Chasing the Devil's Tail (29 page)

"I'm telling you it's not him," Valentin said in a low voice.

Again, Anderson didn't bother to respond. "I'm going to let you in on a bit of news," he said. "He is not long for these streets. Even if he gets away with these killings, he's finished. And it's been a long time coming. He's beyond control. He's a drunk and a hophead. He's got Negroes and Creoles and whites mixing together in those dance halls. He chases after white women himself. We have laws against that sort of thing. And there are plenty of people in this city who don't like him. People of influence. They don't like that music he plays and they don't like the way he carries on. He has no respect. He's bound for trouble."

The King of Storyville's pink face had once again grown red as he wound through this speech. He paused to puff his cheroot. Valentin stared past his now-former employer. Let him—let all of them—think what they wanted about him, and about Bolden. They were wrong. And he would live without this white man's money.

Anderson was watching him, as if reading his thoughts. "You can expect that your services will not be required by anyone in the District," he said, with what sounded like a touch of regret. He shook his head and his voice softened. "Listen to me, Valentin. I'll give you a last word of advice. Get out of the way. There are people in this city who would just as soon see you right alongside your friend Bolden, wherever he ends up."

He tossed what remained of his cigar into the cold fireplace and, with a last, long look at the Creole detective, walked out of the room. Valentin heard his footsteps proceed to the kitchen. Anderson exchanged some muffled words with the maid, and then the back door opened and closed.

Valentin stood there until he heard the distant sound of a motorcar stutter to a start and then chug-chug-chug down a side street, to the barking of the neighborhood dogs.

The unemployed Valentin St. Cyr reached for a third cigarette.

Justine had pulled the old curtains down and was washing the tall windows. In a thin cotton housedress that was tattered at the hem and the sleeves, a scarf tied over her head and rubbing at the glass with old pages from
The Sun
and ammonia from a bottle, she looked like she was playing the part of the maid in a stage play.

She smiled when she caught sight of him rounding the corner from Common Street. She stopped what she was doing to watch him approach and her smile faded. Even at that distance, she could see how troubled he looked, all but dragging his feet along the banquette. His appointment with Mr. Anderson had not gone so well. She had said prayers at Mass for him, but she could see from his bent back, the stiff set of his arms and his slow, stalking pace, that her prayers hadn't done much good.

Pale light filled the room as he stood, arms crossed, relating most of Anderson's lecture, ending with the word that he was finished around the District. "He says I failed him."

Justine leaned against the windowsill.

"Oh, I failed all right, but not because I was protecting Buddy," he said. "I failed because I couldn't muddle through this mess and catch the true killer."

She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she said, "Does this mean I have to go back?"

He looked at her. "Back?"

"To Miss Antonia's."

He threw up his hands with a "
No!
" so sharp that it gave her a start. Then he muttered something she couldn't catch and stalked out of the room. She went back to cleaning in the
kitchen. As she worked, she heard him in the other room and peeked out to see him stare at the floor, then throw himself down on the couch, then jump up and pace around some more. She was scrubbing at the sideboard when he stepped into the doorway.

"I can find work," he announced. "I can get along without Anderson and those damn madams. I can get along fine."

"I know that," she said. She watched his face. "What about King Bolden?"

"I was told that if I'm not careful, I'll go down with him."

She thought about that and said, "Then it's just as well it all turned out like this."

His eyes flashed and he started to say something, and for a moment she thought: he was going to start throwing things again. But he just turned around and walked out. A moment later, she heard the front door slam and his footsteps echoing down the stairwell. She put her rag aside and went to the balcony. She watched him until he turned the corner at Canal Street, heading back toward the District.

Countess Willie V Piazza took the Creole detective's arm and walked him through the parlor. At a mahogany table next to the street window, three men—two white, one who looked like a Mexican—sat talking in low voices. Their whispers stopped and they glanced coldly at Valentin as he and the Countess entered the room. He recognized one of the white men, Guy Molony, a murky, secretive rounder and sometime Pinkerton man. The other two were strangers. By habit, Valentin noted their features, pushed them into a drawer in his memory, all in the few seconds it took to reach the far side of the room.

