Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (21 page)

They drank their coffee and talked about this and that, edging around each other. He was frankly delighted to have her there. It was lifting his spirits in an odd spiral. At the same time, he couldn't quite quell his misgivings about what she wanted from him. And yet he found her face quite open, without guile, and he could not detect anything devious lurking there. She looked nothing so much as relieved to be under his roof. He let it go at that.

She asked how long he had taken his rooms, and he told her that he had been at his Magazine Street address for eight years, since he had first gone to work for Mr. Anderson. He didn't bother to explain that Anderson owned the building and so he got to stay in a part of the city that he could not have afforded otherwise. When he went on to tell her about his work at the Café and the mansions on Basin Street, he noticed that she looked distracted.

"What am I gonna do now?" she finally broke in, all fretful. "I ain't got the money to go home. I can't stay at that hotel. What am I gonna do?"

He sat back. He knew, and she probably knew as well, that there were other places in New Orleans that could offer safe lodging to a single woman. There was something else going on here. He began to surmise what she had on her mind and waited to see if she'd say it.

She fidgeted some more, then shifted her position on the couch, tilted her head to one side, and said, "Is she comin' back?"

He gave her a questioning look.

"Your woman," she said. "She just left out of here, didn't she?"

"How did you know that?"

She shrugged vaguely. "Is it true?"

"Yes, she just left. On Monday."

"And you t'ink she's comin' back?"

"I don't know," he said. "Not anytime soon, I guess."

"Then I could stay with you, if it's all right," she said.

She was forcing herself to be brave, and it took an effort for him to keep his face composed.

"I'll do whatever she did around here," she went on hurriedly. "I don't mind workin'. I'll take care of cleaning and all. Cook for you." When he still didn't speak up, her eyes widened into a beseeching gaze. "I ain't got nowhere else to go, suh."

Valentin said, "I don't need a maid, Dominique. I can't afford one."

"I wouldn't be no
maid,
" she said, now sounding peeved. "And you wouldn't have to pay me nothing. Your woman's gone and you need someone to take care of t'ings. I ain't got nowhere to stay. That's all."

"I don't have much room," he said.

"I don't need much. I'll make a pallet on the floor."

"You know people will talk."

"I don't care what people do," she said sharply. "Ain't nobody cares about me around here anyway."

He rested his chin in his hand as if soberly considering the proposition, as his true thoughts went vaulting ahead. Surely, she had somewhere else she could stay. She was up to something, though he couldn't imagine what it might be. Or maybe his suspicious nature was getting the best of him and she was what she said, a young lady with no place to go. She was alone in her shock and grief over Jeff's sudden passing, and if what she said was true, she had no one to turn to.

She sat up and straightened her shoulders, making as if to go. "I'm sorry, suh. If you don't want—"

"No," he said decisively. "It's fine. You can stay."

She looked a little discomfited. "I don't want to cause you no trouble."

"It's all right, Dominique."

"Well ... thank you." She let out a relieved breath that made her chest heave provocatively, and Valentin stifled a smile. She sat there all tense for another moment, then cast an eye about. "You have your breakfast this mornin'?"

"I haven't, no," he said.

She stood up and gestured toward the kitchen. "Do you mind?"

She made do with what she found in the cupboards, eggs and boudin and a half loaf of French bread. She told him she would make market later to find some things to "fix you up a proper
Trini
breakfast."

They both avoided each other's eyes for the most part and made only small talk. After they finished eating, she cleaned the dishes. "You been up all night," she said. "Don't you need to go on and get some sleep?"

"I do, yes."

"Then I'm gonna go back and get my t'ings at the hotel."

Valentin said, "I'll leave the door open."

She gave him another of her shy smiles and said, "Thank you for helping me this way. You're very kind."

She put her hat on prettily and went out the door and down the stairs.

***

Beansoup was hanging around Bechamin's, talking the poor old shopkeeper's ear off with preposterous stories and meanwhile trying to pry loose information about the girl who was visiting Mr. Valentin's rooms. Mr. Bechamin claimed he knew nothing about it, and it wasn't his business anyway.

Beansoup was gazing out at the street, working up a plan to surveil the detective, when he saw the black girl pass the window. He yelled a good-bye and ran outside. He gave her a lead to Common Street, then sauntered off on her trail.

Brother Martin spent two hours on the corner of First and La Salle, testifying. He had chosen for his scripture the Book of Ezekiel, and the words poured forth with the same rumbling mellow resonance that he had one brought to his bass violin, deep, sweet, and rhythmic all at once.

"For the land is full of bloody crimes!" he began, rolling out the text. "The city is full of violence!" And off he went, calling God's judgment on the wicked.

He stood there, a rock in a stream of humanity, his back straight and his voice steady as the bodies swirled past. A few people stopped, listened, exclaimed, "Praise God, brother!" and moved on. Some kids came by to taunt him like he was a madman. Most of the citizens just ignored him, too busy in their petty lives to pay heed and understand that the city they traversed was so full of sin that the earth beneath their very feet was liable to open up and swallow the whole mess down into damnation.

"Disaster comes upon disaster!" he called in a soaring voice. "And rumor upon rumor!"

Who knew better than the former Treau Martin about the wages of sin? He spoke with an echo of experience in every blessed word. And yet they still wouldn't listen.

"The king shall mourn and the prince shall be wrapped in despair!" he cried. "And the hands of the people shall tremble!"

