Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 13 - The Diamonds of Ghost Bayou (16 page)

“An eyesore, huh? But that was part of the deal. I had to keep
them or turn back the house. Nutty, huh? After he got killed, I
just forgot about the railings.” He sipped his drink and held up
the glass to me. “Sure you don’t want another?”

I shook my head. I rose and glanced around. “You must have
a pretty good business.”

“Not bad. I rent the place out for horror films four or five times
a years. Pays the mortgage. With my Social Security, what’s left
of my teacher retirement, and the tours, I manage.”

I extended my hand. “Thanks for the time.”

“No problem. I enjoyed it.”

He led the way back through the house.

“One other thing,’ ‘I said. “L. Q. Benoit. You know him?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “The town thief. Yeah. He’s
sneaky, nosy as sin. He and his pals are like leeches. They grab
everything that isn’t nailed down.”

“His pals? You mean Primeaux and Vitale?”

He nodded. “Yeah. That’s them. Wouldn’t trust any of them
any farther than I could throw this house.”

“They’re all dead,” I replied.

“Dead?” Then he snorted. “Well, it doesn’t surprise me. Someone was bound to run them down or shoot them. Like I said, they
were no good.” He opened the front door. “Just a minute.” He
fumbled in his shirt pocket and handed me a ticket. “Why don’t
you take the tour tonight? On me.”

I took the proffered ticket. “Can you spare another? I’ve got
a friend.”

“Sure. Here you go.”

I paused on the gallery outside the front door and looked
around. Dusk had settled over the city. The narrow streets and
cracked sidewalks were growing crowded with tourists. Lilting strains of accordions accompanied by fiddle music poured from
the open doorways into the street.

The last hour or so with Jimmy Ramsey had given me nothing more than a strong feeling that he had no interest in the
whereabouts of the diamonds. His story supported both Lester
Percher’s version of the diamonds and Dople’s murder.

From what little Ramsey had said about Benoit and his drinking buddies, I was more convinced than ever that the old man
had learned something about the diamonds in prison. It wasn’t
too much of a stretch to figure that the deaths of his two pals
were for the same reason.

Someone had been convinced the two knew the location of the
diamonds. In all probability, the poor drunks might have been
caught in a no-win situation. The only way they could stop the
beatings was if they revealed the secret of the diamonds.

Why didn’t they? The only explanation was, they didn’t know.

Benoit, on the other hand, probably knew. Why didn’t he
speak up, unless he knew he was dead anyway?

When I turned the corner off Royal onto Toulouse, I glimpsed
a long-haired man dart into a passageway halfway down the
block. For a moment, I thought I recognized him, but just as
quickly I dismissed the notion. The French Quarter was full of
strange-looking characters.

When I passed the passageway, I peered down it. The far
end was consumed by inky darkness. I guessed a courtyard lay
beyond.

A few drops of rain struck my face. I paused in front of the
Lafitte Courtyard and glanced south toward Canal Street. A
white veil of rain raced up the narrow street toward me. I stepped
inside just as the rain struck.

Upstairs, I knocked on Diane’s door.

There was no answer.

I listened closely for footsteps and knocked again.

Still no answer.

A shiver of panic ran up my spine.

Just as I started to beat on the door, I heard Diane call out,
“Who is it?”

A thousand-pound weight slipped off my shoulders. “Me.
Tony.”

“Just a minute.” I heard the clatter of the safety chain, and
then the door opened. She smiled up at me, her eyes puffy with
sleep, her short brown hair tousled.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” I muttered.

She smiled sleepily. “I was awake. I was just lying there, enjoying the peace and quiet.” She stepped back and opened the door.
“Come on in.” She made a sweeping gesture at the living area,
which had kitchen facilities, a foldout couch, a TV, and a small
table. “Sorry I don’t have anything to offer other than water.”

“No problem. I just wanted to see if you were getting hungry.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Are you kidding? That hamburger’s
down to my toes”

I skimmed over the details of my conversation with Jimmy
Ramsey as we walked the few blocks to the Acme Oyster
House on Iberville Street. Walking is the most efficient means
of transportation within the French Quarter. The narrow streets
allow for only a single vehicle; that’s why most of the streets are
one-way.

Dusk had given way to night. Tourists and revelers filled the
sidewalks, unlike other sections of New Orleans, especially since
Katrina. The local law was plainly visible.

The Acme, upon first glance, appeared nothing more than a
hole-in-the-wall, but inside, it was jam-packed with fantastic service and even more fantastic food. A ten-star on anyone’s
five-star grid.

Diane ordered the oyster platter, I ordered the shrimp platter,
and, as when we were married, we split our entrees with each
other.

During the meal, I went into more detail about the visit with
Jimmy Ramsey, and she squealed with delight when I showed
her the tickets he’d given us.

“A real haunted house?” she asked, dabbing a piece of golden
oyster in sauce and popping it into her mouth. “What’s it like?
Have I heard about it?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, and around a bite of shrimp, I
explained. “The madame of the house was named Dupre. She’d
married a count or something back in the early 1800s. Story is,
she tortured her servants, and they came back to haunt her.”

“Why didn’t someone do something about it? The law? They
had the law back then, didn’t they?”

“Her husband was too influential. When asked about it, he
just brushed it off. He was too important for the law to dispute
his word. Anyway, a couple of years later, the house burned.
That’s when the Dupres’ secret came out.”

