Chasing the Devil's Tail (33 page)

"Whatchu do that for?" Buddy muttered, turning his face away.

Nora saw the dried blood on the side of his head. "What happened to you?" He didn't answer. "Buddy? What happened last night?"

His eyes were fixed on a shaft of dusty sunlight that had fallen on the bed. A picture moved in his head, something with rough motion and dust kicked up in the air, doors opening and closing, the outlines of a wild struggle. It went away. "What about last night?" he asked her.

"It's nothing," she said. "You better let me clean you up." She took a step inside.

"No!" He glanced at her in fright. "I'll do it."

"Are you sure you're all right?" He didn't answer and he didn't move. "You want breakfast?"

After a moment, he nodded. "That'd be fine."

Nora went to the door. "Mama's comin' by in a little while," she said.

Buddy smiled uncertainly, missing the hint. He made no move to get out of bed, to clean himself up. Nora stepped into the hallway and closed the door.

Ida Bass walked down First Street, a petulant frown settling on her face. The first thing she encountered when she stepped onto the banquette was two neighbor ladies who stopped whispering and put on that innocent why-good-mornin'-Miz-Ida-no-we-wasn't-talkin'-'bout-you look. Ida regarded the two of them steadily and said, "What's he done now?"

The women exchanged a glance and then dropped their voices to relate the tale. To the mother of Nora Bass (these days, she refused to call her daughter a Bolden), it sounded no different than before: Buddy coming home drunk and crazy in the middle of the night and raising Cain in front of his wife and child, raving like the maniac he was, terrifying his family and waking half the neighborhood. The police might have come, or maybe not. They might have carried him off to jail again. The women weren't sure about that.

It didn't matter to Ida Bass. It wouldn't make any difference. It was another chapter in the same old story. The Boldens and the Basses did not get on. In the convoluted caste system within the colored community, the Boldens were common in relation to the Bass family. Because the Creole of Color Basses had been free for decades before the War, while the dark-skinned Boldens would probably still be picking cotton on some plantation had not Mr. Lincoln set them free.
And then there was Charles Bolden, Jr., the child Buddy had fathered and then forgotten, still appearing now and then when she and Nora made market, his grave little face a startling reminder of the vagrant father.

There was more to add to the rancor. Around the time of the marriage, one of Nora's distant cousins had whispered to another cousin a rumor of bad blood in the Bolden history, some sort of spirit sickness that went all the way back to Africa and infected the whole lot of them for generations. This cousin repeated what she heard to a neighbor and on and on, until the gossip landed on a Bolden's doorstep. After that, the battle lines were drawn.

Ida heard the rumor. She believed it then and believed it now. Didn't she see living proof just about every waking day?

And it had started out so well! Buddy was a musician, a respected vocation around New Orleans. He had been devoted to Nora and the baby and he went to church Sunday mornings and sometimes on Wednesday night. People spoke well of him and he made a good wage for a colored man. But earning a decent living playing for the better class of people and quietly attending to his family just wouldn't do for Mr. Charles Bolden. No, he had something else in mind. So he went about making himself crazy, playing jungle music for drunken niggers and their filthy whores down along Rampart Street, rotting his brain with Raleigh Rye and hot whiskey, using hop and cocaine for all she knew and, of course, running with those lowdown women who would hike their petticoats or go down on their knees for any man with a Liberty quarter in his trousers. Bringing Lord knows what kind of awful
gris-gris
into her daughter's home. It was a cheap, pitiful tragedy, the worst kind of hoodoo, and God damn Buddy Bolden for visiting it upon her flesh and blood.

She stopped on the corner and took a breath to calm herself. Peering down the block, she saw there was no crowd around the doorway of 2719, no police wagons in the street. It was quiet.
Thank you, Jesus.

She sighed, pushing her dark thoughts aside. Truth be told, Ida Bass loved her son-in-law. More correctly, she loved the charming, handsome young man who had courted her daughter. The two of them had met at St. John the Fourth. He was a good-hearted fellow; he had been an attentive husband and father. But whatever bad juju had infected the family had caught up with him, too, and made him delirious. There wasn't a hoodoo woman in New Orleans who could fix him; it was too late for that. Ida suspected that Buddy would one day end up dead in some saloon or just go staggering off into his own crazy mind, never to be seen again. Either way, he'd leave his wife a widow and his daughter an orphan.

