Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (13 page)

Valentin was not fully awake and yet he sensed the difference, like there was a quiet pocket in the air of the room. He had known Justine for almost three years and she had shared his rooms for almost two. Now she was gone, and from the hollow space that lingered about the bed, it appeared she had left a ghost or at least a bit of a shadow behind.

Rather than lay there and brood on it, he got up and moving. He fumbled getting his coffee and a midday breakfast of Italian bread toasted on the stove and buttered, a chunk of provolone that was getting hard at the edges, and some mortadella that was turning gray, along with a piece of melon that she had left wrapped in waxed paper. When he was finished, he cleaned the table and washed his dish. It was all very precise and mechanical, and he took some satisfaction in completing the task.

He sat back down at the table to finish his coffee. The twenty-four hours came back to him like a series of pictures. He pushed his mind past the images of Justine walking out and disappearing down Magazine Street and arrived at the late-night scene at the Frenchman's and the faces, black, brown, and olive, watching him.

If his recollection was accurate, he had announced to one and all that he was going to investigate the murder of Jefferson Mumford, though the details of how he had reached that point, and why, were hidden in some corner of his brain. It had something to do with an unspoken rebuke in the air, the seeds ably planted by Jelly Roll Morton. There was something else hovering, too: a sense of alarm that was stirring up among the players over who would be next.

He grumbled over giving in like that, and in public. He could have worked the case quietly, privately. It was most likely all smoke anyway. Of course, he could do nothing, and sit around his rooms and see the pictures and listen to the echoes over and over again. As he finished his coffee and headed off to the bathroom, he uttered a small word of thanks that on this of all days, he had something to occupy his mind.

Lieutenant J. Picot was standing at his second-floor window, watching the early afternoon traffic on Royal Street when he saw St. Cyr step to the corner of Conti, glance left and right, then cross over, heading directly for the building. He stared down at the Creole detective for another startled second, then came away from the window with a rough gesture for his desk sergeant to follow him into the corridor.

The two coppers were planted like sentinels at the top of the marble stairs when the Creole detective appeared.

"Well, well, well." The lieutenant had his hands on his hips and was wearing a thin smile as he looked down at his visitor. "If it ain't Valentin St. Cyr, the famous private detective. New Orleans' own damn Sherlock Holmes." His eyes, dirty pennies, slid sideways. "Sergeant, did you know that this here fellow used to be a police officer? That's right. Didn't stay with us very long, though. And he's the one cracked that Black Rose murder case." Though there was much venom mixed with this honey, Valentin kept his expression placid. Which of course irritated Picot all the more. "What's your business here?" he snapped.

The detective stopped on the third step. "I'm looking into the killings of Jefferson Mumford and Antoine Noiret."

Picot said, "Who?"

"Two men who died in the past week," Valentin said evenly. "Noiret was murdered in a rooming house on Philip Street. Mumford was found in an alley off Marais on Sunday morning."

Picot's expression said,
So?

"Are you investigating either one?" the detective asked.

The lieutenant's jaw clenched. "And just what the hell do you care about a couple of dead nigger jass players?" His lips twisted. "Oh, yes, I forgot. They're all friends of yours, ain't they?" He made it sound like it was a crime.

Valentin ignored the taunt. "I wanted to extend you the courtesy," he said, and turned around and continued down the remaining steps.

"St. Cyr!" Beneath Picot's sharp tone, Valentin heard something else, the slightest tense note. He stopped and waited. With a flip of his hand, the lieutenant sent his sergeant back to the squad room. Then he jerked his head for St. Cyr to follow him.

They found a quiet place at the far end of the second-floor corridor, in the broad recess of the arched window that looked down on Conti Street, and took up opposite positions like boxers waiting for the bell to begin the first round. After a moment's grudging silence, Picot said, "We found this fellow Mumford's body, but it ain't been established that he was a homicide."

