“Sure.”
“The moralists say that no one is completely good or completely bad. And yet, Dil, I’m almost willing to say that Laura was bad. Call it a consciousness of evil. I don’t blame you. She had her act polished well enough to blind any man. And you never saw her unless the act was in operation. I did, once. That last time. If you can say that a woman, just by her attitude, can turn a perfectly ordinary room into a sort of jungle, then Laura could do it. If and when this Haussmann is found, I think we’ll find him to be a sort of male Laura.”
The steak seemed to have lost some of its flavor. “How about Laura being the dupe of Haussmann?”
“Maybe when Laura was twelve or thirteen she was somebody’s dupe, Dil. But not since that time, and not for long then.”
“Did my—other friends all feel the same way?”
“Maybe not as strongly, but just about the same way.”
“Couldn’t you have stopped me?”
“With a detachment of Marines, or a bullet in the head. Perhaps. Look, Dil. Anything any of us said to you would have been like dropping a match in the gas tank. You were, as we old hillbillies call it, sot in your ways. We could hope it would blow over. But it didn’t.”
“A funny thing,” I said. I watched the candle waver as my breath touched it. “I can’t be sorry I married her. In some funny way it means growing up. Entering man’s estate or something. New set of values. There’s still anger left, but frankly, Jill, not a hell of a lot of sorrow. More sorrow for a girl who sold dresses.”
“She was part of it all. She had to be part of it all. Paul’s apartment and everything. Who was she with, Dil? Whose team was she on?”
“I can tell you that much, I guess. Mr. Stalin’s team.”
I watched her, expecting to see a slight bulge in the eye department, a look of shocked incredulity. Instead she looked as though she had suddenly put on a mask. A mask that looked like Jill Townsend, but was as dead and expressionless as a clever device made of rubber and plastic.
“No reaction?” I asked.
“Don’t do anything—silly tonight, Dil. Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Take the key I sent you. You can get back in here. I may not be home.”
“Where will you be?”
“Oh, investigating. That’s a good couch there, if you want to use it. Comfortable. And you may need to stay out of touch for a while.”
“Why?”
“Barney Zeck confides in me. He says a lot of people are annoyed with you, Dil. They think you’ll be more predictable behind bars. And if they give Captain Paris his head, he thinks he can make the killing of that girl stick.”
I stared at her. “Me? He thinks I—”
“I make my guests help with the dishes, pal. Bring out all you can carry.”
It was full night by the time we were done. A bit after nine. She walked me slowly to the door. She put her fingertips on my arm. “You will be careful, Dil?”
“Shy as a mouse.”
She went onto tiptoe to kiss me on the cheek. Her lips were cool. “The best of luck,” she whispered.
Zeck had said that the little affair would take place somewhere within a two-block radius of the Café Lafitte. That sounded like a small area. It figures out to sixteen square blocks of the Quarter. From Governor Nicholls Street four blocks south to St. Ann. From Burgundy Street four blocks east to Chartres Street. Each block has four sides. Sixty-four streets one block long. The area included everything from very fancy private homes to sodden, murky little bars. It is not a brightly lighted area. The life and color were much farther south, toward Canal. That early, the people were taking advantage of the illusive coolness of the night air. The coolness was largely a delusion. Slow voices were resonant on the galleries. Groups sat on the steps off the banquettes, and fans waved slowly in front of pallid faces. Later, when that part of the city slept, I knew that my heels would make sharp echoes in the deserted streets. I avoided walking directly under the street lamps. When I was forced to do so, I kept my head lowered.
I saw a likely chance sitting on a low step in a doorway. Her blonde hair had a greenish glint. She wore a sheer blouse, a tight skirt. I paused and looked at her. She returned the stare steadily. There is no more red-light section in the Quarter.
I moved over and offered her a cigarette. She took it without a word. When I held the match I saw what the darkness had concealed. Deep pits in her cheeks and her nose. She looked up at me through the flame light.
“Pretty hot,” I said.
“Wanta come inside? Got some beer on the ice.”
