DIVA (3 page)

“Chantelle,” she said, puffing her Marlboro.

Keeping her end of the bargain, a pleasant surprise.

“What's your last name?”

“Wilson, okay? Can I go?” Gazing at him, hopeful.

“How old are you?”

“Why can't I go? I gave you my name! Just about broke my arm, shoving me into your damn car.” An angry flick of her wrist sent ashes to the floor. Chantelle emboldened by nicotine.

“You don’t look much over sixteen to me, that about right?”

She looked away. “Be sixteen next month.”

Acid chewed his gut. Not even sixteen.

“You got a sheet? Don’t lie. I can check on you.”

“Ain’t got no sheet for nothin! You lied. You said I could go if I gave you my name. You can’t keep me here. I didn’t do nuthin!”

“Where’s your folks, Chantelle? Where’s your Mom?”

“Gone.” She puffed her cigarette and stared off into the distance.

“Gone where?”

“Gone on crack. Gone to the Superdome after Katrina. Gone to wherever they took her.”

An all-too-familiar story. “Where’s your father?”

She flicked ash off her cigarette onto the floor. “I got no idea.”

Another familiar story. “Where you living, Chantelle?”

“Nowhere.” A forlorn smile parted her lips. “That’s a nice tune. You know it?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Can’t say I do.”

“I sing it sometimes . . .” She clamped her lips together, dropped the butt on the floor and mashed it under her dirty sneaker.

“You a singer?”

Her eyes teared up, bright and shiny. She sucked in air, a half-sob, turned her head away and mumbled, “Sing to myself sometimes.”

“You go to NOCCA?” The prestigious high school for the arts served the talented teen population of New Orleans.

“I wish. Went to McDonogh Senior High before Katrina.” She sucked in a shuddery breath, gazing at him with her large doe-eyes. “What happened to the policeman? He okay?”

He studied her, moved by the concern in her eyes. She might not have pulled the stickup, but his gut told him she knew something.

“Tell me where you’re living, Chantelle.”

Her eyes shifted away and she ducked her head. Big lie coming up.

“Already tol’ you. Nowhere.”

“You got no relatives here?”

A tear trickled down her cheek and ripped out his heart. She was only fifteen, scared out of her mind. He couldn’t put her in the lockup.

She arched her graceful neck and looked at him. “Got nobody.”

“So you have no permanent address.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”

“Best thing I can do is charge you with criminal trespass and—”

“No! You said I could go home . . .” She trailed off in a sob.

“You don’t have a home to go to. I’ll get you a place to stay until we straighten this out. Better than living on the street.” It would also allow him to run her name through the system and see if she had a sheet.

But if he expected gratitude for keeping her out of the lockup, forget it. Chantelle looked at him as if he were a cockroach crawling over her Big Mac.

______

She bit her lip to keep from crying. Here she was for the second time tonight in a cop car, not handcuffed this time but just as trapped, the cop driving her God knows where. Antoine might be in worse trouble.

If they caught him, the cop would have told her, wouldn’t he?

Knees to her chest, she squirmed into the corner of the back seat so he couldn’t watch her in the rearview with his bloodsucking eyes. The man was scary-looking. A hawk-nose and a stubborn jaw. A trickster, acting sympathetic, making bullshit promises, then charging her with trespassing.

Tonight had been a disaster from the get-go. Antoine didn’t want to rob no store, but AK said he had to, like it was some kind of test. Smiling his evil gold-toothed smile. AK was the one shot that cop, for sure. Antoine didn’t own a gun, would never have touched one.

Her heart beat fast and hard. Damn AK to hell!

The cop stopped at a red light on Esplanade Avenue at the edge of the French Quarter and turned to look at her.

“How you doing back there?”

“Fine.”
Not gonna give you no satisfaction, Mr. Trickster. Not about to tell you my heart is breaking, my boyfriend’s in trouble and I got nobody to help me.

Her stomach rumbled with hunger. Last time she’d eaten was breakfast, rancid peanut butter on stale bread, the only food she kept in the apartment she’d once shared with her mother. She looked out the window as they passed a Circle-K convenience store, heading north toward Rampart Street.

