Chasing the Devil's Tail (2 page)

Cassie Maples, short and fat, her skin as black as an African night, pushed the door to the second floor room wide and stepped back.

Valentin went inside. It was a small room, not much bigger than a crib, just enough space for a divan, a wash basin, a folding screen in one corner with a Japanese design of peacocks on flowered branches, and a sampler on the wall. The French doors were closed and locked, odd for an already-sticky April and considering the sweaty business conducted within those walls. The divan was draped with a faded silk shawl, and stretched upon the shawl was the body of a young girl.

But that was all. He frowned vaguely and ran an irritable hand over his face. He hadn't gotten his sleep out, not nearly. Then he made the ten block walk with Miss Antonia all fussy at his side, to be greeted by the body of a dead whore in a cramped upstairs room in a rundown sporting house. He wondered why the madam hadn't just gone ahead and called the coppers. He couldn't raise the poor girl from the dead, nor could he make the corpse vanish into thin air, so he wasn't going to be much good at all.

He was about to mutter some excuse and take his leave, but then he saw the two women standing in the doorway, watching him anxiously. He let out a quiet sigh and made himself step across the room to view the body.

She was naked except for a Liberty dime on a thin lace of leather around one ankle and a silver crucifix on a chain hanging from her neck. Her skin, deep black, had taken on a gray pallor. Her arms and legs were willowy and her breasts were round and firm, perfect circles. Her hands were folded between her legs, as if in blushing modesty. Her hair was jet black, cut short and pulled back severely from her forehead.

He studied her face, carved from soft ebony, a young face that had reached its final age. She was actually quite pretty, rare for what was called a "soiled dove" in the lingo of the penny newspapers. Valentin was relieved, as always, that the eyes were closed.

The rose was the first thing he had noticed when he stepped into the room, but it was the last thing he paused to regard. And the one thing he touched, lifting and replacing it with gentle fingers. A black rose in full bloom, stem attached, laid carefully across her torso, with the petals just touching the point of her heart.

He took another look around the room, saw nothing else unusual, turned away and walked into the hall. He closed the door behind him. The two madams searched his face.

"May I trouble you for a cup of coffee?" he said.

Miss Maples' girls had been sent away for the morning and the house was quiet. In the spare light, Valentin surveyed the usual trappings: Persian rugs, tasseled lamps, textured fabric full of blood-red swirls on the walls, heavy furniture covered in brocade, a tiered chandelier overhead. But he wasn't fooled. The hard light of day would reveal that the furnishings were all shabby secondhand goods and that the chandelier was missing half its pieces. There would be small dunes of ancient dust in the corners and ragged stains on the mangy upholstery. Footsteps would send an army of cockroaches and who knew what other vermin skittering along the baseboards.

He sat down gingerly on a café chair. The remains of the night's incense did not mask a damp, sour odor, evidence of a roof that leaked; and even from across the room he could tell that the maid—all sharp bone and nappy hair, homely and gap-toothed and looking as timid as a country mouse—had gone without a bath for more than a few days.

But he nodded politely, so startling the girl that when she stepped up with the china cup and saucer, her hands shook.

The two madams sat stiffly on the edge of a horsehair couch that was threatening to burst along its seams. Shafts of pale, dusty sunlight drifted through the tall, narrow street-side
windows over Valentin's shoulder and across the thick rug. He sipped his coffee, feeling awake for the first time this day.

Cassie Maples paused in her fretting over the dreadful business upstairs to study the visitor. So this was the dangerous fellow Miss Antonia had whispered about. She looked him frankly up and down. She noticed the frayed cuffs of the suit jacket, a shirt collar gone yellow with wear, a haircut of no recent vintage. He was on the short side and put together like a banty prizefighter. She caught the distant set of his eyes and the way he settled in his chair, lazy and tense at the same time. A pint of Cherokee blood there, she guessed. Indeed, the man displayed a Creole that was odd even for New Orleans: light-olive Dago skin and curly African hair hanging down to his collar in back. A jagged nose like an Arab and eyes the gray-green color of the Mississippi. Though mustaches and beards were the fashion of the day, this one went cleanshaven. He was one of those types who missed being handsome, but would catch a woman's eye anyway, something about the way he—

"What has Miss Antonia told you about me?" The visitor interrupted her thoughts. His voice was slow and even, with a rough, almost hoarse edge to it. His gaze had settled on her.

