Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (24 page)

Frank, watching them go, said, "Shit! What the hell happened?"

"I caught the first one. I didn't count on the second."

"What was they after?"

"I think they had a message for me." He looked at Mangetta, standing there in his trousers, shirt, and suspenders, holding the battered horn in his hands, and started to laugh. "That's some weapon, Frank."

Mangetta held up the saxophone and inspected the dented bell. "I was cleaning up and I looked out the window and I saw you put that one against the wall. I went for the door. Then I saw the other one." He hefted the saxophone. "This here was lying on the table. First thing I could grab."

"Well, you got him good."

"I think it's Bob Camp's. He's gonna be mad."

"Tell him I'll pay to get it fixed."

They started back across the street. "What message?" Mangetta said.

Valentin shook his head. "He never got around to saying." He didn't know if Frank believed him, but there was no point in putting him in the middle of something.

They reached the other side of the street and Valentin held the door of the saloon open. "I'd like to buy you a drink," he said.

"
Grazie,
" Frank said. "I think both of us could use it."

Justine woke up thankfully alone. She lingered in the warm bed, letting her drowsy thoughts drift this way and that. She had just risen out of one of the dreams that took her back to the bayou where she was born and raised. Though terrible things had happened there, her reveries were for the most part kind. Mostly because she made herself recall the special things, like the way the sunlight would come through the green trees and dapple the brown dirt in the afternoon. In that same corner of her mind, she cradled the smells of woodsmoke, the feel of cool earth under her feet, the sight of the wildflowers that blazed like flames on the banks of the green water.

These thoughts led to a conjuring of the faces of her brothers and sisters, now lost to her. She prayed that they were safe; or at least safer than they would have been back on the bayou.

Sometimes she tried to imagine what each one in turn might be doing at that moment. Raising their children, going to work, laughing at life's joys. What more could anyone of color hope for? She and her older brother had rescued them and gave them a chance for decent lives, but at a sad price. She had made a devil's bargain, and it wasn't the only one. Lying there, thinking about that, she felt a tear well in her eye and run down her cheek.

She sat up, wiped her face, propped the pillows, and leaned back again, gazing out her window to see the sun poking long rays through puffs of rolling clouds. It looked like rain blowing in from the Gulf. She was ready; it would suit her mood.

As her thoughts cleared, she remembered that she had taken the step to send a message to Valentin and felt a small throb of panic. It was too late to do anything about it now. Beansoup had no doubt rushed to find the Creole detective, so whatever had been standing between the two of them would fall that day. Though she could always cancel it.

She let out a frustrated sigh. She was feeling foolish, like some schoolgirl who couldn't make up her silly mind. So she fixed her thoughts back to Mr. George's story of the crime that had occurred in the French Quarter, and the mention of a detective who had been hired by the victim's daughter.

She stopped to wonder if the rumors might be true, and he had been smitten by the young white miss. She didn't believe it. More likely the other way around; if he put his mind to it, Valentin could wrap even a genteel American lady around his finger. She was creating a little scene about the two of them in her head when a knock on the door interrupted her. If it was Mr. George, back again, all fussy and scared like some old woman, she swore she'd—

"Justine?" Miss Antonia called to her. "Open up, please. Something happened to Valentin on Marais Street last night."

Justine bolted from the bed and threw the door wide, her heart drumming. "What happened? Is he all right?"

Miss Antonia saw the look in her eyes and said, "Yes, he's fine." She pursed her lips in reproof. "Two fellows tailed him to Marais Street and had him cornered. But Frank Mangetta saw and came running out." Her eyes got merry. "The word is Mangetta laid one of them out with a saxophone! Jane the maid said he's been strutting around his grocery store like a dago rooster, telling everyone who'll listen and showing off the horn."

Justine stood there in a fixed daze as she recalled last night and the man who looked like Valentin being trailed across Basin Street and deeper into the District by a shadowing figure.

"But Valentin wasn't hurt?" she asked the madam.

"He was lucky," Miss Antonia said. "This time."

Justine murmured a thank-you for the information. The madam walked back along the hallway, wondering frankly if she was now going to have to tie the girl to the bed to keep track of her.

Anne Marie went to look in on her mother and found her still sleeping, the leaden slumber that came from the small apothecary vial by way of a hypodermic needle. She slipped out again, closing the door behind her. It had been her intention to talk to her or her doctor and get her to stop with the medication. She didn't need it. There was nothing wrong with her, except for lingering grief and the general emptiness of her days.

She hadn't done it yet. There was too much on her mind and, truth be told, she wasn't ready to face the monster that would surely appear if they tried to take the medicine away.

Betsy was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and perusing a copy of the
Mascot.
The headline had to do with a house that was reputed to offer women for the pleasure of customers of their own gender. The drawing that went along with the piece was appropriately lurid, with two sporting girls entwined in an embrace, one in her camisole, the other in a dress that was half undone. Anne Marie noticed how entranced Betsy looked as she struggled over the text. She wasn't surprised. Betsy's eyes often raked her when she was coming out of a bath or in the middle of dressing.

She let out a feigned huff of annoyance, and the maid quickly closed the newspaper, got to her feet, and went to the stove. She brought a cup of coffee to the table, then stepped away to start on breakfast.

"Wait a minute," Anne Marie said. "Sit down, please." Betsy took a chair at the big table, looking perplexed and a little anxious. Anne Marie sipped her coffee, then put the cup down. "You and I are going to take a trip today," she said.