Please God, don’t let him get on the I-10 and take me miles away
.

Arms clenched around her knees, she dug her fingernails into her thighs. No way was she gonna stay in some foster home with a bunch of teen bitches. She’d bust outta there and get home so’s Antoine could find her.

Tears burned her eyes. Antoine loved her even if nobody else did, smiling when she sang to him, his eyes full of love, and later, in bed, holding her tight, telling her everything would be all right, they’d be together soon. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about crackheads and dope dealers and pimps busting into her apartment. Wouldn’t need AK to protect her.

As if AK would protect her. Try and jump her was more like it.

The cop turned right at Rampart Street and headed toward the I-10.

“Where we goin’?” Hearing the tremor in her voice and hating it.

“Mama LeBlanc’s. You’ll get along fine as long as you follow the rules.”

Where is it?
She wanted to scream.
Is it far from here
?

But screaming at cops got you nowhere. Found that out five years ago when they arrested her moms, said they had her on a security video at some dress shop, her moms boosting clothes so she could sell them and buy crack.

“Don’t take my moms away,” she’d wailed. “I don’t wanna be alone.”

Didn’t wanna be bawling in front of no cops either, but she couldn’t help it. So they put her in foster care—some pissy-assed woman in it for the money. For a whole year she’d slept on a lumpy mattress, hardly any food to eat, stupid woman couldn’t cook for shit.

They turned onto a side street, going slower, seemed like the cop was hunting for a house.
God be praised!
If the foster home was near here she’d only be two miles from home.

The cop pulled to the curb, laid his arm along the seat back and looked at her. “I know you’re not happy right now, Chantelle, but this is the best deal I could get you.”

Best deal woulda been to let me go like you promised.

But she didn’t dare say this.

The cop gave her a hard-eyed stare. “Don’t cause trouble for Mama. Don’t try to run away. I’ll do what I can to get this trespassing charge dismissed.” Speaking softly in his musical voice, a deep baritone, the only thing she liked about him. She knew she should act grateful, thank the man for keeping her out of the lockup, but she couldn’t make herself do it.

He held out a card, gazing at her, not hard-eyed now, more like he cared about her. A little bit anyway.

“My daughter’s only eight years older than you and she cried on my shoulder a few times. If you need to talk, call my cell phone anytime, day or night. Detective Frank Renzi.”

She reached out and took the card, seeing the concern in his eyes, wishing she could trust him, wishing she had someone strong to lean on. Someone grown up and in charge. Antoine was strong but he wasn’t in charge of things any more than she was.

“Thank you,” she whispered, had to work to get the words out, her throat so choked-up she could barely speak.

He smiled. “You’re welcome, Chantelle.”

CHAPTER 3

Friday, 13 October

She stood at the music stand, studying Khachaturian’s
Concerto for Flute
. In 1940, flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal had been so taken with Khachaturian’s violin concerto he had asked the composer to rework it for flute. The result, thirty-six minutes of musical and technical challenges, was considered one of the most difficult in the flute repertoire.

But not too difficult for Belinda Scully.

She ripped off a three-octave chromatic scale, relishing the glorious acoustics in her first-floor studio. The room had sold her on the house, a stately two-story Victorian on a tree-lined side street near the New Orleans Museum of Art. She’d paid a ridiculous price, but the luxury of practicing in a room like this was worth every penny. No rugs or curtains to suck up the sound. Sunlight poured through tall windows onto the polished-oak floor, and twin fans on the fifteen-foot ceiling twirled cool air through the room. A Steinway baby-grand stood near the back wall, shielded from the sun. Along the side wall were shelves for her sheet music, beside them the cherry-wood ladder-back rocker—her mother’s—that she used during breaks.

She set the music aside. She used it for practice, never in performance. Humming the accompaniment that preceded the passage, she took a huge breath and leaped into it, fingers flying over the fiendish pyrotechnics Khachaturian had devised for the cadenza that ended the first movement.

Everything was perfect: rhythm, intonation, a big fat glorious sound . . .

A missed note. She stamped her foot. How could that happen? She’d played it flawlessly hundreds of times.

Then she remembered. Today was Friday the 13th. But next week it wouldn’t be. She never scheduled concerts on Friday the 13th.

