Cities of the Dead (11 page)

“Nobody left to hurt,” she muttered. “Come on. Drink up. Champagne's getting warm.” She touched her glass to her lips, but barely sipped at it. He didn't blame her.

“You gotta boyfriend, or a husband, or something?” Spraggue said, draining his glass and looking around warily. Dubuque was panicking a little.

“What makes you think that?”

“What you said. About nobody left to hurt. I mean if you were using your husband's name, like, to, uh, dance under, I bet it would piss him off good. And I don't want to—”

“Relax,” she said. “No husband.”

“Than who's not left to hurt?”

He waited for the “none of your business” his query deserved. But he didn't get it.

“My old man, my father, died.”

“Hey, I'm sorry,” Spraggue said, taking her hand and giving her that special, sincere actor-look that Jonah did so well. On stage it wasn't bad. In real life, it always made him want to puke.

“You don't have to be.” She started to shake off his hand, but then she must have remembered her job. She ran her fingers lightly over his palm.

“My dad died this past fall,” Spraggue lied. “I know just how you feel.” His parents had died in a fiery car crash two days after he'd turned fourteen. It had taken the medical examiner almost a week to identify the bodies.

“No way,” Aimee said, turning her eyes toward the stage. “My papa and me, we had a real special relationship. I hated his guts.” She was looking at the stage, but she was seeing something else.

“Hey, you don't want to say a thing like that,” Spraggue said, releasing her hand as if it had given off a surge of electricity.

“Drink up,” she said. “Not everybody's dad is as nice as your daddy was. My papa was a louse. He got what he deserved.”

“He die badly?” Spraggue asked. “Cancer?”

The applause, shouts, and jeers hit a crescendo. Claudine's routine ended with a clash of cymbals. The stage lights dimmed.

“They'll take a five-minute break and then Annette'll come on,” Aimee said. “She'll heat the place up, I guarantee. Unless you're warm enough already?” She reminded him of an actress doing the three-hundredth performance of the same role.

Jonah Turner would have stared down that blouse, said he was plenty hot enough and why didn't they go back to his hotel for awhile? Or better still, her place, since some of his co-conventioneers might lack discretion once they were back home.

Spraggue wondered if he'd get more information out of her in bed. Or forget all about information. Or get picked up for soliciting an underage hooker.

Aimee stared at him from beneath her full dark eyelashes. Spraggue took a deep breath and decided he'd better stay put.

“You know, I just read about some guy named Fontenot in the newspapers,” he said.

One of her high black heels started tapping the floorboards. Her knee rubbed against Spraggue's leg, but the rhythm was angry, not seductive.

“I remember,” Spraggue said. “The guy who got killed at that restaurant thing. You read about that?”

“I don't read the papers. Nothing but bad news.”

“That's a good idea. Some of the news is real upsetting. Like this guy getting stabbed. I don't know why it bothered me. Maybe because I was hoping to eat at his restaurant. Maybe because he was killed on Thursday night. You know how you sometimes remember exactly what you were doing on the day somebody died?”

“No,” she said bluntly.

He hoped she was still listening. He got the feeling that something deep inside her had turned completely off, that she would smile and nod no matter what he said.

He'd planned to mention the day Kennedy was shot as an example, but realized he was talking to a girl who probably hadn't been born then.

“Were you working here Thursday night?” he asked. “Or do you have a class Thursdays?”

She rested her chin on her hand and shook her head slowly. “Shit,” she said finally. “I shoulda known. Momma described you to me real good. You're the man from that awful newspaper.”

“No,” Spraggue said. “I'm no journalist.”

“She said you were from the
Star
. How can you work for that shit-pile paper?”

He thought it was a great comment coming from a woman typecast to be asked that deathless question, “What's a nice girl like you?” et cetera. He opened his wallet and displayed his P.I. photostat.

“Oh,” she said. “I see. This must have something to do with my dear daddy's untimely death.” Her tight mouth and sarcastic tone didn't express loving filial sentiment.

“It does.”

“Well, get lost. Dear old daddy didn't have a lot of time for me when he was alive, and I haven't got a lot of time for him now that he's dead.”

“I'm impressed,” Spraggue said. “Too bad your old man isn't around to listen in.”

