House of Blues (11 page)

That if she ripped down the window coverings, she'd
look out on buildings so poorly constructed the gutters, the roofs,
anything that wasn't part of a wall would be hanging by a thread; or
perhaps she'd see gorgeous old Greek revival buildings, now shells,
like the ones in Central City along Baronne and Carondelet, deserted,
their windows boarded up.

"You be the tall one," said the man. "I
been hearin' 'bout you."

"
I guess you be Delavon."

"Don't you mess with me." He brought a hand
down flat against the arm of his chair. Because of the padding, it
didn't make much noise, but perhaps it wasn't meant to intimidate.
Skip read it as a simple loss of temper.

"
You know how I got here." She couldn't
bring herself to say the word kidnap. "Who's messing with who?"

Delavon sat up on his makeshift throne, dignified,
back in control. He held up a hand like a traffic cop. "Let's
don't get off on the wrong foot, tall one. Peace in the valley, man.
I brought you here for two reasons, first one bein' I gotta thank
you."

"Thank me for what?"

"
Nothin' happens Delavon don't know about. He
know what you done for Jeweldean. Today and other times. Hey. I gotta
get you to sign my guest book." He spoke to one of the houris.

"
Kenyatta."

The woman, whose outfit was mostly yellow, rose
without using her hands, like a dancer, and walked to a small table
of white rock or concrete shaped like an Ionic column. On the table
was a book covered with green leather. Kenyatta beckoned.

Skip stood her ground.

"
Go on," said Delavon.

Kenyatta offered her a pen and a clean page.

"Every celebrity get their own page," said
Delavon. "Can't have you knowin' what other white po-lice been
here; now can I?"

"I don't feel like playing games right now."

"
Aw, go on. Do it for Delavon. Maybe I do
somethin' for you someday."

"Maybe you will." Skip signed "Scarlett
O'Hara," and turned back to Delavon. "What's the other
reason?"

"You tell Delavon."

"
I'm gettin' lost here. If you brought me here
for two reasons, you must know what they are."

He leaned forward and touched his chest, a wronged
man. "I just want to help you, that's all. Just want to he'p
you. You tell me what I can do for you, I do it."

Suddenly, she realized she could say "Find
Dennis Foucher," and he would. But she'd owe him for the rest of
her life.

"
Why would you help me?" she said.

"I been hearin' 'bout you. I know who you are."

It was possible. With more than four hundred murders
a year, and thirty-five detectives to work them, Skip ended up with
about fifteen cases a year. Most of them involved drugs; many,
teenagers. Any or all of them might involve Delavon's gangsters—or
his friends or sons; maybe his enemies. He could have heard of her.

"What have you heard?" she said.

"
I heard you treat people nice. With respect."

"I try to."

"
And I heard you he'p out Jeweldean now and
then."

"So you want to do me a favor."

"
Tha's what I said, idn't it?"

She felt silly, standing in her linen slacks and
T-shirt like a supplicant before a king. She wanted to regain
control. "Okay. Come on down to headquarters with me."

He slapped his chair arm hard. "I tol' you not
to mess with me!"

Good. He'd lost it again. She struggled to hold back
a grin. "I'm not messin' with you. I thought you wanted to
help."

"You got somep'n to ax Delavon, you ax him
here."

"You know a guy named Dennis Foucher?"

"I know Dennis."

"
I'm wondering if you've seen him in the last
few days. Or heard from him."

"
He was in a shootout, now wadn't he?"

"
That I can't say. Maybe you know."

"Nooooo. Delavon don't know nothin' 'bout that.
Don't know nothin' 'bout that."

"Have you seen him, Delavon?"

"
No, sir, Delavon hadn't seen 'im. And why
hadn't I seen 'im? 'Cause Dennis prob'ly be needin' some illegal
drugs, that's why. And Delavon don't fool with that shit."

Right. You probably run an orphanage.

"I know that Dennis Foucher. He a hard-core
heroin addict. I know what they like. They get clean, then they want
that sweetness back; they want them lovin' arms aroun' 'em jus' like
it used to be. But you know what? It never is like it used to be. He
gon' cop some dope, he gon' decide somethin' wrong with the quality,
he gon' complain; he gon' make life miserable for somebody. But then
he gon' buy some more shit, 'cause he gotta have that feelin' like
bein' wrapped in cotton candy. Warm spun sugar, man."

Delavon was staring into space, carried away with his
own poetry, probably seeing it in Old English script on a thick white
page, one of many, bound in red leather.

"Sounds like you know a lot about it."

"Delavon know these assholes. Look at me. I'm
tryin' to make things better for people. People come to Delavon, I do
'em favors. They think I be involved in illegal activities, but tha's
not who Delavon is. I made some good investments, I got some money,
and I know things. Right now I know the man your boy makin'
miserable. He be Turan."

"Turan who?"

He hit the chair arm again. "I don' know nothin'
'bout no last names. How come you white po-lice always has to have
last names? Turan. Tha's all you need. Turan a mean dude, you ain'
gon' like him a-tall. But he the only dude in town got any smack
right now. Your boy Dennis, tha's what he into—and I know he is—he
gon' find Turan."

Oh, sure. One guy in town's got heroin. Tell me
about it.

She said, "Where am I gon' find Turan?"

"You use yo' famous skills as a white po-lice
detective."

"
Come on, Delavon. I didn't come all this way
for nothing"

For some reason, that struck Delavon as funny. When
he was finished laughing, he said, "Smart girl like you. You
find him, all right."

"Shall I tell him Delavon sent me?"

Delavon laughed, emitting a kind of high-pitched
giggle Skip found inappropriate to royalty. "Yeah. You tell him
that thing."

