by Seth Pevey
“It looks like a bean, doesn’t it?” Felix asked. “Someone shaped it just like that.”
“And those green eyes…” Melancon noted.
Just then, a street musician happened to be tuning a guitar, putting together his set on the sidewalk across from the café.
It hit Felix.
“Wait…wait…holy shit. Yes! I know who this is!” he said, his voice rising a few decibels too loud for the quiet café terrace.
Melancon’s face said that it had hit him as well.
Twenty minutes later, the detectives were standing on the corner of Decatur and Governor Nicolls.
“We going to do this?” Felix asked.
“Yeah. St. Louis and Chartres…right?”
“He is usually somewhere around there. I figure he’s set up by now. But how we going to go about it?”
“Just act natural,” Melancon replied.
Felix scoffed. “Oh right…how stupid of me. So, we just act natural? Hey sir, nice horn blowing, here is a dollar or two…oh, and by the way, you know anything about a missing Korean stripper? Or maybe this weird root that looks like a black man’s testicles? And by the way, here is a fucking Voodoo doll that bears a striking resemblance to you, any thoughts you’d like to share?”
Melancon pulled out a small flask and poured a bit into his throat, shook his head.
“Seems a bit strange when you put it that way. But it’s not the first time, Felix.”
“The first time what?”
Melancon looked at him with his pale blue eyes, cracked with the red veins of age and self-abuse. “The first time strange things have happened,” he said, as if it was terribly obvious. “Weird things have been happening here for three hundred years. They aren’t done yet.”
They made their way.
Finally, the two detectives stood and watched him from a block away, watched his bean-shaped head bob in time to “When You’re Smiling.”
“Damn Felix. There isn’t a bit of doubt, is there?”
“Spitting image.”
The bean-shaped head, the bright green eyes, the small freckles on his cheekbones—it was him. It was the doll. Felix passed this man nearly every day, even tipping him once in a while. Why had it taken him so long to make the connection?
How the man could blow his horn, though. They watched and listened to him for a long while. From side to side he rocked, letting long peels of thunder echo down the old streets. First, the sides of the bean-shaped face would inflate, two eight balls of wind, the lips pursed in a kiss. And then the fat end of his brass would rise up into the air, the spring sunlight bouncing off of it, and the sound it made would make the soles of your feet itch.
The detectives moved in closer and Felix found himself fondling the little doll in his pocket.
Around the musician were the three young children, all of them curly haired and lithe. Eight or nine years of age, but hard looking as old ex-cons. Their tight little muscles already budded beneath their cotton tank tops, and there were fresh cut marks on one of their chins. This one blew a French horn that seemed to weigh down his developing arms, though he too could blow it well. The other children tapped out a rhythm, one with an upturned bucket and a single drumstick, the last with metal political buttons pressed into his ratty sneakers.
“I’ve got a feeling that we aren’t going to get very far here,” Melancon said. The detectives pressed their backs against a brick wall and kept watching, listening.
“Well, you’re the one with all the experience, detective. I’ll follow your lead.” Felix said.
Melancon nodded him in the direction of a shop a few blocks away. The storefront was peopled with the ill-kempt street life of the Quarter: standing, sitting, drinking, laughing in their circles, enthralled in their freedom.
“This used to be the A and P,” Melancon grumbled, pulling from his flask again, watching a pair of gutter punks engage in an elaborate handshake, lock arms and dance a jig together on the pavement. Felix followed the detective inside.
Standing in the chilly drink aisle, he watched Melancon palm a large, glass bottle of malt liquor. It had a cobra on its shiny tinsel label.
“It’s not for me, Felix,” Melancon said over his shoulder as they walked towards the checkout. The old man seemed to read his thoughts at times.
Out again in the swirling, crowded Royal Street, Melancon threw away the brown paper bag the checkout woman had used to hide the beer. The gutter punks watched him, licking their lips. A few moments later and the two detectives were back down the street, facing the trombone man on his corner.
“So just like we talked about: take my lead, act natural,” the old detective said, and headed towards the musician with a jaunty step.
The song ended, and Melancon pressed the cold beer into the trombone man’s free hand. The man’s green eyes widened and he smiled, revealing two oversized front teeth. It was really a very unfortunate way for a man to look, Felix thought to himself, but Melancon returned the smile, took his hat off and put it to his chest.
“You can sure blow that thing.”
The man took the beer, laid his trombone down on a drop cloth near his change bucket, twisted the top off and had a long drink. Even with the mild weather, he was sweating. His brass caught the sun and jazzed up the air around him with its heat.
“Thank you,” the trombone man said. His clothes were motley and his eyes had a sharp fear in them. Underneath the mask he so clearly wore for the throngs of bill-dropping drunks, there was a tightness to his face, a wary survey in his eyes. The tap dancing boys about him bowed and scraped, keeping just out of arm’s reach.
When Melancon made no move to walk away, detective and musician stood staring at each other a second longer than was polite—the Quarter crowds parting around them like trout around a river stone.
“Say,” Melancon started. “My friend and I, we got a song we really been wanting to hear.”
Trombone man let his bushy eyebrows hop. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Felix, what’s the name of that song again?”