Though Molony's partners were dressed in identical clean white shirts and cotton trousers, they were swarthy and
rough-edged, like they belonged in some jungle outpost. Their faces glowed in fierce shades of red as they drank from glasses of whiskey. The white fellow's hair was cropped in short, spiky points and the Mexican's black curls were slick with oil. Molony, looking like a particularly dapper fancy man that day, turned away before Valentin could address him.

Valentin escorted Countess Piazza through an archway and into a sitting room cluttered with ornate bric-a-brac on little shelves. The madam released his arm and drew the sliding doors closed. She gestured to a French chair as she took a seat that resembled a throne. "What's Molony up to now?" Valentin asked as he sat down, an automatic response to intruders on his territory. Then he remembered it wasn't his territory anymore, at least not by Tom Anderson's reckoning.

The Countess arranged herself. "He's got a couple wild boys out there," she said with a sly smile. "They're mercenaries. Soldiers of fortune. Lee Christmas and Manuel something." She laughed lightly. "Molony tells me they're going to assemble an army and invade the country of Honduras." Valentin raised his eyebrows in polite surprise and the madam shrugged her round, elegant shoulders. "Who knows?" she said. "Perhaps I can some day say that a revolution was hatched right out there in my parlor."

The madam was clearly delighted at the idea. Valentin, who knew little of affairs outside the District, and cared less, said nothing. The doors slid open a few feet and one of the girls, a pretty quadroon like all the residents of the house, stepped into the room and bent to whisper in the Countess' ear.

Valentin watched his host as she spoke to the girl in a low voice, still baffled by her hospitality.

He had left his rooms, walked the eight blocks to Conti Street and went around to Antonia Gonzales'. At that door, he
was told that the madam was indisposed, could he please call back another time? He then walked back to Basin Street to Lulu White's, where he received a similar message—the madam was said to be busy with a special customer—though the girl at the door whispered that Miss White expressed her regards. Tom Anderson's warning hadn't been an idle one, and so he mounted the gallery steps of Willie V Piazza's mansion expecting yet another curt dismissal.

He was surprised, though, when the madam herself appeared and waved a quick hand, ushering him inside, though she did pause to cast a furtive glance up and down the street. Of all the women who had contracted his services, Countess Piazza was the one he would have thought most eager to be rid of him. While her taste for Continental conventions—including intrigue—demanded private security, Valentin knew she thought him the least of an array of evils, the best pick from a crude litter of thugs, hoodlums, and road tramps. She kept him always at arm's length; they had exchanged at most a few dozen words in all the months he had worked for her, most of them to explain that an appearance once a week was all that was required unless, of course, a situation arose.

The only time he had ever been called to the house outside of his regular weekly visit was to dissuade an amorous Spanish prince from throwing himself from a second-story window. The prince was distraught because one of the Countess' lovelier quadroons would neither return his pledge of undying love nor accept his invitation to sail to Spain to become his mistress. The girl was Arkansas-born and didn't want to be so far from her kin. Valentin talked the broken-hearted prince down from the window ledge and sent him and his aggrieved Castilian heart away.

Countess Piazza rewarded the Creole detective with an
extra twenty-dollar gold piece, but never said a word about the incident. She had expected the discreet touch.

Of course, she was not without her pretensions. Though her swarthy skin, long, fleshy nose, heavy eyebrows and coal black hair loudly proclaimed Italian blood, Willie Piazza was no more a countess than Valentin was a saint. But she was so convincing in the role that it never occurred to anyone around the District to question it; and no one close to her would presume to pry into her affairs, least of all her private security man. It remained a mystery and part of their bargain. If there was still a bargain for them to keep.

She waved the quadroon girl away and turned to Valentin with a sigh and a frown. "How did things ever come to this?" she said and her tone, precise and cultured, held a tragic note. "Poor, dear Florence Mantley. Thrown from a window. May her soul rest in peace." Valentin nodded gravely. "And now you, Mr. St. Cyr," she went on. "It seems they've taken to killing the messenger."

