Lost River (25 page)

Louis was the same sort, mostly window dressing. Some people were blessed with an engine that drove them, and others lived to simply go along for the ride, mere passengers. A select few others, like her, were destined to drive the trains.

Louis turned his head in a practiced motion. She was in no way dazzled by his beauty. He wasn't a good enough actor.

She got down to business. "What happened last night?"

"Nothing happened." He shrugged.

"Did I hear about a man found dead at the cemetery?"

"There's plenty of those." He made an offhand gesture.

Evelyne reached down and grabbed one of his flawless cheeks in her fingernails. Louis let out a cry.

"Don't you play with me," she said.

He grunted, his teeth clenched tight, as the pain brought tears to his eyes. She held on long enough to leave scratches, then let go. He glared at her and rubbed at the spot where three welts had risen. He didn't look quite so pretty now, so brave, or very smart, for that matter. The young fool had no idea what she was doing. He still imagined that she was some rich woman playing a silly game. He was just as unaware of her plans for him after the dust settled.

He'd find out soon enough; they had more immediate business. "What about the dead man?" she said.

Louis let out a pouting sigh and said, "I don't know what happened. He was just some drunkard nobody cared about."

"That's right. So why did he end up dead in Storyville?"

"It wasn't Storyville," Louis said. "Not exactly."

Evelyne watched his face, especially his shifting eyes. She couldn't tell if he was just pretending to be a dunce or was really that dim. He was a fair liar and devious enough to blend truth with fiction. Which made her wonder if he was running a game of his own. She didn't think he'd dare, but then the world was full of lying scoundrels.

"All right, what else?" she said.

Louis rubbed his sore cheek for another moment to remind her what she had done, then began to smile in such a devilish way that she felt goose bumps rise on her arms and a twitch between her legs. She knew that look; he had good news for once.

Picot was careful about how he passed the information up the chain of command, simply requesting a moment of the division commander's time. At two o'clock he was standing outside the fourth-floor office.

He waited, dazzled by the stars and braiding on the uniforms that ambled by and the fine suits worn by the civilians who did a lot of business in the hallway alcoves, where no one could hear. He kept an eye out, just in case Chief Reynolds happened by.

The captain didn't know that the brass considered him half joke and half pest. No one liked or trusted him, and any time spent in his company was kept short. He was valuable only as a bull snake, allowed in the yard for his rat-catching abilities.

An officer stuck his head into the hall and summoned him. He found Commander York bent over a table, busily drawing pencil lines on a map, keeping busy being a requisite when hosting Captain Picot.

He barely glanced up from his work. "What's so important, Picot?" he said.

The captain, sensing that the senior officer prefer that he keep his distance, lingered at the door. "Sir, I sent one of my officers to pay a visit to Tom Anderson at his place of business," he said. "To extend the courtesy of telling him we would have extra officers in Storyville until the felon who's been committing the murders is apprehended."

The commander kept scribbling. Picot continued.

"Mr. Anderson told the detective he was going to pass the word that payments from the houses in the District were going to be suspended." He paused for emphasis. "Immediately."

York lifted his pencil. "I see." He pondered in what seemed an absent manner for a few seconds. Then he said, "Payments of those sort made to police officers are illegal. That means whatever Mr. Anderson threatens or does is of no concern to this department. But thank you for passing along the information."

Picot understood instantly. He muttered a thank-you, performed a slight bow, and backed out of the office.

Commander York stepped to his doorway in time to see Picot pass out into the corridor. Then he crossed directly to his desk to call Chief Reynolds.

***

The afternoon found Valentin arriving at the offices of Mansell, Maines, and Velline, his packet of files in hand. He stated his business to the secretary in the lobby. She accepted the files with one hand and handed over an envelope with the other. Valentin got the message:
Take your money and leave.
As he walked out, he allowed himself a glance down the long corridor toward Sam Ross's office. That door was closed.

A wave of anger swelled in the space of the hour it took the word to go down the line from the Café. As a matter of respect, Lulu White was informed first, by way of a personal call from the King of Storyville. She listened, dumbfounded, as Anderson explained that she was to cease paying tribute to officers on the beat and any other police official, all the way up to the chief.

To the madam's ear, he sounded odd, like a different person, and as he went about upsetting a system that had been in place for decades, she had to wonder if he was losing his mind. The graft was the oil in the smooth-running machine that was Storyville, insuring a basic level of order and protection. Tom Anderson had always been a generous patron. As a kid he had been a reliable police snitch, and his first saloon had served as the department's home away from home. Indeed, the very foundation of his empire had been his service as ambassador between the blue and scarlet worlds.

Now he was ordering a halt to the payments as a first salvo in a war, and it was on her shoulders to pass the word to the other madams. Before she could protest, he'd said his good-byes. She did not miss the way he had finagled her, appealing to her pride before dumping an onerous duty in her ample lap.

She selected a cigarillo from the box on her desk, fit it into her onyx holder, and struck a lucifer. The sweet tobacco always helped her relax and think.

She knew two things to be true: First, Anderson was making a terrible mistake by starting a feud at a time when things were already going so badly; second, no matter what happened, that sweet-tongued, evil-eyed Josie Arlington and the vile witch Emma Johnson would waste no time blaming her for the debacle. She had always believed herself Storyville's second-in-command. Now she would pay for that conceit.

She stopped to wonder if perhaps St. Cyr could talk him out of it. But the Creole detective would have other things on his mind. He hadn't been able to get the first scent of the killer after a night of prowling. And another body had turned up, though apparently it was just some no-account tramp.

