Lost River (16 page)

They stayed for almost two hours, then made a slow amble back along Spain Street in the cool and quiet autumn night. Justine noticed that he had settled into the gait that made him appear almost motionless. She was never sure if he did it by intention, but it always affected her the same way, and she began thinking about what would happen when they got home.

Upstairs, she went into the bathroom to get ready for him, then slipped into one of her camisoles. She stepped out to find that he had turned off the lights. He was waiting in the bedroom, undressed down to his trousers and undershirt, his features muted in the amber light of the gas lamp. She waited and he came to her.

All the men she had entertained had gone faceless and forgotten, as if they existed in Valentin's shadow. And for all the women he'd enjoyed, he kept coming back. He hadn't yet tired of her; indeed, he seemed to delight in the way she had matured from a lithe whip of a bayou girl into a more womanly presence, still slender, yet with deeper curves and more weight in her hips and chest. Even so, she knew that most men got bored with one companion and wandered off. Not Valentin. Not yet.

Over the years he had learned his way around her body. Tonight he went from slow and tender to hard and vigorous, and she was glad that the import office downstairs was closed so they couldn't hear the mattress complaining, the bedposts pounding the floor, and the noises that spilled from her throat. But for all her passion, she couldn't shake the niggling notion in the back of her mind that his zealous efforts had something to do with taking her thoughts off Storyville.

It was near midnight when Laurence made his crooked way down the steps, through the basement, and into the walkway, his mind adrift of opium and champagne, taken in equal doses, a delicious balance.

The darkness in the dark alley seemed to undulate. The few lights of Basin Street that he could spy were glaring, and he decided to slip through the back garden and into the alley and make his way to his hotel by the back streets. It was a pleasant evening, with a caressing breeze wafting from the lake to the river.

Before he took the first step, he leaned his cane next to the door and went into his silver case for another cigarette. The lucifer cast a sudden flare of light, and in the corner of his vision, he thought he saw a shadow come to life, taking the form of a child's hurried scribble. Though when he looked, he saw just another dark patch that all but got lost in the gray palette. He had just sighed out a first fragrant plume when he was startled by a muttering voice. Turning, he saw a figure rise from a shadow and heard a faint click.

Valentin was in the front room pouring two short glasses of brandy when the downstairs door squeaked and quick footsteps pounded up the staircase. He reached the door just as Justine appeared from the bedroom, wrapped in her kimono. It wasn't Each this time, but a kid who could have been him five years before. The boy didn't say a word as he handed Valentin a slip of paper.

Opening it, the detective found an address on St. Louis Street on top, the name "McKinney" on the bottom, and a diagonal slash of ink across the middle.

It took twenty minutes for the first of the police automobiles to arrive. By that time the house was almost entirely empty. Only the young boy who ran errands and an older fellow named Mr. Thorpe, one of the men who managed the house, remained behind. Those policemen who didn't already know about the address soon found out by way of the whispers and snickers.

Because Laurence Deveaux's body lay in the narrow space between two buildings, it was easy enough keeping curious onlookers at bay. The police wagons and the uniformed officers were there for all to see; but without a body in clear view, the men passing by assumed it was just some small matter and moved on.

James McKinney had been at the precinct when the call came in. He hurried to the scene and was allowed back to see the body. Borrowing a lamp from one of the coppers, he bent down and saw what he expected; this time the line was scrawled from the temple to the jaw, slicing thinly across the dead Mr. Deveaux's cheeks and mouth. McKinney could tell that the wound had been made by a hurried hand.

He straightened and returned the lamp to the officer. Back on St. Louis, he asked around in a low voice until someone was able to tell him that St. Cyr lived on Spain Street, between Royal and Decatur, over an importer's office. It took no time at all for him to whistle up one of the dozen of street Arabs who were always in earshot and hand him a scrawled note.

Even though it was Sunday night—Monday morning, to be exact—and as quiet as it got in the District, the police stood by helplessly as the news of another killing, the third in a week, made a furious sprint up and down the streets and then beyond.

Laurence Deveaux's body had been discovered at 12:30 by another gentleman leaving the premises, and by two o'clock every madam on Basin Street had been roused with the news. Only a few saloons remained open, but the story hopped from one to the next of those that were, finally reaching the ear of Billy Struve, who stumbled to a phone to call Tom Anderson.

Within minutes of the 2:30 bells, a cast of characters had materialized on St. Louis Street. Captain J. Picot stalked about, wearing his usual mask of annoyance. A white Packard Victoria touring car arrived, and the King of Storyville, looking tired and rumpled, climbed down from the passenger seat. Each had arrived and was wandering around, trying to look important. Detective McKinney went about assisting at the scene. None of these men spoke to or even looked at each other. Though anyone watching would have noticed that the four kept stealing occasional glances to the south end of the street and in the general direction of the river, as if they were expecting someone.

Valentin surprised them all by coming in from the direction of Franklin Avenue. Before he did that, though, he spent some minutes standing in the darkness of the alley behind the house and watching the activity in the walkway. He could not see the body from that angle, only the officers, whose faces were cast in the glow of the hand lamps.

Each noticed him first and ambled over to give the detective a rundown in a few clipped sentences. Valentin was startled to learn the victim's identity. He had read about Deveaux in the
Picayune.
The man was known in all the right circles around the city. His recitals at the Opera House were major events, and he had played for J. P. Morgan, the king of Spain, and several governors.

Valentin felt Each nudging him and looked up to see Tom Anderson standing on the banquette, his driver on one side and a dazed-looking Billy Struve on the other. Anderson was staring in his direction, and the two men exchanged a nod. Turning his head, he saw Detective McKinney, and the policeman stopped writing on his pad to shake his head slightly. And as if the worst had been saved for last, Valentin felt a cold glare that could only come from Captain Picot and caught sight of that familiar glowering countenance not twenty paces away.