"Only that you were a copper," the darker woman said, her hands now assuming a nervous flutter. "Before, I mean. But that now you are a Pinkerton man and you help out over in the District."

Valentin nodded. "That's right, except I'm no Pinkerton. I work on my own. I provide protection and fix disputes. Handle confidential matters, investigations and whatnot." He tilted his head toward Miss Antonia. "And I help my friends. When I can," he added, letting her know he hadn't crawled out of bed to spend his Sunday with her dead Ethiopian girl.

He sipped his coffee with its bitter hint of chicory. Miss
Maples was staring at him anxiously and Miss Antonia narrowly, so he softened his tone. "I understand you want to keep this quiet," he said. The black-skinned madam let out a grateful sigh, but her frown returned when he said, "That's not possible. You'll have to call in the coppers. But we do have a little time. You can tell me about the young lady upstairs."

Miss Maples clasped her hands in her lap. "Her name," she began, "is Annie Robie."

As the madam recounted it—and as she had herself heard it late one night from the dead girl's own mouth—Annie Robie was descended from slave stock, her grandparents recognized as property of the family of the same name of the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, which was where she grew up, pretty and long-legged, with her mother's black-on-black skin and her father's high, West African cheekbones and slanted eyes.

She had been swept up one dizzy Delta night by a handsome Negro with pomaded hair, a gambler and moonshiner wandering far from his Georgia home and carrying a two-dollar Sears 6c Roebuck guitar, like many of the young men did nowadays. She was delivered two weeks later on Cassie Maples' doorstep with nothing but the rough cotton dress on her back. The guitar player had gotten all he wanted and had run off and left her as soon as they reached New Orleans. She was wandering along the riverbank when a local sporting woman found her, took pity, and carried her to Cassie Maples' South Franklin address directly.

Because, like all the bordellos in New Orleans, Miss Maples catered with an eye to color. It was a matter of specialty, and Cassie Maples' back-of-town door was open to the deep browns and "Ethiopians," as some called the true black-skinned girls like Annie Robie.

She was nineteen, the madam explained, and except for when she went off for a few days with some fancy man, she
had been a regular for two years, first as a maid to the working girls, later as a full-fledged member of the house, paying her fifty cents a night for the use of the room.

She was well liked and she did not cause trouble. She did not drink whiskey in excess, was never a hophead, and did not get into brawls with other girls and cause the police to be called.

"What about her male guests?" Valentin inquired.

"Only the better class of Negro gentlemen," Miss Maples replied with quiet pride.

"Creoles of Color?" The madam nodded. "White men?" She hesitated, glanced at Miss Antonia. "Now and again, yes," she said in a low voice.

Nothing odd had been heard or seen last evening. Miss Maples had gone off to bed, and the maid, making late rounds, had found Annie lying in that posture, complete with black rose. The maid had run to rouse the madam.

"If it wa'nt for that rose, I would have thought she was just sleeping," Miss Maples told him, her voice trembling.

Valentin drank off his coffee and stood up to stretch his back. The madam dabbed her eyes with one hand and gestured tragically with the other. The maid scurried from the shadows to replace his cup, bringing a gamy cloud of sweat. She shook some more, rattling the china, then ran back to her corner and faded into the furnishings. Valentin glanced at his pocket watch, replaced it and said, "Did Annie have any special friends?"

Miss Maples pondered. "Well, there was that fellow that brought her down here in the beginning. I believe his name was McTier or McTell, something like that." She saw the strange look the detective gave her at the mention of the name. "But I haven't seen him around in a year or more," she finished.

Valentin was staring down at the worn carpet, seeing a handsome Negro with pomaded hair stretched out on a saw-dust floor, blood bubbling from the hole in his chest. "That would be Eddie McTier," he said. "And he had no part in this. He was shot dead in a card game over in Algiers some months ago." The news was delivered in such an odd, muted way that the two women exchanged a glance that produced a question mark.

"What now, Mr. Valentin?" Antonia Gonzales said.

