Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (32 page)

"I'm not afraid of Henry Harris," the King of Storyville said.

Valentin paused over that, then offered a quiet thank-you and walked out the way he had come in.

George Reynolds spent the rest of the afternoon in his office without getting any work done. He did his best to keep busy with the papers his secretary put before him, and yet as hard as he tried to concentrate, he found his mind drifting. He gazed fretfully out his north-facing window, across the rooftops. A half-dozen times he heard his name called and snapped out of his blank reverie to see his secretary standing there, her brow knit with concern.

"Are you feeling all right?" she'd asked him.

The hours dragged and he was grateful when the streetlights finally began to come alive all at once. Farther back-of-town they still employed gas lamps, and those glowed in a slow sequence as city workers made their way from street to street. George sat in his chair and watched their progress, hoping the sight would calm him.

It did not. Over the past week, a monster he thought was long buried had raised its ugly head.

He remembered the excitement when Charles Kane announced that Henry Harris himself had asked John Benedict and him to join in a business venture, a new company that would be a major operation on the docks.

George knew the story in the most general terms. Kane had described it in detail. Harris had looked down from his office window and saw the busy activity on the wharves, with ships loading and unloading produce around the clock. The longshoremen were like ants in their scurrying, and as he stood there, he imagined not fruits and vegetables being toted, but bags of money. New Orleans was a major international port, so it had to amount to millions.

He also couldn't fail to notice that most of the names on the shingles hanging over the doors of those businesses ended in vowels. That's all he needed to see to move forward.

He couldn't very well go down to the docks and commit wholesale murder in order to take over. But he knew the Sicilians were quite good at that themselves, and so he went about fomenting what was later called the "Orange Wars" by throwing fuel on a small feud between two families that had business on the waterfront. It culminated when one group of Sicilians was framed for the murder of the chief of police, and eleven innocent men were lynched in the yard of Parish Prison. After the dust settled, Henry Harris looked around and was stunned to see that like barnacles, the Sicilians were still clinging to each other and to the docks.

A wave of protest about the murder of the Sicilians came from as high up as the king of Italy himself, directly to President Roosevelt, so a repeat performance was out of the question. Grudgingly, Harris decided to do what he should have done from the beginning, which was to form a shipping company and simply buy up the businesses he had tried to usurp.

He chose two like-minded businessmen, Charles Kane and John Benedict, to join him in this venture. They formed their partnership in secret, so as to avoid any questions of a trust. They made reasonable offers to the owners of the businesses, but to the partners' disbelief, every one of the owners refused politely. A slightly more generous offer was tendered. The response was the same. The Sicilians didn't want to sell their businesses at a fair price at all. They were successful and happy, and they were bastions for the burgeoning Italian community.

Furious and not to be denied, Harris sent thugs to offer a more direct inducement. The men all ended up in the river. One came back with a message that the next crew wouldn't be able to swim out again.

Henry Harris had gone into a rage. This was exactly what he had been talking about for years! These people were defying him and they weren't even Americans!

George Reynolds knew about what had happened next. After it was over, he was relieved to be able to leave Dixie Star for a position that, over the years, advanced him to the presidency of Gulf Shipping. He thought it was history, that he'd never hear of it again.

He didn't escape, though; Charles Kane had stayed in touch all that time. Odd, until George realized that Kane was making sure he kept his mouth shut. Not that he ever wanted to speak about it.

He finally did, though, letting his lovely Justine persuade him to talk to the detective in the kitchen of the Basin Street mansion. St. Cyr had listened absently at first, as if he wasn't much interested. He came around when George got to the end of the tale.

All throughout, George couldn't fail to notice how Justine seemed to move closer to St. Cyr, even as she sat in the same chair. She wasn't on his side any more than the detective was. It was then that it began to dawn on him what a mistake he was making and ran for cover. The way she looked at him: like he was a coward, all but begging for the detective to offer him safety. She didn't know what he knew, though, and she wouldn't under—

"Mr. Reynolds?"

He came out of the brood and swiveled the chair around. His secretary was holding his scarf and hat.

"Your car's downstairs," she said.

With a nod of thanks, he put on the hat and draped the scarf over his shoulders. He offered the girl a good-night and went out the door and down the steps.

The Maxwell was idling at the curb in the cooling air of the falling night. The driver in his long driving coat, slouch hat, and goggles sat tapping his fingers on the wheel. George didn't know the man—nothing unusual. The company provided drivers from a pool as a courtesy to executives. He stepped into the backseat too distracted to notice the usual admiring looks that the workers coming out of the gate cast in his direction. Actually, it was the Maxwell that received the stares. A few of them, discontented types, would be thinking that the fine machine was bought at the cost of their sweat. Which, in a way, was true.

George pulled his scarf around his neck as the automobile swung away from the curb. They puttered west along Thalia, then turned south on Dryades. George thought that the car was moving a little fast for the traffic but didn't say anything. He was still deep in thought over what he'd told St. Cyr.

So much so that when they reached the Dryades Market, it took him some moments to realize that instead of going straight, they had turned onto Melpomene and were now zooming west on that wide boulevard, passing automobiles and carriages alike.

"Why didn't you turn?" he called to the driver. The fellow didn't seem to have heard. The motor was making a racket as they picked up speed.

George cupped his gloved hand around his mouth. "Driver!" he yelled over the wind and road noise. "You missed the turn back there!" When the driver still didn't respond, he leaned forward and poked him with a gloved hand. The fellow gave a jerk of his shoulder, brushing the hand off, and pushed the accelerator lever forward another half inch. George, first startled by this insolence, felt fear shoot through his bones like an electric shock. He wanted to yell for help, but his mouth had gone dead dry, and no one would hear him for the roar of the racing engine, anyway. The pedestrians on the banquette snapped by in a series of blurs.

