Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (17 page)

The voice on the other end was neither Josie's nor Miss Burt's. It was distinctly male, distinctly clipped and officious, and he recognized it immediately. "Chief O'Connor," he said.

The voice said, "Tom, I think we've got a problem."

Three minutes later, the King of Storyville put the phone down. He spent some moments staring out at the night sky over Basin Street. Only when his telephone jangled again did he remember that he was expected at the Arlington.

Justine took a long bath and put on one of her best dresses in preparation for Mr. Paul's arrival. It was the first time she would greet him as his mistress, the opening scene in a play that was being staged outside her body and mind, or so it seemed. She felt as if she was not taking part in it, but standing in the doorway to watch.

At seven o'clock she heard an automobile come to a rackety stop on the street and arranged herself prettily on the love seat.

His steps came lightly up the stairs. Curiously, he knocked and then waited for her to invite him in, nervous as a suitor. He stepped gingerly into the room, took off his hat, and held it before him as if trying to hide behind it. With that bit of business, it began to dawn on her that he might not be what she had expected at all. He had yet to display one bit of backbone.

Now seeing him more closely, she noticed more signs of a weak man about him. His beard and mustache hid a shallow chin and a nervous thin-lipped mouth. His nostrils twitched like someone was tickling his nose, and his pale eyes were skittish.

And when she motioned him to join her on the love seat, he looked like he was ready to jump back through the door and run away. In another man, all this might have come off as boyish charm. From him, it was just irritating and she fought a sudden urge to slap his face to get him to stop his jittering.

The impulse passed. She remembered what she was doing there and embarked on her duties by offering to serve him some refreshment. He smiled and mumbled something about a glass of sherry.

She got up and went to the cabinet for the bottle and a glass with a surge of cunning that all but washed away her melancholy. Maybe she could play this feckless rich man as she could never have played Valentin St. Cyr, and have the upper hand. Maybe she could be in charge for once.

She turned around to face him with the false smile of the serpent that was coiling in her breast.

Treau Martín walked out the door of the church on Fourth Street, feeling very much sanctified. It had been a good sermon.

Treau went to church every evening. He went every morning, too, if he could find a service to attend. He spent a good bit of his time in church, working to battle the devil that was chasing after his soul.

His given name was Charles, but everyone back-of-town called him "Treau," a collapsed version of
taureau,
or "bull." They had begun calling him that when he was sixteen, they called him that all the time he was playing music, and there were still too many people around from those days who were used to it for him to shed it now. Though of late he did his best to avoid that crowd.

To be sure, it seemed an odd moniker for him, because Charles Martin had not been like a bull as a boy and was not so as a man. He was of medium height and build. He was in fact medium from any angle, a middle-brown Negro with even brown eyes and a plain brown face. His hair was cut short and parted neatly on one side. He was not remarkable in any way.

At least not in any way that anyone would notice at first glance. The nickname had been donned on a special occasion years ago, the first time the young Charles visited a sporting house back-of-town. This was something of a rite for boys his age in uptown New Orleans, and young Charles was all too ready when his turn came.

It was when he unbuttoned his trousers that the sporting girl, a veteran of Basin Street, gaped in astonishment and cried out, "God in heaven! We got us a
petit taureau
here!" She went to the door and called down the hall for the other girls to come see. Young Charles stood there, on display and mortified as the girls viewed his yancy in stunned wonder. They murmured amongst themselves. The verdict was unanimous, and so Charles became Taureau, then'T'reau, then simply Treau.

This feature had been an embarrassment when he was growing up. Then he realized that he had been blessed in a particular way and went about making the most of it. Being a musician gave him ample opportunity. The word got around until all the back-of-town girls knew about him and would call out his nickname and make the crudest gestures when he was onstage. The joke was that he chose to play bass fiddle as a sort of advertisement; a guitar would have been too small for a man with such an unusual gift. It got to be quite the thing for the whores to bring him around when a new dove arrived at a house, a sort of initiation. So he often got for free what every other rounder on the street had to pay for.

Those were wild times. King Bolden drew so much attention that the other back-of-town jass players got some of the adoration, too, including Treau. He spent long nights playing the saloons and dance halls along Rampart Street and the pavilions out on the lake in the warm months, carrying on like a crazy man. He drank his share and more, hit a pipe now and then, and dallied with the prettiest of the sporting girls. Since this didn't leave much time to hone his musical skills, it was just as well that he played a simple bass fiddle. All he had to do was to lay down a solid thump for the guitar players to ride and the horn players to dance around, and he could apply his energies making mayhem in other ways. He had been just about the happiest young jass man on Rampart Street. He had been the devil's child.

Then came the moment it all ended, a nightmare of drink and hop and wet flesh that was drawn out hour after hour, through one night, the next day, and then another night. When that second dawn came around, Treau reeled out onto First Street and, like Paul on the road to Damascus, fell under a light that struck him deaf, dumb, and blind. He knew in that instant that he was evil, the worst kind of sinner, bound for hell unless he found salvation.

He stumbled into the nearest church and went down on bended knees. Later that day, he took an axe and smashed his bass fiddle to pieces. Then he found another church and stayed there, praying, until the preacher put him out. From that moment on, he never took another drink, never again touched pill or powder. He went about turning his life around completely. Though he had been born and raised a Catholic, he found the Baptists harsher on evil, and one fine morning he got himself dunked in the muddy Mississippi and so was saved.