As he looked around at those lost sheep who were the citizens of New Orleans, he got a sudden prickly sense that someone was studying him. He dropped his eyes to the page, read a passage, then looked up, but saw no one watching. Then, as he closed his Bible and made ready to go home, he was startled to see a familiar face. Standing there, ten feet away, staring directly at him. He heard a word whispered—a name. Then an automobile came rattling into the gutter, making a racket and a splash, and he turned his head. When he turned back, the face was gone.

Brother Martín walked away, glancing over his shoulder and murmuring a prayer for God to deliver him from evil.

Valentin woke to the sound of banging in the kitchen. He sat up, rubbing his face, and caught the rich aroma of chicoried coffee that mingled with something baking, smells that had him bewildered for a few seconds. Then he remembered: Dominique.

His vest was hanging on the bedpost and he pulled out his pocket watch. It was after two o'clock. He had slept a good bit of the day away. He pulled on trousers and went out into the front room, where the afternoon sun had cast the walls with a reddish glow. Her two satchels were pushed into the corner. Still foggy from sleep, he went to stand in the kitchen doorway.

She was kneeling to open his old oven with its spindly cast-iron legs and peer inside. She had traded her walking dress for the simple shift she had been wearing on Freret Street. She smiled up at him and he felt an errant twinge of pleasure that carried with it another spike of suspicion, though she seemed quite at ease and quite harmless. There was fresh coffee brewing in the percolator.

"Something smells good," he said.

"It's oven bread," she said as she drew a round dark loaf from the oven. "From Tobago. Only down there we make it outside, in clay ovens." There were two plates, a little tin of butter, and a small pot of honey on the table. All shy again and eager to please, like a servant—or a new wife—she said, "Sit down, please, suh."

She poured coffee and cut the bread. Over the midafternoon breakfast, he asked about her home and family. "I growed up in this little town called Batteaux Bay. It's on the water down there. I got three sisters and two brothers, they all still there. I went to school and then I went over to Trinidad to find some work. I didn't want to stay there, so I saved my money and got papers and come to New Orleans. That was last year, right about this time. I wasn't here but two weeks and I ... I met Jeff Mumford." The light in her face dimmed and her gaze turned melancholy and dropped away. She told him that Jeff had courted her like she was a lady and not some sporting girl. She agreed to come stay with him in his little house. She had been mostly happy with him, though at the end it wasn't the same.

"Wasn't the same how?"

"He was just different. I t'ink maybe he was getting tired of me. I don't know. And then he was gone."

He allowed a moment's respectful silence and then said, "Can you think of anything else about what happened to him?"

Now a cloud came over her features, bringing with it a resentful glint to her eyes. "I t'ink it was a woman," she said in a low voice.

"You think a woman murdered him?"

"I t'ink a woman was mixed up in it."

"Why do you say that?"

"Why?" She drew herself up. "'Cause I know about these t'ings. I believe he was witched, suh. Where I come from, we know all about that. What we got down home make your voodoo here look like somethin' for little children. So I know. Some woman got claws on him and that was the end."

Valentin had to make an effort to keep a sober face. He'd noticed the dime on the thong around her ankle that first day, and was disappointed to learn that it wasn't just an ornament.

Uptown New Orleans was awash with voodoo and all its trappings. It was, in fact, this girl's ancestors who had carried it from their islands to New Orleans over a century of migrations. It had spread through every corner of the city, until it stood with the Catholic and the Baptist faiths. "While there were no magnificent churches, no sonorous sermons, and no golden collection plates, it was hard to find anyone in the blocks north and west of Rampart Street who didn't give voodoo or hoodoo at least a passing respect. Most made it part of their daily lives. Valentin, in his disdain for it, was a definite minority.

"He died of poisoning," he reminded her.

"I don't care what he died of," Dominique said stubbornly. "He was witched, and it was a woman done it to him. It was
voudun.
"

He didn't bother to argue with her.

"I should have seen it comin'," she went on, her voice now breaking a little. "I could have done somethin'."

"You couldn't have known," Valentin said.

She sighed, calming herself. "Don't matter now, does it? He's gone."

Valentin finished the last slice of his bread and honey, drank off his coffee, and stood up. "I'm going to work," he said.

She sat back. "Now?"

"I've got to see about a problem in Storyville. After that I'll go to the Café. I'll be there all night. It's my usual schedule." He wondered why he felt the need to explain his movements.

He also wondered why he soon found himself taking extra care with his clothes for the night. When he came out of the bedroom, she was sitting on the couch, her hands folded in her lap. She gave him a modest glance up and down and said, "You look nice, suh."

He smiled. "You know, you don't have to call me that."

"Sorry. It's a habit, you know."

He gathered his keys and went to the door.

"When will you come back?" she said.

"It could be four o'clock or so." He nodded to the bedroom door. "You go ahead and take the bed."

"Oh, no, suh. I couldn't do that."

"It's fine." She gave him an uncertain look. "It's all right, Dominique. It's easier that way."

She dropped her eyes. "I can wait up, if you like."

"No, don't do that. It will be late when I get back. I mean early."

"I don't mind."

"It's really not necessary," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't polite, was it?"

"It's fine. You go ahead and take the bed," he said, and went out the door.

Beansoup rounded the corner of Girod Street, as nonchalant as could be, and this time he got it right. Miss Justine, just stepping onto the banquette, couldn't help but notice him.

Justine glanced around, saw him, and knew right away that it was no happenstance. When their eyes met, he feigned surprise and stopped in his tracks. She wondered if he had come with a message from Valentin and wondered what she'd do if he had.

"Miss Justine..." He took a moment to survey the facade of the house. "Is this where you stay now?"