Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (14 page)

The door swung open with a slap, and a homely, thick-bodied mulatto woman with a face cut by thick lines into lumps like blocks of dark clay stood glaring at him. She was wearing a frumpy Mother Hubbard and her woolly hair was tied back under a checked chignon.

"Whatchu lookin' fo'?" she demanded roughly.

"Are you the landlady?"

"For one more fuckin' day, I am. I'm leavin' out tomorrow."

"Because of the murder?"

Her face tightened. "Thas right. Because of the murder."

"My name's St. Cyr," he said. "I'm a private detective."

"So?"

"And your name is?"

She hesitated, then snapped, "Cora Jarrell. Whatchu want here?"

"What can you tell me about Mr. Noiret?"

"I can tell you someone come in and cut his goddamn throat."

"Do you—"

"I knowed this was gonna happen!" she cried suddenly, and threw a cursing hand in the air. "I knowed this would happen if I kept lettin' rooms to these no-good jass players! The bastards! This is what I get. A dead body. And I'm out on the street. I'm lucky I don't have to go work in some damn
crib.
"

"What—"

"God
damnit
!" she yelled again, and stomped her foot furiously. "I run a decent house!"

Valentin gave her a moment to calm down, then said, "What about Noiret?"

She glared. "What about him? He took a room here now and then." She crossed her arms.

Valentin shifted to a comfortable slouch, as if he was ready to wait there all day.

"You hear what I said? I didn't see nothin' and I didn't hear nothin', so I don't
know
nothin'." Her voice went to a hoarse whine, and she raked him with a hard glance that might have worked, except for the sliver of anxious, telling light that was lurking behind it.

"What about Noiret?" he repeated quietly.

She held the stare for another few seconds, and then her shoulders sagged into a shrug. "He played horn in a band. He drank plenty, but they all do. He toted a razor, 'cause I seen it onst. That's it. I didn't hardly know him at all."

"Did he have a woman here?"

"This is a house for gentlemen!" she half shouted. "Women ain't allowed in the rooms!"

Valentin let out a quick laugh. He knew if he checked with the local police precinct, they'd tell him the rooms were used regularly for assignations and that Cora Jarrell was a well-known procurer with an impressive record of arrests. She had that look. Still, she kept the righteous front, her thick chin jutting. She was a tough customer. She would have to be to run a house outside the District. She'd no doubt seen and dispatched her share of trouble, including murders.

Indeed, he saw the angry way she was eyeing him, all but putting up her dukes. He countered by locking his best stony gaze on hers. "You don't want the kind of trouble I can cause you," he said.

She drew back, finally getting the message. "They was one in there with him," she said in a low voice. "I heard 'em."

"Heard them what?"

"Raisin' holy hell, that's what." She came up with a dirty smirk. "First I thought they was fuckin'. You know how some women do. But that wa'nt it. She was mad about somethin'. They wasn't fuckin'; they was fussin'. Least, she was. The fellow let the next room was poundin' on the wall, yellin' for her to shut up. It got quiet for a little bit. Then she started up again, cussin' him out. I heard the room door slam and the front door after that. And that was all."

"Was this a sporting girl?"

"I don't know what she was," she muttered.

"Can you describe her?"

"No, I can't describe her. 'Cause I didn't see her."

He knew the moment that the words crossed her lips that she was lying. He didn't push it, though. She was already backing up, her eyes shifting away. He didn't want to lose her, so he let it go and asked instead to have a look at the room. This time she hedged only a few seconds before waving him inside.

She led him down the dim hallway to the last door on the right. Her hand went into her Mother Hubbard and came up with a ring of keys, and she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She stayed right where she was as he stepped over the threshold into a cramped box of a room.

It was low ceilinged, the usual for that type of structure. There was no window, which meant the door was the only way in or out. He dug in his pocket for a lucifer to light the gas jet on the near wall. With the room bathed in a murky yellow glow, he made out the washstand that stood in one corner and the closet door hanging open. Patches of plaster had flaked off the walls and leaking water had stained the ceiling. It was close, with a mixed odor of sweat, musk, and unwashed linens.

The bed had been stripped down to a rusting iron frame. Of course, superstition dictated that the mattress and sheets would have been taken out and burned. There were dark splotches on the floor next to the bed where Noiret's blood had run down and soaked in.

"You keep the door locked?" he asked her.

"In this here neighborhood? All the damn time."

She cringed and fidgeted as he wandered about the tainted space. "Was it you who found him?" he said.

She nodded grimly. "It was checkout time. Check out or pay. I knocked. Wa'nt no answer. I got that fellow next door to come rouse him. Man still didn't answer. I went and unlocked it. And there he was. Cut open like that. They was blood all over the bed." She stared at the stain on the floor and wrung her hands. "Look at it! They ain't ever gonna get it out. They gonna have to tear up the damn boards." There was nothing false in her voice or her look of distress.

The detective took a last glance around, then walked out. He stopped and tilted his head at the door of the next room.

"So who was this fellow?" he asked.

The landlady looked askance; giving names was dicey business in this part of town.

"I know you keep a book," Valentin went on. "Perhaps I could see it."

He had guessed that she had been skimming and wouldn't want anyone inspecting the ledger until she was long gone. He was right.

"Lacombe," she said, too quickly. "Negro. Plays clarinet in some band."

Something about the way she spoke the name bothered him, a sharp blurt accompanied by shifting eyes. "He left out," she went on. "Nobody gon' stay in a house like this. Man's ghost is all back in there."

"He was the only other one here?"

