Lost River (23 page)

The students were at their easels, looking serious. Justine stepped up onto the foot-high riser and settled on the cushioned stool that had been placed at its center. Deftly, she dropped the sheet from her shoulders. She felt the eight pairs of eyes roaming on her, inch by inch. If there was any lust in that hushed space, she didn't feel it. The young artists set to work and she relaxed.

They stopped at the half hour so everyone could stretch. She had just taken a seat again when she sensed something different about the room. With a shift of her eyes, she caught sight of the figure standing just inside the door. It came as no surprise to see Louis Jacob studying her with a fixed gaze, as if he was drawing her in his mind.

At eight o'clock Valentin arrived at Mangetta's to find Each pacing the banquette. The detective led him inside to the bar.

Frank greeted them with wide eyes, an opera buffoon. "Now he's out at
night
? There's gonna be trouble..."

Valentin bent his head to whisper in the Sicilian's ear.

Mangetta was dubious. "You think you're going to catch him that easy?"

Valentin shrugged. "He hasn't been smart so far. Just lucky."

The saloonkeeper looked unconvinced as he went about pouring two brandies. When he moved off to serve another customer, Valentin turned to Each.

"Are your people ready?" he asked. The response was one raised eyebrow and a curl of a mustachioed lip. "Just checking."

Out on the banquette, Valentin stopped to pat his pockets one more time before crossing the street with Each trailing along. He left the kid at the intersection of Iberville and Liberty and walked the rest of the way to Basin Street and Miss Antonia's alone. He found his man, a onetime prizefighter named Lyles, on the back gallery. They talked briefly, and the detective went inside to find the madam.

After a few minutes with her, he visited the three other addresses, ending at the one that was most in danger as the only property of Jacob's that had yet to serve as the scene of a crime. It was a small but tidy tenement house run by a woman named Marie Helton.

A former beat cop named Whaley was waiting. Valentin had found him some work after he got in trouble with the brass for helping him on a case. His police career was finished, so the detective sent him to a local ward leader who needed a right-hand man. Whaley never forgot the favor and was at Valentin's disposal whenever there was a need.

They hadn't seen each other in almost three years, and Whaley smiled with delight as the detective mounted the steps to the gallery.

"It's true, then." He grabbed Valentin's hand. "You're back."

"For now," the detective said.

They surveyed the street. Whaley was flexing his fingers in anticipation. "You think he'll make a try this evening?"

"I hope so. I can't be spending my nights out here."

Whaley smiled in the darkness. "Why? You got trouble at home?"

"I will if we don't finish this in a hurry." He knocked on the door.

Mrs. Helton was broad of face, bosom, and bottom, certainly hefty enough to take care of herself. She listened as Valentin spoke, her eyes shifting back and forth between the two men, and became indignant when the detective told her what she might expect.

"Son of a bitch better not come 'round here," she said, with just a bit of brogue in her voice.

"We want him to, ma'am," Valentin said, and then told her the rest of it.

The madam shrugged, then nodded in agreement and closed the door. Valentin shook Whaley's hand before descending the steps to the banquette.

He began another circuit of the District, mostly keeping in sight of either one of Each's corners, checking the faces of passersby. Among his skills was the ability to read a person at a quick glance. He knew that if he caught sight of a certain light there, he'd have his prey. He understood just as well that the chances of that happening were slight. There were hundreds of men in the District at that hour, and every one was a stranger.

Still, he had gazed into the faces of enough lunatics to recognize the signs. And they didn't include the demonic glare of the villains on the stage or in the moving pictures. No, the eyes of the deranged were electric with some unslaked fire or dead and distant, as if the human had moved out, leaving an empty husk that was still capable of bloody mayhem.

But so far it was the usual characters parading the banquettes: rounders who had just finished a visit with a favored girl and were heading off for a night of gambling; the nervous young men without sweethearts; older gentlemen who had almost perfected invisibility as they made quick trips from automobiles to the front doors of bordellos; and finally, those dregs that wandered by like rags blown by a breeze. It was likely that Valentin's man would be hiding in this last group, and so he scanned faces, one after another.

He finished his first circuit in an hour without seeing anyone suspicious or hearing a whistle of alarm. This was no surprise; another sense told him that the killer wasn't there yet.

Justine half expected that Louis would be waiting for her, either in the shadows next to the building or at the streetcar stop. Now that he had surveyed her body, he might think he could possess her in another way. It would make for an interesting evening.

But he was neither outside the door nor on the St. Charles Avenue banquette. So she waited in the cool evening until the streetcar rattled to a stop and climbed on.

Once aboard she peered out the back window. That she didn't see the red Buick didn't mean there wasn't a part of her that wanted him to be trailing her, more foolishness that made her smile at her reflection in the glass.

She stepped down to change cars at North Rampart Street. There was a faster route to the east end of the city, but she decided to ride by Storyville again. She could see between buildings the turrets atop the mansions of Lulu White, Josie Arlington, and Countess Piazza and knew that Valentin was at that moment moving about the streets. She imagined him slipping in and out of the falling shadows on the trail of a murderer.

In the next moment, she realized that it could already be over. Valentin claimed the man was a fool, no match for the skills of a seasoned detective. So he might well have finished it. And there was always the chance that it was finished with a different outcome.

As the car left the District behind and crossed over St. Louis Street, she caught a flash of bright red in the corner of her eye and turned to the rear window. Whatever it was had disappeared, along with the lights of Storyville.

William Brown had packed his knife and his revolver and slipped out to make his quiet way down the back stairs to the street. He was winding his way to the end of the story, a relief. After this night his work would be done.