The Maxwell swerved wildly to avoid a horse-drawn hack at the intersection of South Franklin Street and went flying past the Leidenheimer Bakery and into the dark recess beyond, where the gas lamps had yet to be lit. George felt the clutch in his guts as it dawned on him what was happening. Kane had been snatched off the street, too. Now it was his turn.

The driver turned so sharply off Melpomene that the right-side tires almost came off the boulevard. He cut down a gravel alley between two warehouses, where he threw the Maxwell into a skidding stop. He cut the ignition switch and the four cylinders rattled into silence. Before George could open his mouth to protest, the fellow at the wheel turned around with a pistol in his hand. The goggles and hat stayed in place, and his collar was turned up so the details of his appearance were concealed, though George was so terrified, he likely wouldn't have remembered them if they'd been in full view.

With a smooth motion, the driver laid the barrel of the pistol to rest on George's brow, right between his eyes.

"If you call out, I'll kill you." The voice was muted, not much above a whisper, barely threatening. Still, George had no doubt that he meant what he said, and he willed his shaking limbs to be still.

"You know what I want," the driver said.

"What—" George's teeth went to chattering, as if he was chilled. "What about—?"

"You want to stop that," the driver said. He waited a moment. "Now, let's hear it."

"Hear what?" George sucked in a loud breath. "I don't know anything. I'm not—"

The driver pulled back the hammer on the revolver. "I can ask someone else."

"All right, all right!" George's voice went up another notch. "Benedict was going to talk. I think so."

"About what?"

"About Harris and Kane and that business on the docks. About that damned company they formed. Benedict was going to talk, and Kane knew it, too."

"And you were part of it."

"I wasn't! I only heard about it from Kane. My god, it was almost twenty years ago!" George swallowed, tasted bitter bile. "Please don't do this! I didn't have any part in it!"

He felt the driver staring at him through the lenses, probing for a lie. Then the gloved hand released the hammer. "From here on, you keep your mouth shut about this or you'll end up like those others."

George nodded, or at least made a semblance with that cold steel barrel pressing into his forehead.

In the next motion, the driver withdrew the weapon and dropped down from the seat. "Hope you can handle this thing," he said with a short laugh. "You're a long way from Russell Street." He backed away, keeping the pistol pointed. Not that George was about to challenge him.

Then, in a sudden swirl, he was gone, melting into the shadows cast by the backs of the buildings like some scrap of a rag that had been whipped away by the evening wind, leaving the alley still and silent. George was startled. It was the kind of swooping movement that had carried Charles Kane away, yet just a little off. This fellow seemed sleeker, more nimble. Or maybe he was seeing things again.

He clambered from the backseat, holding on to the side panels for support. Now the fear he'd forced down came up in his guts like a wave, and he had to clench his bowels to keep from soiling himself. That wouldn't do for his stomach, though, and he bent his head to vomit, splattering the front of his coat, his shoes, and the Maxwell's bright yellow wheels. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth, then leaned against the fender, sweating in the cool air and gasping for breath.

Sick fear wrenched his gut again, and George heaved himself into the front seat. Though he had only driven the car once or twice and the controls were all a blur, he managed to advance the spark, close the choke, and turn the starter. The Maxwell's quartet of cylinders coughed to life, then sputtered and stopped. The air reeked of gasoline. He had forgotten to open the choke. He waited for a trembling ten seconds, shooting fearful glances up and down the alleyway, then tried again. This time the engine caught and settled into a slow idle. He engaged the clutch and pushed the accelerator handle with an unsteady grip. The motorcar rolled away toward the blessed amber gaslights of Claiborne Avenue.

There was a ruckus outside Miss Antonia's mansion. The piano man stopped playing, and the girls hurried to look out the front windows. A green Maxwell touring car had come to a shuddering, piston-rattling stop and sat at a crazy angle in the street, with one tire perched on the banquette. As they watched, George Reynolds clambered down from behind the wheel like some drunkard and hobbled up the steps to the gallery.

One of the maids went running to find Justine, who swore a mild curse. Then she went down the stairs.

He looked bad and smelled worse, and he swayed like he was about to topple over at any second. The girls who had gathered round stood back, curling their noses, though it wasn't the first time they'd seen such a spectacle.

They scattered like startled birds when Miss Antonia bustled out of the parlor, where she'd been entertaining. She called for one of the toughs who lingered on the back gallery, ordering him to go move the motorcar that was hiked on the banquette. Then she and Justine helped Mr. George up the steps.

Once they had maneuvered him into the bathroom at the end of the hall, the madam went to a special closet and picked out some articles of men's clothing that were kept there. She left the clothes hanging outside the door, then went downstairs to see to her other girls and their guests.

Justine meanwhile undressed Mr. George down to his undershirt and drawers. She wiped his face and neck with a damp cloth. Once he was cleaned up, she guided him to her room. She offered him a drink, but worried that he couldn't keep it down, Mr. George refused. She gave him a few moments to calm himself. Then she asked him what had happened to upset him so. Had someone else died?

Well,
he
almost died, he told her, and as he went about relating the story, his face went white and she rushed him to the bathroom. She stood outside listening to him heave.

Once back in her room, he finished the story. They sat for a little while, then Justine went out in the hall to the top of the stairs, where she beckoned one of the maids. When the girl came up, she whispered in her ear to go find the street Arab named Beansoup and ask him to fetch Valentin St. Cyr.