Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (3 page)

It was odd, indeed, that Badel had picked St. Cyr, of all people, and he wondered how much the alderman knew about him. The Creole detective had only recently come back to the city. Where he had gone and what he had done for the fifteen months he was away was anyone's guess. He hadn't said. All Anderson knew was that he showed up at the Café door one chilly Tuesday afternoon after the turn of the New Year to ask humbly, like a stranger, if there might be any suitable employment for him.

The King of Storyville had been sitting at his usual downstairs table. He masked his surprise, regarding St. Cyr with frank appraisal. The Creole looked the worse for wear. His clothes were hanging loose and dirty. He had lost weight, and there was a certain hungry edge about him, like a stray dog that had been scrapping for food. The King of Storyville thought about it for a moment, then told him that he could work the floor of the Café as needed. The detective had responded to the offer with such an odd, absent look that Anderson had wondered if there was something wrong with him.

When he asked where he would be staying, St. Cyr muttered something about a room on Clio Street. The King of Storyville knew in an instant that there was no such room, and that the poor fellow would be sleeping that night in a flophouse, in the park, or in some doorway. So he offered an advance on the first week's pay, five Liberty dollars. St. Cyr had stared at the coins for a long time before picking them up. Then he thanked Anderson quietly and took his leave. A few days later, he announced that he had taken a room over Frank Mangetta's Saloon and Grocery on Marais Street.

The Creole detective who carried a history that had taken on aspects of legend had come back, and yet there was no fanfare at all, only whispers in the saloons and the parlors of the sporting houses. Of course, fifteen months was a long time to be gone, and memories in this part of the world tended to be short.

Except for working late nights at Anderson's Café, he stayed out of sight. If he was visiting any sporting girls, no one talked about it. Everyone assumed he was just finding his way and left him alone. That couldn't last, though; indeed, there were already rumors floating about that Tom Anderson was already losing patience with him.

In fact, after just a few days, the King of Storyville had discovered that he was dealing with a different Valentin St. Cyr altogether. Though the detective had never been able to afford the best clothes, he had at least taken some care with what he did own. Not anymore; he appeared at the Café in the same dingy suit every night. He had been known to keep a sharp eye and a firm hand on the nightly crowds, respecting those customers who behaved and dispatching those who didn't. In fact, the blunt way he'd dealt with the miscreants had been a source of some entertainment for the patrons. Now he barely paid attention, and there were complaints that some of the local pickpockets had been having a field day right under his nose.

Anderson sighed and brought his thoughts back to the business of the murder on Rampart Street. A case this simple would either get the Creole detective back on his horse or prove that he truly had lost his once-extraordinary skills. If that was so, he would no longer be of any use to the King of Storyville.

There was no trouble that night. Valentin left at 4
A.M.
, after the stragglers with nowhere else to go had shuffled out the door and into the last shadows of the New Orleans night.

He wandered down Basin Street, turned the corner at Iberville, and walked three blocks to Marais Street. At this hour even Mangetta's Saloon, the noisiest music hall in Storyville, was as silent as a bier. As he stepped into the alley that ran alongside the building, he looked in through the wide front window to see two drunks sprawled unconscious over tables while a bartender swept the sawdust across the floor in a weary rhythm.

He climbed the creaking metal stairs and let himself into his room, a cramped and dingy affair, as uncluttered as a cell, with a sagging iron-framed bed, a closet, a chest of drawers, and a night table. The walls were bare except for a 1909 calendar and a crucifix that had been hung there by the former tenant. Valentin had left both where they were. Two suits hung on the back of the door. The tools of his former trade—an Iver Johnson pistol, a stiletto in an ankle sheath, and a whalebone sap—were tucked far in a corner of the top drawer.

