Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (27 page)

"Go
away.
"

Valentin stood in the doorway. She was up now, looking beaten and broken, a rag doll, and her day had just begun for her. He closed the door and walked down the hall, down the steps, and onto the street. He gave her another year at the most, and her father could visit her, in peace at last, in the Hebrew Rest Cemetery on Saratoga Street.

They had seen everything and were enjoying a glass of whiskey in the back room of the Poodle Dog Café on Liberty Street. The place was a regular daytime watering hole for sporting girls, and Anne Marie, ensconced at a corner table with Betsy, was able to take off her hat and veil and view a parade of harlots of every color from Irish white to au-lait brown.

"You watch how they drink and that's how you know if they got any class to them or if they's just low-down sluts."

Anne Marie perused the dozen sporting women.

"They got rooms upstairs, you know," Betsy said, tilting her head toward the ceiling.

"Rooms for what?"

"What do you think? That door over there could open any second, and some fellow will walk in and take a look around and point to one of the girls. And off they go." She chuckled. "Sometimes the bartender will go
shhh
and everyone gets quiet and you can hear them goin' at it up there."

Anne Marie said, "Some man might just walk in and pick out a girl?"

Betsy nodded slyly. "Maybe you."

Hearing that, Anne Marie drank off her whiskey and asked if they could leave.

"Is there somethin' special you want to see?" the maid asked.

"Yes, there is," Anne Marie said.

Betsy took her arm and led her back out into the rain.

***

Valentin had taken care of everything for the afternoon except for the most awkward task. He had saved it for last, hoping that perhaps a tidal wave or hurricane would come along. No such luck; rain had been brewing through the day, and now the city was getting a drenching, the gutters running in rushes of brown water.

It didn't help that his mood had grown more somber after dueling with Sylvia Cardin and then fighting with Sophie Solomon. He thought for a moment how pleasant it would be to have a place to go where someone would be waiting for him. A place that would be quiet and safe. It was often that he longed for such a refuge. He knew the feeling would pass.

He ducked his way along the banquettes and stopped at a workmen's diner on Common Street to eat a quiet early meal of rice and beans and drink a glass of beer. Afterward he headed up Canal Street and turned onto Basin. He stood directly across the street from Antonia Gonzales's. There was a break in the traffic and he crossed over.

Just as they turned the corner from Bienville Street, Betsy grabbed Anne Marie's arm to stop her. "Lookit that!" she hissed. "There he is right there!"

Anne Marie saw him, too, making his way across the wide street and stepping onto the banquette halfway down the block. It was so odd seeing him, there in his own element, that she could only gape. She was aware of Betsy turning away, in case he looked their way.

It didn't matter. He glanced neither left nor right as he mounted the steps to the gallery. Anne Marie wondered if he was about to go inside and enjoy one of the women there, maybe the café-au-lait dove she had wanted to see. For some reason, the thought gave her a moment of pique.

Betsy was tugging at her elbow again. "It's getting late," she said. "We need to go."

Anne Marie shook her head and said, "No, let's wait. Just for a minute."

Valentin stood on the gallery of Antonia Gonzales's mansion, thinking seriously about walking away before someone answered the bell.

Courtesy would have had him send Beansoup ahead to let her know he was coming. Instead, he had just come knocking unannounced. The girl who answered the bell gave him a quick nod of recognition, though, as if she'd been told to expect him. She let him in and asked him to wait there in the foyer.

After he had saved Justine from the imprecations of a drunken boss, and before moving her to his rooms, he had visited her dozens of times in this same house. He had been such a regular guest over those months that Miss Antonia began asking him for small favors, which he was glad to oblige. Her mansion had been a comfortable place for him, other than the fact that the sporting girl he was coming to visit was selling herself to a series of sports who happened to be flush. As a proper rounder, he put on a show of indifference, and he knew that Justine had always considered this a treachery. She thought he should have realized that she cared for him and claimed her. And yet it was only when he feared for her safety during the Black Rose murders that he had taken her away.

He remembered specifically that it was in her upstairs room that Miss Antonia had appeared one morning around the break of day to whisper in his ear. An hour later he and the madam had arrived in black Storyville, and he was gazing upon the dead body of a young black girl. And so began his descent into the case that still shook him to this very—

"Mr. Valentin."

She was standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a day dress of soft cotton, off-white, with wide shoulders, buttoned to her neck. He let out a thankful sigh that she had not done herself up to torture him, with rouge and mascara and one of her working gowns that was tight over her figure and could be removed by unhooking a few stays to display her in one of her thin camisoles. She had done him that courtesy.

Still, she presented such a picture that he felt a pang in his chest, like something sharp had been planted there. Her face still looked girlish, though her face and body had filled out, just enough for him to notice it. Her hair was as he remembered it, the loose curls pulled back in a bow.

For her part, she was gripping the banister as if she needed the support. After taking a moment to compose herself, she lifted her skirt and started down the stairs.

As she drew closer, she saw how gaunt he looked, the angles of his face sharper and darker. Or maybe he had been like that before. She didn't really remember; she'd been in such a fog much of the time, courtesy of a willing doctor and New Orleans' well-stocked apothecaries.

She stopped on the second step from the bottom, which put them on eye level. Their gazes met, then scattered. They were both acting shy, like they were meeting for the first time. She noticed the bruise on his cheekbone and said, "Did you get that last night?"

"You heard about it?" He didn't know why he was surprised.

"It's going around. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Do you have any idea who the men were?"

