In the Blood (Sonja Blue)

by Nancy A. Collins

  “Jimmy? Jimmy, look at me, sweetheart.”

  Jimmy took his eyes away from the lamppost across the street and tilted his head in order to stare at his mother. After a couple of seconds his lips pulled into a smile, drool wetting his chin. He reached up and clasped his mother’s hand. Mrs. Eichorn smiled indulgently and brushed the hair out of his eyes.

  “Jimmy? This nice man wants to talk to you.”

  The boy’s eyes flickered toward the window then shifted to Palmer. They were the eyes of a preschooler, wide and clear and uncertain of strangers.

  “Go ahead, darling. It’s all right.” Mrs. Eichorn said, squeezing her son’s hand.

  Palmer pulled the photo out of his jacket and held it up so the boy could see it. “Do you know where I can find this man, Jimmy? Do you know where Chaz is?”

  A muscle in Jimmy’s face jerked. Palmer couldn’t tell if the boy had shook his head “no” or suffered a muscle spasm. Before he could press the issue, Jimmy gave out with a weird, high-pitched squeal and began to twitch. Palmer stepped back in disgust as the boy voided his bowels. Jimmy’s eyes rolled in their sockets and then glazed, staring at some unknown, fixed point.

  “Get out!” snapped Mrs. Eichorn.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”

  “Just get out! I can’t deal with him with you in the room!”

  Jimmy began to claw at his own throat, as if trying to pull an invisible attacker from his windpipe. Palmer glimpsed what looked like puncture marks in the shadow of the boy’s chin before his mother forcibly propelled him out of the room.

  He made his way back to the Eichorns’ drab front room, listening to the mother soothe her son. Palmer looked down at his hands and noticed they were shaking. A few moments later

  Mrs. Eichorn returned, lighting up yet another cigarette. Her hands were trembling as well.

  “He was such a happy baby. He used to laugh like nobody’s business,” she said wistfully. “His daddy thought the world of him, because of that laugh. He stayed around a couple of years longer than he would have if Jimmy had cried like most babies, I guess. Jimmy was just five when he run off. That’s when things changed. I was just fifteen when I had him. What did I know about bringing up a kid, right?” She looked at the cigarette in her hand then glanced at Palmer, as if daring him to say otherwise. With a start, he suddenly realized this hopeless, washed-out woman was younger than him. “It’s not my fault he got like this... someone did that to him. He wouldn’t be like that if he hadn’t been with the gang that night. I asked him to quit the gang, but he wouldn’t do it. He said being a Blue Monkey was important to him than anything. He was proud of being a Blue Monkey.” She shook her head in disgust. “I told him that night I didn’t want him hanging around that bar with those scum. I told him that if he went there he better not come home. And you know what he did? He cursed me out! His own mama! And then he went anyway.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her cheeks remained dry.

  Mrs. Eichorn... I’m sorry; I didn’t realize my questioning your son would... upset him like that.”

  “No way you could know, mister. It’s funny what sets him off sometimes. But there was no need to show him that picture. I can tell you where to find Chaz.”

  “You know who he is?”

  She snorted again, shooting smoke from her nostrils like a dragon. “I knew him. Jimmy brought him by once or twice. I figured him for a dealer. He’s dead. Died the same night the Blue Monkeys got into trouble.”

  Upon hearing of Chaz’s fate, Palmer’s heart began to sink. “How’d he die?”

  “I heard a rumor he was bumped off. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. Chaz liked to cross people just for kicks.”

  “Mrs. Eichorn, this is real important: Did Jimmy ever mention if Chaz was traveling with a woman?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I recall. But Jimmy and I didn’t exactly talk a lot at that point.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Eichorn. I don’t want to delay you anymore than I already have. I appreciate everything you’ve been able to tell me,” he said, slipping a couple of fifty-dollar bills into her apron pocket.

  “You know something?” she said as she opened the door for him. “It’s funny, but, in a way, I got what I wanted. I got my little boy back. Don’t you think that’s funny?”