It took him a moment to raise his head and meet her gaze. "Now you can call the coppers," he said. "But don't worry, they won't cause you any trouble. They'll have a look around and write a report and ask after her next of kin. Then the girl will become an entry on a page which will go into a file and be forgotten." The women stared, astonished twins, at the muttered oration. "When they get here, send them up to the room," he said. "I'll be waiting." He turned for the stairs.

A half-hour later, a horse-drawn New Orleans Police wagon turned the corner at Gravier and pulled up to the banquette. Lieutenant J. Picot stepped with a grunt of irritation from the seat of the wagon and raised heavy-lidded eyes to the balcony. St. Cyr, the
private detective,
leaned there, one languid hand on the railing. Picot muttered something under his breath and motioned the two blue-uniformed patrolmen to follow him inside.

The copper quite filled the doorway of the room. He glanced over at Annie Robie's body and then his eyes, dusty marbles, turned on St. Cyr. "You are going to have to go easier on these girls," he said, smirking. He stepped across the room, stood over the divan, and shook his head. "No, she's a bit dark for your blood, ain't she?" Valentin didn't bother to answer.

The policeman raised both of the girl's eyelids, felt for lumps about the head and looked for finger marks around her
throat, all the while yawning with disinterest. Finally, he picked up the rose, frowned, and glanced at the Creole detective. "What's this about?" Valentin gave a shrug. Picot peered at the tiny thorn pricks on Annie's breast, then tossed the flower aside.

He spoke over his shoulder to the patrolmen, who stood on either side of the door with their tall, round-topped helmets in the crooks of their arms. "Carry her downtown," he said. "Maybe we'll have them take another look at the morgue, and maybe not." He yawned again. "Nigger sluts is one thing this city has in surplus." The two patrolmen walked out of the room.

"And what do you have to do with this?" Picot asked St. Cyr.

"Nothing," Valentin said. "A favor for a friend."

"Well, just so you know, there won't be no investigating here," the policeman said. "Not by me, not by you, not by nobody." He waited, but Valentin wouldn't rise to the bait. "We got more important things to do. And more important people to serve." He drew himself up and took a last look at Annie Robie. "Kinda pretty," he said. "But, by Jesus, she's black, ain't she?"

The rose was kicked aside when the policemen stepped up to wrap the body in a sheet of muslin. After they carried it away, Valentin picked up the flower and laid it on the divan. He went downstairs.

Picot had spoken briefly and with a barely veiled disgust to Cassie Maples and now closed his leather-bound notebook with a sharp snap. He threw a last cold glance at the Creole detective, who had just reached the bottom of the stairs and left to see the body downtown.

Valentin stood at the parlor window, watching the police
wagon roll off, sipping the fresh cup of chicory coffee that the homely maid had pushed into his left hand even as he held a lukewarm one in his right.

Miss Antonia and Cassie Maples were whispering near the front door. He didn't have to hear to know what it was about. There had been a death in the house and a remedy was required immediately. The madams were discussing which hoodoo woman should be called in to rid the premises of whatever foul spirits were lingering.

Valentin set his coffee cup aside. The maid hurried from a corner to snatch it up and replace it. When he shook his head, the girl dropped her eyes and turned away, but he caught her by a dry, rough hand. Country. Country, and in grave need of a bath. "What's your name?" he asked, so startling her that she said it twice.

"Sally. Sally." Her eyes blinked crazily.

Valentin let go of the trembling hand. "You got any idea what happened to Annie?" he asked her. Sally shook her nappy head. "You remember the last man to see her?" he said, holding his breath.

The girl managed to find her voice. "She was up and about after that last one left," she squeaked. "She walk him to the door and then come back in. She was downstairs for maybe a half-hour after. Then I didn't see her no more."

"That so?"

"Yessir."

Valentin lowered his voice. "You know the man? That last one?" The girl's eyes grew wide. "You can tell me," he said and bowed his head like a priest at confession. Still, it took a few moments for Sally to decide to go ahead and whisper the name. Valentin raised his head and looked at her sharply. "You're sure?"

"Oh, yessir, I'm sure." He could barely hear her. "Miss
Maples and the girls get all excited when he come in. Yessir, it was King Bolden, all right."