“Beer sounds good,” I said.
She got up with a small grunt of effort. She was taller than I had realized. Her posture was bad. Shoulders slumped forward, belly outthrust. I followed her down a narrow, damp-smelling corridor to a bedroom that faced a court. An ancient lift-top soft-drink box had been repainted, but the brand name still showed through. She lifted the lid after she turned on the light. The ice was nearly gone. The box was half full of water. Butter floated on a tin dish and she picked it out and set it out of the way.
She lifted a wet bottle out, deftly hooked the cap off on the side of the box, and handed it to me. I wiped the neck on my palm and tilted it up. The cold beer tasted good. She took a bottle too, closed the lid, and backed up until the backs of her knees struck the bed. She sat down. It was an old bedstead turned into a “Hollywood” bed by sawing off the posts and most of the legs.
“What’s your name, honey?” she asked.
“Joe.”
“Got a present for Christy, Joe?”
I set the beer bottle down on top of the soft-drink case, took a five out of my wallet, and floated it onto the bed beside her hip. “Not enough, Joe,” she said metallically.
“Enough for what I want. I just want this beer and a little talk.”
“You just want a little talk. You got words you want me to say to you? Once a guy had them all typed out for me to read to him.”
“I want information.”
She stiffened. “I told you guys before. I haven’t seen him in two years. Why don’t you catch him and stop bothering me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Christy. Look, I heard there’s a show around this neighborhood someplace. I heard it’s within a few blocks of here. But I can’t find it.”
She gave me a look of contempt. “Oh, you’re one of those, eh?”
“Is there a law against it?”
“I say everybody is the way they are, and what can you do about it?”
“That’s a sound philosophy. Where’s the show?”
She bit her lip and frowned. “Gee, honey, I don’t know. But look, I got a friend. I could call her from the corner.”
“Does she know where it is?”
“No, but she’s got quite an act of her own. Me, I don’t go for that sort of thing. Will that do? It’ll only cost you another twenty. Maybe she could come right over.”
“No. I want to find the one I heard about.”
“It runs steep, honey. Maybe a hundred bucks.”
“That’s all right.”
“I sure wish I could help. I know where it used to be, before it was raided and they jailed everybody. But they keep it awful quiet.”
“How did you used to steer people when you knew where it was?”
“They had to go to a place called Kobel’s. That’s two blocks over. And get Jimmy the bartender aside and ask him where to find Dagwood.” She giggled. “Hell of a name, isn’t it?”
“But that’s changed?”
“Oh, sure. But say! I bet you Jimmy might know, at that. He’s got a scar. A bad one. It pulls his mouth up. They say a girl dug him with a pair of scissors while he was out cold, and he damn near bled to death.”
“Thanks, Christy, and thanks for the beer.”
“That’s O.K. Look, if you get disappointed, you come back and I’ll call my friend. She’s real pure Creole and cute as anyt
hing.”
She came out with me. When I looked back she was sitting on the step again. I walked to Kobel’s. You went down one step from the sidewalk to get into it. It was the sort of place that makes the hair on the back of your neck crawl. Even though it wasn’t logical, you had the feeling that you could get your throat cut for fifty cents in there. Very probably the worst that could happen would be a micky and then a roll job in the nearest alley. I was glad of the blue-black shadow of beard on my throat and jaw. A few men sat at tables. Several stood at the bar.
I went down to the far end of the bar near a stone doorway that led into a dingy back room. There was no music. There was no conversation. Just those men, each sunk in his own particular and special hell.
I had no doubt that the bartender was Jimmy. I would have guessed at hedge clippers rather than scissors. The scar started under his right eye and slanted down to his mouth. The lip was pulled up so high that it lay against the side of his snub nose, and left three gold-capped teeth permanently exposed. It gave him a whistling speech defect.
“Can of beer,” I said. He named some brands. I picked one. I watched his hands carefully as he jacked holes in the top of the can. It was that sort of place. I laid a five on the bar. As he reached casually for it I said in a low voice, “Keep the change, Jimmy.”