“He was never around when I wanted him. I didn't even know I had a daddy until I was practically grown up.”

“Look,” Spraggue said in a conciliatory tone, “I'm sure it was hard. I'd like to hear about it.”

“It's a bore. My shrink says if he'd been home when I was really little, he wouldn't have—he might have—he would have treated me more like a daughter.”

“And less like a …?” Spraggue prompted.

“Who are you working for? Do you have a client or are you trying to hook up to one? Because neither me or my momma is going to pay you one red cent to avenge old Joe.”

“I've got a client.”

“Who?”

“The woman who's in jail for killing your father.”

“Yeah?”

“She didn't do it.”

“Too bad.”

“What?”

“I'd be a lot more sympathetic if she had.”

The music revved up, louder than before. Hooting catcalls were drowned out by shrieking brass as a Chinese woman clad in a silky, brief kimono and spiky heels tottered out to center stage.

“Maybe we could talk about this someplace else,” Spraggue shouted over the cacophony.

“I'm sure we could,” she said with a sweet smile. “For a price.” She waved the check at him, and waited for him to put enough cash on the table to cover the tab. Then she daintily lifted two fingers to her mouth and let go with a piercing whistle. A minute earlier it wouldn't have been heard, but now it carried easily over a drumroll.

Spraggue never did get to see Annette dance.

The two lumbering bouncers knew the signal well. They lifted him out of his chair.

“I get the idea,” Spraggue said.

Two hundred pounds of muscle latched onto each of his arms.

“Hey,” he said. “I can walk.”

They heaved him out the front door. He missed hitting a Lucky Dog hot dog vendor by a good inch, then staggered into a crowd of Bourbon Street drunks. Half of them cursed; half of them didn't even notice.

TEN

The door to the suite swung open before Spraggue could finish fishing the key out of his pocket. Pierce bobbed his head in formal greeting, then winked to undermine the formality. The spine of the Spraggue mansion staff since time immemorial, Pierce had streaks of gray icing his shiny black hair, and a hairline that was rapidly retreating from shaggy eyebrows. Tall and spare, almost grim, he had the underappreciated ability to fade into the background. Pierce rarely called Spraggue by name anymore. He thought “Michael” too familiar, in spite of Spraggue's insistence, and sometimes fell back on the “Master Mike” of twenty years ago.

“Your aunt is—” Pierce began, taking no apparent notice of Spraggue's rumpled appearance.

“Darling,” Mary's voice fluted through the archway. “Do join us.”

“Company?” Spraggue murmured.

“Denise Michel,” Pierce whispered. “The cookbook lady. Formidable! And a friend of hers.” Pierce hesitated a second before choosing the word “friend,” but his face, as usual, gave nothing away.

So much for a long hot bath laced with the baking soda he'd picked up at the all-night drugstore. Soaks the stiffness right out, a stage-fighting instructor had once enthused while discussing cures for muscles stretched in pursuit of the perfect fencing-match riposte. Not panaceas for barroom brawls. Spraggue shrugged, and then regretted the movement. The bouncers had been brusque and professional. No arguments brooked, no bones broken. His left shoulder protested when he tossed his jacket on the sofa.

“And,” Pierce added, “we bailed Dora out.”

“She's here?”

The butler nodded. “Sleeping. An adjoining room.”

Spraggue followed his aunt's voice into the dining nook and found her presiding over the ruins of a banquet. A rich, spicy smell pervaded the room. The table, its length extended by a room service cart, had been swathed in a white linen cloth. Elaborate place settings—two wineglasses apiece and a flotilla of silverware—were scattered in disarray. Brown sauce congealed on the dinner plates. A half-full wine bottle kept two empty ones company in the center of the table.

A gaunt older woman, her long face full of harsh lines that gave it character, sat at his aunt's right. She was wearing beige slacks and a shapeless checked shirt. Her shoulders would have done credit to a fullback. On Mary's left sat another woman, this one young and pallidly pretty, in a sprigged cotton dress of Victorian cut.

Denise Michel, the older woman, offered a no-nonsense jerk of her head and a firm handshake. Paulette Thibideaux, the younger, blushed.

