Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (9 page)

Like some rare nocturnal creature, he was rarely spotted outside his habitat in the dark and shadowy bowels of the
Picayune
building. He had a house somewhere along the river that no one had ever seen. Most nights he slept on a cot or just dropped his head on his desk.

Luckily for Valentin and a lot of other people, Kimball was such a diligent drunkard that he had ceased to function as a reporter. Otherwise, they would all lose an irreplaceable font of information, especially about business and political leaders and their respective scandals, of which there was never any lack.

Valentin had last seen him a few days before he'd left town. In fact, if it wasn't for Kimball and the files that were stored in his basement cave, he might not have broken that last case at all.

Now, tracking him through the first and second low-ceiling rooms that were crowded with boxes and files, the detective noted that in the eighteen months since he'd last been there, nothing had changed. It was the same mad clutter, the same trash heap of an office in back, the same desk lost under stacks of the paper, the same Joe Kimball in all his inebriated glory.

Lurching into his office and the chair behind his desk, Kimball grunted and said, "What time is it?"

"It's right about one," Valentin said.

"
One?
Already?" The yell echoed along the low rafters. "Jesus Christ Almighty! I need a
drink!
"

Valentin knew that whatever time he announced would have gotten the same response. Kimball went digging into his desk and produced a short bottle of his favored Raleigh Rye and two dirty glasses. He poured one finger in one and four in the other, handed the short glass to Valentin, and took its taller partner for himself. Valentin watched him down half of the whiskey in one long swallow, then lower the glass and let out a sigh of satisfaction. He licked a few drops from his mustache, and there were more golden drops that he missed gleaming in his beard. He smiled, his teeth as yellow as the orbs of his eyes.

"You ain't drinkin'?"

Valentin took an obligatory sip. The liquor was raw in his throat and he coughed. Kimball chortled.

"Little early in the day for me, Joe," Valentin said, wiping his eyes. He put the glass down on the desk, then placed the sack he was carrying next to it. The newspaperman stared at the sack, wrinkling his broad red nose as if he was smelling something foul.

"What's that?" he asked suspiciously.

"I brought lunch."

"Lunch. That's why you came by? To bring me lunch?" He took another sip of his whiskey and his eyes got sly. "Or is there something else on your mind?"

"I've got a case," Valentin told him.

"A case. Is that so? Are you getting back in the game?"

Valentin gave him a small smile. "I'm just doing this one thing. Did you hear about the murder on Rampart Street last Sunday night?"

Kimball frowned. "John Benedict. From, uh ... Esplanade Ridge?"

"That's right."

The newspaperman gave him a critical look. "That's not your territory."

"I'm just doing a favor for Anderson. Who's doing a favor for someone else."

Kimball drank the rest of the whiskey in the glass and put it down. "The man gets killed on Rampart Street," he mused. "You'd think the family would want it left alone."

"You'd think so. They don't, though. So here I am."

"And I suppose you need the word on poor Mr. Benedict."

The detective nodded. "I'll wrap this up as quick as I can."

Kimball poured four more fingers of whiskey in his glass. "Oh? And what if there's something more to it?"

"Then I'll tell you first, Joe. Just like always."

Kimball nodded, mollified. Information was his coin, and the more sordid, the more gilded. He picked up his glass, rolled it between his thick fingers, took a sip, closed his eyes, and began.

"John Benedict was from one of those families that managed to hold on to their money after the war. They did very well. There were judgeships, state senators, one congressman. And they did especially well in business. Benedict was in shipping. He was in with Henry Harris."

Valentin, who had been listening with one ear, sat up. "What now?"

"Benedict did business with Henry Harris," Kimball said. "Supplied him with something or other. That's where he made all his money."

The detective mulled the information. Everyone in the city knew the Harris name from that gentleman's business empire. Indeed, it was common to hear a rounder brag about being "as flush as Henry Harris." Valentin recalled that one of the scores of ditties Jelly Roll Morton had made up included the line "strolling the gay streets of Paris, as heeled as Henry Harris."

There was more: in addition to business, Harris had dabbled in politics, energized by his well-trumpeted vitriol for anyone who wasn't white or native-born. His disdain for those he considered inferiors—the colored, southern Europeans, Turks, Arabs, and Orientals—was a matter of public record. Over the years he had rallied supporters to him merely by waving that particular red flag. It had served him well, and he had been widely regarded as a defender of white America and Christianity, a profile that was stark against the backdrop of New Orleans, that festering pool of mixed-blood malignance.

The lawyer Delouche hadn't said a word about Benedict's connection with Harris. Neither had Anderson, Badel, or Picot. Though they all surely knew. It seemed an odd oversight, akin to skipping over the fact that the victim had done business with the Rockefellers. Did they think he wouldn't find out?

"Valentin?" The detective blinked. Kimball was watching him over the rim of his whiskey glass. "You hear me?"

"Sorry," Valentin said. "What was it again?"

"I said that Benedict made enough to stop working a few years ago. He was on some boards, and that gave him a good income right there. He and his wife were still active in the Opera House and all that shit. So if he turned up at all lately, it would be on those goddamn society pages. And I can't help you with that."

Can't
meant
won't.
Kimball was vehement in his refusal to read or catalog that section of the paper.

"Who do I talk to?" Valentin asked.

Kimball yawned and raised a thumb to the ceiling. "Upstairs. Third floor. Robert Dodge." He treated Valentin to a sudden piercing look. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Because I said I would, Joe," Valentin murmured. "I mean, what the hell else am I going to do?"

