Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (16 page)

"I would follow you and write about how to solve a case," Vernel said. "Like the murder of this Benedict fellow. I think that right there would make a grand story."

Valentin took a bite of ham. "And this would be for the
Picayune?
"

Reynard Vernel gave up a nervous laugh. "Oh, no. They'd never print anything like that. It would be for a magazine. Maybe one in New York. There's got to be an editor who'd be interested. They enjoy things like that. They think that once you get beyond Pittsburgh, it's the Wild West down here."

He saw the baffled look on Valentin's face and plunged on. "I have plans, Mr. St. Cyr," he stated with some impatience. "I want to be a real correspondent. If I stay at the
Picayune,
I'll write obituaries and business stories for the next five years and then I might be allowed to cover a news beat, and after that, if I'm lucky, write articles of interest to anyone but me. I'll be an old man by then. I don't want to wait. I want to get my career going, and I think this is a good way to do it."

Valentin thought about it for a short second. "I don't think so."

Vernel's face fell. "Why not?"

The detective gestured dismissively. "First of all, you'd be in my way. Sometimes what I do can be dangerous. I can't be responsible for you. And, anyway, I don't want anyone writing about me. I don't need to see my name in any magazine." His gray eyes flicked with dry humor. "You should be talking to the Pinkertons. They like that kind of thing."

Vernel opened his mouth to argue. Valentin got there first.

"Look, I'm not one of these penny-novel fellows," he said. "It's not like that. I don't rush from one exciting moment to the next with my pistol blazing. It can be boring, especially in a case like this. There's not that much to it, because the man was likely shot down by some criminal. If it's not the fellow they have in Parish Prison, then it's some other scofflaw. But whatever I do find out, I won't be able to talk about, because of the family. That's the way it works. I'm not a policeman. What I do is not on the record. That's why they call it
private
detective."

Vernel's face was twisting up in chagrin. It was too bad for him. It couldn't be any other way. The whole idea was ridiculous. Valentin finished the last morsel from his plate and sipped his coffee as he mulled the rest of his day and waited for the younger man to take his disappointment and leave.

"What if I can offer you something in return?" Vernel said, breaking into his thoughts.

Valentin put his cup down. "Such as?"

"Information you could use."

Valentin studied the younger man's face. "Like who got Dodge to shut his mouth back there?"

"Sure," Vernel said. "Could be. And could be more. I can find out and tell you what Dodge wouldn't."

Valentin pondered it for another moment. "I'm sorry, no," he said. "I can't have that. I'll just have to figure it out for myself." He got to his feet and Vernel followed suit. "I'm sure you'll find something else to write about. This is New Orleans. There's trouble everywhere you look. There must be a hundred good stories, right under your nose."

Vernel was getting ready to plead his case some more. Then he saw the look on the Creole detective's face. With a huff of frustration, he walked off a few paces, then stopped and came back.

"The fellow who shut him up was an editor named Collins," he said in a low voice. "I heard him ask who Dodge was talking to, and one of the reporters said, 'It's St. Cyr, that fellow who works for Tom Anderson.' And then he went over there and made like this..." Vernel put a stiff finger to his lips. "Dodge shut his mouth, just like that."

"What would he care?"

"He wouldn't want you coming around asking questions," Vernel said with a shrug. "He's related to the publisher of the paper, see? That's how he got the job. He hasn't got much to do except stick his nose in other people's business. He's got no talents at all, except for drinking."

Valentin laughed at the last comment. Vernel smiled ruefully and said, "I guess I'm about the only one around there who doesn't have that problem." He got serious again. "Nobody's going to discuss anything having to do with Henry Harris, Mr. St. Cyr."

"Who said anything about Henry Harris?"

Vernel smiled slyly. "Benedict ran one of his companies. He sat on a board of directors. And along with everything else he owns, Harris is a big stockholder in the newspaper. You should know that you're not going to get anything that touches him from anyone in that place. Except me."

Valentin mulled this for a moment, then said, "Thank you for your help."

Vernel tugged at his tie, a nervous gesture. "You know where I am if you need me," he said, and headed for the door.

George Reynolds picked up the telephone on his desk in his house on Russell Street, gave the operator a number, and asked to be connected.

One of Charles Kane's sons answered. George forced his voice steady. "Is your father at home?" he asked.

"No," the son said, sounding bored. "Haven't seen him, not today."

"Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Nope," the young lout said. "He didn't say." "When do you expect him back?"

"Don't know," the boy said breezily. "He does that all the time. Stays off over the weekends. On business."

George wanted to ask what matters of business would keep the man occupied through a New Orleans Saturday night, all of Sunday, and well into Monday. He was tempted to recount the bizarre tableau he had witnessed on the dark French Quarter street and see if the son would care about
that.
Instead, he simply thanked him and left a message to have his father contact him as soon as he arrived home. He wondered if the boy could hear how hollow his voice sounded.

George went to the front window and stared out over the gallery at the street. He was supposed to be at work. He should have left hours ago but found himself benumbed, unable to summon the gumption to move. The memory of what had happened on Burgundy Street wouldn't leave him be, tying him in knots and bringing a chill to his very bones.

Charles Kane would not be going home. George was sure that he had witnessed the abduction that had ended with the man's death.

He felt his stomach heave. He had not a week ago read about John Benedict, also the victim of a senseless murder. He had attended the funeral and paid his respects, hearing the murmurs travel from mouth to ear about how Benedict had died on Rampart Street, that raucous and sin-soaked avenue. No one could guess what he was doing there in the dead of night; or, rather, no one would say out loud. Those words would be whispered outside the house.

George recalled how Charles had stood by, glowering in grim silence, a knowing light in his eyes, and wondered for a crazy moment if he might have done the deed himself. Though he couldn't imagine why.