No one else but the cleaning girl entered the room. His landlord, respecting his privacy, was still waiting for an invitation. Anyone else who might have visited him was gone: Bolden, long lost in Jackson; Jelly Roll Morton in St. Louis and Chicago, playing music for the high rollers; the few others scattered far and wide. Justine, the dove who had shared his rooms on Magazine Street for the better part of two years, hadn't come calling, though she had to know that he was back in town. He'd taken pains to avoid her, and he guessed that she was doing the same. Though he now had the money for a sporting woman, it didn't occur to him to visit one.

On the nights that he wasn't working, he walked the streets of the city from one end to the other, often with his head bent as if searching for something that he had lost. It was an old habit. If the weather was poor or he was just worn out, he would stay in and listen to the music and shouts and laughter from the saloon downstairs. The jass—muted by the building's heavy beams, plaster ceilings, and hardwood floors—sounded like a faraway echo of the crazy gumbo that the Kid Bolden Band had created back in 1901. He still heard echoes of the way Bolden had played, and liked to listen even when it kept him awake. He didn't have anything better to do. There was a stack of books under his bed for when it got too quiet.

He wasn't quite ready to sleep this morning, so he opened the window and sat on the sill to take the breeze. As he sat there above the dark and silent streets, his thoughts meandered to the exchange that took place in Anderson's office earlier in the evening.

He had almost turned around and walked out when he realized what Badel and Anderson wanted. The alderman's gaze had been conniving and his voice shady as he talked about the hapless white man murdered in the dark end of town.

It was a puzzle why they had summoned him at all. There were Pinkertons and other private police all over the city; a few even had skills. And yet Alderman Badel had come to Anderson, and Anderson had turned to him. He didn't know what the two men were expecting, and it didn't really matter. Valentin hadn't come back to New Orleans to plunge into detective work again. He thought that was understood.

Anyway, he already knew what had happened. This Benedict fellow had gone to Rampart Street for the wrong pleasures, wandered off in the wrong direction, and crossed paths with the wrong person. The man's family should have wanted it swept from sight. So why insist on an investigation and why call him? Maybe, Valentin reflected with a grim smile, because they weren't looking for a real detective after all. That part, at least, made some sense.

He pondered for a while longer, until his head began to droop. He couldn't think anymore. He came back inside and closed the window as the first light of day, dark crimson, edged along the northeast horizon. The city would be coming to life soon. He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes to the creeping dawn.

Justine Mancarre walked her gentleman caller down the stairs and out the door onto the gallery. His company motorcar, a forest green Maxwell with thin gold piping painted along its panels and fenders, idled at the curb, sitting high on bright yellow wheels. It was still early enough that she could step onto the gallery in her nightdress without being a spectacle. The breeze from the east lifted the hem as she watched Mr. George descend the gallery steps and cross the banquette to heave himself into the backseat of the automobile. The driver fixed his goggles over his eyes, engaged the gearshift, and turned his head to check the traffic. Mr. George gave a jaunty wave from the backseat as the automobile jerked forward and chattered away over the cobblestones. She knew he would now race home to the American side of town, change into clean clothes, and hurry off to his good job as president of the shipping business down by the river.

Her smile, already thin, evaporated. She took a moment to survey the banquette. Basin Street was tranquil, sleeping off the prior night's revels. It was a quiet and lonely time of day. She turned around and trudged back inside and up the stairs.

She was halfway to the landing when one of the maids came into the foyer and called up to her. Miss Antonia was requesting a moment of her time. Justine wasn't in the mood and thought about offering an excuse, perhaps claiming a headache. It wasn't worth it. The madam would just pester her all morning. She told the maid she'd be back down in a few minutes and continued up the steps.

Valentin woke to someone in the store below gabbling excitedly in Sicilian dialect. The voice came down a bit and the singsong lilt brought a memory of his father, who would lapse from his mangled English into Sicilian dialect when he was feeling especially gentle or agitated. His mother knew some words and, with the help of her backwoods Creole French, could talk back to him. He remembered lying in his bed, listening as his younger sister and brother slept. It was like the quiet moments in an opera, sweetly muted. It had been a long time ago, and yet he could still conjure all that at the sound of a single vowel.

