Lost River (10 page)

Some moments passed before he realized that he was holding his straight razor in his right hand. He opened it long enough to gaze upon the glinting edge of the blade, so delicate and hideous that it made his gut twist.

The razor clattered to the floor at the sound of a cream-white envelope being pushed under the door. William hadn't heard anyone approach, and he didn't move a muscle until he was sure no one was lurking outside. He edged to the door and bent down to pick up the envelope. Sliding a yellowed fingernail along the fold, he opened it to find a single sheet of paper and a gold coin, which he rubbed as he read through the half-dozen words written in a tight hand: a name, an address, a time.

He laid envelope and paper aside. Kneeling to the floor, he lifted a short board and retrieved from between the joists a Liberty .22 seven-shot that was small enough to fit within the span of his hand. Once he had replaced the board, he stood up and dropped the pistol into a coat pocket. He donned his derby hat and stepped to the door.

Downstairs, he exited the back door of the hotel into the alley and began his journey beneath the earth to Basin Street.

It was the dead of morning, that empty pocket between the dark of night and the light of day, and Storyville had fallen into an uncommon quiet as a wispy fog draped the streets in shreds like worn cotton.

Little stirred. Here and there, the invisible wings of a waterbird snapped with the
fit-fit-fit
sound of a flag flicking in a breeze before fading back toward the river. In the yard below Union Station, a train whistle played a mournful note as steel wheels, rising from metallic sleep, groaned into motion. Somewhere down a side street, a nag snorted, a man's voice muttered, and a woman laughed—a tinkling of thin bells. Then it got quiet again.

After some moments, the front door of a mansion halfway down the block between Bienville and Iberville streets opened in a swath of yellowish light, casting the silhouettes of a slender young woman and an older man. The woman took the form of an angel, her dressing gown wafting as the night air stirred, while the gentleman stood as stout as a judge.

They lingered until an engine coughed to life at the corner. Their faces met in a chaste kiss and the gentleman drew away to descend the steps to the banquette. The breeze swirled once more and died, and the hem of the gown fell. The girl, who went by Clarice, raised a listless hand in farewell, and in the manner of an actor after the curtain comes down, stepped wearily over the threshold and closed the door behind her.

Mr. Burton Bolls stood on the banquette, humming a light bit of melody as he waited for the idling automobile to pull up and carry him home to the Irish Channel and his wife and children. He'd enjoyed a lovely night with Clarice, a well-earned diversion from the demands of his life.

He thought he was alone on the street with his agreeable thoughts until he heard someone speak and jerked around to see a man standing a few feet away, hunched in a suit coat that was too thin for the brisk air and a derby hat pulled down low in front. Bolls had not heard his approach and would have been alarmed had he not been standing directly in front of a mansion on the main thoroughfare of one of the most renowned red-light districts in the world. From up the street, gears rattled as the motorcar set to noisy motion.

"What's that, sir?" he inquired politely, expecting the fellow would now ask for a handout and preparing a rebuff.

The voice came from beneath the brim of the derby, as sharp and jagged as broken glass. "Evil gets as evil gives."

Bolls cocked his head, puzzled over the muttering. He was thinking how odd it was for someone to be wearing gloves at this time of year when he saw the barrel of the pistol pointing at him. The hammer clicked back.

The Paterson touring car was fifty paces along Basin Street when the sleepy-headed driver, peering over the folded windshield, saw the tiny blue flash. He watched, stunned, as Mr. Bolls reeled on top-heavy legs and toppled off the banquette and into the gutter, and another, smaller figure appeared, bending over the body. The driver gaped and coughed up a shout that was lost in the noise of the stuttering engine.

The sound and the light sent the figure spinning around and lunging away to fade into the narrow space between the houses behind him.

With another yelp, the driver pushed the accelerator handle, and the Paterson lurched forward until a jerk on the brake brought it to a sliding stop, the fat tires bouncing off the curb. He leaped onto the running board and down to the street to find Mr. Bolls lying flat on his back with his legs on the banquette, staring blindly up at the stars in the New Orleans night. The hole in his chest was bubbled over his shirt and vest. His limbs quivered and his eyes fluttered. He let out an agonized groan and went still.

The driver rushed across the banquette and ran up the gallery steps just as the front door flew open.

Miss Antonia Gonzales stretched out on the divan, her hop pipe in hand. The first crooning notes were wafting from the horn of her Edison Victrola when she heard what sounded like the pop of a firecracker. Then came a rude shout, followed shortly by a ruckus outside her sitting-room door: a chatter of voices, the scrabbling of feet, and one of the girls calling her name in a panicked voice. The madam let out an exasperated curse, laid the brass pipe aside, and went to see about the fuss.

Three of her girls were huddled in the foyer, talking all at once. Pushing through the gaggle, she stepped onto the gallery, where she found Clarice with the house driver, a skinny character with a sparse mustache and slicked-back hair who went by the moniker Each.

"What's wrong?" she demanded.

Clarice threw a wild hand toward the street. "It's Mr...." She couldn't seem to catch her breath. "He's..."

"He's what?" The madam peered over the banister and was shocked to see the body of Mr. Bolls slumped over the curb and into the street.

"Good lord!" she said. "What happened?"

"He got shot," Each said, his voice thin with strain. "I saw it."

The madam said, "Shot? Shot by who?"

"Didn't see," Each said in a rush. "I come up from the corner, and he was, uh, he was going down. The one what done it run off."

Miss Antonia turned on the girl, her black eyebrows hiking.

"I saw him out and he was ¡fine," Clarice said. "I just closed the door when I heard the shot and..." She started to shake a little.