Felix hesitated a minute before he found the track his partner was taking.
“Oh…right. I think you said it was by Lead Liver Jackson.”
“That’s the one,” Melancon said, snapping his fingers at his partner. “What’s it called?”
“It’s an old, old song…I believe it’s called John the Conqueror.
Melancon turned back and faced the man. “That’s right…John the Conqueror…you wouldn’t know that old number? Would you, pal?”
The man’s green eyes dilated, and he looked up at the sky, shook his legume head from side to side.
“That’s a guitar song, mister,” he said soberly. “I ain’t playing the right instrument.”
Melancon smiled. “Oh come on, you know that old tune. I bet you can even put your own, jazzy spin on it. Do you remember the lyrics? I believe it has something to do with a root. A root that is important…a root that might be used in some…religious capacity. What religion was that again, Felix?”
“Voodoo,” Felix said, putting a cold edge into the word and watching the man’s face go hard.
“Ah right, that is what it was,” Melancon said, and took a step towards the Trombone man. Their two faces were now inches apart. “Now…think hard. Because we really, really need to hear this particular song. So, let me ask you again, you sure you don’t know that old tune?”
Trombone man bent low and put the beer down.
He picked up his brass, fumbling a bit with it. His muscles were tensing, and his movements suggested a body and mind working out the question of fight or flight. As hard and as rough as he looked, he was no poker player, Felix noted, letting a hand slide down casually to the pistol on his hip.
“There is a bad history there mister,” the man said. “That song brings me back to a bad time. A time I’d rather not remember. I don’t think that is a song you can really understand, anyway. Now if you don’t mind.”
M
elancon finally opened his coat so that the trombone man could see both the private badge, and the gun hanging on his belt. The man squinted his green eyes at it. “Wait, wait, wait…so you ain’t even a cop? Man, get the fuck on down the road.”
Trombone man blew an aggressive note on his horn. The little urchin boys lifted their heads in unison.
Felix stepped closer. “Look, look. Let’s all calm down here. Mister, we aren’t here to make any trouble, we just want to know a little bit about this Voodoo church you are involved with. We’ve got a missing girl.”
Felix pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his front pocket and twisted it for a minute so that it could be read. Then he bent low and put it in the man’s cardboard box. “There is more where that came from, just hoping to hear the right song.”
The man blinked at him, looked off down the street behind him, over to a group of street people lounging on the opposite corner.
“Why you think I got anything to do with that?”
He pursed his lips against the brass and played another long note. The young boys drew in around him, pressing up against him.
Melancon put his hat on, took a step back, and made what Felix read as the slightest nod.
Digging in his other pocket, Felix found where the little bone doll rested. “Because of this…” he said, and presented the idol, holding it up to Trombone man’s face. He held it as close as possible, so that anybody watching would make the same connection as he had.
Trombone man lowered his metal, a stricken look on his face. The cold wind swept through the street and the boys all cocked their heads towards the tiny, upheld fetish.
A quick pursing of the lips, the brass rising once again. One final note he played: a belt that twisted up, up, up, three times. Just as the last note ended, Trombone man turned suddenly to flee, tripping over his money box, sending bills flapping in the wind. Now, sprawled on the pavement, he went to crawling on all fours away from them, dragging his instrument with him down towards the alley.
The detectives made a move to follow, but it was too late.
The little street urchins had formed a line between the detectives and their quarry. With smiles on their faces, they danced in a row. Felix made to shove his way through them, but found it impossible to do so without using the force of a grown man—which he wasn’t prepared to do. He would have had to send one of them flying to the gutter. As he did his best to maneuver between them, they kept light on their feet, skipping backwards and moving with a sort of liquidity that didn’t allow Felix to place any kind of light force on them. Aside from picking up and throwing one of them to the gutter, there wasn’t any other way. The precious seconds were wasted in this odd dance, and the trombone man was all the while disappearing down towards the alley.
These small street princes were human quicksand, darting from side to side, toying with the elderly detective as well. They laughed and banged their metal soled shoes against the pavement. The French horn boy waved his glinting metal in the air in front of him, shouting to draw in a crowd of onlookers.
“I can see he has trained you boys well,” Melancon said, finally exhausted, panting with his hands on his knees. “Where are your parents, anyway?”
They grinned and were off in the same direction as their leader, yelling loudly to one another and scampering across the pavement.
“Well, that did us no good,” Felix said. “In fact, I think all we’ve done is alerted the entire street scene to our presence.”
“No good huh?” Melancon said, a wry smile on his face as he caught his breath. “Stick around a while Felix. You’ll learn a thing or two.”
The elderly detective pulled a rubber glove out of his pocket and put it on. Then he pulled a zip lock from the other pocket, picked up the beer bottle and poured the remaining beer into the sewer drain.
“Good old fashioned detective work. Fundamentals. I knew we’d never get that guy’s ID in a million years. But now we have prints. We will have his whole rap sheet in a day or two. Just need to get this to Janine at the station. She still owes me a favor or two. Now what’s the pun on this story?”
But Felix was too shocked to think of anything clever at that moment. So, he simply shook the detective’s hand and smiled.