The one thing she didn't know, that no one dared tell a doting grandmother, was the talk going round about a suspect in the killings of those sporting girls down in the District. Though more tongues wagged every minute.

She stepped hesitantly to Nora and Buddy's perron. She lived in mortal fear that one day she would reach that door to find that her lunatic son-in-law had finally gone all the way insane and murdered her daughter and grandbaby in their beds. But Nora appeared at the door, weary and red-eyed, but otherwise fine. And Bernedette giggled happily when she saw her granma'm. She spoiled the child. Ida stepped inside and said, "Is he home?"

Buddy heard the front door open, heard Nora's quiet voice, heard Ida cooing over her granddaughter. He got up and started to pace, listening to the voices in the other room. They were talking about him, he was sure of that. He saw it in the old woman's eyes every time she came round. How she hated
him. And soon enough Nora would hate him, too, and so would his baby Bernedette. Nora's mama would see to that. It was never right between the two families, and the old bitch would fix him good.

Now the voices dropped down low so he couldn't hear at all. Why did they whisper? He stopped by the door, his eyes wide and ears poised. He could hear the tiniest slide of a valve off a note and he could catch a quarter-tone better than any gutbucket guitar player laying a straight razor to steel strings. So why couldn't he hear their voices?

He picked up the pitcher off the side table, poured a glass full and drank it in greedy swallows, half the water spilling down the front of his nightshirt. He sat down on the bed and waited. He felt his heart beating. A few minutes passed. Another babble of hushed voices in the front room. Then he heard fingers tapping.

"Buddy?" Nora opened the door.

Buddy looked up at her. "What is it? What are you doin' out there?"

"Mama's fixin' you something to eat."

He shook his head. "I don't want it."

Nora stepped into the room and stood over him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "You got to eat," she said. "You'll feel better."

Buddy stared at his wife, looking for a clue in her dark eyes. He thought he saw something there, a tiny shadow passing over her face. He watched her as she turned away and moved about the room, straightening this and that. She looked nervous. Something was wrong.

A few minutes later, Ida stepped into the doorway, holding a plate and some silver. She looked at Buddy's drawn face, his skittish eyes, the stubble of rough beard, the stain of dried blood. The close smell in the room made her hold her breath.
Under it all was an odor like one of Bernedette's wet diapers. This from a man who used to spend hours fussing with his hair and clothes before he'd take a step outdoors.

She saw the way Nora stood away from her husband, watching him with a fretful expression and she thought:
You best fret, child.

"Here you are, Buddy." Ida put a soothing tone to her voice as she held out the plate. Buddy shook his head slightly, so she set it down on the night table. "Don't you want to eat something?" She held a fork in her right hand.

Buddy glanced at the plate, smelled the fried eggs and grits. And something else, something that didn't belong. His eyes flicked; he understood. Ida stood there, holding the fork, tines out, a devil's implement. His eyes fixed on it. The sharp tines glistened and he felt a thrill of fear. He had a sudden urge to let out a wild laugh. They didn't know that he knew.

Nora said, "Buddy, what's wrong?"

He rose up, pointing a finger at his mother-in-law. "She's—She's tryin' to—" but the rest of the words wouldn't come.

Ida rolled her eyes in exasperation. Buddy had come half out of the bed, pointing a shaking finger and stuttering at her like some child throwing a tantrum. She dropped the fork onto the plate. It clattered and made a little spray of grits when it landed. What she wanted to do was call him down right then and there. But she knew that would only make it worse. She shook her head and turned away.

Buddy caught the look on his mother-in-law's face and saw her mask come away. She was turning for the door, leaving food meant to poison him. He knew. He knew. He knew.

A sudden bolt ran up his spine, sending a red flash into his brain. His hand swung out and grabbed hold of the handle of the water pitcher. He heard Nora scream as he swung his arm,
bringing the pitcher sideways across Ida's head. She shrieked and fell against the wall as the pitcher shattered into a dozen pieces. There was a splatter of crimson over the old woman's hair as she grabbed and held fast to the doorjamb, going down, looking stunned, like she'd been pole-axed. Buddy now stood back, holding the handle of the pitcher, blinking in befuddlement.

