Imogene in New Orleans (23 page)

“Son, you ain’t fooling—” Just as she began to accuse him, he pointed to a smudged ink stamp on her wrist. “Maw, what’s that say on your hand?”

Imogene held out her arm, and Billy read the letters aloud: “TB.” The letters were inside a faint circle, and it looked like she’d tried to scrub off the imprint.

“Where’d you get that?” Billy bent down and took a closer look. He scratched Goose, who was resting his belly on the cool balcony floor, his paws out in front like the Sphinx in Egypt.

Imogene crossed her arms and looked out over the balcony onto Toulouse Street.

“I’m not taking you to the parade today if you’re going to act up.” Billy sighed. “I’m tired of this.”

“I ain’t actin’ up, son. Leave Mama alone. You’re worrying her sideways. I think I got this mark at Lena’s yesterday.” She studied the stamp. “Yeah, she had some sort of red something in her rest’rant. Why you always think Mama’s done wrong, son?” Billy shook his head and looked at Jackson. “Boys, if y’all would quit fussin’ at me and ruinin’ my trip, I’d tell you something you wanna know.” She patted her hair and scooted her chair closer so she could confer with them. “I believe Catfish is Lena’s boy, sure as morning, I do. She’s got a paintin’ of him on the walls in her kitchen. I was gonna tell you yesterday, but y’all pulled me away from Neil’s like I was a rotten child. That’s no way to treat kinfolk.”

Jackson piped up. “Imogene, I saw that picture in her kitchen with Catfish’s likeness. He has her droopy chin and her gray eyes.”

“Yep. And that ain’t the full of it. She was talkin’ about her son named ‘Leonard’ yesterday, and y’all know that man at the pirate shop said Catfish’s real name was Leonard. I tried to tell you.” She waited for the boys’ reaction. They just looked at her.

“Y’all can talk about that gritty lawman all you want. He may’ve clobbered the Gilbert boy, but I ain’t sure. I got others in mind. But anyhow, don’t ever say Imogene Deal McGregor can’t catch a catfish, boys. Shoot, I was born in the woods.”

* * * * *

“Baby, we fixin’ to have a fine time. I do
love
a parade,” Lena said, holding Imogene’s hand as they approached Rampart Street. Jackson hurried to the corner, carrying chairs and a cooler. A good crowd had formed along the sidewalk and the concrete ledge that bordered Louis Armstrong Park. The anticipation was dizzying. The boys always attended the Christmas parade in Harristown and they loved it, but New Orleans had the big-boy parades and they rarely had the chance to attend a second line.

They heard a brass tuba hit a deep note. A band approached, followed by dancers and men waving flags, the whole group filling up two lanes of the boulevard. What made this parade special was the wave, the second line of people, following the bands and dancers. It looked like a march, and in no particular order, bystanders and onlookers joined the parade and became part of it, forming the “second line.”

Jackson saw a young African-American youth, who couldn’t have been older than ten, pedaling a bicycle. He held a full-sized trombone that ran the length of the bicycle. It was so long that he couldn’t hold on to the handle bars when he rode. Jackson slipped Imogene’s camera from her purse and snapped a picture of the kid. Lena watched Jackson.

Neil bounced along the sidewalk. He said, “Down here, kids are as likely to pick up an instrument as a basketball.”

“Dat’s true, Neil.” Lena clapped, ready for the band. As far as they could see, people crowded the streets. The wild notes of tuba and trumpet and trombone rattled and hummed through the trees. In the first group of musicians, there were kids as young as fourteen playing the tuba and one kid who probably couldn’t drive banging a bass drum. They stomped together in rhythm to the music. Two ladies had dressed up in what looked like princess outfits. They wore white gloves and socks with tassels.

Just as Imogene and the boys reached the curb, the older black princesses came dancing past them, twirling their umbrellas in the sky. The umbrellas matched their dresses—frilly white with purple borders.

“What a sight to behold. Ain’t that fine?”

Lena said, “Imogene, I been knowing ’em since they was little.” She stepped out into the street and grabbed one of their arms. “Girl, whatchya doing?”

“Miss Lena, ain’t it too hot for you? You oughta be in that cool praline shop.” The umbrella girl dabbed her face with a handkerchief.

“No, baby. I was born in weather hotter than this.”

“Come on.” The umbrella girl’s partner-in-costume shouted at her to go. As she walked away, she waved at them, twirling herself.

Imogene looked amazed. “Ain’t she something?”

