Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (23 page)

Valentin noticed Beansoup fidgeting so he turned to him and said, "Mr. Vernel's a guest. We should hear what he has to say."

As he hoped, put that way, Beansoup was mollified. "Sure," he said with a sidelong glance at the reporter. "Let's hear it."

"Inside," Valentin said, and opened the saloon door.

They found the room early evening quiet and took the table near the window. Valentin went to the bar and got a glass of whiskey for himself and Vernel and a root beer for Beansoup. He was halfway to the table when he turned around and went back. He told the bartender to dump the soda and add another whiskey in its stead. When he brought the three drinks to the table, he saw Beansoup's eyes light up. It wasn't the first time the kid had tasted hard liquor, of course. It was the first time he had sat at a table in a saloon like Mangetta's with two adults with drinks all around. As Valentin placed the short glass in front of him, his eyes flashed a message for the kid to go easy. Beansoup nodded innocently.

Valentin sat down. "All right, then," he said to Vernel. "Let's hear what you've got."

The reporter ran through it briefly. The body had washed up on Sunday. It had taken awhile to identify the victim. It turned out that they had to go find a crippled photographer named Bellocq to—

"Bellocq?" Valentin said quizzically. "Why him?"

"One of our photographers said that he was the one who took his picture. So the police sent someone, and Bellocq came in and looked at the body and said who he was right away."

Valentin took a sip of his whiskey. He stole a glance at Beansoup's glass, saw it was still full. He returned his attention to Vernel. "This is interesting and I appreciate you taking the trouble to come by. There's not much I can do with it, though."

Vernel caught the dismissal in the detective's tone. "It's some coincidence. The two of them dying so close together."

Valentin didn't want to engage the question with the reporter, so he said, "I'm looking into that."

"Because they were both in the shipping business. Did you know that?"

Valentin said, "I did."

"Did you know that they were both in a partnership with Henry Harris?"

The detective stopped to gaze at the younger man, his brow furrowing. "What partnership?"

"They started a company that ended up taking over a good-sized piece of the shipping business on the docks. And no one really knew about it. It was never mentioned in the newspaper."

"Then how do you know about it?"

"From the business licenses. They have to file one. And it has to be posted in the legal notices."

Valentin said, quietly, "When was this?"

"Twenty years ago—1890 or thereabouts. And now both the partners in that business are dead in the space of a week. I'm no
private detective,
but I'd guess that there might be something to that."

Valentin smiled. "So would I."

The reporter's face flushed with pleasure. "So maybe I'll write down some notes. What do you think?"

Valentin thought about it and said, "Be my guest."

Vernel drew himself up, his face flushing with delight. "Well, then, can I ask if you're done for the night?"

"I'll finish this and then I'm going to go pay a visit to Joe Kimball," the detective said. "I'd invite you along but don't think you want to be seen with me."

"I can't," Vernel said fretfully. "If I got caught..."

"I understand. You can catch up with me tomorrow."

Vernel drank off the rest of his whiskey and pushed his chair back from the table.

"Thank you again," Valentin said, and stood to shake his hand. Then he shook Beansoup's hand, though grudgingly.

Beansoup watched the reporter go out the door and turn west toward Bienville Street. He had a worried look on his face, as if he wanted to run outside and make sure Vernel kept going.

Valentin sat mulling the information the reporter had delivered. Then he turned to the kid, who was fidgeting about, and said, "Now, what's this about Justine?"

"She asked me to give you a message." He cleared his throat and then went ahead and repeated the information. Valentin didn't comment at all. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Don't do anything," Valentin said.

"Ain't polite to just leave it hanging."

"I'll think about it." He ignored the kid's grimace and nodded to his whiskey glass. "Are you going to drink that?"

"I never liked it much," Beansoup said in a low voice.

Valentin glanced over his shoulder. No one was paying attention to them. Deftly, he switched Beansoup's glass with his empty one. The kid smiled quietly, then hunched his shoulders and got all serious again.

"You goin' to go see Miss Justine?" he asked once more.

Valentin was about to snap at him, then he noticed the look on his face, a mutt who gets kicked and still remains loyal.

"I will," he said. "Probably tomorrow."

Beansoup sighed with satisfaction.

"Now you need to be on your way," Valentin said.

The kid gave a wink and a nod. "Righto."

They went outside. Beansoup strolled off to Basin Street. Valentin walked to the corner of Bienville Street and turned south, taking the long way down to the
Daily Picayune
building.

He just missed seeing Justine, wrapped in her flowered shawl against the cool of the night, hurrying down Basin Street to catch a Canal Loop to the St. Charles Line car and her appointment in the basement of the building at the university.

She found herself eager to go to a place where she became someone else, her body put to use for something other than some well-to-do white man's pleasure. It would be as silent as church in the cavernous room, save for the scratching of the pens, the rustling of clothes, and the whispers of the instructor as he reviewed the work of his students. She would give the young fellow who had shyly handed her his drawing the sweetest smile of thanks that a figure model could afford. She imagined he would dip his innocent brow with pleasure.

Later, when it was over and she had dressed, collected her pay, and stepped out into the night, she wouldn't want to come back to Basin Street at all.

Joe Kimball let him in the alley door, smelling of Raleigh Rye and rancid cologne, the mixture akin to the reek of a funeral home full of dying flowers. Kimball wouldn't notice, his senses now pickled by years of soaking in alcohol; either that or he knew exactly the effect he was having and was using it as a way to keep unwanted visitors out of his domain.

