Jass (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (36 page)

"Yes, I heard."

"So I'd like to ask you some questions."

Anderson stiffened slightly. "Such as?"

"I want to know why you would do the bidding of a piece of shit like Picot. To the point of letting a killer go free."

Anderson's face flushed from pink to crimson. Valentin had spoken to him without respect, in the tone he used to brace street rodents when he wanted information and had no time to waste.

The white man swung around in his chair and pointed an angry finger. "Don't you talk to...," he sputtered. "You have no idea ... You're on dangerous ground. You're forgetting that I can make one telephone call and Justine will be on her way to Evangeline Parish in chains."

Valentin shook his head. "No, sir, I don't think she will," he said, now letting a bit of deference color his tone. "Because then I would be digging even harder and you'd have to have me shot to get me off it."

"That's not out of the question," Anderson snapped. "You and I had an agreement."

"I broke it. Those musicians and the landlady were one thing. A young woman who had nothing to do with it was murdered."

After another tense moment, Tom Anderson relented, sagging back in his chair. He stayed silent, pondering. He should have known better to get involved in such business. He should have known that once St. Cyr latched on, he would never let it go, no matter what he said. There was nothing to do now but let it play out. He cleared his throat and saw the detective straighten, perking his ears.

"As I understand it, Lieutenant Picot did a favor for someone," he began. "It was one of our civic leaders. A city alderman."

Valentin knew he wouldn't divulge which alderman and didn't ask. "A large favor?"

"Yes, a large favor. I believe it had to do with making a body disappear. There was an unfortunate accident, you see..." He waved a hand. "Never mind, that part doesn't really matter. What happened was Picot came to the alderman and said he needed help with a problem of his own. Asking that the favor be returned, in other words. He made it very clear that he would divulge what he knew if he didn't get what he wanted. The alderman called Chief O'Connor. The chief called me."

"What problem did Picot have?"

"I don't know and I don't want to," Anderson said. "That's the truth. Whatever it is, he's taking a huge gamble over it. He's going way out on a limb and pushing some powerful people." He looked at the detective. "How much do you know about him? Other than he's a jackass."

"He's been in uptown as long as I've been here," Valentin said. "He's no dirtier than the rest of them. He doesn't like me and I don't like him. We've tangled a few times." There was more, but he wasn't about to share it now.

"Do you have anything you could use against him?" Anderson said.

Valentin shook his head. "Not anymore."

"Well, then, that's the situation. I'm caught in the middle of it and I don't like it, but for now that's the way it is." He sat back. "Now the question is, what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to find out who committed those murders. I think I'm getting close. I saw a—"

"Stop right there!" Anderson said. "I don't want to know any more about it. You better think about how far you're willing to go. You realize that I can still crush you. I can have you beaten to within an inch of your life. I can have you judged insane and locked up in Jackson. Since you already know your way around there." He stopped to allow the message to sink in. "You're so determined to get to the end of this matter, you're even willing to sacrifice Justine over it."

"I'll take care of her, too," Valentin said thickly.

"Will you? I hope so. Because now it's her life on the table. And you don't have anything else in your hand, do you?"

He drew himself up and waved a heavy hand, dismissing him.

Valentin put the word out on Basin Street, and within an hour Beansoup showed up at Mangetta's and strolled over to the corner table, hands stuffed in his pockets, and looking all serious.

"Heard you wanted to see me."

"You know where on Girod Street Miss Justine stays now?"

"Umm ... yessir, I do. It's up past Baronne."

"What's the number?"

"Can't remember exactly. I know the building, though."

Valentin drained his glass in a quick swallow and stood up. "Let's go," he said.

When they got to Girod Street, the kid pointed out the house, then whispered that the forest green Oldsmobile parked at the curb belonged to the Frenchman. That meant the owner was upstairs with Miss Justine at that moment, doing who knew what. He stole a glance at Mr. Valentin's face. It was unreadable.

Valentin sent him off with a Liberty quarter. Beansoup walked away, glancing over his shoulder, and when he got to O'Keefe, he stopped to peek around the corner. Something was about to happen. Maybe Mr. Valentin was going to call the Frenchman out. Maybe they'd have it out right there on the street. Whatever it was, he didn't want to miss it.

But Mr. Valentin found a doorway and settled in to wait. In less than an hour, the Frenchman emerged. As soon as he stepped onto the banquette, his driver came trotting from his post in front of an apothecary. Baudel got into the automobile as the driver hurried to turn on the ignition, then bent to crank the engine. The car started on the first pull then rolled off in a puff of gray smoke.

Beansoup watched the car go by, feeling like he'd been cheated. Mr. Valentin hadn't done a thing. He'd just let the man who had stolen his girl walk away like it meant nothing at all. If it was him, he swore, there'd be a dead Frenchman lying in the street.

He figured there was nothing else to see and strolled off, heading back to the District. As long as Mr. Valentin was busy on Girod Street, he might find himself some action in Storyville.

Valentin reached the landing and stood in front of the door. He heard music from a gramophone. He knocked, lightly, then harder. The music stopped. There were footsteps from inside and Justine opened the door. She stared at him for a long few seconds. "Valentin ... I heard. About the girl, I mean. I'm so sorry. I saw her that day, too."

She stood back and he stepped inside. She closed the door behind him. He paused to survey the fine furnishings. "You've done well," he commented. His voice was without inflection, as if he was a stranger offering an observation.

She made a vague gesture and came up with a tiny smile. "Are you sleeping in your clothes now?"

He looked down at his rumpled shirt and sagging trousers. "I've had a few hard days," he said.