Valentin gazed at the madam, a bit startled.

"You've paid a visit to Miss Antonia and Lulu White?" she went on, studying her fingernails. "And they sent you on your way?"

"Yes, they did."

"Did they tell you in person?"

"No, ma'am."

The Countess shook her head angrily. "Antonia called me up on the telephone. She got a message from Lulu White. Who got a message from Hilma Burt. Who informed her that Mr. Anderson preferred that we not retain the services of Mr. St. Cyr. The reason being that your mishandling of these murders is a black eye to all of us. And there was some mention of your friendship with King Bolden." Valentin nodded
glumly. "Well, Hilma Burt and Lulu White and Antonia Gonzales don't run my business," the madam went on. "You won't get that sort of treatment at this address. I owe you that much."

He let out a sharp breath.

"Those two should be ashamed," the Countess said. "Tom Anderson should be ashamed. And I'm appalled that I have to be a party to it." Her tone turned regretful. "But you understand that I can't conduct business without Anderson's blessing." She shook her head slowly, looking troubled. "Why he thinks you're at fault, I don't know."

"He says I let him down be—"

"You?" the madam broke in. "I don't see his friends in the police department cleaning up this mess. All those detectives, the pride of New Orleans, they don't have one idea about what to do, and somehow it becomes your fault? That's an odd bit of logic, I'd say."

Valentin said, "They believe King Bolden is the guilty party and that he's my responsibility."

The madam paused to regard him. "And what do you believe, Valentin?"

He stared down at the designs in the thick carpet, creeping vines entwined with creeping vines. "I know him," he said. "We grew up together. I don't think he has the nature." He grimaced. "I happen to know what it takes to kill a person."

Countess Piazza sat back. "Oh, yes. That fellow over in Algiers." Her black eyebrows knit together. "But people do change, don't they?" she mused. When Valentin didn't speak up, she added, "Friend or no friend, he is a disturbed man. That's a fact." She folded her hands in her lap. "What about the other part? Do you believe you're responsible for him?"

"I believe I'm his last chance," he said.

The madam nodded thoughtfully, then sighed once and extended ring-adorned fingers that held a small envelope. "This is something to help you along," she said. "i hope one day i will find you back in my employ. But for now..." She sighed again, deeply, then wished him luck and called for one of her girls to see him out.

He was grateful for Countess Piazza's sentiments and the five gold pieces he had found in the envelope. But fifty dollars wouldn't last forever, and her kind thoughts wouldn't buy him as much as a ride on the No. 34 streetcar. Now, as he wandered north on Basin Street, eyes downcast, he tried to imagine how he would make up for the money he was going to lose. Maybe, after all of it was over, he'd end up down on the docks, just like his father.

His brooding was interrupted by a tug at his sleeve. LeMenthe—Mr. Jelly Roll Morton—had come along behind him without a word.

"How's tricks?" the piano player asked, eyeing him carefully.

"They could be better," Valentin replied.

Jelly Roll was trying to act cool and calm, but he was wearing a little nervous smile and he kept pulling his hands in and out of the pockets of his cotton trousers. "How was your visit with my godmother?" he said.

"It was ... helpful," Valentin told him.

"I thought she'd put you right on them murders." Valentin made a noncommittal shrug and the piano man's brow furrowed. "It's just too damn bad about Bolden," he said.

Valentin blinked. Who had said anything about Bolden?

"He shoulda never messed with that hoodoo," Morton pronounced, getting excited. "It got him good. He's just all full of bad
juju.
"

"Maybe so," Valentin said, thinking that maybe Morton
and all the rest of them were right. It was all the voodoo. He was ready to believe anything.

"You know what I say?" Morton muttered. "I say you better be damned careful if you go chasin' the devil's tail. 'Cause you just might catch it." With that, he turned and sauntered away.

Bas wants to know who is the one they have dubbed the "Black Rose Killer" in the spate of recent deaths in the Tenderloin?

It seems that the dastardly fellow leaves a black rose behind wherever he causes his mayhem, hence the name.

Someone knows who it is, but isn't saying.

—T
HE
S
UN