All the players seemed to be waiting for the Creole detective to make a move. The King of Storyville broke the impasse, crooking a finger in one direction to beckon Valentin to his side and then in the other to summon Captain Picot. The two men joined him on the banquette. Anderson spoke first to the captain, who listened, then gave a nod that seemed to have been wrenched from his neck with pliers. He turned and murmured to Valentin, who nodded in kind.

Walking away, the detective waved a sharp hand for Each to join him and treated McKinney to a quick glance that wasn't quick enough; Captain Picot, who by now had steam blowing from his ears, saw it and grimaced.

Each strutted past the coppers to join Valentin, and the two of them made their way along the walkway between the houses. In spite of the forlorn business at hand, the portable gas lamps cast a glow as welcoming as a campfire. The detective noticed the line cut across Deveaux's smooth and regal face. It was the work of one man claiming a third victim.

Valentin was assailed by an unsettling sense that he had a chance to turn around and walk away. Justine would be waiting for him to do just that. This grisly business was truly none of his affair.

After a final moment's hesitation, he stepped forward and bent down over the corpse of Laurence Deveaux.

Justine didn't have to ask to know that Valentin was going against her wishes and risking the good deal he had with the St. Charles Avenue lawyers to heed the call of the scarlet streets of Storyville. She had seen the look in his eye when he raced out the door in the middle of the night, a glimmer that broadcast that he was on the prowl. She knew that while she couldn't turn him around, she wasn't about to let him go on his merry way, either.

She wanted him to suffer, so when morning came, she made him sit at the kitchen table and stutter out an explanation for his errant actions. He did a poor job. Caught up in the moment, he had hurried off to the scene of the third crime at a special house for men who preferred the company of their own gender. Justine wasn't sure if that was supposed to sway her in some way. What did she care about people's tastes? Her concern was what sort of reason the Creole detective who sat across from her could provide for defying her so rudely.

She leaned against the sideboard with her arms crossed and expression taut, waiting with forced patience for him to explain why any of this was more important than the good life they had been assembling. He squirmed like a misbehaving schoolboy until her impatience turned into exasperation.

"You said you wouldn't go back."

"I'm not going
back,
" he said. "Not exactly."

She wasn't having any of it. "And what do you expect me to do? Shall I go back, too?"

He looked startled, which satisfied her. Let him think about the weight of his actions. He said, "Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because—"

"You can say no," she snapped. "You don't owe any of them anything."

Valentin sighed and said, "I know."

"Then why are you doing this?"

He looked at her directly for the first time since he'd sat down. "Because I'm the only one who can," he said.

Ned the janitor didn't say a word when Mr. Tom stepped through the front door. He merely raised one white eyebrow and tilted his old head slightly. Anderson peered down the length of the bar to see Honore Jacob pacing, his hands clasped behind his back in a posture of overfed aggravation.

The King of Storyville let out an audible sigh that must have carried in the empty room, because Jacob wheeled around with an agitated grunt of his own. Though it had been almost five days, it seemed like the landlord had just left and now was back. Anderson was relieved that his rude spawn wasn't along for this visit.

"I've been waiting for you," Jacob said, as if it wasn't obvious.

At that moment Tom Anderson wanted nothing so much as to call to Ned for a stiff brandy. But he knew what kind of picture that would present, especially to a fussy and suspicious soul like Jacob, so instead he asked the janitor to fetch him a fresh cup of coffee and refill his guest's. With a tug at the lapels of his jacket, he lumbered to the table. He made a gesture, and the landlord sat down.

"This is a fine damned mess," Jacob said.

"It's a terrible thing," Anderson agreed soberly.

"A terrible thing? Dead men turning up on my properties? I'd say that's more than a
terrible thing.
It's a goddamned calamity, is what. Good lord! What are you going to do about it?" The King of Storyville drew back, stung and annoyed. Jacob retreated, though only slightly. "For Christ's sake, Tom. You think anyone needs this kind of trouble? Especially now?"

Anderson cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean,
now
?"

The landlord posed a petulant look. "Everyone's talking, saying Storyville's coming apart at the seams. It's all I hear. The madams say they can't pay rent because they don't have enough business. So there's no money to keep up appearances. And they can't give the coppers the usual amount, so the damned criminals have the run of the place. The whole District is falling apart. The mayor's on the warpath. And now this!"

Jacob had taken the tone of an adult scolding a child, his voice climbing the scale from grouse to grate, and Anderson, feeling the heat rise in his chest, bristled.

"You be quiet and listen to me." He leaned forward like a dog pulling at its chain. The landlord, sensing he'd gone too far, blinked nervously. Easing the edge in his voice slightly, the King of Storyville said, "We're having hard times. We've had them before. Things go poorly, then they get better. As for these killings, I know it's serious. I'll take care of it. Whoever's responsible will be stopped. Dead or put away. That's a guarantee."

At that moment Ned stepped up with the two cups of coffee, left them, and moved off, though he kept his ears wide open. In the tense pause that followed, both men took a first sip of coffee, and the King of Storyville was pleased to discover that the old janitor had read his mind and spiced his cup with a stiff shot of brandy.

Frowning puckishly, Honore Jacob placed his cup in the saucer. "You're sure?"

Anderson settled back as the brandy calmed his nerves. "You just watch and see," he said.

Louis Jacob steered the Buick to the Basin Street curb just as an ancient darkie pushed the doors open for his father to pass through. Though the daylight cast the interior of the restaurant in shadow, he felt Tom Anderson peering out at him, like a crusty old alligator half submerged in swamp water, battered but still dangerous.