Crescent City Connection (27 page)

Belatedly she saw why the angels were familiar—though the hair had been darkened to auburn, they had the round face and almond-shaped eyes of the girl in the picture the feds had given her—the one of Lovelace Jacomine.

She devoured the bio like a woman starved for words. The artist, it seemed, was a native South Carolinian who had spent most of his teenage years in and out of juvenile facilities, and his early adulthood in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, where he had learned to paint. He had also learned to meditate in the joint and now divided his time between his art and his spiritual studies. He was known as The White Monk.

Bullshit, she thought. It’s Isaac.

“Ah. You like The White Monk?” The voice had a trace of an accent, but nothing recognizable—it could well have been an affectation. “I am Dahveed.”

David? Skip thought, but she wasn’t about to ask. Dahveed was a slinky, smooth young man of indeterminate ethnic origin and skin that glowed gold. He wore black pants with a narrow belt and a white shirt that might have been silk but probably wasn’t; Dahveed simply had a silky way about him.

“Does he live in New Orleans?” Skip asked.

“Oh, yes. In fact, he often paints in our courtyard. The angels are marvelous, aren’t they?”

“Wonderful. I own a pair of them, actually. I find them so haunting. I came in to ask about the artist, to tell you the truth—”

Her mind raced. Did she want him to donate a painting for a fund-raiser? Talk to a class? Was she simply a fan?

Maybe she was. That might fly fine, New Orleans being the kind of town that celebrates celebrities, however modest.

Her instinct was right. She didn’t even have to bring it up. “You would like to meet him, perhaps?”

“Is he here?”

“Of course. One second.”

Dahveed disappeared and in a moment was back, looking distressed. “His friend said he had to leave suddenly.”

“I need to talk to the friend.” Skip produced her badge.

“Damn you. You lied to me.”

She shrugged. “Only about my angels—and I’d like to own them.”

The shop opened onto a narrow courtyard where a black man hummed as he painted. He said, “How you?” and narrowed his eyes in a way that said her most secret thoughts were known.

She showed him her badge. “Detective Skip Langdon.” The man nodded. “Thought you were heat.” Now this one had been to prison—cons always knew.

“Where’s the Monk?”

“Gone.”

“He thought I was heat, too?”

The man shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Where he’d go?”

“Home, I guess, but nobody know where that is. I’m his best friend and I don’t even know.”

“Dahveed? You know?”

“He’s very secretive. He never would tell us.”

“How about a phone number?”

“He wouldn’t give us one.”

She raised an eyebrow at the other man, the old con.

“Wouldn’t tell me either.”

“Look. I’m trying to help him. He’s not in any trouble, I only want to help. Not only him, but his niece.” She saw the surprise in the black man’s eyes.

Skip said, “The girl in the picture.”

Dahveed was clearly eager to end the interview. “There is only one thing we can really do—when he comes back, we will give him your card.”

She was so frustrated she was quite sure that if they’d been alone, she’d have slammed him up against the wall and yelled at him. She was convinced Dahveed knew how to reach The Monk, and equally sure he was going to call and warn him about her as soon as she left.

He’d have regurgitated the information she wanted in about thirty seconds, but there was something about the other one that kept her from going for it. Not only was he street-smart—he’d never tell something he didn’t want to—but he had a funny feel about him, an air of repressed violence. If he thought he was helping out a friend, he might get a little too rough.

She crossed the street and went into the antique store opposite the gallery—it was a perfect place for a stakeout, but she didn’t dare broach the subject. Shop owners in the French Quarter were a regular retail mafia; the owner and Dahveed probably took each other’s UPS deliveries.

But it was a good place to regroup. She pretended to look at silver candlesticks and antique tables, while she turned over options in her mind.

She could contact the federal pen in Atlanta—and would—but she already knew there was little point. She had run Isaac through NCIC and he had no prison record. Evidently The White Monk was a self-invented entity.

As she saw it, aside from beating answers out of Dahveed, there were only three solutions, one of which was also out of the question—burglarizing the gallery for The Monk’s phone number. That left two—she either had to stake the place out or send a surrogate in to make an appointment with The Monk—someone posing as a potential buyer. The last, of course, was the simplest solution, but whom could she send? In the end there was only one choice. Abasolo.