“Oh, she something all right. I knowed her mama. She oughtn’t be showin’ all dat flesh.”

Jackson saw Imogene clasp Lena’s hand harder as another wave of the second line brushed past. He put his wallet in his front pocket, thinking about Buddy and the characters on the street who seek unsuspecting tourists. Neil held the women close to him. “Ladies, this was Glenway’s favorite parade. We should enjoy this second line in his honor.”

“Dat’s right. He had ’bout more fun than anybody at the second lines.” Lena stared down the road, as if she hoped Glenway would come waltzing toward her.

Jackson backed up to be with Billy in the cool shade of an oak tree. Billy took a big swig from his water bottle and watched the umbrella ladies fade away in the bright, hot steam. It was one of those days in August where the road looks like an illusion, melting and changing shapes. Another band approached. This one was followed by a carriage filled with older members of the Zulu Krewe.

“Look at all that peach.” Neil motioned for the boys to come down to the curb. Jackson set his chairs against the iron fence and they weaved through the crowd. “Look. Zulu always has the best throws. They used to toss coconuts—real, fuzzy fruit—until someone got their lights knocked out.”

The men of Zulu all wore peach-colored suits and fedoras or Stetsons with matching fabric bands. They waved tall, coral-colored fans made from feathers. They were the most debonair group in the city.

As Jackson and Billy watched, four of the Zulu members split off and walked figure eights from one side of the street to the other. They looked like peacocks strutting through the boulevard.

Imogene slapped her leg. “Honey, what a sight.” One of the sharply dressed Zulu men had rings on nearly all his fingers, and when he laughed, it sounded like the city was laughing with him. His voice was deep and strong. His figure-eight Krewe partner brushed him on the shoulder, motioning him onward. As he started walking away, he laughed. Jackson watched Imogene step out to follow the man. Billy had given her medicine, but she still had a pronounced limp, as if she had only one and a half legs.

Imogene lost Lena in the shuffle of the crowd, wandering after the Zulu man in his strut across Rampart Street. Jackson stayed a few steps behind her, but he got tangled up in a brass band. He nearly collided with a trombone handle, ducking just before the musician extended it to blow a note. Imogene slipped farther down the street.

Jackson turned around to see Lena standing by herself, glancing up and down the parade. She said something to Billy and Neil, and they took off in the direction of Imogene and Jackson

Jackson jumped the curb to avoid another musical run-in. Billy called out to him, “Where’s Mother?”

Jackson stopped and waited. “She was just here.” He peered down Rampart and saw Imogene bouncing furiously through the crowd. “Something’s wrong, Billy. She can’t walk that fast on her own power.” He took off toward her and ran smack-bang into a big tuba player, who turned around and blew the horn right in his face. His ears rang. He stopped in front of the statue of Louis Armstrong and saw an entryway to some dilapidated shops across the street.

Someone had forced Imogene into a corner. Jackson saw her sun hat shaking violently near a store window, but he couldn’t yet see who had accosted her. He sprinted toward her, jumping over the median and then over the curb. Imogene screamed and flailed her arms at a young man who wore overalls and a vaguely familiar hat. It looked like her face was bleeding.

“Stop following me, old woman.” The young man leaned over Imogene, brandishing a gutting knife, the kind sportsmen use to clean fish.

Jackson’s eyes watered as he ran, but now he recognized the mesh hat with fishing lures dangling. The man had his back to Jackson, so he sprinted toward the assailant, lowered his shoulder, and hit him squarely in the side. The momentum sent both men crashing to the pavement, and Jackson hit Catfish in the face. Imogene started yelling at them in a trembling, terrified voice. “What the devil, boys?”

Catfish heaved Jackson over and pinned him down with one hand. Jackson clawed at the man and tried to break free, getting another good lick in on the side of Catfish’s face. Lena, Billy and Neil rounded the corner just as Catfish reached for his knife on the pavement.

“Leonard, don’t hurt him, baby. They my friends.” Lena looked frazzled, her Saints hat tilted to one side and her white hair poking out from beneath the rim. She was even more unstable on her feet than Imogene, but it didn’t stop her from hobbling over to her son. Catfish held his knife two inches from Jackson’s throat.

Twenty-Two

“Leonard, get dat damn knife outta Jackson’s face, boy.” Jackson heard Lena shuffling toward him. His yellow plaid shirt tightened around his neck as Leonard grabbed it. Jackson kicked his legs up, attempting to buck the assailant off, but Leonard was planted on him like an alligator on a muskrat.