Valentin stifled a smile of his own. "The man was poisoned."

"It could have been an accident," the copper said, his face flushing red. "These sons of bitches will drink any goddamn thing, and you know it."

Valentin thought to mention that Mumford was not the type to throw down whatever was put in his hand. He didn't, though.

"That other one," Picot said. "What was his name again?"

"Noiret."

"And he was where?"

"Philip Street. He was murdered in bed. His throat was cut."

The lieutenant grimaced. "Philip Street ain't our precinct. And it's way out of your territory. So what the hell?" His eyelids came down to narrow slits. "I thought you was keepin' out of police matters. I thought you learned your lesson."

Valentin wasn't quite sure what lesson Picot was talking about. Probably something having to do with the murders of the year before. In any case, he wasn't about to give up any more than he had to. "Both victims were playing in bands in Storyville," he said.

"Tell me something," the lieutenant said with another spike of irritation. "If Tom Anderson wants somebody investigating these damn crimes, how come he don't call the police?"

"Maybe he doesn't want to spend the taxpayers' money," Valentin replied.

He had almost said "waste," and Picot was sharp enough to catch it. His face darkened. "Well, then...," he said tightly. "There ain't much I can say, is there? This is Storyville. He can do anything he wants." He crossed his arms and turned to stare out the window.

"I'd like to see the report on Mumford, if I may," Valentin said, keeping his voice even.

Picot gave him a cold look, then walked away abruptly, without a word.

Valentin stood by the window for twenty minutes, watching the traffic moving in jerky eddies on the street below. For all he knew, Picot had gone on to other business and had left him standing there like a perfect dunce. He was thinking about how much longer he would wait when the lieutenant reappeared, carrying a police file in his hand. He snapped it at the detective and resumed his position on the opposite side of the recess.

Valentin opened the folder and began to read. There wasn't much to the report, and he covered it in a matter of minutes. He had forgotten his notebook, so he could only make mental notes of the sparse entries and commit the sketch of the position of the victim's body to memory. The whole time, he felt Picot's icy stare resting on him.

According to the scribbled comments, Mumford had ingested a toxic substance, an acidic that went down and caused internal hemorrhaging. It also caused sudden nerve paralysis, leading to lung failure and asphyxiation. Or so whoever had written the notes opined. There was something about the scrawl that suggested it was done by rote, and Valentin wondered if a doctor had reviewed the case at all.

With just enough information to meet the minimum requirements, it was obvious how little effort had been invested in Mumford's file. A Negro musician who turned up dead in a Storyville alley in the middle of the night was a minor problem to be dispatched, and the quicker the better.

Valentin closed the folder, handed it back. "Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant," he said, and started moving away.

"St. Cyr!" Valentin stopped again, but whatever Picot had on the tip of his tongue stayed there. He waved the folder like he was swatting at an insect. "You know the way out," he muttered, and stalked back to his office.

The lieutenant was at his window when St. Cyr stepped out onto the banquette below. As soon as he saw the detective turn north, he knew where he was going. He cast a quiet curse, then called two of his men, telling one of them to hurry downstairs and throw a tail on St. Cyr and the other to get Chief O'Connor's office on the telephone right away.

A half hour later, Valentin stepped to the mouth of the alley that cut from Marais Street through to Villere, the very one in which Jeff Mumford had coughed out the last bloody drops of his young life.

Now, in the hazy light of the New Orleans afternoon, the detective stopped to consider that it was not too late to stop. No one was paying him a dime, and he didn't owe the bunch at the Frenchman's a damn thing, Morton in particular. No matter what he had said in that smoky saloon in the middle of the night, he could quite easily stroll to Canal Street, catch the next car rolling south, and be done with it.

Then he thought about walking away only to find out that there was something to it after all. Unlikely, but anything was possible in Storyville. After another few moments, he imagined going back to his empty rooms and spending long hours waiting for night to fall.