ISAAC MADE GOOD on his promise. He called his friend Anthony, the erstwhile owner of Juicy’s Juice, and spoke as if he did it every day. “Anthony, how you doin’, baby?” Just like that—slang and everything. Lovelace couldn’t feature Isaac talking like that.

“Listen, man, I need a favor. Bet you didn’t know I had a grown-up niece. No, I’m not kidding, she really is a niece. My brother’s an old man—real old man, rocking-chair age. That explains it, right, man? What she needs is a reference. She’s a real good cook, and she’s trying to get a job cooking. The only trouble is, the last place she worked closed and she can’t find the owner.

“No, it didn’t close because of her cooking. You be nice now. You know how good I was when I worked for you—remember that? Well, if you could write me a reference and just, you know, put her name on it—”

Here there was a long pause, during which Lovelace’s palms sweated and her heart thumped. It wasn’t going to work.

“Hey, congratulations, brother! Hey, that’s great news. Sure she can cook. I wouldn’t bullshit you. Okay, sure. Sure, I’ll send her over.”

He hung up the phone and reached for his notepad. Damn! He’d started talking; she didn’t see why he couldn’t just continue.

He scribbled forever. When she thought she couldn’t stand it one more second, he gave her the note. “He’s opened a new juice stand,” it said. “Same menu as last time. His helper’s okay but unreliable—he’d like you to come in for an interview. It would mean taking orders, cleaning up, all that stuff, but you’d get to cook, too—in a modest kind of way. He said cooking’s about a third of the job. Would you be interested?”

“Sure. At least it would be a jumping-off place.”

He wrote, “That’s what he said. It’s on Maple Street. Go in the morning.”

Shit,
she thought.
Damn this stupid hair. What if he expects some Betty Coed?

She got up the next morning and put on lots of makeup, to make it seem she had done the hair trick to show off her fine, bold features. But the bigger she drew her lips, the more she looked like some kid playing with her mom’s lipstick.

She put on her only earrings, the ones she was wearing when she was kidnapped, and a short black skirt and a white crop top. That was what waitresses wore, and caterers—maybe it would send a subliminal message.

Anthony hadn’t given Isaac a specific appointment time, but she figured ten-thirty was about right. It would show interest, but not excessive eagerness.

Despite the erratic quality of public transportation, she was there by ten-fifteen, and was pleasantly surprised.

Maple Street was way, way uptown, at what was called Riverbend, where the Mississippi took so major a meander it defined the shape of the city, cradled it into the upriver horn of the crescent that gave it its nickname. To Lovelace’s delight, it was the kind of hip shopping area you get in a university town—bustling with coffeehouses, small galleries, an utterly charming bookstore, and, now, it seemed, a juice bar and vegetarian restaurant.

In truth, Anthony’s new place—Judy’s Juice—was little more than a hole in the wall, but a clean, inviting one, with about three spotless formica tables, a floor you could see your face in, and a bulletin board where you could find anything from a roommate to a ride to Albuquerque.

If I lived here I’d be here all the time
, she thought.
I’d go get a book from that bookstore, and I’d come in here and have some carrot juice and a bagel.

It was the sort of place she’d love to work.

She patted her head where hair used to be, preparing to enter. The minute she saw Anthony she knew she needn’t have worried about tress-weirdness—he himself sported handsome dreads. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that her cheeks were getting hot.

Anthony was a light-skinned black man, or, as they say in New Orleans, a Creole, which used to mean a mixture of French and something else, but nowadays, more often than not, simply meant black and something else. Lovelace had seen plenty of light-skinned blacks in her life, but she’d noticed that in New Orleans, they often had an aristocratic look, an exotic, almost haughty bearing that reminded her of Ethiopians—people who looked as if they’d all been kings or queens in the old days.

Anthony was one of these. He had a nose that could have been modeled by Phidias. He had green eyes as well, and he wore an olive shirt that matched them. His skin was the color of slightly tarnished brass—pure gold, but too refined to shine. His dreads were exceptionally neat and quite long, about shoulder length. He was five-feet-ten, she thought—about her height, though Lovelace wouldn’t have cared if he’d been a midget. And he was thin, with good shoulders; he was probably a vegetarian.

