She held up the slender gold band for both Carol and Frank to inspect. Its single ruby caught the light and flashed blood-red. Carol murmured over the delicate piece of antique jewelry.
“It was hers—Ivory’s,” Yvette explained. “She told my grandmother, who told my mother, who told me that it was given to her by the only man she ever truly loved, my great-grandfather.”
Frank was about to argue again, knowing that Black Vic had given Ivory the ring or at least insisted that she keep it after Lazano’s death. Then another thought struck him. Instead, he said, “So, Ivory finally married the man who fathered her daughter? What did he do, come to New Orleans to find her?”
Yvette shook her head. “Oh, no! That first child died as a young woman. So far as I know, Ivory never saw the girl’s father after her parents drove her from their home. Ivory never married, but in her diary she recorded the name of my great-grandfather—his last name, at least. She lamented that though she had loved him from afar for many years, she had spent but one afternoon with him. Then he departed from her life forever.”
“Oh, no! How sad!” Carol cried. “You mean, he died, too?”
Again, Madame shook her head. “He remained in and around New Orleans for many more years. But Ivory recorded in her journal that once they had been together, she sent him away to find someone he could love as she loved him. She wrote that she had seen a vision of him with a lovely, dark-haired woman. He never knew that he gave Ivory a daughter. Where he went to find that ebony-haired love or if he ever found her, we can only guess.”
As Yvette’s words sank in, Frank felt a chill. The old woman standing before him was his own—or rather Black Vic’s—flesh and blood.
Frank pressed Yvette’s hand for a moment. “Thank you,” he said solemnly. Then he caught Carol’s arm and said, “Let’s go.”
“Oh, must you leave so soon?” Madame asked. “Don’t you want to see Ivory’s lovely bedchamber?”
“I’ve seen it already,” Frank told her, turning quickly toward the door.
“Will you come back sometime so I might finish the tour? There’ll be no charge.”
“Perhaps,” he answered in a whisper, “perhaps, Yvette Navar.”
Outside on the banquette, Carol turned on Frank. “Why did we have to rush out of there? I wanted to see the rest.”
“Carol, don’t you understand?” He was trembling all over as he gripped her hand. “Black Vic was Yvette’s great-grandfather. Ivory herself told me—him—that he should go find someone to love. We both know where Vic went.”
“The Orleans Ballroom,” they said in unison.
“Then why does Madame Yvette believe that Black Vic was the man who treated Ivory so badly?” Carol queried.
“Because the story’s been handed down and changed for generations. Madame said that Ivory recorded only the last name in her diary. No one nowadays knows that Black Vic and this lover named Navar are even the same guy. Poor ole Vic! History’s sure given him a bum rap.”
“Why, Frank! That’s the first kind word I’ve heard you say about Victoine Navar.”
“Well, maybe he wasn’t such a hard case after all. Who knows?” He looked down at her, his face solemn. “But he’d better keep his nose clean when he’s around Cami. I mean it! I’m not going to put up with any funny business.”
Carol laughed. “If you could hear yourself…”
Frank took Carol’s hand and led her back toward Bourbon Street, where most of the Carnival action was taking place.
“So, when do we do it?” Frank asked suddenly.
“Do what?”
“Go to this ball.” Then he stopped and frowned down at Carol. “Or has it already taken place without us? You said you saw Vic and Cami on the balcony of the ballroom. Maybe they couldn’t wait for us to get back there.”
“No, no,” Carol assured him. “I think that was sort of like a preview at the movies or a teaser in the front of a novel. I got a glimpse, but there’s a lot more to come.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure. We could try going to the dock in the morning, but I haven’t seen the woman in the red tignon. I have a feeling she won’t show herself again until Carnival is over.”
Eager to be on with it, Frank turned to Carol with an impatient sigh. “Now just how do you know that?”
Carol laughed. “I’m psychic! Remember?”
“How could I forget?” Frank groaned.
For the next two hours, Carol and Frank rambled around the Quarter. The whole area was one huge party. Every bar on Bourbon Street was overflowing with merrymakers. Dancing in the streets seemed the thing to do. At Jackson Square a band was blaring Beatles tunes. “Help!” wailed through the air, echoing off the facade of St. Louis Cathedral, then bouncing back and forth between the Pontalba buildings. The whole area in front of the Cabildo was crowded with gyrating bodies in all manner of dress and undress.
One of the musicians recognized Frank. “Hey, Cap’n!” he called, waving frantically. “Get down, man!”
Frank threw back his head and laughed, then caught Carol’s hand and swung her into a Sixties-style bop.