As he gazed blankly at the dusty floor of the alley, these thoughts gave way to the image of Mumford laid out on the cooling board, his handsome face twisted into that awful grimace, his eyes blind and half lidded in death. He saw Noiret with that obscene wound like a red and festering mouth. Two musicians who had played in the same band dead in the space of five days. Tom Anderson was right; it didn't add up to much. Still...

He hesitated for another moment, then stepped off the banquette. Marais and Villere streets were producing the usual bustle of city noise, the clamor of carriages and automobiles mixing with human shouts and the neighs of horses. All of it faded away as Valentin fixed his attention on the plot of dirt before him, eight feet wide and twenty feet deep. He let his gaze roam vaguely over the space, searching for any bit that was out of place. As he expected, there was nothing to find. The coppers had swept the alley clean.

He made his usual intense inspection anyway, from one side to the other and ten paces back from the banquette. He remembered the sketch of the location of the body and pictured it there. After ten minutes, he saw nothing more of value, save for a slight discoloration in the dirt, a last stain of blood that told him where Jeff had fallen in his death throes.

There were no signs of a scuffle, no scrabble of footprints in the dust, no shreds of torn clothing. That pointed to a careful execution, with the victim drawn in and then surprised. That was really all he could say, since officers of the New Orleans Police Department had been diligent in cleaning the alleyway of anything that might benefit a private detective who might come along later.

With no evidence to collect, he leaned against one of the walls and imagined the scene that night. The killer would have been lurking in the shadow beyond the light from the streetlamp. He wondered why Mumford had stepped into such a dark cove. Perhaps he recognized the party calling to him. Or maybe it was some woman, beckoning like a Siren, a street whore looking to make a last dollar or some floozy too drunk to care who lifted her skirts.

Would Jeff Mumford, a handsome sport with a good-looking woman waiting at home, fall prey to such a crude temptation? Not likely. If it wasn't a woman, then who or what had drawn him to the killing floor? Only the killer and the victim knew.

It added up to exactly the kind of puzzle that no one else, certainly no police detective and no Pinkerton, was likely to crack. They'd take one look, give up, and walk away. Because they didn't possess Valentin's combination of sharp wits, knowledge of the streets, and gut instinct about the way people behaved. And because they wouldn't care about a dead nigger jass player in the first place.

The detective took one last survey of the space. Then he stepped out of the alley and back onto the banquette to cast an idle eye up and down Marais Street.

He caught sight of the fellow standing in the doorway of the apothecary a few doors down on the opposite side of the street. He was small and thin and nervous, and he gave himself away by turning his head too quickly when Valentin's gaze found him. The detective smiled quietly; he would have been frankly surprised if Picot hadn't sent a man. He headed down to Basin Street, and ten minutes later was stepping onto a streetcar heading west.

As the car rumbled away from downtown and into the darker reaches of the city, the scenery changed. From his seat by the window, he viewed Black Storyville, a shadow of the legal District, a four-block square of narrow brick sporting houses, starting at Freret and Gravier streets, and serving a mulatto and Negro clientele. The next few blocks beyond were crowded with cafés, saloons, barbering parlors, and corner stores, mostly of a seedy sort, with dark-skinned men in cheap suits lounging around their doors. The storefronts gave way to a stretch of wood-framed shotgun doubles that showed the sagging, peeling, and rotting of poor construction in a damp climate.

When the car stopped at the corner of Fourth Street, he hopped down and walked the four blocks to the Philip Street rooming house where Antoine Noiret had died.

He found a two-story structure of gray clapboard that listed a bit to one side where the foundation was sinking in the soggy Louisiana earth. The windows were yellowed with grime, and the boards of the gallery bowed and creaked under his feet. A
FOR SALE
sign was nailed to a stake in the patch of dirt next to the gallery steps. Another sign announcing
ROOMS TO LET
, but almost weathered to invisibility, was nailed to a gallery post.