Her thoughts now turned to how things might play out for her. It didn't look promising, but who knew? The wild swirl of events could be a run of bad luck. It could also be a fiendish plan devised by the rare wicked intelligence. Then she tried to imagine who, except for the King of Storyville and herself, had such talents and could think of no one.

In any case, she had to leave it alone. If she didn't get busy calling down the line, Anderson would be pestering her to know why. She could hear the shrieks from the other madams before they began and thought it would be a good time to light up her opium pipe instead.

The five telephones in the
Picayune
newsroom were all placed on one long table that was wedged into a corner so that the reporters could take turns using them. In another year, they had been told, each of the scribblers would have his own set. On this afternoon a copyboy whistled and called Donald Packer's name. The reporter pushed away from his desk, crossed the room, and picked up the telephone on the end.

He listened for a moment. Anyone watching would see the startled look on his face shift to tense and then to relief that brought along a smile. He laid the phone in the cradle and hurried off to his editor's office.

***

The evening found Tom Anderson at his office window as the first of the Black Marias pulled to the curb at the corner of Basin and Bienville streets. The specially built Model T delivery trucks were usually reserved for those instances when multiple suspects had to be transported. In the wake of a brawl, for instance, or when the drunks were unloaded off the train cars coming back from the revelries at Spanish Fort and the other lakeside resorts. The vehicles were outfitted with bars on the back windows and steel eyes on the floor where the shackles placed on unruly passengers were attached.

As Anderson watched, the rear doors of the closest vehicle opened and eight patrolmen stepped down, donning their round-topped helmets and hitching their gun belts as they hit the cobbled street. Next, a police sedan pulled up and disgorged three men in suits—detectives from the precinct at Parish Prison.

The King of Storyville experienced a dizzying spike of alarm at the thought that he might at the moment be witnessing the end of his reign. Turning from the window, he went for his brandy, swilled one glass, and filled another. The sweet heat of the liquor calmed him, and he returned to his vantage point.

He observed the patrolmen and detectives huddling briefly, then fanning out like ants to mount their occupation of his territory. He imagined repeats of the scene on Canal, St. Louis, and Claiborne, and shook his head in dismay. The sick, sinking feeling in his gut was no joke.

A minute later his eye was caught by a familiar figure sauntering along from far down the line, and he felt his spirits rise again.

Valentin stopped to surveil the police activity from the opposite end of Basin Street, waiting until the police had moved off before he started walking again. Even then he used the cover of Union Station and the background of rolling trains to make his way to Iberville Street, then crossed over to duck inside the door of Anderson's Café.

There wasn't much business, a dozen men playing faro at tables and three more sitting at the long bar. It looked like the end rather than the beginning of a long night. Crossing the tiled floor, he stepped into the back hallway and climbed the stairs to Anderson's office.

The King of Storyville was standing at the window, brandy glass in his hand. The setting sun cast his face in pale orange. He looked tired. Turning at Valentin's entrance, he gestured to the bottle and empty glass on the tray. The detective shook his head.

"Did you see the invasion out there?"

"I saw," Valentin said.

"It's my fault," Anderson said, then described his visit from Detective Weeks and the message he'd passed to Chief Reynolds.

Valentin started to smile. "That'll make everyone happy."

"Well, it's too late to back out."

Valentin said, "You know the word went right to Picot."

"Yes, I know," the King of Storyville said with a sigh. He tilted his head to the window at the scene beyond. "What are you going to do about all this?"

"I'm not going back home, if that's what you mean."

Anderson nodded gratefully and they stood in silence, at ease with each other, as they had so many times in the past. Before they drifted too far into their own thoughts, the older man noticed something and gestured with his glass. "And it's about to get better."

Valentin joined him at the window. Anderson pointed at the line of bullying clouds that were closing fast on the red-light district, bringing a gray sheet of rain.

"You still think he'll make a try tonight?" Anderson said. "With the storm, I mean? And all those coppers will be out. Your people, too."

"It'd be a hell of a trick," Valentin said. "The cops all over the streets will be a problem. But the rain will be good cover."

"So?"

"So, yes, I think he'll make a try. I would."

The King of Storyville treated him to a small smile.

"He can't control himself. He's—" The detective caught himself. "Either that, or..."

"Or what?"

"Nothing. Just a thought." He shrugged it off.

Anderson said, "You know if you go home and another one turns up dead, it will be on them."

Valentin said, "Yes, sir, I know."

Anderson shrugged. Of course, the Creole detective would be on the streets. He'd cast his lot and another dead man would be on his conscience, no matter what the King of Storyville said.

Anderson finished his brandy and Valentin made his exit just as thunder began to rumble over the river.

The rain came down hard for an hour before receding into a steady drizzle. Shapes scurried here and there, heads bent and umbrellas bobbing in the wet mist.

The patrolmen in uniform and detectives in their standard dark suits created such confusion with their milling about that the only way they'd catch the miscreant would be if he decided to step forward and identify himself. It was so chaotic that Valentin could have rolled a cannon up Basin Street unnoticed. Meanwhile, up and down the banquettes, the sound of falling water was punctuated by curses as coppers and civilians bumped into each other. Everyone was on edge.

The police presence was wreaking havoc with the scarlet trade as well. As if the rain wasn't enough, customers turned around and left by the dozens when they saw coppers peering at them. Madams and sporting girls found themselves having to vouch for regular visitors. More often, they watched helplessly as the men and their dollars turned around and walked away.