Kimball didn't have an answer for that. After a moment he said, "You want me to call Dodge for you? You can go up there now."

"I can't," Valentin said. "I'm meeting a copper in an hour. I'll come back."

"You do that. He's an interesting fellow." He grinned lazily and began unscrewing the cap from his bottle. "Hey, you want another one before you go?"

It was past two o'clock when Valentin stepped onto the South Rampart Line car that rumbled away from the District and into the colored and Italian neighborhoods of back-of-town New Orleans.

As the car rattled over Erato Street, he looked to his right. Two blocks up was black Storyville, the four-block square of houses and cribs offering diversions to Negro gentlemen. A few blocks farther, on the left side, he could catch a glimpse of the alleys and the back walls of the saloons and dance halls along Rampart Street.

Five minutes later the car crossed First Street, and he was now within a short walk from the very house where he had grown up, from St. Francis de Sales School for Colored, from the empty lots where he had played as a child.

He wouldn't be visiting any of those places, not today or anytime soon. When the car stopped at the corner of Fourth Street, he stepped down and made his way directly a block west.

When the patrolman noticed him, he ceased his pacing, took off his round-topped helmet, and put it under his arm, coming halfway to attention. The unconscious gesture of respect gave Valentin pause. He wasn't used to that sort of treatment from a copper.

The young officer introduced himself as Patrolman McKinney. He was a burly fellow, pale Irish, with a broad elfin face. His hair, reddish blond, badly cut, was parted in the middle and slicked down.

"What did Lieutenant Picot tell you?" Valentin asked him.

"He told me you wanted to know about the murder that happened here." Translated, this meant McKinney was expected to spy and report to the lieutenant.

Valentin said, "I know he wasn't happy about this."

The patrolman laughed nervously. "No, sir, he wasn't."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to make this difficult for you."

McKinney let out a small breath of relief.

"I understand that you were the first on the scene that morning," Valentin said.

The patrolman nodded. "Yes, sir. Call come in from the box down the street. Someone says there's a body in the street. I was on patrol so..." He nodded to a spot on the cobblestones a few feet away. "When I got here, he was over there."

"What was the first thing you noticed about him?"

McKinney blinked. "Sir?"

"When you came upon the body. What was the first thing you noticed?"

The patrolman's brow stitched in concentration. "I thought he was dressed way too fine for this part of town," he said. "From what I could see, I mean. There was blood on him and in the street here, too. He was on his back and his head was tilted back." He put a finger to a spot right under his chin. "He had a hole right there." He made a space with his thumb and forefinger about the size of a Liberty quarter. "Like that."

"How close did you look?"

"I got right down on him," McKinney said. "I knew it wasn't likely, but just in case, I wanted to see if he was still alive."

Valentin gave a quick nod of approval. "Did you notice powder on him?" he continued. "Or how about any red from a burn?"

McKinney smiled. "I had a look. I didn't see none of that."

"Had he been robbed?" Valentin said.

"Well, he didn't have no purse on him," the copper said. "His clothes was messed up like somebody had gone through his pockets right quick. One of those men that come up on the scene said that fellow that was bent down over the body had a knife out and was just about to take off his finger for a ring. He must have tried to get his watch and then dropped it, because we found the pieces in the street."

Valentin said, "Did you see it?"

"What, the watch? Yes, sir, I'm the one collected it. The pieces, I mean."

"Was there blood on any of it?"

"There was blood on all of it."

The detective considered for a moment, then stepped into the street. "The body was lying which way?" he asked.

McKinney gestured with both hands. "Sort of this way," he said. "He was on his back, like I said. His head was back here and his feet was out this way."

Valentin pointed to the west, toward Fifth Street. "So the shot came from this direction?"

"That's right," McKinney said. "Since there wasn't no powder and no burns, he must have been standing back a good bit."

"Eight, maybe ten paces," Valentin murmured.

He walked around the scene in widening circles while the patrolman waited. It didn't make sense. The nearest streetcar line was two streets south. The closest of the music halls was another block back toward town, and the first of the sporting houses was another block beyond that. There was a row of cribs rented by the cheapest whores on the other side of the street. There was no good reason for a man like Benedict to be wandering around alone at that hour. If he had gotten lost, it was more likely that he'd go toward the lights and the noise, rather than to the shadowy end of the avenue. It was common knowledge that the characters that slithered around that neighborhood would cut a man's throat for a dollar and change. Mr. Benedict had either made a terrible mistake or he had come there for something that was worth the risk.

Whatever had brought him there, Valentin knew that when Benedict and his assailant met in the street, the other person had drawn down from a distance and shot a hole in the victim's throat. That didn't seem at all like a robbery; more like an assassination.

With the policeman watching earnestly, he made wider circles, dodging the light hack and automobile traffic until he had covered the street from one banquette to the other. He found nothing of interest lying about the cobblestones. He spent some time surveying the buildings on both sides, noting again the line of decrepit shotgun doubles, a row of cribs, and one structure that looked like an abandoned stable.

Picot was correct in his observation that a shot from the .45 would have echoed like a cannon at that quiet hour. Of course, such an uproar wouldn't bring anyone running, not in this part of town. These citizens would hit the floor and stay low until they were sure it wasn't the start of a gun battle. It didn't happen often, but when it did, balls of lead flew everywhere. If it was a lone killing, no one would want to see who had delivered a fatal shot. Eyewitnesses in these parts could find both coppers and killers breathing down their necks.

He walked back to where he had started to tell Officer McKinney that he was finished and thanked him for his time.