  Palmer simply nodded and hurried down the stairs, pausing on the third landing to pop a pain pill. By the time he reached the street, his ribs no longer felt like they were being cracked open with a lobster mallet. He did not look up to see if Jimmy was still keeping watch.

  That night Palmer dreamed he was in a wheelchair, being pushed down a long, poorly lit corridor. The wheelchair needed to be oiled and squeaked whenever it moved. Everything seemed so vivid, so real, at first Palmer thought he was back in the infirmary. Confused, he twisted around to find out who was propelling the wheelchair. Lola smiled back at him, looking sexy and menacing in her starched white nurse’s uniform. Palmer was acutely aware of the erection tenting his hospital johnny.

  “Did you miss me, darling?” asked Lola, her lips painted the color of fresh blood.

  He hated to admit it, but he did miss her, no matter what she’d done to him. It made him feel stupid, powerless and degraded, but his dick was hard enough to cut diamonds. “Yes. Very much.”

  “I missed you, too,” she smiled. “But I won’t this time!”

  Lola halted the wheelchair at the top of a flight of stairs that seemed to stretch, Escher-like, into another dimension. Palmer’s head began to swim. He tried to stand up, but his arms and legs were strapped to the wheelchair. He twisted his head around, hoping to catch another glimpse of Lola. Instead, he found himself staring down the bore of his own gun.

  He knew then that he was dreaming, and knew what would happen next. He also remembered an old wives’ tale—or was it a disputed fact?—that if you dreamed you were killed, you died in your sleep. Surely even an imaginary Lola couldn’t miss at this range.

  Palmer threw himself headfirst down the warped, endlessly replicating stairwell ahead of the gunshot. Miraculously, the wheelchair remained upright as he caromed off gothic arches and past half-glimpsed crumbling facades. He could hear Lola shrieking obscenities from the top of the stair, accompanied by the sound of receding gunfire. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but at least it was away from Lola, with her bleeding mouth and stolen weapon.

  For a brief, giddy moment, Palmer knew what it was like to be free. Then he saw the massive brick wall blocking his way. And in front of the wall, standing in a policeman’s firing stance, both hands wrapped around the handle of the gun, was Lola.

  “Fooled you!”

  Palmer looked at the rows upon rows of cold marble and granite then back at the map the cemetery’s caretaker had given him. According to it, Geoffrey Chastain, better known as Chaz, was buried in Sector E-7. Most of the headstones in the area were newer, the names and dates still sharply defined and easy to read. It would be several decades before the wind and the rain made the inscriptions as vague as those on the older stones.

  It was early February and frost crunched under his heels as he made his way among the stones. Palmer was cold, despite his anorak, and his mood had not been helped by the nightmare that had jerked him awake, sweating and shivering and reeking of piss, at four that morning. Since then he’d been unable unwilling to go back to sleep, and his surgery scar throbbed like a bad cigarette burn.

  He rechecked what little information he’d been able to get from the caretaker’s files as he trudged along on his search. Chaz’s plot had been paid for in cash by an anonymous benefactor. According to the records, he had originally been interred in Potter’s Field, then dug up and replanted in a proper grave, complete with headstone, a couple months later. Palmer was certain Sonja Blue was behind Chaz’s postmortem change of address. But why? Was it out of guilt? Sense of duty? Love?

  He looked down to find that his shoes had become entangled in the faded remains of a funer
al wreath. To keep from falling, he leaned against a nearby tombstone to disentangle himself. Once he succeeded in freeing his feet, he turned around and realized that he had been resting his butt on Chaz’s monument. Palmer stepped back and stared at the nondescript granite marker. All it said was: GEOFFREY ALAN CHASTAIN. There was no other information, sentiment or religious symbol on its chill face, not even the year of his birth and his death.

  Palmer cursed himself, the self-deprecations rising from his lips in puffs of steam. What had he expected to find out here in the first place? The missing heiress’s forwarding address chiseled into her dead lover’s tombstone?