And then what? There'd be no going back to the hospital and its catalog of tortures. No, he would ride a train and disappear into the night. Wherever he landed, no one would know him, his history, nor even his true name. He would become a nobody.

He crossed into Storyville by way of one of the alleys, never using the same one. This time it was far to the back of the District, running between Claiborne and Robertson. The usual gangs of rats scrabbled in the dank hollows. Thirty paces on he came upon a man standing with a woman on her knees before him. When the fellow looked around, William averted his eyes and kept on.

At the end of the alley, he happened on another woman, this one with her back against the wall of a building, her petticoats hiked up, and her legs spread wide and head lolling as she pissed a drunken puddle in the dirt. She ignored him, too.

William was just about to take a step onto the banquette when he sensed something amiss. He stood still for a few seconds, leaned out, then drew back. Even though the traffic on the street continued to eddy, as men came and went looking for or after having a woman, his gut told him that something was not right.

Maybe it was the nights in the hospital ward with all those crazed animals on the prowl. Or that his brain lurked so close to his skull, allowing him to hear and see what others could not. Whatever the reason, every nerve was signaling trouble.

Poking his head from the darkness, he searched the street in both directions again. On the next corner, a street Arab lounged as if waiting for some rounder to whistle him up. But the kid didn't strike the right lazy posture and was not looking at the back of any of the houses from which a summons might come. Instead, he was facing the street and watching for something or someone—most likely, William Brown.

He retreated into the alley and found a place to hide in the recess of the rear door of one of the buildings. Wiping the sweat from his face, he waited for his mind to tell him what to do. He had been paid and had instructions. Tonight was the night, and then it was to be over. But then he heard that other grim warning:
Don't get caught.

He thought about chancing a dash for the house. Maybe no one would spot him, and he could catch a victim and finish his work in a hurry. Or he could wait there to see if the sentry would give up and go away. He couldn't decide, and his brain ached as he slumped down and laid his head across his folded arms.

As he slouched, his thoughts wandered. Presently, he saw a pattern etched in light lines against a dark background begin to tilt and realized that he did not need to rush this business and get caught. Time and space were moving, fluid things. He had tomorrow night and the night after that one and he could take a different path through the streets, too. Just the slightest nudge to the design would throw whoever was stalking him into confusion and when that happened, he could walk in, do his work, and then escape for good. It could be just that easy.

With that thought in mind, he folded deeper into himself and fell into a doze.

As the hours dragged and the streets stayed quiet, Valentin made rounds to keep his men on their toes. Walking the banquettes, he heard not a sound nor caught movement to give his prey away. He guessed that the fellow might have seen one of the guards, realized what it meant, and bolted away.

Night sidled into morning, and with the first slate-tinted glimmers of dawn, he caught up with Each and told him to send his pals home. At Antonia Gonzales's he used the telephone to call Whaley and the others and ask them to be back at the same time that next evening.

As tired as he was, he decided to make one last tour of the District. The cleaning crews and other early birds were met by the sight of a solitary man stalking intently, peering into every dim alley as if looking for something he had lost. A wagon creaked along Conti Street and a faraway bell tolled half-five.

He left Storyville to walk the two miles back to Spain Street. He admitted to what he'd managed to park in the back of his mind: This might not be so simple after all. This crazy fellow with the pistol and knife was not going to walk into his waiting arms. The
fool
had been clever enough to make the Creole detective look like a dunce.

Hebert arrived as usual a half hour before the break of dawn. After twenty-odd years keeping the grounds at St. Louis No. 2, he treasured starting his days alone and at peace in the City of the Dead. There were no funeral parades trampling everything, no sightseers looking for the bier of this famed madam or that. For these brief minutes, St. Louis No. 2 belonged to him.

In all but the worst weather, it was his habit to bring his tin of coffee and pipe to one of the stone benches for a leisurely smoke and some reflection on mysteries of life and death. He knew others found the deep still within those whitewashed walls frightening, especially in that gray-shadowed hour between night and morning when ghosts were known to roam.

Hebert found the time spent with the departed citizens a balm to his soul. It was his private time and place. And so it annoyed him to see that some drunkard had decided to ruin the start of this day by slouching down to sleep against the cemetery gates. He fumed as he crossed the street. It was a good thing the gates were locked or the tramp would be inside snoring away on someone's grave.

Hebert drew closer. The sot's legs were stretched out before him, his hands rested on his thighs, and his head was pitched forward under a slouch hat.

The groundskeeper stepped up, kicked the sole of one of the shoes, and said, "Hey, there, fellow!"

In the silence that followed, Hebert, who knew about such things, realized that the man curled against the wrought-iron bars of the cemetery gate wasn't sleeping at all.

Justine came awake when Valentin crawled into bed. From the way he collapsed, rolled over, and dropped off without a word, she understood that the night hadn't gone as planned. He was still reeking of the Storyville streets, and, as if to avoid tainting herself, she pushed out of the bed and went off for a bath to start her day.

Once she settled into the fragrant heat, she began entertaining odd images, first of Valentin and then of Louis, and thinking about all the energy men spent on the hunt for a fight or a fuck. It brought a momentary flush of contempt for the lot of them.

And what about her? Hadn't she played her own part in the comedy? After the nightmare of her childhood on the bayou near Ville Platte, she had reason to despise men. So many of the sporting women she had known over the years secretly hated all of them and took their pleasure after hours from each other, though too often it was more with vengeance than love. She had decided long ago that turning her ardor in that direction would deny her nature. She refused to give her evil fuck of a father a victory over her.