He turned his head to see that the sun was up well over the rooftops. More voices rose, calls back and forth on subjects of mortadella and prosciutto. The grocery was open for business. He lay there for a while longer, listening to the voices and the rough music of the streets and alleys, getting busy with traffic.

He got up and headed to the bathroom at the far end of the silent hallway. There was only one other boarder on the floor, a serious and mysterious fellow who spoke a few gruff words in Italian when he spoke at all. Whatever his true name, Frank Mangetta referred to him only as "Signore Angelo." He had a peasant body, too, solid muscle. His skin was dark olive, his blue-black hair was oiled and combed, and his mustache waxed.

Where he had come from and what he was doing there were never explained. Angelo was always up and gone by first light and didn't come back until dusk or after, then went into his room, closed the door, and didn't come out again. Where he took his meals and life's other pleasures was a mystery as well. Though Valentin was curious, he didn't intrude. Whatever the Sicilian was hiding—or hiding from—was none of his business. The few times their paths had crossed, they had exchanged a brief greeting in Italian and Valentin had peered into black eyes that were like pools of private woe. It appeared that Angelo carried some cursed history on his broad back. Respecting his privacy, Mangetta did not share any information, either.

Since he and Angelo came and went at opposite hours, Valentin mostly had the upper floor to himself. He could enjoy a bath and a shave at leisure. Frank had installed a new toilet with a flushing mechanism so there was no longer any need to visit the back-alley privy in the damp chill of winter or the blistering, fly-swarming heat of high summer.

After his bath Valentin went back to his room and put on a pair of gray linen trousers and a white cotton shirt, both worn to the threads. He tied his shoes, pulled up his suspenders, draped a jacket over one shoulder, and went downstairs by way of the inside stairwell that led down to the storeroom.

Mangetta's was divided into two high-ceilinged rooms, the saloon on one side and an Italian grocery on the other. From the early hours of the day until late afternoon, the grocery, a compact and tidy establishment, catered to the District's floating population and the Sicilians who lived or worked nearby, as the proprietor kept the shelves stocked with foodstuffs, wines, and newspapers from the old country.

The saloon, twice the size of the store, opened at the stroke of twelve for cold lunches and an afternoon of casual drinking. No dinner was served, though cold plates were available. When the streetlights gleamed, the grocery doors were locked and the saloon became one of New Orleans' rowdier music halls. A four-or five-piece band would hold down the low riser in the corner, blasting jass for a crowd of drunken revelers, Creole, Italian, and American. There were plenty of sporting girls and rounders, though Mangetta kept neither rooms for the doves to ply the trade nor a gambling parlor for the men to lose their earnings that way. A violinist of modest skills, he had years back taken the role of padrone to the back-of-town music community. His saloon had been the beachhead when jass first crossed over Canal from the filthy bucket-of-blood music halls on Rampart Street. Now a dozen Storyville addresses featured jass bands regularly. Indeed, the onetime outlaw music was slowly edging in toward respectable.

The saloon was quiet in the morning and served as a private refuge for the proprietor and one of his tenants.

Valentin stepped though the storeroom and into the grocery to find Frank stocking shelves while his clerks took care of the line of customers, southern Italians and maids from the nearby bordellos. Though many stores lately had begun to allow patrons to select their own goods from the shelves, Frank wouldn't hear of it; he liked doing things the old way.

Valentin received a brief nod of greeting from the proprietor as he passed into the saloon, picking up the copy of the morning
Picayune
that was lying on the butcher block next to the archway. He took down two chairs and got himself situated just as Mangetta appeared with coffee in hand. The Sicilian placed the steaming cup at his elbow and disappeared to the kitchen behind the bar. The two men didn't exchange a word. Valentin took a sip of his coffee, noting that the storekeeper had thought to add a drop of
anisetta.
He opened his newspaper.