His hand was a plump ocher spider that stood poised on stubby legs over the bill. “Who are you?”
I hunched forward. “I was wondering where Dagwood hangs out these days.”
He leaned forward and whispered, “Ain’t you a little out of date, pal?”
“I haven’t been in town for some time.”
“Dagwood ain’t around no more, pal.”
“Who’s holding down his job?”
Velvet eyes with surprisingly long lashes dropped significantly down to glance at the bill. I added a twin to it. The plump spider sucked them up and whisked away with them. “Guy named Abner took his place.”
“How do I find Abner?”
“This is no guarantee, pal. They got to take a look at you. And you’re early. Right about midnight, a little before, you go up to the corner. Take a right. Halfway down the block is a warehouse, on the far side of the street. There’s a picket fence with a green gate just beyond the front of the warehouse. Rap on that green gate. Anybody answers, you’re looking for Abner. Have your dough ready, too. One hundred bucks on the line.”
“How is it?”
“When would I have a hundred bucks, pal?”
A man signaled down the bar. Jimmy went down to take care of him. I finished the beer and walked out. I didn’t feel at ease on the street. A cruiser that went by, decal on the door, didn’t help any. I had the feeling they were going to flick on the spot and pin me against the wall like a bug on a board. I was sweating more than the heat excused by the time the cruiser turned down the next street. I followed Jimmy’s directions and oriented myself in respect to the green gate. The picket fence was only about ten feet long, and too high to see over. No light showed through the pickets.
I had no choice. I could either hang around and wait for the distinctive silhouette of Haussmann, or I could go on in. They wouldn’t be such fools as to leave the street unwatched. Hanging around might turn out to be exceedingly unhealthy. And there was the additional factor that Haussmann might enter by some other way. It wasn’t likely that such a setup would depend on only one entrance and exit.
By my watch it was almost eleven. One hour to kill. I walked a block and a half to the Café Lafitte. I walked by, slowly, and looked through the windows that front on the sidewalk. There were several groups of customers, and one burly man who stood alone next to the open fireplace in the middle of the room. I didn’t care for his looks, for his air of endless patience. Police patience, it seemed. I kept right on walking, right down Bourbon. At the first bar that looked dimly lighted, I turned in. I found a small table in the shadows. The waiter brought a Scotch. I nursed it along, made it last. The minutes seemed endless.
When at last it was time I left and headed back. I reached the green gate at ten minutes of twelve. The place seemed as deserted as before. I rapped. It was a lonely sound on the quiet street. Nothing happened. I wondered if Jimmy had made himself a fast ten dollars. Just as I started to rap again, the gate opened. The hinges had been well oiled. There wasn’t a sound.
“What do you want?” a cold low voice asked.
“I’m looking for Abner.”
“Step in. I’ll see if he’s here.”
I stepped into a darkness like the bottom of a mine. No sound. A harsh white light blinded me. It clicked off and the darkness was greater than before.
“Who told you Abner might be here?”
“Jimmy.”
The light came on again and was turned on me at waist level. Enough of it reflected from my shirt so that I could see the pale oval of a face behind the light, but I could make out no features.
“Count it out.”
A fifty, two twenties, and a ten. He took the money. The light went out. In a matter of seconds soft footsteps approached. I guessed that some signal had been given. I was ordered to follow the new one. He took me back through darkness. My left hand brushed the shaggy wall of the warehouse. I didn’t like any part of it.
Chapter Ten
It was in the warehouse itself, on the second floor. We rounded a corner and ahead was a narrow aisle between packing cases, a light at the end of the aisle.
“Go in and find a seat,” my guide whispered. “No talking.”
I went slowly down the aisle. At first I could smell dust, a tang of rodents, a scent of mildew and damp rot. Then slowly a musky incense grew stronger. It did not cancel out the warehouse smell. It floated strongly on top of it, like a heavy sustained trumpet note riding on a dim rhythm beat.