"I'll do that." She glanced behind her. Her
escorts were standing on either side of a brown-painted door, the
only surface in the room that wasn't decorated.

Delavon said, "I hear Turan work for Gus
Lozano." Some said the mob was more or less dead in New Orleans;
but Lozano was still operating, as close as the city got to a crime
boss.

"
That so?"

"Some funny rumors goin, 'round about Gus. What
you white po-lice know about it?"

It occurred to Skip that maybe she'd been taken to
Delavon so he could ask this question; he had the ridiculous idea she
could tell him something useful—and would.

Though she hadn't heard the funny rumors, she looked
Delavon straight in the eye. "He's on his way out."

Delavon nodded. "Yeah. That what we hear too."

He made some kind of tiny hand signal—Skip was
barely aware of movement—and once again she felt her elbows
grabbed. The blindfold was slipped in place.

When it came off, she was back in Treme, at the exact
spot where she'd been snatched. One of her guides returned her gun.

"
You be careful," he said. "Streets
full of badasses."
 
 

7

She planned to go to Kurt's that night, the bar
Justin Arceneaux had mentioned, but she couldn't see doing it before
nine or ten, giving the regulars time to filter in. A good thing
because she had dinner plans. All the people she loved best—two of
whom didn't care that much for each other—were getting together.

The two who didn't get along were Steve Steinman and
Skip's best friend and landlord, Jimmy Dee Scoggin ("Dee-Dee"
to Skip). From the moment Skip met Steve, Jimmy Dee had considered
him a rival (though Dee-Dee was ineligible by dint of sexual
preference). Steve had sensed his dislike and returned it.

But things were starting to change. For the first
time in years, Dee-Dee had a lover, and with Layne as a buffer, the
four of them could get through a double date with perfect civility.
Tonight there would be five, including their friend Cindy Lou
Wootten, sometime police psychologist. Despite her white-bread name,
Cindy Lou was black; and despite her Vogue-model appearance, she knew
the darkest secrets of the human heart, including such nuances as how
to handle Frank O'Rourke, the homicide sergeant whose life's work
seemed to be making Skip miserable.

They were going to Irene's, the Italian place down
the street.

Skip was looking forward to it like a kid—after the
humiliating events of the day, she needed diversion.

She was slipping on a silk tank top when she heard
Steve mumble something. '

"What?"

He walked into the bedroom. "Sorry. I can't get
used to this place. I thought you were two feet away."

"
It's better, though, isn't it? You can get a
beer without bumping into me."

"I kind of liked that aspect." He looked
around. "But I have to admit this is rather grand—I never saw
a slave quarters this big."

Skip's old apartment had been one room—one small
room—hardly big enough for two people to have a drink in. But Jimmy
Dee had taken it back when he decided to adopt his dying sister's two
kids and convert the entire Big House, as they now called it, to its
former use as a one-family home. He'd given Skip his own beautifully
restored slave quarters at her old rent, and she was in the process
of converting it from the quintessential bachelor quarters to an airy
oasis of plants and art—or as much art as she could afford.

Only now they called it the
garçonnière
.

The kids were from Milwaukee, and Dee-Dee wanted to
protect them from the city's brutal history.

"Well, Dee-Dee knocked out walls. They probably
had two or three families in here." She shook off the thought.
"Let's not dwell on it. I'm sure it wasn't fun, but at least no
one could be bothered haunting—they were all too glad to get out."

"Maybe the ghosts just don't like the color."
Skip had painted her living room cantaloupe.

"
Does that mean you don't like it?"

"Don't be so insecure. or course I like it."

"What were you saying when I didn't hear you?"

"I said it's not too late. We could change our
minds and go to Hebert's."

"Let's skip that, shall we? I've had kind of a
hard day." Exactly how hard she wasn't about to say. "Let's
go get the boys."

Layne hadn't yet arrived, and Jimmy Dee was still
getting dressed. Eleven-year-old Kenny barely looked up from his
television show. "Hey, Steve. Hey, Skip."

"That's Auntie Skip, Buster." Skip leaned
over the sofa to tickle him. His body jerked slightly, but he didn't
turn around to smile at her.

Getting ignored, she thought, was probably an
improvement. There'd been a time when he was so eager to please he'd
probably have jumped up and stood smiling, standing on one foot and
then the other, under similar circumstances. His sister Sheila, on
the other hand, had been such a tough customer at first that Jimmy
Dee started to regret he'd ever even thought of fatherhood.

Now they were both more relaxed: Kenny ruder, Sheila
more polite.

Sheila came down the hall her favorite way: off to a
running start, sliding the final third in her sock feet. She was
nearly fourteen and dressed like a grown-up when she felt like it.
She'd probably act like one when she was seventy-five.

"Auntie Skippy," she said.

"
Oh, can the 'Aunt' if I have to be Skippy."

"Why do you want to be called that, anyway?"

"It makes me feel loved."

Sheila rolled her eyes. Kenny didn't deign to
respond.

Steve said, "What are you two having for
dinner?"

"Uncle Jimmy said we could order from the Verti
Marte. But boy, is Geneese mad—she made greens."

"Y'all are so cruel," said Skip.

Kenny turned around, on his knees on the sofa. "Yuck.
I hate greens." He was much more animated than when he liked
something.

All to the good, Skip thought. He's settling in u
little more every day. Sheila was getting on her mark, ready to slide
back down the hall. "Hey, Steve," she said. "Why don't
you change your mind?"

"About what?"

She didn't answer until her run was over and she was
about to come out of the slide. At the last minute she turned briefly
back around. "Going home."

She disappeared into her room.