Diane stared at me, her fork poised in midair, a bite-sized
chunk of golden oyster motionless on the tines. “So, what then?”

“A local judge watching the fire heard screams from inside. When he asked Dupre if there were people inside, Dupre
rebuffed him. Later that night the Dupres disappeared. While
inspecting the building the next morning, city officials discovered charred bodies.”

Wide-eyed, she stared at me. “What about the Dupres?”

“Gone. They still had friends in New Orleans. That’s how they
got their money out. Legend has it, they sailed to Barbados,
where they continued carrying out their savage tortures.”

Diane shivered, then popped the oyster between her lips.
“Creepy. I don’t know if I want to go there or not.”

“It’s just old stories, embellished over the years. She probably slapped a servant once, and the story grew from there.”

By the time we left the Acme, it was almost seven. We headed toward Bourbon Street. “If we hurry,” I said, “we can catch the
eight o’clock tour at the Dupre House.”

Diane made a face. “Let’s take the later one.” She gestured at
all the bright lights of Bourbon Street. “I want to play tourist.
Maybe get a drink or two.” She linked her arm through mine
and laid her head on my shoulder. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I replied reluctantly, remembering San Antonio.
“Maybe just one.”

Bourbon Street was jumping. Of course, it’s always jumping, and as the night grows older, it jumps even higher. The first
couple of blocks, we just ambled along, pausing to glance inside the open doors that screamed, “Come in, sinner, come in,
come in.”

We found a corner bar with folding doors opening onto the
sidewalk. For the next thirty minutes, we each nursed our vodka
Collins and watched the crowds pass. I grew a little antsy when
she asked for another.

Sometime later, I spotted an empty carriage. Grabbing Diane
by the arm, I exclaimed, “Come on. Let’s take a carriage ride.”

It was a little two-bench surrey with fringe, pulled by an ancient mule that knew every turn on his route. For the next thirty
minutes we toured the Quarter, ending up at Jackson Square
right across from the Cafe du Monde, where we dunked beignets in some of the best coffee ever brewed.

I glanced at my watch. Almost ten. “Time to go,” I announced,
pushing back from the table and offering her my hand.

The artists, fortune-tellers, and Tarot card readers were still
out along the esplanade around Jackson Square, all clamoring
for our attention as we passed.

The next block over, we turned on Royal Street and ten minutes later climbed the stairs to the front door of the Dupre house.

Counting Diane and me, there were fifteen tourists standing about in the shadowy foyer, illumined only by half a dozen
flickering candles.

I looked around for Ramsey, but the paunchy man was nowhere to be seen. Moments later, a slender figure in black entered, wearing a sweeping cape. In the dim light, his sallow face stood out in sharp contrast to his shoulder-length black hair and
clothing.

He introduced himself as Pierre, a grandson six times removed from the Count and Madame Dupre. His first order of
business was collecting tickets and, in some instances, cash.

I did some fast figuring in my head. Fifteen suckers at twenty
bucks a head for two tours added up to six hundred a night. Not
bad, not bad, not bad.

Maybe there was something to be said for the haunting business.

Holding a guttering candle at chest level so the shadows cast
his face in eerie relief, Pierre quickly gave us the background of
his ancestors before leading us into an adjoining room, replete
with manacles hanging from two walls, and a cat-o’-nine-tails
on another. Along one wall and floor were gruesome stains, purportedly the blood of those who had been held there, stains that
continued, even after two hundred years, to resist all efforts to
remove them.

Shivering, Diane wrapped both her arms around my right
arm as we ascended a flight of stairs.

At the top, our guide pointed out a series of slab doors, each
with a tiny window through which one could see a small cubicle.

Muted groans and shivers emanated from the tourists.

Diane stood on tiptoe and whispered in my ear, “This gives
me the creeps.”

I squeezed her hand. “Me too”

Slowly, the curious tourists filed by the cubicles, mumbling
soft “ohs” and “ahs” as they passed.

In the next room dangled four nooses. In a low, macabre voice,
our guide whispered, “The fire that consumed my ancestors’
home permitted the populace of New Orleans to witness horrors
beyond description.”

Amid an undercurrent of apprehensive gasps, the crowd of
tourists shrank away from the nooses. I saw a glitter of amusement in our guide’s eyes.

And then in a swift, sharp move, he spun to face us, pulling
his cape up over his lips. He glared at us in a manner that reminded me of old Bela Lugosi movies. With a black-gloved
hand, he pointed to a door at the top of a flight of stairs. “But
nothing,” he hissed, “drove terror into the city’s bones as much
as the next room to which you will bear witness.”

The door at the top of the stairs opened onto a candlelit balcony overlooking a chamber two floors below. High above, a large
chandelier with dim lights replicating guttering candles cast
gloomy shadows over the room.

Below, floodlights illumined a macabre torture chamber like
something out of a medieval castle. A collective gasp filled the
room, followed by a brief soliloquy from our guide elaborating
on the scene.

A walkway spanned the chamber, leading from our balcony
to another on the far wall. Speaking softly among themselves,
the crowd began filing across, a few pausing to study the chilling scene below.

Diane and I brought up the rear.

Just before she and I reached the far side, I heard a hissing
sound. I glanced up and spotted the enormous chandelier hurtling
toward us. I lunged forward, slamming my hand into Diane’s back
and knocking her forcibly into the crowd. The chandelier struck,
and the walkway began to fall. I made a frantic leap for the railing
on the perimeter of the balcony.