She studied the passage with the note she’d missed. Two or three notes, actually. She closed her eyes and made her mind go blank as she did during concerts. Reviewers sometimes commented on this, conjecturing that she’d been swept away by the orchestral accompaniment. Nonsense.

She silently chanted her lucky mantra.
Never give in to fear. Act successful and you will be successful. Believe in yourself and you cannot fail.

She began again, breathing easily, fingers flying over the keys of her platinum Haynes flute. She negotiated the offending passage and finished the cadenza. Perfect. All perfect.

Until the door opened and Jake stepped into the room.

“Jake, I’m practicing. You know I hate being disturbed—”

“I know,” he said, advancing toward her, “but we need to talk.”

His grim expression said it all. Forget practicing. Jake had a bug in his ear. But then he surprised her and smiled. “I just saw a juicy tidbit on the Internet. Nick Philopolous got the principal bassoon job with the Cleveland Orchestra. Wasn’t he at Juilliard when you were there?”

Nick. She crafted a bland expression, but her body betrayed her. Heat flooded her cheeks. She turned away, hearing Nick play the solo in Dukas’
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
with the Juilliard orchestra, hearing him ace the impossible opening to Stravinsky’s
Rite of Spring
. Hearing his words when she told him she was pregnant: “You’ll make a fabulous mother!”

As if he expected her to abandon her career while he pursued his.

She beamed a smile at Jake. “Good for him. He’s a fabulous bassoonist.” And after a slight hesitation, “I’ll bet his wife is thrilled.”

“I don’t know. Cleveland’s a far cry from San Francisco.”

I don’t give a damn whether his mousy violinist wife likes Cleveland or not.

She picked up her flute. “Can I get back to practicing? I’ve got a big concert next week, remember?”

Jake’s dark eyes sparkled. “Right. A week from today we’ll be in London. I can hardly wait. All the top critics and managers will be there.”

“What about the hotel rooms? No unlucky thirteen’s, I hope.”

“Belinda, I’ve made your travel arrangements for years. No rooms on the thirteenth floor, no plane seats in row thirteen. I don’t know why you’re so fanatical about it. It’s only a number.”

No, it’s not.
She raised her flute and noodled a few notes.

“I got an email from Guy St. Cyr’s manager this morning. Guy’s coming to the concert.”

Guy St. Cyr. Renowned flute soloist. Her former teacher.

Another heartbreak.

“Jake, I really need to practice.”

His frown returned and his eyes grew serious. “Okay, but there’s something we need to talk about.”

At last, his real agenda. Jake hadn’t interrupted her practicing to tell her about Nick or discuss hotel reservations. “Well? What is it?”

His face darkened and he cleared his throat. Damn, she hated that sound. The nervous tick grated on her ears worse than chirping crickets.

“Look at this.” He thrust a newspaper at her. “It’s outrageous!”

Her heart pounded. Had someone had written a negative article about her? She studied the huge headline:
WOMAN DEAD IN LAKEVIEW HOLDUP
. Relieved that it wasn’t some malicious article about her, she said, “That’s terrible, but is it so important you had to interrupt my practicing?”

“Yes, damn it! Two black kids robbed a store, shot a cop and took a woman hostage. They found her later, badly injured. She died at the hospital. They never found the robbers.”

Guilt-stricken, she said, “That poor woman. I’ll bet that’s why Detective Renzi ran off last night.” She pictured his craggy face, the jagged scar on his chin, his dark sexy eyes. An attractive man with a deep melodious voice. Intriguing, but she couldn’t afford romantic distractions now, not with the most important performance of her career coming up next week.

“Renzi never called me back. Black-on-white crime gets all kinds of attention, but ordinary folks like you and me—”

She laughed, the melodious trill she used when someone said something incredibly annoying. “I may be many things, Jake, but ordinary is not one of them. Belinda Scully is not
ordinary
.”

He plucked at his dark beard with long skinny fingers. “I’d be the last person to call you ordinary. You’re an amazing person and a marvelous musician. The
point
is Renzi doesn’t seem to think an attack on a famous flute soloist is important enough to merit his attention.”