He fixed Valentin with a delighted eye. "You got that fucking Dodge all in a fit. He got into all kinds of trouble for talking to you." He winked and let out a coarse laugh. "Seems there's a policy about sharing confidential newspaper information with a private investigator."

"There's more to it than that, Joe."

"I know. You're sticking your nose in Henry Harris's business."

Valentin's expression was only slightly surprised. "I'm beginning to butt into him every time I turn around."

Kimball slapped his back shoulder blade and chortled as he waved the detective to follow him. Once they reached his office, he poured drinks and they put their feet up on opposite sides of the desk. They could hear the traffic on the street through the two tiny windows above their heads. They drank and talked about this and that, and Valentin regretted having to get to business.

"I just came across some interesting information," he began, and related what Vernel had divulged about the secret business with Henry Harris, John Benedict, and Charles Kane as partners.

Kimball put down his glass, his eyes widening. "I never heard about it," he grunted. "I know these goddamn pirates do it all the time though. It's easy enough. Just pay for the legal notice, come up with a charter ... I don't even think you need an address, just a box at the post office, is all."

"Why keep it secret?" Valentin said.

"Because they didn't want people to know about it, Mr. Detective." Kimball grinned broadly. "I guess you need to find out why." He sipped his whiskey. "What else you got?"

Valentin told him about the ring. He described the inscription, hidden deep beneath the stone. He paused for a moment, his brow furrowing. "I wonder..."

"If maybe Kane and Harris would own one, too?" Kimball said. "You think they're the three V's?"

"Why V's, though?"

"And why hide it?"

They drank in silence for a few moments.

"Whatever else you know about him, Henry Harris is a strange character," Kimball said presently. "I think a lot of these rich fucks are that way. They all have something missing in their heads. Him and all that racial-purity business. Who knows what he's up to?" He mused a little while longer. "I'll have a look and see what I can come up with," he said. "You want another drink?"

"One more short one," Valentin said. He finished the whiskey in a couple quick swallows and got up to leave. "I'll come around tomorrow night," he said. "But if you find something before, just call over to Mangetta's."

"Oh, I will," Joe Kimball said, raising his glass. "Find something, I mean."

It was after 1
A.M.
when Valentin passed by Antonia Gonzales's mansion and glanced up at the second-floor windows. He knew a dove as pretty and as skilled as Justine would claim the best room in a house, the front corner. There was a low light in that window, and as he looked up, he saw a shadow pass by. It gave him a start, and he quickened his steps along the banquette.

Justine had just come to the window and peeked out to see someone who looked much like Valentin moving away down the line. Though the lights were golden bright, the street itself was pocked with shadow, and she couldn't be sure it was him. As she let the curtain fall back, she saw another man emerge from across the street at a stalking gait and follow in Valentin's path. She let the curtain close and didn't see the second fellow who came along twenty paces behind the first.

Valentin sensed someone following him as he turned off Basin and onto Bienville. Fifty paces on, he felt the movement around the corner, a man skulking like a dog tracking prey. It wasn't Picot's man; this one was a slicker operator. Valentin was a little surprised and much relieved that he could still discern the way the air moved on a quiet street and what it foretold. Tonight it meant he was being tracked by someone with bad intentions.

Earlier that day he had opened his top drawer and dug into the back. He put his whalebone sap in his pocket and strapped his stiletto knife to his ankle. He decided to leave his pistol, though; now he wished he had brought it along.

He could still turn the dark street to his advantage. Mangetta's Saloon faced a taller building that blocked the silver light of the moon when it was hanging low in the night sky, as it was this night. Just as he was about to cross over to Mangetta's, he heard the click of a hammer being drawn back and stepped into a shadow, then sidestepped into the doorway facing Mangetta's.

In that quick second, the man on his tail lost him. In a small panic, the fellow raised a pistol, pointing blindly into the darkness. Valentin's sap whipped out of the shadows and down across his wrist. He let out a shriek of pain and the revolver went flying, then clattered on the cobblestones. Valentin used the same fist that gripped the sap to shove the stalker against the wall of the building as he swept his free hand down to come up with the stiletto. He pushed the point under the man's chin, freezing him in place. The fellow's eyes, black with dirty whites, rolled around. The detective moved a half step to the right to get a better angle and see if he recognized him.

Just as he made that move, he sensed someone behind him. Before he could turn around, cold steel cracked hard on the bone behind his left ear. Blood went trickling down his neck.

"Put the fucking blade down," a voice growled. Valentin didn't move. "I said drop it!"

The detective drew the knife away and let it fall onto the banquette. The man he'd pinned against the wall snickered, knocked his hand off, and grabbed his collar, returning the favor. Then he cracked him a good one on the cheekbone.

"You're gettin' out of this business with these here white folks," he said. His breath stank of sour whiskey. "And just to make sure you do, we're—" His gaze shifted, his eyes going wide, and he uttered a startled, "Hey!" Valentin heard a thump and a grunt, and the cold barrel of the pistol abruptly dropped away from his ear.

He jerked back, breaking the first man's grip, and was greeted by the bizarre sight of Frank Mangetta standing there, gripping a saxophone in his hands like a crooked baseball bat. The man who had had the pistol on him was on the banquette, holding his bleeding head and groaning.

In that confused moment, his companion snapped a Liberty .22 out of his pocket and held it on the two men who were still standing.

"Smiley, can you move?" Smiley, the man on the banquette, grunted a curse, and then started to crawl. "Come on, then, goddamnit!"

Smiley lurched to his feet and staggered away. His companion kept the pistol pointed and the two backed off until they got to Iberville Street. Then they ran north in a flit of jagged motion.