  Then he saw the flowers. At first he thought they were part of the same wreath he’d originally tripped over; then he realized what he first thought were long-dead flowers were relatively fresh black roses. He picked up the bouquet from its resting place and set it atop Chaz’s grave. He handled the bouquet gingerly, as were full of thorns. For the first time in days, he allowed himself a smile upon seeing the florist’s name was stenciled onto the broad, flat ribbon wrapped about the bundled stems.

  As he pulled the ribbon free of the dozen black roses, one of the thorns bit into the meat of his thumb. He stared at the bead of blood—as shiny and red as a freshly polished ruby—for a long second before bringing it to his mouth. As he sucked at his wound, he glanced up and saw a gaunt, haggard-looking man dressed in an unseasonably light jacket watching him from a few yards away, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, the odor of burning clove carried on the crisp morning breeze. But when Palmer looked again, the man was gone, although the scent of his cigarette still hung in the air.

  Palmer was sure he’d seen the stranger’s face before. Was it possible he was being followed? Pocketing the florist’s ribbon, he turned and hurried back towards the gates of the cemetery. He wondered where the man could have gone so quickly. Even if he wasn’t spying on him, Palmer wondered how the stranger could tolerate hanging around a graveyard on an overcast February morning in nothing warmer than a silk jacket.

  He suddenly stopped and reached into his anorak and pulled out the old snapshot that Pangloss had given him of Chaz. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back and his scar began to tighten. He told himself it was the lack of sleep making him see things.

  Even though it was a perfectly rational explanation, it didn’t make him feel any better.

  “Yeah, that’s ours, awright,” said the florist, studying the length of faded yellow ribbon Palmer handed him.

  “I was wondering if you might be able to help me find out who placed the order.”

  “Look, buddy, we sell a lot of flowers...”

  “What about black roses? You sell a lot of those?”

  The florist pulled his bifocals down a fraction of an inch and squinted at Palmer. “Black roses, you say?”

  Palmer nodded. He was on the trail, he knew it. He could feel the familiar, almost electrical thrill of connections being made, invisible machinery dropping into gear. “That’s right. A dozen of them, delivered to the Rolling Lawn Cemetery.”

  The florist moved over to the shop’s computer. “Deceased’s name?”

  “Chastain.”

  The florist tapped on the keyboard. “Yeah, I remember filling that order, now. Customers usually don’t order roses for grave decorations, outside of Mother’s Day. Black roses are even rare still—especially this time of year.”

  “I take it they’re expensive.”

  “You could say that,” the florist replied drily. He pointed at an entry on the computer screen. “Says here it was a phone order. Long distance. Paid for it with a credit card.”

  “Could I see that information?”

  The florist shook his head. “I don’t know about that. Sharing customer info ain’t good for my business.”

  “I understand. Say, how much for one of those thingies over there?” Palmer pointed to a large floral display shaped like a horseshoe, with GOOD LUCK spelled along its rim in white carnations.

  “That runs around two hundred bucks, depending on where you want it delivered.”

  “I’ll take one,” Palmer said, peeling twenties from the roll in his pocket.

  “In that case, sir, the order for the black roses was placed a week ago and was paid for by Indigo Imports of New Orleans.”

  Palmer could feel it coming together. For the first time in his professional life he was on a real case, like the ones Sam Spade and the Continental Op solved; the kind that cloaked his profession in glamorous clouds of cigarette smoke, whiskey fumes and gunpowder. The years spent staking out no-tell motels with a camera in his lap seemed to melt away, reviving the romantic at his core, the one he’d thought died long ago.

  As he headed for the shop door, the florist called after him. “Where and when would you like the good luck wreath delivered, sir?”

  “Send it to the same place the black roses went. There’s no hurry.”

  Chapter Three

  When Palmer informed Pangloss of his destination, the good doctor assured him Renfield would see to his airfare and accommodations. When Palmer pointed out that flights into New Orleans during Carnival were booked solid weeks in advance, not to mention the hotels, Pangloss merely laughed and said there was nothing to worry about. He kept an apartment in the French Quarter, away from the heavily trafficked tourist areas, but still close to the action. Pangloss said he would call the housekeeper and make sure it was aired out in anticipation of his arrival.