Nora saw the glazed, empty look in Buddy's eyes. She ran to the door and all but dragged her mother out of the bedroom and down the hall.

Buddy sat down on the bed. He saw the pattern the grits and eggs and blood and water made on the wall and the floor. There were broken shards of ceramic lying about. He knew something was wrong. He wondered what had happened. Then he heard his wife calling out the window for somebody to help, somebody quick get the police. Her voice sounded like a wild horn reaching for some impossible note.

Quite suddenly, the room was filled with a quiet light as the walls fell away. Something broke and, for the first time in a long time, his head didn't hurt at all. The crushing weight was gone; he was as light as the breeze. He hadn't felt that way since he was a schoolboy.

He sighed deeply and smiled. It felt like it was over now.

Picot stood in the doorway to St. Cyr's rooms. The Creole detective was at the window, looking out onto Magazine Street.

The copper's eyes roamed around, taking in the mess in the room, complete with bloodstains.

"Look at this," he said. "Look at what he done. Two people in Charity."

Valentin kept staring out the window. "What do you want, Picot?" he said.

"I come to tell you there ain't no reason for you to finish the job on Bolden," Picot said. "We got him."

Valentin turned around. "Seems he come home this morning, actin' all crazy," Picot said. "Tore his own house up. But his wife got him settled, least she thought so." He went on, enjoying the beaten look on St. Cyr's face. "Her mama come over to help out, you know, to make him something to eat. But your friend Bolden, he gets it in his head that the old woman is tryin' to poison him." He laughed bluntly. "You know what he does? He jumps up out of bed, grabs hold of a water pitcher and hits her over the head. Broke the damn thing all to pieces and cut her up pretty good. Some neighbor called a wagon and they came and carried him over to Parish Prison. Again." Picot nodded emphatically. "Now, them detectives, they gonna get a confession outta him, i guarantee."

Valentin stood motionless as Picot backed out the door. "So, Mr. Detective, you can forget about it. This one's closed up good. And it's about damn time." He walked to the door, stopped and turned around. "Too bad about your sportin' girl and that boy," he said. "Never shoulda got this far. Never shoulda happened." His round shape disappeared down the stairwell.

Valentin went back to Charity Hospital and sat by Justine's bedside until mid-afternoon, studying her bruised face, swathed all around in white.

He walked up the stone steps of Parish Prison at four o'clock, stepping out of an afternoon sopping with humidity into the cool stone corridors. He went down two sets of stairs to the detention center and stepped up to a tall desk to state his business to a uniformed copper with sallow skin, an enormous
brush mustache and red, wet eyes that swam around Valentin's face.

Valentin requested permission to visit the prisoner, and when he supplied his name, the desk sergeant muttered raggedly under his breath. He took his time producing a visitor's card from a drawer, tossed it across the desk, and then embarked on a long-winded instruction about prison security that was meant to be insulting. Then he jerked a thumb and watched as Valentin was ushered through the metal door by a police guard, a heavy-set young man with dull eyes and red, tobacco-stuffed cheeks.

Valentin followed the guard down the row of cells. His escort pointed a finger at the last cell, then stepped back, leaned against the opposite wall and crossed his arms.

Valentin's gaze roamed the shadows. There was a bed and a bucket, a tiny window up high and a bundle of sticks and rags shoved into the corner. Then the bundle moved and he realized it was Buddy. "Jesus Christ!" He glanced at the guard, who shook his head with rude disgust, as if to say,
These lunatic cases—that's what happens.

Valentin put his hands on the bars. "Buddy," he called softly. There was only the slightest movement from the corner of the cell. "Buddy, it's Tino," he said. For a long moment, there was no response. Then Buddy turned in the general direction of the front of the cell. Valentin was startled by the stark, angled planes of his face, as if the bones beneath were trying to push out through the skin. There was a blank, becalmed, still-water look in his eyes.

"It's Tino," he repeated. Bolden stared back at him evenly, but with no hint of recognition. Valentin turned to the guard. "Can you let me in there with him?"