Charles had known something, though. George could see it in his face and hear it in his drunken mutterings. He never found out what it was, because a phantom rose from a dark void to sweep Kane from the street with what appeared to be a supernatural force. Though New Orleans was a violent town, what were the chances that two men he knew would meet grim fates in less than a week? It could be coincidence. Benedict might have run into trouble on Rampart Street, and one of the dagos or the niggers that Kane maligned might have finally heard enough. He tried to convince himself of this, but his gut wouldn't let him.

He pondered for a minute more, then picked up the thin paperbound book that listed all the four-digit phone numbers for the city of New Orleans and paged through it again. He lifted the receiver and waited for the operator. When she came on, he asked her to connect him to number 4337, the home of the late John Benedict.

It had turned into a pleasant spring day, the air sweet with warm spring breezes, and Valentin decided to walk to Peters Street. He strolled along Canal Street, the widest artery in the city. The banquette was crowded and the street was swarming with streetcars, bicyclists, horse-drawn hacks, and a variety of automobiles that coughed, puttered, rattled, squeaked, and belched gray clouds. Though a good share were stolid black Model R Fords, Valentin also picked out another dozen roadsters and cabriolets in various gleaming shades: green Wells, blue Packard, yellow Winton, red Marmon, white Sears, and on and on. People complained all the time about the noise, smell, and smoke, and yet every day it seemed there were even more motorcars zooming this way and that, and every new edition seemed to go faster.

At least some did; as he walked along, he noticed a police truck dragging a fine Oldsmobile cabriolet behind it, moving north at a grudging pace toward the garages on Fulton Street.

He turned the corner at Magazine, walked one block to Common Street, and stopped. He spied the balcony of his former residence a half block down. He had occupied the rooms of the second-floor flat over Gaspare's Tobacco Store for seven years, then gave them up when he had left the city.

He turned east again. At Peters Street, he headed south for two blocks, crossing over Poydras. The address he was seeking was squeezed in between two proper storefronts. Three glass globes hanging in a triangle over the door announced a pawnbroker's.

He stepped up and rapped a knuckle on a pane. Some moments passed and slippered feet slid across the floor. An eye peered out through one of the panes, the lock turned, and the door opened just wide enough to let him pass.

"Mr. Valentin!" The proprietor, a Hebrew named Solomon, greeted him with surprise. His skin was like Mediterranean leather, his eyes pale and birdlike, his nose a bow that would have done one of Valentin's Sicilian relatives proud. He was short and thin, balding on top with a fringe of gray hair the rest of the way around his narrow head. Valentin guessed he was now close to fifty, though he looked at least ten years older.

He was an able artisan, the son and grandson of diamond merchants. He also managed a successful pawn brokerage, and in fact it was to Solomon that the local jass players came to buy a horn or get a quick loan on one they already owned. A good-hearted fellow, he was known throughout the music community for his fair shakes. Valentin had always thought him too easy a touch.

Soft touch or not, Solomon was still such an astute merchant that he might have been wealthy, except for the fact that he spent every extra penny in a desperate effort to save his daughter Sophie, a resident of the row of sporting houses called the Jew Colony on Bienville Street between Villere and Robertson.

No matter how many times Solomon dragged her off that street, Sophie went back. He had gone to her rooms and made such an uproar that the madams had seen fit to put him off the premises. He had cursed his daughter with Old Testament righteousness, even accused her of causing the death of her poor mother. When all else failed, he resorted to paying men to purchase her and then not take advantage. Some did as he asked; others just took the money and enjoyed the girl, anyway.

Nothing worked. Sophie—raven-haired, full-bodied, with striking gypsy features—was also clearly crazy and likely a hopeless case. Sober, she was just a problem. When she drank, she was as wild as a crib girl, with an impressive record of arrests for drunk-and-disorderly conduct. She wasn't quite crazy enough for the bughouse. That she hadn't been locked away for good in the women's prison was a small miracle. Valentin guessed that her long-suffering father had long ago prepared his prayers for the dead.

Valentin had first encountered Sophie at a time when she could still keep a room in one of the better Jew Colony houses on the Villere end of the section. He knew Solomon at the time, though the pawnbroker had been too ashamed to mention his errant daughter.

Later, when they became more familiar, Valentin had listened to the tragic tale of a good girl gone bad for mysterious reasons and had accepted a small sum of money to find and deliver her back to the safety of her father's home.

Valentin realized right away that it was no use. Sophie Solomon was out of control. He was in her room not one minute when she let out a crazy laugh, dropped to her knees, and tried to unbutton his trousers. He rebuffed her, so she laid back on the braided rug, hitched up her petticoats, and began gyrating like a Turkish dancer. When he didn't succumb to these charms, she went about entertaining herself. He left her there, huffing and gasping and thrashing her pelvis this way and that, all the while babbling like a madwoman.

He went back to return Solomon's money and tell him the bad news, leaving out the graphic parts. It was accepted with a slow nod of grief. Valentin was not unmoved, however, and took it upon himself to keep an eye on the girl and try to keep her from serious harm.

Solomon expressed his gratitude by proffering the occasional gift of a special stickpin or a pair of cuff links that had come across his counter. Once or twice, when Valentin had a need to pawn something, Solomon was far too generous. Three years had passed since they had first met and done business, and the poor man's back seemed to bend another inch with each orbit of the earth around the sun.

"So," he said as he hobbled behind the counter. "What a surprise this is. It's been some good while since I've seen your face."

"I've been away," Valentin said.

"I heard, I heard." Solomon's brow stitched in sudden worry. "What brings you to my door? Have you seen So—"

"I haven't seen or heard anything about her," Valentin said quickly.