“Well played.”
Nine
The next morning they both sat, once again, inside the idling El Camino. Melancon was hoping that some Muddy Waters, three cups of coffee, and little sips from his flask would energize him for the day that lay ahead. But nothing was working so far. He felt odd. Strange dreams had troubled him overnight. Dreams of his little girl running into his arms. Dreams where he saw himself, a brittle bone doll stuffed with straw, a thousand pins and needles poking out of his liver. Long knives shining in the night. He woke to sweat pooled on his pillow.
Through the foggy windshield, the birds fell in large swarms through the perfect blue sky. Flowers everywhere.
“I just need to say it. You’ve been drinking too much, old man,” Felix said, watching his partner take another sip. Melancon smacked his lips and let out a little sigh of pleasure.
“I know it,” he said.
They were in the parking lot behind the downtown New Orleans police station. It was another crisp morning with a bite in the air, and the heater on the old Camino was long since busted. The two of them shivered in their stillness, waiting.
“So, if you had to make a guess. Where you figure this Korean girl is right at this moment?” Felix asked.
Melancon looked over at him and took another thoughtful swing out of his flask. “My gut says she had some kind of a mental breakdown. Hate to say it. Judging by those parents, and that pastor, I get the feeling our damsel had plenty of pressure on her. Expectations. Big ones. Sometimes people just snap under all that weight. She’s probably in Vegas or something getting paid twice what she was at Mick’s. Starting a judgement-free life for herself.”
Felix was quiet for a long moment. He eyed the flask. “Did Julie have a lot of pressure?” he finally asked, his eyebrows carefully rising.
The old detective looked at the steering wheel a while and Felix turned down the music.
“I like to think that…whatever pressure she had, it didn’t come from me. But I’m not so sure, Felix. I told you her mom and I had split up a while before it happened. I think that was kind of hard on her. On Julie. An only child like that. It was a messy breakup, and she kinda…had to choose sides. That’s never kind on a kid, even one that is pretty much done growing up.”
Felix bit his lip and nodded, rubbing his hands together against the cold.
“Whatever it is, you can’t drink it away, partner,” he said. “I know I’m a lot younger and not as wise as you, but I think I’ve learned that much. Don’t trash yourself.”
“Nothing else helps.”
“Well…for what it’s worth, I think Min Ji was probably kidnapped by someone who took a shine to her at the strip club. Maybe our trombone man took her, got her addicted to dope. Figures on practicing in some human trafficking. Must pay better than panhandling,” Felix said.
Melancon pointed. “Well, we are about to find out something, I figure.”
On the other side of the foggy windshield, they could make out Janine’s shapely blue form coming out of the back security door and heading towards them, a clipboard in her hands. He rolled the window down and tried his best to smile at her. Her big, dark eyes seemed, at least to Melancon, to be swimming in sadness. But perhaps he was just seeing his own reflection.
“The smell hit me all the way from here, David,” she said.
“Yeah…I’m going to let my partner drive us home Janine, don’t worry.”
“I’m worried…”
Melancon didn’t answer. An awkward moment passed.
“So how is your case?” she finally asked.
“I tell you, Janine…The shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“Well,” she said, turning her head and waving the long stran
ds of black hair away from her eyes. The papers on her board fluttered in the breeze. “Are you ready for another dose of weirdness?”
“Hit me.”
“Those prints you brought in popped up in a twenty year old cold case. Homicide of a young, female store clerk near Panama City Florida. Can you believe that?”
Melancon blew steamy air from his nose, tasting the bitterness on the back of his tongue and trying to still his head. The old ghosts. The sinking feeling that another life seemed to be slipping further and further out of his grip, out of his power to help.
“So, he was a killer. A trombone playing killer…of women,” Melancon said to the steering wheel.
“Well, possibly,” Janine went on. “Was a gas station robbery, before cameras were everywhere. They found these same prints on a couple of items in the store. The cash register. The glass on the door. The victim was a woman in her twenties working her way through nursing school. This is the first lead on the case in almost eighteen years. Here, I managed to get you some of the initial report.”
She handed him a folder.
“Shit,” Felix said from the passenger seat. He cracked his knuckles and went red-faced.
“The man carrying these prints is a wanted fugitive. You’ve got to bring this guy in, David. Or we do. One way or the other he needs to be in an interrogation room. Like, yesterday,” Janine said.
“Janine, could you do me a favor, just for old time’s sake?”
She leaned into the window and looked at both of them, an eyebrow raised.
“Another favor?”
“Just look Janine. I’m worried. Worried for this Korean girl. She joined a church. A bad church. We think she is involved with this guy somehow. And if I try to explain to you why I think all of this, you will think I’m crazy.”
“I already think that David,” she said, deadpan.
“Fine…but if the police start getting involved…this guy…he is liable to run. He and whoever he works with are liable to take our Korean girl with them. And then…Well, I know you are still investigating the case, but my worst fear is that this has some connection to the girl on I-10. I’m pretty sure it does, in fact. I’d be willing to bet my life that that root you found in her hands is what southerners call John the Conqueror.”