The aisle led to an open space. Directly ahead was a raised stage. Two underpowered floodlights were mounted on the front edge of the stage, slanting back toward a dusty wine-colored backdrop that could have been the curtain from some movie house long extinct. I could get no clear idea of the size of the room. Just the impression of a high ceiling. I could feel expectancy around me, but I could not see the audience. I shut my eyes tightly for ten seconds, then opened them wide. It worked—a little. Audience chairs became visible. Little uncomfortable folding chairs. The kind that can be rented from undertakers.
The occupied chairs were merely heavier shadows. I moved up and found an empty chair. Slowly my vision improved. I saw that I was four rows from the improvised stage. Around me I could hear the stir of breathing, an infrequent rustle of cloth, the shuffle of feet, the scrape of a chair leg. On my right, two feet from my right hand, was the red glow of a cigarette end. It moved upward in a low arc to waiting lips. It brightened, made a pinkish glow on a face. A woman’s face. It lasted just long enough for me to see that she was young, that she wore a black mask across her eyes. The cigarette went back down in the same slow arc.
There was nothing to do but wait. I tried to pierce the darkness and find the oversized shadow that might be Haussmann. A pair of new customers arrived. And then a single. And then a trio. They found chairs and settled themselves to wait. I counted the house. I couldn’t be completely accurate, but it seemed to be more than thirty.
Better than three thousand dollars. As near as I could guess, there were ten chairs in each row, and six rows. A full house would bring in six thousand. It wasn’t the sort of business you’d want to make tax declarations on.
Around me was sickness. A disease of the soul. I could taste it. Not an uncommon disease. Cans of movie film can be rented. Still pictures are distributed furtively. The market is always big. It seems strange that this should be so. It is the visual perversion of an elemental drive. It is filth. It is social cancer. I could sense the dry-mouthed waiting around me, the impatient thud of pulse.
When the man moved onto the stage there was a slow sigh from the darkness. He was a magnificent Negro, his body an oiled symmetric blackne
ss, his heavy face full of the elemental and regal dignity of the Watusi. He wore a loincloth and a necklace of bone and feathers. A bright red stick pierced the central membrane of his nose, forcing the wide nostrils even wider. Across his gleaming chest were three broad bands of pale aqua. He carried a squat barbaric drum from which dangled heavy chains of copper coins, jangling faintly as he walked. He sat cross-legged in the center of the stage, his back almost touching the curtain, the drum in front of him. He looked out into the darkness with somber contempt.
The room grew very still. The man touched the drum lightly, the faint boom barely audible. And he touched it again, as though casually. After a long pause he tapped it twice in quick succession. Thus was the basic thread of the rhythm born. Slowly he increased the beat, and as he began to use more force, the strands of coins added their faint music. Comfort left his face as he began to lose himself in the increasing complications of the beat. His eyes grew glazed with concentration and lips pulled back from teeth that blazed white.
I had planned to be the objective observer. But that drumbeat reached back into that part of you that is forever a savage, that still dances on the jungle floor while beasts cry shrilly in the night. The rhythm took you out of objectivity and made you one with the sick pulse of those who sat near you in the darkness.
A woman spun into the light. She was as black as the man. Frantic white showed all the way around the pupils of her eyes, and the cords of her throat were taut. Her breasts were heavy, dark-nippled, her loins like the night. Every motion was built upon the drumbeat, was complementary to it, and the slap of her bare feet on the floor was a rhythmic offbeat.
The rhythm drugged me so that I barely noticed the second man who spun out into the night. I barely noticed the short stick, the whir of the three-thonged whip.
When the blow landed across the naked back, when the blood gleamed dark, it was as though someone had dashed ice water into my face. It brought me out of it, brought me back to shame that I could have been lost for so long. The blows continued to land, and nausea thickened in my throat. Once again I became conscious of the people around me as individuals instead of a dark entity. What had sobered me instantaneously seemed only to heighten their intense identification with the act. I remembered reading of the cult of the flagellants, of bloody Easters in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Not for me. Not ever for me.
Murder for the Bride Page 9