"Not yet, but I will," he said quietly. He made a tense half turn toward the front door. "Can we?"

"I'll get a wrap," she said, and came down the last two steps. She went to the tree where the coats and such were hanging, took down a silk shawl with an ornate floral pattern, and draped it over her shoulders. It looked familiar and it took a moment for him to realize that it was one he had bought for her after seeing it in a store window. Had it really been three years ago?

He took one of the umbrellas from the stand in the corner. She opened the door, and as she passed by him, he reached out and took some material that had folded under at her neck and set it right. Their eyes met for an instant, and she gave him a small, sweet smile and stepped out onto the gallery. He could still see the scar when she turned a certain way, a small, curved indentation above her temple. It was his fault it was there and she'd carry it for the rest of her days.

He led her down the banquette and then across Canal Street. It was a busy walk, both of them dodging pedestrians, street traffic, and the steady drizzle. She didn't take his arm, and they didn't have to speak until they reached the other side of Canal. He led her to a café where he knew the owners would permit him to bring a woman of color inside. They found a table by a window and sat down, facing each other.

They sat in an embarrassed silence until the fellow came out from behind the counter to stand by the table. He greeted Valentin with a wink and asked what the lady was having. She asked for jasmine tea. Valentin just shook his head and the waiter went away.

She treated him to a small glance. "You've lost some weight."

"And you got some back," he said. "I mean it's good."

"I know what you mean." She gave him a small smile. "You never liked women too thin."

There was another silence. Valentin tried to think of something polite to say and came up blank. He shifted in his chair. "So what is it you wanted to talk about?" he asked her.

She fingered her napkin for a musing moment. "I have a gentleman friend," she began, and immediately saw his eyes settle, like he was watching her from a hundred yards away. She knew the look, had expected it. Still, it wounded her, and she bit down on her dejection before he stopped her cold.

"He came in early Sunday morning, all upset," she said. "And he had some story to tell."

She knew that would get him. She saw his eyes widen the slightest bit. She related the tale Mr. George had told her. She drew it out, taking a good long time to paint a picture, and noted with satisfaction that he came to her just a bit, drawn in by the tale. She could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he tried to connect it to his case. It took her back to their kitchen table on Magazine Street, where he would talk to her about his investigations, replete with vivid descriptions of the bloody little dramas of ne'er-do-wells on both sides of the law. That had been some time ago and so much had happened since.

The waiter arrived with her tea. Valentin watched her as she stirred in some honey from the pot, her hand moving in a gentle rhythm.

He wanted to digest the information Justine had brought him, but his mind wouldn't engage. Being there with her had him twisted in knots and he couldn't think. As long as he was sitting across a café table, dazed by the sight of her face and the curl of her figure, by the sweet common smell of her flesh, it was hopeless. After a moment he gave a benumbed shake of his head, wondering again what had happened to the rounder that used to walk around in his body.

Justine knew most people could not read Valentin at all. She could, though; and she saw him come up to the brink, his eyes deepening and darkening, and wondered if he was going to say something that mattered to her and make the awful barricade between them evaporate. Then his gaze flattened again.

"What's his name?" There was only the slightest catch in his voice.

"George Reynolds," she said quietly.

"Did Mr. Reynolds know John Benedict?"

"He did. He had worked for Mr. Kane." She paused. "He believes the deaths of the two men are connected."

"Did he say why?"

"He didn't say at all. I can just tell."

He believed her. She had learned some things from him.

"Whatever it is, it's got him scared," she said.

Valentin gazed out the window, mulling the information. "Does he ... does he know about ... about you and me?"

"All he knows is that there's someone on the case," she said. "He doesn't know who you are. Or that I know you."

In the silence that followed, she saw the shadow return to his face. "Do you want to talk to him?"

"I'll have to," he said. "Can you get him to come to Miss Antonia's tomorrow?"

"I think so," she said. "I'll send Beansoup around to tell you when."

He nodded. She decided to have mercy on both of them. She gave him a quiet smile and said, "I can drink my tea alone, you know." She paused. "Actually, I'd like to."

He hesitated, then got up from his chair, mumbling something foolish about having to get back to work on the case. He gave her the briefest glance and walked away from the table. He dropped a Liberty quarter in the waiter's palm and escaped out the door in the rain and the falling light of the New Orleans evening.

Joe Kimball's brain was as much a mystery to its owner as it was to those who encountered it. He had maintained a savage thirst for alcohol that went back into a murky, muddy past. He had no recollection of that faraway moment when he'd had his first taste. Only that ever since that point in time, the days of his life had been a besotted blur, defined by the bottles that nestled at various cubbyholes and between certain volumes all around his little warren.

So his mind was so much mush, except when it came to his files. He had once read about a Negro in Georgia, a blind idiot who could not tie his own shoes but was a pure wonder at the piano. So Joe Kimball had one room in his brain that was unpolluted by liquor where he stored copies of the cabinets and boxes and bound volumes that were laid out around his workplace. He often startled himself with his ability to find the information someone was searching for, targeting names and dates like a machine. He could spout arcane details, stunning himself all the more, because of the way they just popped out from someplace in his brain as if he had stuck his fingers in and collected them.

Because of this astonishing facility, most of his work was mundane. He could handle it in his sleep or, more accurately, blind drunk. The rare exceptions to this were the times St. Cyr came by. The Creole detective usually had something delicious working and Kimball delighted in helping him ferret out some piece of information that was a piece in a puzzle that would eventually be solved.