Carol beamed as she watched the subdued sway of Frank’s torso. This man, who exuded sensuality from every pore as it was, set off a sexual sonic boom when he moved to music. Warming to a fever pitch, Carol followed him bump for grind.
“Hey, I didn’t know cops danced,” she said over the blare of the music.
“Cops do a lot of things, darlin’.” He gave her an inviting half-smile and a wink. “Stick around. You’ll see.”
“A doubloon for your thoughts,” Frank whispered.
“I was just thinking how nice this is and wishing that we could go on like this forever. No mysterious mummy… no ghosts from the past… no lonely cabin on a mountaintop that I have to go back to.”
“I thought you loved your solitude.”
“I do when life has nothing better to offer.”
Frank smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s good to hear that I’m better than nothing.”
“Oh, you!” Carol reached up and nipped at his lips. “You’re a lot better than anything I’ve ever had in my life. I could go on dancing like this until…”
“Until what?”
Carol shrugged in his arms. “I don’t know. I just could.” She looked up at him, her eyes growing misty. “Frank, I don’t want it to end. What’s happening to me? I’ve never felt this way before.”
“It’s Carnival,” he answered softly. “It does strange things to people. The glow will fade once Mardi Gras is over.”
Carol shook her head. “No,” she said solemnly. “This glow will never fade, and it has nothing to do with Mardi Gras.”
They danced on in silence, a slow, graceful caress of tingling flesh, of twining arms, of joined bodies.
For a long time the rest of the world was simply a colorful blur around them. Then something crashed through that euphoric barrier. Carol’s eyes were still half-closed when she saw it. She froze in Frank’s arms. Her head jerked off his shoulder. Eyes wide, she tried to spot it again, but the ever-shifting dancers pressing in all around them blocked her view. It was gone as quickly as she had seen it.
“What’s wrong?” Frank asked.
“Ah-h-h,” she stammered, trying to think up a suitable fib. She certainly couldn’t tell him what she’d seen or that she was suddenly terrified because she knew his life was in danger. “This is embarrassing, Frank, but I have to find a john. Fast!”
Convinced by the feigned urgency in her tone, he glanced about. “We could try one of the restaurants over there. You may have a wait, though, with this crowd.”
“Let’s just head back for the hotel. That would be quicker.”
They turned toward the Dalpeche, setting off at a near-trot.
Carol had thought up the perfect white lie. If she had insisted on returning to her room for any other reason, Frank would undoubtedly have come in with her. Short of slamming the door in his face, there would have been no way to keep him out. But he simply left her at the door and asked her to give him a call when she was ready to go out again.
“Sure, Frank,” she answered, taking a few hurried steps toward her bathroom.
The minute he closed the door, she headed straight for the phone. She dialed Jesse Calhoun.
“Thank God I caught you,” Carol said as soon as he answered.
“What’s up, honey? You sound—I don’t know—strange.”
She felt strange all right—confused, nervous, just plain scared. “Jesse, I think you’d better check your reports on the latest whereabouts of Oliver Percy Jones.”
“Slow down, Carol. What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think I just bumped into him at Jackson Square. Frank and I were there in the Carnival mob just a few minutes ago. I looked up and suddenly I saw it—that tattoo, big as life, only a few feet away from us.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Jones. There could be lots of those tattoos. What did the guy look like, Carol?”
“I didn’t see him, Jesse. All I saw was that hairy arm and that awful picture.”
“Come on, kid! How could you see the arm, but not the man?”
“Easy! It’s Carnival time, Jesse. Have you ever been down here for Mardi Gras?”
“Okay, okay! I get the picture. I’ll check again and call you right back. You’re at your hotel?”
“Yes. And, Jesse, Frank doesn’t know anything about this. He’s not here right now, but he’s liable to pop in at any moment. So, if I call you Aunt Belle or something when I pick up, I’m not crazy, just covering. Okay?”
“Gotcha, Carol!”
Carol hung up and sat for a moment staring at the phone. Five minutes ticked by. Her nerves went from ragged to raw. She stood up and paced the length of the bedroom and back, never taking her eyes off the phone.
“This can’t be happening,” she told herself, “but it is. I know what I saw.”
The phone rang. She I early took a nosedive in her haste to answer it.
“Carol?” It was Frank’ voice. “Are you all right now?”
Frantic to free the line she snapped, “Give me a few more minutes, won’t you? I’ll call you.”
She slammed the receiver down, not even allowing Frank to say goodbye.
More pacing, more hard-wringing, more ticking of the clock. Finally, the phone rang again.