Miss Antonia's mouth drew into a tight line. This was going to be trouble. Mr. Bolls was a good customer, an upright citizen who spent freely and was not peculiar in his tastes, the kind of guest any Storyville madam would welcome. Not to mention that he was a man of some importance, the owner of two successful retail stores. In the next moment, she thought about the fellow they'd found on Liberty Street. This was far worse; a gentleman like Mr. Burton Bolls wouldn't just go away with the morning light.

The madam heard voices and glanced toward the next corner to see that the usual worthless yardbirds had already started to gather, peering and pointing.

She made a quick decision. "Go call the police," she told Clarice. The girl gave a sickly nod and hurried inside. Miss Antonia turned to Each. "And you drive over to Spain Street and fetch Mr. Valentin back. I'll call ahead and tell him you're on your way."

Each was startled. "He won't come."

"Just go," the madam said.

The telephone at the police precinct at Parish Prison chirped noisily, and the desk sergeant jerked awake and snatched up the earphone. The two patrolmen who had just brought in the drunken whore snickered between themselves. The girl, a scraggly blond whose thin face was scarred by smallpox, paid no attention, singing softly to herself in a wavering voice.

The sergeant grunted into the mouthpiece and then listened for a few seconds, rubbing his face with his free hand. He dropped the receiver in the cradle and addressed the coppers.

"Basin Street between Bienville and Iberville," he said. "We got a homicide."

The girl stopped her off-key singing. The officers hitched their belts.

"What about her?" one of the officers inquired, jerking a thumb.

"I'll take care of her like she was my own little girl." He shooed them. "Y'all get on over there. We can't have no dead body on Basin Street."

Valentin heard the bell flutter and came awake, confused, wondering who was rousing him at such an hour. He had managed for years without the annoyance of a telephone set, until Tom Anderson, exasperated at having to send a street rat every time he needed to pass a message, ordered him to buy one. So he gave in, had the device and the wiring installed, and heeded the warning not to toss it over the balcony into the street the first time it sounded. Now he wished he'd done just that.

With a curse, he swung his legs off the bed, lurched into the front room, and crossed it in a few strides to grab the handset from its cradle.

"Valentin?" Though the connection was poor and the sound tinny, he knew the voice right away: Antonia Gonzales. Without a moment's pause, the madam blurted the news about a guest shot dead at her front door. The fellow was lying out in the gutter. The police had been called. And Each was on the way to collect him.

It came out in such a clipped rush that Valentin stood holding the handset against his ear, staring dumbly out the front window at the half-moon that was perched over the river.

"Mr. Valentin?"

"I'm here."

"Please, I need your help."

Valentin knew he was supposed to say,
I'm sorry, no. I can't...
Instead, he whispered, "All right, I'll be waiting," and dropped the handset back in the cradle.

He stood there for a silent moment, wondering why the hell he hadn't just spoken the
no
that was on the tip of his tongue. He could get the operator to ring her back, of course, but Beansoup—no, it was
Each
now—might be rolling down Spain Street any minute.

A more immediate problem was waiting in the bedroom. Even if Justine had slept through the jangling of the telephone, she'd find soon enough what had transpired.

Soon, indeed; he found her propped slightly against the headboard, her arms crossed.

"Who's calling you in the middle of the night?" she said.

For a wild second, he thought about running back out the door. "It was Miss Antonia," he said.

Justine frowned. "What does she want?"

"She wants me to come to the mansion."

"When?" she inquired, drawing out the torture.

"Now. Bean—I mean Each is on his way with her car."

"Why?"

"So I won't have to walk or take a street—"

"You know what I mean." She gave him a scathing look. "Why the hell does she want
you
at this hour?"

"One of her customers was murdered. Right outside the door."

That caught her, though just for a heartbeat. "Which customer?"

"She didn't say."

The putter of an automobile engine rounding the corner from Chartres Street distracted her and she glanced toward the open window. "He's driving now?"

"Yes. He works for her."

This information brought her attention back to the subject at hand, and she watched him, waiting.

"I told her I'd come," he said.

She kept staring, her eyes opaque. The automobile rattled to the curb in front, and the engine coughed and died. Springs squeaked, a door creaked, and footsteps clopped up the stairwell. Finally, the rap of knuckles on the jamb.

Valentin made a clumsy gesture that was followed by a clumsy escape into the front room. Justine knew it was a coward's trick to allow Each to get inside rather than go to the balcony and tell him to wait on the banquette. She had always been fond of the kid.

She got up, pulled on a kimono, and stepped into the bedroom doorway. Each was standing in the middle of their living room. Now as before, he appeared abashed at the sight of her, unable to settle on friend, sister, mother, or object of desire. He had known her as a bit of each over the years.

She yawned prettily, and began talking to him. She hadn't seen him in over a year, and marveled at how he was finally losing his childish gawkiness on his way to becoming a man.

His real name was Emile Carter, and he now went by "Each," a mangling of his initials. As "Beansoup," he had been a fixture on the Storyville streets, one of the urchins who ran errands for the sports and rounders for nickels while working their own small games. Along the way, he had appointed himself Valentin's assistant and ended up spending more than a few nights snoring on the couch in the detective's flat on Magazine Street.

Though he had grown up, he still exhibited the same faintly baffled eyes and jittery bounce that had marked him as such a local character when he was a kid. Now the law said he had reached majority and could step into any of the Storyville saloons or music halls and order a drink of whiskey. He could sit at a table and gamble his money on a roll of the dice or turn of a card. He could pay for one of the nearly two thousand women who worked the houses along the twenty square blocks, though the last Valentin recalled, he had been hooked to a young maid who worked for the Benedict family of Esplanade Ridge.