Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (36 page)

"What about after?"

"After, they went this way and that. Some stayed here and did other business. Others left town, went to Houston, St. Louis ... some went back to the old country." He shrugged. "That was the end of it." He took a sip of his coffee.

"No vengeance?"

Frank said, "Against who? Harris had an army. You know about Parish Prison." He paused. "And you know what happened to your father."

Frank glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen, where even now the voice of his hot-tempered day cook was rising to a sputter of Italian curses. His face had gone dark with melancholy.

Before Valentin could press him any further, there was a clattering of pans and another rude shout from the kitchen.

"
Managgia!
" Frank smacked an irate hand on the table and got up from his chair. "These fucking guineas are gonna be the death of me!" Looking relieved, he headed to the back to try and calm the raging cook.

Valentin sat for a moment, then took the letter out of his pocket and read it again. The final passage caught his eye: "Remember, we are part of something larger and grander. Let Three V be our banner as we march to victory!"

He stared at it until Frank came out of the kitchen, rolling his eyes. "And I leave him back there with the
coltellos,
" he said.

Valentin decided he needed a drink, and asked for a glass of whiskey. The saloon keeper didn't hesitate to snatch up a bottle of the good blend and two glasses. He looked like he needed one himself.

"I know why Benedict and Kane were murdered," Valentin said as the glasses were poured.

The Sicilian's thick eyebrows hiked. "Why?"

Valentin unfolded the letter. Frank glanced at it. "What's that?"

"It says that Harris and Benedict and Kane became partners to do exactly what you just said."

Frank frowned. "Why? Just for the money? They wasn't rich enough already?"

"Yes, for the money," Valentin said. "But there was this, too..." He took out his notebook and his pencil, then tore off a sheet of paper and drew the
VVV
insignia. Then he made a small adjustment to the letters and pushed the page under Mangetta's nose.

"
Gesù Cristo,
" the saloon keeper said out loud. "
È vero?
"

"Yeah, it's true," Valentin said. "Joe Kimball told me so. Three days ago. It took me this long to figure it out."

He folded the letter again and sat back to finish his drink.

When Valentin got to Russell Street, he found the green Maxwell parked at the curb, a ruddy-faced driver strapping suitcases on the back and the running boards.

Valentin walked over to him. "Somebody moving?"

The driver—short, white, with a spare mustache and grimy mechanic's hands—glanced over his shoulder. "Family's leaving out, that's all I know. A vacation."

"To where?"

The driver shook his head. "Nobody's said. They just told me to show up ready to drive."

Valentin started up the walk. George Reynolds, looking flustered, hurried through the open doorway to intercept him. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

A woman, Reynolds's wife, passed by the front door. She stared at Valentin before turning her attention to the bags that were arranged at the bottom of the stairs.

The detective said, "Henry Harris had my friend murdered. And your friends Benedict and Kane."

"They weren't—"

"And those street rats who came after me, too. Everybody that crosses him ends up the same way."

"And that's why I'm leaving," Reynolds muttered.

"You haven't done anything."

"I talked to you."

"That's true, you did," Valentin said. "I don't think anyone knows that." He paused for a short beat. "Not yet, at least."

Reynolds drew himself up and squinted. "What do you want here?"

"I want you to get a message to him," Valentin said, keeping his voice low.

Reynolds looked baffled. "Do what?"

"Get a message to Henry Harris."

Reynolds looked stunned. "I'm not doing anything of the sort," he said. "Even if I knew how, I wouldn't do it."

"And you need to do it before you leave."

Reynolds studied the detective for a few seconds, then laughed indulgently. "You're out of your mind. You go after a man like him and all you're going to get is dead. You'd have an easier time shooting the president."

"I don't want to shoot anybody," Valentin said. "I just want to talk to the man."

"Well, I can't help you," Reynolds said absently. He stood waiting for the detective to go away.

Valentin's gaze roamed over his shoulder to Reynolds's wife, who was standing by the door, fussing at the colored maid about the packing. She looked to be in a bad humor. He didn't blame her. "Does Mrs. Reynolds know about Justine?" he inquired.

Reynolds glared. "You can keep your mouth shut about that."

"I'll tell her right now," the detective said. When Reynolds didn't flinch, he turned away and took a step in the direction of the front door. "Ma'am?" Mrs. Reynolds straightened, regarding him uncertainly. Reynolds hissed something under his breath. "Never mind," Valentin said.

"All right, damn it!" Reynolds muttered. "I'll see what I can do. What's the message?"

"I want to see him. I want to meet him, face-to-face. One time. That's all."

Reynolds shook his head. "Why the hell would he agree to that?"

Valentin went into his pocket, withdrew the letter, and handed it to Reynolds. He read it through, shaking his head, then muttered as he handed it back to the detective.

"Tell him I have this," Valentin said. "Tell him I said he might be a powerful man in New Orleans, but somebody somewhere else is going to see this. Tell him one more thing. The name of a Sicilian, one of those who worked on the docks. Antonio Saracena. Can you remember that?"

"Yes, all right. My god!" He gave Valentin a grudging glance. "Are you done now? Because you need to go. In case you haven't noticed, you don't belong in this neighborhood."

"And you don't belong in Storyville," Valentin retorted.

"Excuse me?"

"I'll tell her you sent your regards before you left." He nodded toward the open door. "I think your wife needs your help," he said, and went down the walk to the banquette.

On his streetcar ride back to the District, he told himself that he had no business meddling in her affairs. Justine would be furious if she thought he'd scared him off of her. She'd just have to find herself another rich gentleman. She'd never had any trouble before.