So magnificent a man might have caused her to lose the power of speech, but she didn’t feel in the least shy. Probably, she thought later, because some piece of her had noticed his wedding ring. Or possibly because he looked friendly. He said, “What can I do for you today?” and gave her a smile that might well have been sincere.

“Are you Anthony?”

“Sure am.”

“Well, you could give me a job.” She stepped forward and extended her hand. “I’m Lovelace Jacomine.”

“Lovelace! My Lady Lovelace. Isaac didn’t tell me you had such a pretty name.”

“Uncle Isaac’s a little vague sometimes.”

“He really your uncle?”

“Honest to God. I’ve always worshiped him.”

“Woo! You’d be the only one.”

“He’s a sweetie, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah. Pretty worthless cook because he counts to twenty or something before every ingredient he puts in the dish—and that includes sandwiches. But a sweetie for sure.”

“Have you ever been to his house? It’s all white. He cleans it for an hour every day—hey, I’m nothing like that. I guess he did that part of the job pretty well.”

“Well? He did it superhumanly. I couldn’t begin to pay him for all the hours he spent scrubbing things. That’s why I had to go out of business the first time—went broke trying to pay the help.”

“Well, I work cheap. I’m not nearly as good a cleaner, but I make a mean tostada.”

“Hey, good. Let’s put it on the menu.”

“You mean I’m hired?” She smiled when she said it, and realized she was completely confident, a feeling she’d almost forgotten about. She and Anthony were generating enough heat to cook with.

“I guess you are. My helper didn’t come in this morning. Third time this month he didn’t call, didn’t show. All you got to do is turn up, Lady Lovelace, and you can work here as long as you like. Two-fifty an hour suit you?”

At her dumbfounded look, he said, “See? Now if I pay you minimum wage, you’ll think you’re getting a deal.”

She went to work immediately, heedless of the cute outfit she’d put on for the interview.

About an hour into it, she thought,
I can do this. This could really be fun.

By that time, she had the hang of things—the basic routine, at least, and a sense of the rhythm of the place.

Business was good, and it took all her focus to keep up with the job, making sandwiches and serving them, pulverizing carrots and celery. Her mind raced along with her body.
I could come in early
, she thought,
and try out an extra dish or two a day. Isaac’s vegetable lasagna, maybe, and some vegetarian chili. Pasta salad, maybe, or potato.

She ran it by Anthony. “Sure, baby,” he said, “just give me a shopping list.”

By the end of the day she was spent, and it was not till she was on the bus going home that she had time to let her mind wander. As she passed the neighborhood where the Royces lived, the unbidden image of the two kids’ faces, upturned and waiting for their formerly forbidden burgers suddenly brought hot tears to her eyes.

Other images came: Brenna and Charles dancing to Ernie K-Doe; Brenna in her studio covered with clay, forehead wrinkling in concentration; Brenna reaching for her, kissing her.

The embarrassment that enveloped her when she thought of that rivaled the full-body humiliation of grade school when she got the answer wrong.

The sadness wouldn’t leave her. She had bought into the family as if they were hers.

Isaac was gone when she got home, so she was deprived of that distraction.
I’ll never get anything right
, she thought.
How is it even possible to screw up that badly?

She needed desperately to talk to someone, and there was only one person she could call. Michelle. She was in mid-dial when she thought,
Better not. Just better not. Maybe I should go somewhere else. A bar or something.

It was starting to get dark when she found one, and it looked like an oasis.

Light streamed from the open windows along with the scent of good barbecue. The inside was surprisingly light for a bar, illuminated by a single naked bulb. The walls were painted an uncharacteristic white, and five or six tables had been set up, with mismatched chairs. Evidently it was a place like Judy’s, that served sandwiches along with the juice. Though every single customer was black and male, they showed no interest in her presence. The place had an easy, Caribbean feel.

She bellied up, ordered a beer, and spoke to the bartender. “Do you have a public phone?”