"But you're all right?"

"I'm as good as I can be," he said, now peering closer. "What about you? You look..."

"Pale?" He nodded. "I stopped taking that medicine. It doesn't feel so good."

"I need to talk to you," he said.

Justine sat down heavy on the love seat. "Talk about what?"

"I need to know what Tom Anderson has on you."

"I'm so sorry, I—"

"What is it?" he demanded harshly. "Six people are dead in this city! Dominique was murdered because someone was trying to get to me. Tom Anderson's trying to stop me, too. And he's been using you and whatever it is you've got hidden."

She cringed. "What good will it do if I tell you?"

He took a breath to calm himself. "It's all tied up together, Justine. It's a piece of the puzzle. Because I have to know. Because I'm asking."

She knew the look on his face. He wasn't going to give up. And there was something else: he was trying to keep up the hard front, and yet she detected a glimmer of concern for her. She hadn't felt that in a long time. He was looking to protect her, too. She wished she had just gone ahead and confessed a long time ago and gotten it over with.

"I'll tell you," she said resignedly. "I'll tell you." She nodded to the armchair. "You'll want to sit down."

Valentin sat, staring at her face.

"Please, I ... I'm..." She bowed her head and folded her hands before her. "All right," she whispered. "All right."

She had done this a hundred times in her dreams. She had rehearsed the way she would tell him so that he would understand. She could never bring herself to do it. Now she didn't have a choice.

She began by going back miles and years, arriving at a clearing along the bayou outside the town of Ville Platte, and the dirt yard of the little shack with the rotting clapboards, leaking tin roof, and the smell of dead things moldering in the soggy earth.

It happened on a Saturday in August in the steaming height of summer. Her father stood in the doorway, barefoot, in a greasy shirt, his suspenders hanging down to his knees. He wore that look, the glowering, dull-witted grimace he saved for his children. He looked like he knew that they had been sent there to torment him and he was the one to make them pay.

She told Valentin that if the Regulators ever needed proof of what they said about the races mixing, they could point directly to her father. She had never solved the mystery of how her mother, her true mother, had ended up with such a black-hearted devil.

She glanced at Valentin, her mouth dipping. "Course I found out later just how stupid some women could be about their men," she said. "Even some who oughta know better."

Maybe, she said, he hadn't looked so bad courting, in his one good suit, his nut brown face scrubbed, his black hair oiled slick and shiny and parted down the middle, his mustache trimmed and waxed, his pale eyes sneakily shy. He must have been some picture, given what he became.

It was even more puzzling that she and her brothers and sisters—each one decent-looking and not without wits—had sprung from his loins. Maybe they hadn't; maybe they belonged to the man who plowed the next field over. That would explain a lot. It could have been what made this one who claimed to be her father so evil. Or maybe it was his wife, their stepmother, a weak stick of a woman, cold and angry when she wasn't sick in bed. Their true mother had died giving birth to a ninth child. Justine barely remembered her face.

She stopped for a moment and saw the way Valentin was watching her, cautiously, almost tense, as if he might jump up and run away at any second. She knew she could keep him there, though. Once she took him deeper into the story, he wouldn't budge. She knew that much about him. So she went back to it.

It was a bad day. There had been many of those, too many to count, but this one was the worst. As the hours had passed, the old man had revisited his still in back of the house and worked his way through his brood, finding an excuse to lay his razor strop to each one in turn. There had been bruises and red welts, shrieks and howls, sobs and tears.

Though Justine was the youngest girl, she tended to the others as best she could, with cool mud and embracing arms. Except for her brother James, two years her senior, she was the only one with any spirit left. The rest of them had been broken by the years of cruelties.

The sun went down and the old man got meaner by the minute. James would be next to face his wrath. Then it would be her turn. The old man would lay the strop aside to free his hands so he could grab her by the hair, drag her around back of the house and into the shed, where he would lift up her shift and have at her. He had done it before, and she knew it would be worse if she tried to fight him. She saw that raw, hungry look in his bloodshot eyes and knew he was already fixing on it for this night.

She looked at Valentin, saw his deep gray eyes staring.

"But this time, it didn't go like that," she told him.

"No?"

She shook her head.

Something was different that evening. There was an alien weight in the already thick air, like the electricity before a storm. The riotous scent of the wildflowers that grew along the banks of the bayou mixed with the biting odor of ozone. Even the low light over the slow-moving water had shifted to an odd ancient green. The shadowy and haunting ether had the other children huddling and rolling their eyes in fear. All the while, Justine felt a sharply bitter taste rising from her gut.

James stood at the corner of the house, his face grim and rigid as he flexed his hands. Justine looked at him, sending a message, and he gave her the faintest nod.

"It was a signal," she murmured. "I had to get to the old man first."

Valentin said, "Get to him how?"

She had moved into his field of vision, turning his vile gaze away from James. He snorted, wiped the back of his hand across his nose in one direction, then the palm across his mouth in the other. His red, dirty eyes swam as he tried to focus.

She was wearing a cotton shift that doubled as a nightdress and clung to her supple body at every curve. She knew how she looked. When she was alone and in front of the tall mirror in the back room, she guessed that in the shift, with nothing on underneath, she could make a man slaver like a dog or rut like a pig. Especially a drunken cur like her father.

Now she saw Valentin draw back a little, like he didn't want to hear what was coming, and yet couldn't quite tear himself away.

The old man stood at the top of the gallery steps, watching her with those wet eyes, too drunk to see that it was a show. She gave him a small smile and moved off around the side of the house, her body swaying like a willow tree.