"They was people in and out, them ones that took a room for an hour or so. He was the only other one stayed. The only one here when the two of them was."

"You know where I can find him?"

She shrugged her thick shoulders and turned her face away. "He's somewhere back-of-town, I guess." Another lie; or at least an evasion.

"Anything else you can tell me?"

She shook her head resolutely in one quick jerk. "No. I tole you all of it."

They reached the front door and Valentin opened it and stepped out onto the gallery. A welcome breeze stirred along the street. He was about to thank the woman for her trouble when she said, "Whatchu doin' here? Coppers come by, said it's over and done and they ain't ever gonna find who did it. So what the fuck are you lookin' fo'?"

He didn't see any harm in telling her. It might even raise a reaction. "Another musician was murdered just a few days ago."

She gave him a sharp glance, then broke out another cold smile. It was not a pretty sight. "Mister," she said. "You are wastin' your damn time." She let out a raw laugh and closed the door.

He walked away from the house, more annoyed with every step about the way he'd handled her. If he'd been on his game, he would have pried loose everything she knew about the woman and Noiret, along with the tiniest details of what happened that night. He would have taken the time to scour the room inch by inch for evidence. Then he would have visited the houses on either side to ask if anyone had heard or seen anything. He would not have told her why he was there. In other words, he would have handled it like a professional detective. He didn't though, and he would have done about as well beating her with a club. He'd give it some time and then come back to pick up the pieces he'd missed.

Walking on, his head bent to the banquette, he wondered if the wags who were whispering that he had lost his notorious skills were correct.

He rounded the corner at Liberty Street and stopped at the first saloon he came upon. He peered through the grimy window to find the establishment midafternoon quiet, without a single customer inside. It looked like a good place to disappear and ponder his mistakes for a while.

About the time he was stepping into the beer hall, Justine was standing in the bedroom of the second-floor apartment on Girod Street, putting the last of her things into a chest of drawers that smelled of cedar.

She closed the drawer and turned to survey the room. Curtains of white linen rose and fell in the afternoon breeze like waving hands. The brocaded wallpaper beneath the wainscoting had rich red swirls around pale blue crests. The eggshell walls above boasted a series of framed paintings, portraits and gentle landscapes. A fine Persian rug covered the floor. The furniture was finely crafted of old hardwood, oak and walnut.

She paused to glance at the bed, a wide four-postered affair covered with a thick off-white quilt. It looked quite sturdy.

She had been in grand hotels a few times, and this was at least as fine as any of them. The room was spotless. She could almost smell the money that had soaked into every surface, and she wondered frankly what she was doing there. She felt ill at ease, like a servant waiting anxiously to please her master.

Running an idle hand over the polished moldings, she wandered into the front room, where a love seat and single mission rocker were arranged around another Persian rug, this one a red and black design. She crossed to the French door and opened it to the afternoon. There was no balcony, just an ornate wrought-iron railing. She stood there for a long time, looking down on Girod Street, musing on what she had done.

She had strayed to Basin Street and was introduced to a man who was shopping for a comely woman of color to be his mistress. Valentin had caught her in the betrayal, and not only was he refusing to forgive her, he wouldn't even talk to her about it. So she took her anger and went downstairs to ask Mr. Gaspare to call for a hack to come collect her and her things. The tobacconist gave her a curious stare, then made the call. She went back upstairs, took a long bath, and put on her walking dress. It took no time at all to collect her things. She went into the front room, and when the hack came clopping to the perron, she went out to the balcony and called down to the driver. The teamster, a burly Negro, climbed the steps, collected her few satchels of clothes, and carried them to his rig. She told him to stand ready and went back inside to wait.

She didn't know how long she had been lingering there, adrift in her thoughts, when Valentin finally showed up, looking like he had been dragged through the streets. He had been gone most of the night and half of the day. He didn't smell like a saloon or a music hall and there was no scent of a woman on him. She wondered where he had been.

It was his last chance to tell her to stop. He didn't say a word, though, and his expression didn't change at all when she walked out the door, got in the hack, and rode off to the rooms that a wealthy Frenchman had secured for her. The details had all been addressed by Miss Antonia.

She was glad that Mr. Paul hadn't been there when she arrived. She needed time to draw her mind away from Magazine Street and get it fixed on her new duties. She went down a list in her mind, reminding herself of the expectations from there on. She would be displayed on the Frenchman's arm for certain functions. She would be expected to dress well, fetching and demure, while still revealing just enough of herself to draw men's attentions. In public, she would not speak unless invited to, and then only to fill a silence. No one would care what she thought anyway.

In private, she would do whatever he demanded on that fine bed, with the skills to keep him happy. If she performed well, they might keep the arrangement for years. It happened. If he decided he wanted her to carry children, she would be set for life. She would never again have to worry about a roof over her head or the source of her next meal. She would never have to sell her favors to strangers. She would be the possession of a rich man and so could hold her head up in public. Her life would be a dream that would pass in loneliness that was as cloistered as a nun's.

The prospect of all of it drew her into a pit of sadness that made her think of throwing herself over the railing and ending it right there. She didn't want this rich Frenchman and his fine apartment. She didn't want to be his companion and lover, and she surely didn't want to bear his children. She wanted to go home.

She stopped and got hold of herself. It was too late. She had cast her lot and that was that. It didn't mean she had to be miserable. She turned away from the window and went looking for the bag that held her prescription.

There was another person in the saloon after all, a sot who huddled over the table in the far corner, a muttering lump in an oversized coat that was too heavy for the close room.