It didn't mean he didn't face temptation. The devil was a busy fellow, especially jealous of those who were snatched from his malignant clutches. Treau saw painted faces smiling at him from the windows of French houses, saw the thumbs sucked in a crude mimic of the girls' specialty. He smelled rye whiskey wafting out the open doors of the saloons and sweet smoke drifting from opium dens. Most of all, he heard the siren call of jass, the horns echoing inside his head as the rhythms shook his guts. He remembered all the crazy nights and could almost taste those wicked pleasures again. Now and then, when a girl recognized him and called out his nickname, he would feel the blood stirring below his belt.

It was Satan, of course, tempting him. The devil, always there to test his resolve, had lately grown more insistent. Like this evening, walking down a quiet Fourth Street, he sensed something dark and ominous dogging his steps, peering out from shadows, breathing down his neck. Though when he turned his head, there was of course no one there; clever fellow.

No matter; he was saved. Whatever it was, and whenever it came for him, "Treau" Martin stood ready.

"Mr. St. Cyr! Hello! Mr. Valentin!" It was a woman's voice, foreign to his ear, yet somehow familiar, coming from the street. "Mr. Valentin?"

He opened his eyes. The sun coming over the rooftops told him it was around eight o'clock. It took him a few seconds to come awake enough to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the couch. He was still in the clothes that he'd worn to the Café the evening before. A book lay on the floor, splayed open, the spine broken.

When the voice called again, he got up, stumbled to the French doors, and stepped out on the balcony. Dominique was standing on the banquette, looking up at him, wearing a shy white smile.

"Good morning, suh," she said.

Valentin stared down at her, still dazed with sleep and befuddlement.

"May I come in, please?"

She was wearing a day dress, plain blue with a pinafore that was stark white against her dark skin, and a brimmed hat that she took off and placed next to her on the couch. She had twisted her hair into two long braids that draped over her dress in front, making her look even younger.

"I'm sorry," she said once she was settled. "I didn't mean to be disturbing you."

Valentin rested one hand on the back of the morris chair as he worked to chase away the cobwebs. His brain wouldn't quite engage and he still didn't understand what she was doing there.

"I don't want to be botherin' anybody," she said. "I needed to come see you, suh. I got me a problem."

"A problem..."

"Yes, suh. The landlord come around last evening. He asked for back rent. But I don't know nothin' about it. Jeff paid all the bills."

He nodded, trying to fathom what all this had to do with him.

She came up with a tight smile. "He said I could work it off. You want to know what kind of work he wants me to do?"

"I can guess," Valentin said, beginning to catch up. He'd seen this sort of low-down swindle before. Most likely, there was no back rent owed at all; and even if there was, the tally would be beyond what the helpless woman could afford. At the same time, she might be flattered to be considered worth so much, and the combination of fear and flattery might just get her out of her bloomers.

"He wants twenty-two dollars," she told him. "I ain't got but three or four left. He say I got to pay up one way or another or leave right now. Today."

"I thought you wanted to go home anyway."

"I do, yessuh. I just ain't got the money yet. Jeff didn't leave me nothin'. I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"Do you want me to talk to this fellow?"

"Thank you, but no," she said. "I don't want to have nothin' to do with him. I know men like that. You talk to him and as soon as you go away, he's gonna be back after me again."

She was probably right about that. Of course, he could do more than talk to her landlord, but that was another matter. Why would he? He didn't know the girl at all.

"Is there someone here who can help you?" he asked her.

"They all back home," she said. "I come up alone. I been alone, except for Jeff Mumford."

Her eyes wandered past him and around the rooms, as if she was looking for something or someone. Valentin watched her, entertaining a sudden notion of what she might be up to. Then he decided that his mind was playing tricks and shoved the thought aside. Still, he could tell that she was waiting for something.

He considered for another moment. "Maybe I can help you," he said.

She gave him a hopeful look. "Yessuh?"

"Suppose I give you enough money to get a room."

"Oh ... well..." Her gaze slipped away and her mouth dipped. "For how long would that be?"

"For a couple days. Then we'll see. Maybe I can find you a situation."

She hesitated, then nodded. "All right, suh. Only 'cause I don't know what else to do." She gave him her shy, pretty smile. "I appreciate your kindness."

She waited while he went into the kitchen, opened the icebox, and dipped into the coffee can where he kept his money. He came back into the front room to find her standing at the balcony door with her eyes closed and the sun on her face, an image as pretty as a painting.

When he spoke her name, she turned around and smiled. He handed her a Liberty ten-dollar gold piece. She looked at the coin. "This is too much."

"You can pay me back later," he said.

She murmured another thank-you that was followed by an awkward silence. "I guess I need to go ahead and go," she said.

"I do have some business to attend to," he told her.

"Is it about Jeff?"

"That's right."

She stopped, her brow furrowing. "Why you doin' that?"

"Because, some of his friends, I mean those fellows he played with, they asked me to look into it. They just want to know what happened to him."

She gave a vague shrug. "What happened was somebody didn't like him poisoned him and he died."

She took a little shuddering breath. Valentin allowed a pause, then said, "You can catch the Canal Line car at the corner. Take it to the corner of Commerce Street. There's a hotel there that accepts unescorted women. It's called the Savoy. You can tell them I sent you."

"And then what?"

"Then ... I'll come and check in on you."

"When?"

"This afternoon or tomorrow, I suppose. As soon as I can."

That seemed to satisfy her. She picked up her hat, put it on, and tied the ribbon in a bow beneath her chin. He escorted her out the door, down the steps to the street, and along the two blocks to the
corner
of Canal. He waited with her until the streetcar arrived and helped her aboard. She waved good-bye and kept her eyes on him as the car rolled away.