Lost River (41 page)

Valentin said, "That's right."

"He doesn't fit the pattern," the cop said.

"Then maybe he was practice. For him. Or her."

"I guess I still don't understand what she wanted," Each said. "Don't make no sense."

Valentin was about to comment when Justine spoke up. "She didn't want to have to live out the rest of her life as some rich man's wife," Justine said. "In his shadow. She wanted something of her own."

"She couldn't find a hobby?" Anderson quipped, and the men laughed.

Justine was serious. "She didn't want a hobby. She wanted a treasure."

Whaley eyed Valentin. "What I don't understand is why she dragged you into it."

Justine answered for him. "He was the only one who everybody in the District trusted. She probably found that out from Louis, too."

"But he wasn't working up here no more," Frank said.

"They knew he couldn't stay out of it," she said. "Not once the killings started."

Valentin noted the accusing tone in her voice and kept silent.

"She was going to draw him in, one way or another. And he took the bait." Now she looked at the detective squarely.

Valentin nodded and said, "Yes, I did."

"But in case he tried to turn the tables, she had Louis show up with his pistol and hold me hostage. He was supposed to get rid of me if Valentin didn't do his part. That was the plan."

Now it was Valentin's turn. "But first he had to pull
you
in."

She nodded. "That's right. And that's what he did."

The men waited for her to offer something more. She preferred to let them wonder.

"No, that's not what happened," Valentin said suddenly. "Did you set him up?" She started to smile. "Did you?"

"I'm not stupid, Valentin."

"I never thought you—"

"I watched you. And listened to you. For a long time." She regarded him with a distracted smile. "It was too easy. This fellow appears at the same time you're heading back to Storyville? I thought about that right away."

"So you..."

Her eyebrows arched on her latte flesh. "So I led him along. Let him think he might get his way with me."

The Creole detective dropped his gaze without asking how far it had gone. He had no right to the information.

"He wasn't that hard," she went on. "He had such a big head. He never had any idea that I was..."

"Playing him," Valentin said. She thought for a moment, then nodded. "To protect me."

"Well, I didn't know he was going to pull a gun," Justine said, and once more the table broke up in laughter.

Valentin gazed at her, then looked at Frank and shook his head in wonder. The Sicilian smiled and pinched his fingers in a familiar gesture of respect. Humbled, Valentin didn't know what to say.

Justine was watching his face, thinking her own thoughts. Now she rose from her chair and moved to sit in his lap, wrap one arm around him, and use the fingers of her free hand to raise his chin so she could look into his eyes. The others at the table drew aside for some small talk, letting them be.

After a little while, he murmured something to her, then leaned over to ask Whaley to bring the car around. When the Ford rattled to the curb outside, they stood and said their good-byes.

A hundred miles up the river and then inland another ten, Charles sat up in his bed, awakened by a vague dream. The ward was dead quiet, and he slipped from under his sheets and padded out into the corridor. The attendant who was supposed to be watching was slouched in the chair in his little office, dead to the world and snoring like a pig.

Charles made his way to the end of the hallway and the little alcove with the arched window. Though it was dark outside, a veiled moon was up. He could not see the river, but believed he could feel it out there in this hour before dawn. The thought and the image in his mind took him back to a room full of sound, light, and motion, a stage, and another window. He remembered how he put the bell of his horn over the sill and into the night and blew; blew so hard, some said, that they could hear him in Algiers, all the way on the other side of the river.

That had been long ago and far away, and now he felt it all slipping away from him, dissolving like paint in muddy water, but it was all right. Standing there, his sharp face bathed in soft moonlight, he thought of something else, and smiled.

Whaley drove off in the direction of Spain Street. Halfway there, Valentin tapped his shoulder and directed him south and west.

The Model T pulled to a stop by the levee. Valentin stepped down and offered Justine his hand. They began a slow ascent of the slope. Whaley called out, asking if they wanted him to wait. The detective told him to go on; they'd find their way home.

They stood atop the rise, looking out over the river as it flowed through the last minutes of the night. They could hear the quiet gurgle as the water lapped at the banks. A half mile or so off, a freighter drifted as silent as a ghost, with only the lights on its port and stern to define it against the inky shadows.

Valentin felt the warmth of her body at his side and started to say something, but it caught in his throat. Justine understood and allowed herself the smallest sweet sigh. She raised her eyes and stared into his as if she could read his thoughts. After a moment, she drew back, bemused.

"I didn't do anything with that boy," she said. "Did you really think I'd be that much of a fool? He was nothing." She stared more deeply. "And I would never do that to you," she said.

Valentin watched her for long seconds. Then he bent his mouth to her ear and whispered, "Marry me."

DAVID FULMER'S first novel,
Chasing the Devil's Tail,
was a finalist for the
Los Angeles Times
Mystery/Thriller Book Prize and the winner of the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. In addition to the four-book Storyville series, he has published two other historical mystery novels centered on music:
The Dying Crapshooter's Blues
and
The Blue Door.
He has written for the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, Southline,
National Public Radio, the
All Music Guide,
and
Blues Access
magazine. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his daughter, Italia.

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JACKET PHOTOCRAPH BY FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON.
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AUTHOR PHOTOCRAPH © MICHAEL RILEY

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