“No, Mama. This old woman’s been followin’ me for two days and it’s gonna stop right now, even if I have to kill her and this old boy too.” Catfish thrust the knife against Jackson’s chin. Billy reached into his satchel, removed the monitor from his blood-pressure cuff, took one step toward the overall-wearing assailant, and slammed the monitor as hard as he could against Catfish’s skull, knocking him and his knife to the pavement.

Jackson grabbed the knife and, with all the power he could muster, kicked Catfish in the side. “What the hell are you doing, Catfish?” He jumped on the young man, who was trying to crawl away. Lena pulled on Jackson’s shirt, but Jackson wouldn’t stop, not even when both women made a considerable cacophony of protests that echoed in the Quarter.

“Y’all both shut up, so we can hear something,” Billy said, picking up his monitor. He studied it and frowned at the new crack on the screen.

“Turn him loose, Jack,” Imogene said.

Catfish tried to break free, which made Jackson tighten his hold even more. He had the overall straps in his hand, and he slammed Leonard against the concrete. “Only the lowest of scumbags would attack an old woman, so no doubt you’re dirty enough to have killed Glenway Gilbert. Are you the one who beat him to death?”

Catfish didn’t respond.

“We know you were one of Glenway’s boyfriends. We saw your name in his book.”

Still Catfish said nothing. He turned his head away from Jackson and the group looking at him.

Billy reached down and picked up the mesh hat, which had fallen off during the struggle. He tossed it beside Jackson.

“We also know for a fact that you went to retrieve this very mesh hat sometime between Glenway’s murder and this morning. I guess you didn’t want to leave the evidence of your visit, but we have proof. We have pictures of your hat in the studio.” Jackson breathed in the humid air of the August day.

Catfish remained mute. Jackson sighed. “Did you kill him? Tell us what happened that night?”

Lena stammered, “L-l-leonard, say something now.”

Catfish turned his head away instead. Jackson grunted, worn-out from the struggle. “Okay. Let’s just call the police. Let them sort it out.” Jackson told Billy to dial the number.

“Naw, listen, baby.” Lena reached out and tugged on Jackson’s arm. “That was my hat at Glenway’s place. This one here, it’s mine.” She picked it up off the ground. “Don’t call them police. That ol’ ugly Rogers bound to show up, and he don’t cause nothing but mess.”

Imogene shook her head. “She’s right, boys. He’s the gruffest fellar in this city, seems to me.”

“I don’t care if he is, Mama. Look at your arm. You’re bleeding. Leonard or Catfish— whatever his name is—deserves to sit in jail for a while.”

Catfish stirred under Jackson’s grip. He had scrapes all over his light skin. “Don’t do it. I’m on probation. They’ll put me away for years.”

He tried to sit up, but Jackson wouldn’t let him. “You deserve to be put away for years, roughing up an old woman. What were you thinking, man?”

“She was following me all over the city. She even got a picture of me at Lafitte’s, and then y’all tried to chase me in that horse carriage.”

“But did we attack you, Catfish? No!” Jackson shook him. “We only wanted to ask you some questions, and you had to go all ‘wild boar’ on us. If you didn’t notice, that’s an old woman you just accosted.”

“Okay, okay. Listen, I’m sorry.” Catfish’s face brightened, as if he’d just remembered about a hundred-dollar bill hiding in his boot. “I got something y’all might be interested in. I did know Glenway.” He looked at his mother and hesitated like he didn’t want to admit something in front of her. “We were ‘friends’ in a friendly sort of way last fall. Well, more than friends. We had a thing for a couple months. I let him paint me, you know, use me as a model last winter. And then he met Buddy. But…I probably shouldn’t say it.”

Catfish studied the scrape on the back of his forearm. He was bleeding from his elbow. He had olive skin and Lena’s gray eyes and drooping chin.

Jackson would have admired him more if he hadn’t attacked Imogene. “You better tell us everything, Catfish, or we’re calling the police.” He hoisted the guy to a sitting position.

“Okay. Fine.” Catfish tensed his face as he spoke. “It’s that painting Glenway was working on…the one for the Lafitte anniversary.” Catfish spit out the words.

“Really? What about that painting? Imogene told us about it already.” Jackson turned to Imogene, who had mentioned the piece after her adventure at the pirate shop. She nodded.

“Take me to Mama’s house and I’ll show it to you.” Catfish flipped his head back. “I’ve got it hid there in the room where I stay, over across the river in Algiers.”