“We have had the most marvelous meal,” Mary said, beaming. “Barbequed oysters, chicken Pontalba—”

“Nothing so special.” Denise Michel ducked her head in what looked like honest embarrassment. Her cheeks were flushed. “Paulette did the oysters very well, I thought.” She had a rough croaking voice, with a slight French lilt, that Spraggue found attractive.

The young woman blushed again. Spraggue wondered if she did anything else besides cook and blush. Speak, for instance.

“You're a cook here?” Spraggue asked the question mainly to test her vocal capabilities, although he was puzzled by her presence at the table.

“Only a waitress really.” Her voice was both reedy and nasal. With that voice, a blush sufficed. “On the banquet staff. But Denise—Miss Michel—is teaching me to cook.” There was hero worship in her glance, that and a little more.

“Denise was just telling me about Henri Fiorici,” Mary said, slurring her words. Her gentle smile included everyone in the room, inviting them all to join her as she raised her wineglass to her lips.

Two and a half bottles of wine for three people. Mary's tipsiness had to be an act. She was the world bantamweight drinking champion. Spraggue watched as his aunt, her hand steady as a rock, unobtrusively refilled first Denise Michel's glass, then Paulette's.

Denise Michel outweighed Mary by fifty pounds. By virtue of sheer size, she should have been able to handle a bottle or two without risk of indiscretion, should have been able to drink tiny Mary under any table. But Denise was the one with the flushed cheeks. And fragile Paulette seemed to be having trouble sitting up straight.

“To Henri.” Denise lifted her glass in a toast, and Paulette solemnly echoed her motion. “Again, he takes off at the first sign of trouble. Just like the old days …”

“The old days?” Spraggue repeated.

“He is gone. Already. He flew yesterday back to New York. Never any guts. I tell that to Dora, way back.”

“Dora worked at Fiorici's restaurant in New York, after she left New Orleans.” Mary's quiet response to Spraggue's lifted eyebrow came quickly enough to prove her sobriety.

“Did the police say Fiorici could leave town?” Spraggue aimed the question at his aunt, but Denise intercepted it.

“But certainly. Why not? They think they have the killer dead to rights. How was I to—?” She stopped abruptly. “Sit down,” she said to Spraggue. “Why do you stand? Paulette, fetch another wineglass off the tray. Or give him one of yours. You drink?”

Spraggue's liking for Denise Michel increased. “You bet,” he said. The white burgundy would rinse the bar champagne off his tongue.

Denise poured. Her hand was huge and gnarled, the wrist as big as any man's. “I have been gossiping with your aunt,” she said, and let an unexpected giggle escape.

Not quite drunk, Spraggue thought, but with a definite buzz on, a pre-drunk glow.

“Anyway,” she continued, “it was long ago. It no longer matters. Every week Henri Fiorici would beg Dora to marry him. Every Sunday when he got back from Mass, she told me. After confession, he had more courage.”

“Is that why you invited him to the Great Chef's banquet?” Spraggue asked. “Because he used to know Dora?”

“Me? I did not invite him.” The idea upset Denise Michel. “He is a member. Yes, it's true, I arranged that he should sit with us. But I was not responsible for the invitations—”

“Except for Dora's,” Spraggue said.

“She, too, is a member.”

“But she'd never have come if you hadn't seconded the formal invitation with a personal plea,” Spraggue said. “Isn't that true?”

“Perhaps. Believe me, if I had for one moment thought, if I had known—” Denise opened, then shut her mouth, pressing her lips together in a frown.

Not drunk enough. “Known what?” Spraggue asked.

“That Fontenot would get himself killed, of course. What else? That the imbecile police would arrest the wrong person. Out of all the host who hated Fontenot, how could they be so stupid as to arrest Dora? The logic, you understand, it escapes me.”

“Denise did not care for Mr. Fontenot,” Mary said quietly. “As a chef.”

“A chef!” Denise made a squawking noise and flung her arms wide, barely missing a wine bottle. “A short-order cook! Or rather a long-order cook, always simmering pots full of slop. What did the man do? Peasant food. Soup and stew. Cheap messes with no delicacy, no refinement. The man knew nothing about food, nothing! He had no training, only a big mouth. And he fooled everyone.”