“Jesse?” Carol cried instead of saying hello.
“Yeah, Carol. It’s me.’ He cleared his throat, seeming nervous. Then he gave a low whistle through his teeth before telling her what he’d discovered. “I’m afraid you may be onto something. Jones escaped from the Louisiana State Pen three days ago. It makes sense that he’d run to New Orleans to hide out in the Mardi Gras mobs. There’s an All Points Bulletin out on him, but you’re the first to spot him. Of course, I’ll pass that information on to the authorities down there.”
“Oh, Jesse! Do you have to?”
“Of course I do. This guy’s dangerous, Carol, a mass murderer.”
“I know, I know. I’m just so scared he’s after Frank.”
“All the more reason to get him back behind bars as quickly as possible.”
“You’re right, Jesse. I’m not thinking too straight at the moment. But when you report this, do you have to use my name? Can’t you just tell them that someone reported this anonymously?”
There was a long pause on Jesse’s end of the line while he thought it over. “Yeah, I guess I could do that. I’m not sure I understand why you want to stay out of it. You know Frank’s going to find out the guy’s on the loose, if he doesn’t know already.”
“I just don’t want my name connected with this right now.”
“But what difference could that make?”
“Don’t you get it, Jesse? Frank and I have a good thing going. In fact, it’s so damn good that I don’t want it messed up. I saw something the other day—something scary.”
“What?”
“It was sort of a vision, and it had to do with Eileen Longpre. The day she disappeared, I’m pretty sure.”
“Good God!”
“And I think this Jones is the fellow who murdered her.”
“Murdered? Carol, nobody’s ever found her body. For all we know, she could have decided to run off to South America or been picked up by a UFO. Do you realize how many people just vanish into thin air every year?”
“I don’t think that’s the case here. I’m convinced Eileen died a horrible death at the hands of that man with the tattoo. If I’m right, and if Frank ever finds out, he’ll never be the same. He would blame himself forevermore. We might as well let Jones kill Frank. It couldn’t be any more painful than his finding out the truth about Eileen.”
“Jesus! What a mess! But you’re right. Frank’s been on the edge for years. If your vision was accurate, the news could send him right off the deep end.”
“Then you’ll keep my name out of it?”
“Only if you promise to call me the minute you see anything else, Carol.”
“You have my word on that. I’d better go now. Frank’s waiting for me.”
“Hey, Carol, you two be mighty damn careful.”
“Right.”
Frank knocked at Carol’s door just as
she hung up
“Coming,” she called after taking a moment to regain her composure.
When she opened the door, Frank stepped inside and took her in his arms. “Let’s see, where did we leave off?” he murmured, nuzzling her neck as he danced her slowly into the bedroom.
“Please, Frank. We can’t dance here.”
“Why?” he demanded. “Not enough people watching? If that’s the case, then I’ll take you right back to Jackson Square, darlin’.”
His mention of returning to the spot where she’d seen Jones froze her blood. She wanted to lock her door and keep Frank inside until that creep was back on death row where he belonged. But she knew that was impossible.
Still, for tonight she could keep him here. That thought gave her a moment of calm, but only a moment. Tomorrow Frank would expect to mix and mingle with the Carnival crowds all day. And somewhere in that milling throng of thousands, a crazed killer was waiting to end Frank’s life.
Keep him here! Keep him safe! The two thoughts kept running through Carol’s mind. She slipped her arms around Frank’s neck, went up on tiptoe, and pressed her lips to his.
“If we stay here instead of going back to Jackson Square, I know what we could do,” she whispered, coaxing him toward the bed.
“I thought you wanted to go see Gerald McRaney in the Bacchus parade. If you smiled pretty and yelled real loud, he’d probably throw you a go-cup, doubloons, cards—all kinds of goodies.”
“All the goodies I need are right here,” Carol purred.
Frank needed little encouragement. In moments, they were undressed, lying on the bed in a hot tangle, their need as sweet and urgent as ever.
The afternoon sun sank low, turning the room from gold and scarlet to bronze, then velvety-purple. Not until darkness closed in did the two of them drift off in a wonderful, satisfied haze—Carol to her place back in time, and Frank to his.
They traveled together this time.
Chapter Thirteen
The oppressive heat was the first change Carol noticed—that and the sticky humidity as if someone had suddenly thrown open all the windows to the night air. Then there was the cloying mixture of odors. The sweet scent of French perfumes fought to overcome the less pleasant aromas of cigar smoke and perspiring bodies. Her own among them, she quickly realized as a bead of moisture trickled down between her breasts.
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