  Palmer arrived late Sunday evening to find the city swarming with drunken, raucous merrymakers. He was surprised when Renfield answered the door at the address Pangloss had given him.

  “You’re here,” was all the pale man said in way of greeting, stepping back into the hallway to allow Palmer entrance.

  “Doc didn’t say anything about sending you to keep tabs on me.”

  If the other man noticed the barb, he ignored it. Renfield pointed to the staircase, curled inside the house like a chambered nautilus. “Your room is on the second floor. Third door to the right.”

  “I thought Doc said he only kept an apartment here?”

  Renfield shrugged. “In a way; he owns the entire building.”

  Palmer’s quarters were quite spacious, consisting of a bed-sitter, a sizable bathroom complete with a cast-iron tub, and a kitchenette furnished with a stocked refrigerator and a microwave. There was also a flat screen TV, a home theater system and a wet bar. The bedroom offered a view of the patio and what had once been the slave quarters, and the faint reek of vegetable decay rose from the garden below.

  The sitting room had a wrought iron balcony that overlooked the street, empty now except for the occasional passing mule buggy and cruising taxi. As he stood savoring his cigarette in the pleasant evening breeze, Palmer could hear Bourbon Street—its constant hubbub blurred and muted, but still distinct in the otherwise quiet neighborhood. Every now and again a drunken celebrant would shriek with laughter, the echoes losing themselves among the ancient buildings.

  Palmer experienced a slight twinge of unreality, as if he were dreaming and aware of dreaming at the same time. When he had left for New Orleans that morning, there was still frost on the ground and in certain alleys where the shadows rarely part, there were still hard crusts of snow and ice to be found. Now he was standing in his shirtsleeves, taking in the fragrant subtropical night air while listening to the sounds of Carnival.

  He contemplated going out and joining the party, but jet lag claimed him. He fell asleep splayed across the massive four-poster, wisps of mosquito netting fluttering in the breeze from the open windows.

  He dreamed that he woke up. In that dream, he lay in bed for a few seconds, trying to place where he was and what he was doing there. When he remembered, he sat up, rubbing his eyes. It was still dark outside; a pale sliver of moonlight fell through the French windows. There was a table and chair near the foot of the bed. Palmer’s dream-self was aware that someone—or something—was seated in the chair, w
atching him. He could see enough to tell his visitor was female and he instinctively put his hand to the scar over his heart, fearing it was Lola. Palmer wanted to stand up and walk toward the mysterious figure, but he couldn’t move.

  Who are you?

  The dream-woman did not answer but instead got to her feet. She stood in deep shadow, fingering the length of netting draped across the footboard. She moved again, and a spear of moonlight struck her face, but all Palmer could see was his own perplexed frown, reflected in miniature. The shadow-woman smiled, revealing teeth too white and sharp to belong in a human mouth.

  That’s funny; I was going to ask you the same thing.

  It was her. The one he’d traveled so far to find. Palmer had never seen her photo, much less heard her voice, but he was certain that the woman standing at the foot of his bed was Sonja Blue. Before he could say anything, her attention was drawn to the balcony.

  Here? No, not here. But close. On its way.

  She sprinted for the French windows. Palmer opened his mouth to shout a warning that they were two stories up, but nothing came out. He felt embarrassed for trying to warn a dream about breaking its legs. When the woman reached the open windows, she seemed to expand and elongate at the same time, stretching like a spaceship achieving light speed, then shot headfirst into the early morning sky.

  Palmer was suddenly aware that he was cold and sweating and shaking like a malaria victim. His scar began to burn like a hot wire pressed against his chest. That’s when Lola popped up from behind the footboard like a malignant jack-in-the-box, the .38 leveled at his heart.

  “Surrr-prizzze!”

  He was unable to control himself this time and woke screaming, his fingers clawing at the scar.

  There was no listing for Indigo Imports in either the New Orleans Yellow or White Pages. Still, if you wanted a credit card, you had to have a phone. It was a fact of life. It was probably an unlisted number, but there was always the chance she relied on a message service to relay her calls. And those were listed.