When he got to his room, he took down his black suit, the other one he'd left behind. It was wrinkled, the cuffs were frayed a bit, and it smelled a little musty. It would just have to do. Joe wouldn't mind. It was good that it had started raining. It meant he could borrow one of Frank's umbrellas and crouch beneath it to escape the accusing stares.

Joe Kimball had told one of his friends that when he went, he wanted to be laid to rest as the sun was going down. It seemed somehow fitting. He no doubt expected to wake in the morning ready to start drinking his way through eternity.

There was no sun this evening. The sky was gray and the rain was coming down steadily. All agreed that Joe wouldn't have minded that, either.

So, by the appointed hour of six o'clock, the umbrellas were huddled like black flowers on the banquette outside Gasquet's Funeral Parlor on Gravier Street. There was a band there, as the tradition demanded, though it appeared to be less an organized first line than a gaggle of Kimball's friends, all deep in their cups, who had brought instruments from closets at home. Every musician had a partner who held an umbrella over his head, at least part of the time. They were mostly too besotted with whiskey and grief to notice that they were getting soaked.

Valentin sidled up just in time for the bass drum to start thumping, announcing that the parade was about to begin. Because of the weather, they went in a straight line along North Rampart Street and turned at Conti. The music—a bizarresounding gumbo that came from too many drunks playing too many different tunes—made up in spirit and volume what it lacked in finesse, and Valentin figured that Joe would be delighted with the raucous noise. Though it had likely been decades since the late Mr. Kimball had seen the inside of a church, the detective spotted a priest who appeared to have been hired for the event, a red-nosed old fellow who had shown up for a Liberty dollar and the free liquor.

As they passed through the cemetery gates, word went along for the instruments to be still, and the cacophony of brass and drum dropped into a silence that was broken only by the hiss of rain and the shuffling of shoes.

Though the borrowed umbrella allowed Valentin to hide, the other umbrellas made it hard for him to spot anyone of interest. The parade crept along the pathway and deep into the city of the dead, because all the bodies were placed in biers above the wet earth. As such, there were mansions and there were hovels, and Valentin had known people who had ended up in each. They passed by the fancy vault occupied by the madam named Florence Mantley, one of the Black Rose victims. Valentin was gazing at the ornate stonework and thinking about her funeral when someone pushed in close to him.

"Mr. St. Cyr?" It was Reynard Vernel, whispering. "I thought we had an agreement." The expression on Vernel's young face was reproachful.

"You can't be seen with me," Valentin said. "It's getting too dangerous." He saw the young man flinch and he lightened his tone. "Tell me how I can find you."

"I have a room in a house on the corner of Carondelet and Perdido."

Vernel nodded quickly and slipped back into the crowd.

The service was mercifully brief. The rented priest didn't know the man in the stone coffin and so he read blessings out of a Bible, made the sign of the cross, then folded his hands piously and stood by while the pallbearers slid the coffin off the wagon and into the bier. Later a mason would come to place a block of stone with the name and the span of his life, thus performing the final act in Joe Kimball's time among the quick.

The crowd was ambling along toward the gate when Valentin spotted Robert Dodge ahead. He caught up with him.

"Mr. Dodge!"

The newspaperman turned, blinked, then gave a start. Valentin offered him a thin smile and said, "Did you hear that a couple characters tried to put me back there with Joe? And now they're at the morgue."

Dodge looked flustered, his mouth working soundlessly. The detective leaned closer, winked, and said, "Keep an eye out over your shoulder from now on." He turned away, ducked to avoid a couple people, and half trotted ahead to the gate.

He reached the Conti Street banquette and slowed his steps. He had nothing he wanted to do. He walked along the banquette for a half block and crossed Liberty into Eclipse Alley. There was a saloon there, a dark and narrow cavern called the Blue Cat, a regular hangout for petty criminals, where everyone minded his own business.

He found only three customers inside, and not one of them looked up when he walked in. It was that kind of place. He stepped up to the bar and asked for a glass of Raleigh Rye, Kimball's elixir of choice. The bartender, a rough-looking Creole, served the drink, then waited wordlessly for Valentin to lay a Liberty dime on the bar. The detective sat staring at the amber liquor for a half minute. Then he lifted it in a silent toast and drank it off.

It was dark when he got back to Basin Street, and he found it lit up like the carnival of flesh that it was. He stood on the corner of Canal and gazed down the line. The mansions were busy, carriages and motorcars pulling in and pulling out, men stepping up and stepping down, mounting the steps to galleries or descending them. Windows were open and he heard pianos tinkling gaily from parlors and the rowdy sounds of jass bands from the doors of the saloons.

He could tell that Anderson's Café was crowded, and for a moment he missed the jovial heat of all those bodies, the drinks being poured, the silver coins flashing as money was lost and won, the bands playing for dancing. It was like a certain kind of heaven, all intended for the pleasure of men. Except that the sun would come up in the morning and reveal tawdry bones underneath the sordid artifice. The same sun would light the whitewashed walls of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 as stolid and unmoving as the final truth they contained. Those who remained in Storyville knew when they would end.

Valentin let out a short laugh at his own foolishness. He had tried escaping and Storyville had drawn him back. He had quit as a detective, only to find himself up to his chest in another case.

What had it been, just shy of two weeks? And in that time, another congregation of actors had accumulated around him: Justine, Anne Marie, Betsy, Bellocq, Vernel. And then there was an assembly of the dead: Benedict, Kane, Cole, Smiley, and Kimball, the only one he cared about. Valentin knew he'd be paying for that one for a long time.

It was the end of a long day. He didn't know what tomorrow would bring. There was no telling what Harris would do or how far he would go once he received the message that contained a silent threat. Without thinking, Valentin glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing except more shadows.