Since the Benedict case had begun, Lieutenant J. Picot couldn't keep his mind on his work and found himself at regular intervals staring out the window and muttering quiet curses. The man he had sent to dog St. Cyr had been hopeless, unable to keep pace with the movements of his subject, then unable to deliver any worthwhile information when he did. So he pulled him off and sent him to guard something. The lieutenant could only imagine what was going on as the detective wandered from point A to point B. All he knew for sure was that his life was about to get complicated again, thanks to one son-of-a-bitch Creole.

He was still mulling and muttering when the desk sergeant came knocking on his door. Picot waved him inside.

"That fellow St. Cyr?" the sergeant said.

Picot glowered, wondering if he'd been thinking out loud. "What about him?"

"He was attacked on Marais Street last night."

The lieutenant felt his pulse start to lope and came halfway out of his chair. "What happened?"

"He got jumped on by two fellows."

"Is he dead?"

"Naw, nothin' like that," the sergeant said. Slowly, Picot sat back down. "From what I heard, they had him good, but then that dago Mangetta got into it and they run them off."

"Was it a robbery?"

"Ain't no one said."

"How did you hear about this? Did he make a report?"

"No, Mangetta's got a big mouth. He was crowin' about it in his store, and the word's all over the District."

"I swear that nigger's got nine lives," the lieutenant muttered.

The sergeant said, "Sir? Which nigger is that?"

Picot chopped an annoyed hand in the air. "Nothing, never mind."

The sergeant backed out of the door, leaving the lieutenant sitting at his desk with his face all dark and pinched in frustration.

By the time Valentin got downstairs, it appeared that everyone in uptown New Orleans knew what had happened on the street the night before.

Valentin stepped into the grocery, took one look at Frank huddled with a couple of his
paisanos,
and understood. The saloon keeper had told one person, a mere whisper, and the word had gone out from there. For all his Sicilian reserve, Frank couldn't resist telling a good story, and when the first person came around asking if what he had heard was true, the tale was retold. And so on.

If Valentin had any doubt that this was what happened, it was washed away with the glance that Frank cast over his shoulder when the detective walked into the grocery.

He went into the saloon, and Frank came along a few seconds later, looking distinctly like a dog about to be whipped. Still, there was no way Valentin could get angry over it; the man had saved his life. Exasperation was as far as it went. "What the hell are you doing, Frank?" he asked.

"What? They already knew."

"I wonder how that happened?" He frowned. "Where's the saxophone?"

Frank hoisted a limp thumb in the direction of the grocery. Valentin threw up his hands.

"You ain't ate yet," Frank said, and hurried off to the kitchen. "I'm gonna go fix you a nice breakfast."

An hour later Valentin was ringing the bell on the downstairs door of the address on Ursulines. When nothing happened, he rang again. He heard the balcony above his head let out a soft metallic creak.

"Who's there?" The voice was low, without inflection.

The detective stepped back to the edge of the banquette and looked up. A woman in a soft cotton shift had stepped onto the balcony, her hands gripping the iron railing. She was tall and willowy, with smoothly angled features that marked her as Caucasian. Her milky brown skin marked her as something else. Her hair hung about untied, a mess of dark ringlets. Her eyes, large and liquid ebony, peered down with an odd distance, like she was looking at something past him. She didn't seem very surprised to find a stranger at her door. She also didn't seem to care that she was on her balcony in the middle of the morning wearing only a shift that was too loose for modesty.

Valentin enjoyed the view for another moment, then introduced himself and said, "I'm investigating the murder of John Benedict."

She tilted her head to one side. Now she noticed him. "Who sent you here?" she asked.

"I'd like to talk to you about Mr. Benedict's murder," he said.

Her beautiful deep eyes studied him with a faraway calm. "All right," she said. "Come up, then."

Her apartment reminded him of the one Justine had taken for a short while in her failed attempt to be a rich man's mistress. It turned out she was too unruly for that life and she quit him. Those rooms had the same kept look: pricey furnishings, expensive wood furniture, Persian rugs on the floor, good paintings and other adornments on the walls, all harkening to the privileges of wealth, more like a display than a home. He knew the bedroom in back would be even better appointed, with a huge brass or four-poster bed at its center. Indeed, there would be rooms like this all over downtown New Orleans, as part of one of the city's oldest traditions, the taking of quadroon and octoroon mistresses by married men of the moneyed classes.

Sylvia Cardin made her way around the perimeter of the room, her movements languid but still wary, like she might bolt at the first sharp sound. Valentin studied her more closely. Her face was a long and perfect oval, with high cheekbones, a round and pert nose, and those obsidian eyes with lids that were slightly hooded. Once she uncurled, she would be an inch or two taller than him. All in all, she was a presence that couldn't be denied and a prize for the man who could afford her.

At the same time, there were rough edges. Her eyes stayed cool, her lips were pressed tight, and her nostrils flared slightly, a predatory cat. Valentin could tell from her expression that his visit was not welcome. He didn't mind; it gave him something to work with. She was acting that way for a reason.

She performed a small ballet of arranging herself on a divan and waving him into the tufted armchair opposite. She opened a silver-plated box from the end table and took out a long French cigarette in creamy white paper. Valentin saw the strike box on the table and reached for it. She was ahead of him, though, snapping it up and catching the flame herself. He got the message and sat back.

"Thank you for inviting me into your home," he said, as he took out his notebook and pencil.

She gazed at the pencil poised over the page. "How did you find me?"

"Mr. Delouche gave me your address." He didn't mention the attorney's icy, injured silence and that he gave up the information as if it was being torn from his very flesh with pliers. She watched him, smoke swirling before her face.

"I asked who sent you here," she said abruptly. He decided it would be her last question.