Murder in the Rue St. Ann (4 page)

She smiled at me. Her smile was amazing. It was huge. Her mouth was large,, and  when her lips moved into a smile to reveal large even white teeth it seemed to almost take over her face. She smiled with her teeth apart, making the allusion of a shark’s mouth even stronger. There was no menace in her smile, though, just joy. She seemed to be the kind of woman who liked to smile and liked to laugh loudly, long and hard.

We climbed up past two landings. It was a long way up and the stairs were steep. My calves were starting to burn a little bit, and my breath was coming a little shallower. She showed no signs of slowing the higher we climbed. She bounced from step to step— and in heels, no less. Her butt swung out with each movement, first to once side, then the other. She waited for me at the top. “It’s quite a climb,” she said charitably when I finally dragged myself up the last step.

I just nodded, humbled, as I caught my breath. I thought I was in better shape than that. She unlocked a large, warehouse-style door, and swung it out and open. She flicked a switch, and light filled a cavernous space. The floor was hard wood, polished to a shining mirror’s surface. The overhead lighting came from four wrought iron chandeliers—each with little flame-shaped bulbs that hung in a straight line from one end of the loft to the other. The blades of ceiling fans began to rotate creating an artificial breeze. Various pieces of unmatched furniture were strewn around the room; there had been  no visible attempt at feng shui. A loveseat was under a small window facing the river. A black leather couch with several worn spots in it was in the middle of the room and a couple of boxes in front of it apparently served as a coffee table. An ashtray, a couple of dirty plates, empty soda cans, and newspaper pages were scattered on top of them. Boxes and cartons were stacked in groupings that betrayed no sort of order. Some open boxes lay on their sides spilled out clothing, towels or sheets. In one corner there was a wrought iron bed half hidden by a Chinese screen with a fire dragon design in red, black,and orange emblazoned on it.  In another spot was a white screen with several lighting instruments in front of it. A lone bar stool stood crookedly in front of the screen, as though it were waiting for someone to pose on it. Dominique’s shoes clicked on the hardwood as she walked over to a little kitchenette area.

There was a stack of framed prints leaning against one wall. The print in front was a black and white photograph of a nude man with rippling muscles sitting sideways on the crooked stool as he brushed through his hair with his right hand. His head was tilted back, which made  his abdominal muscles rigid as a washboard. His legs were strong and muscular, and just a wisp of pubic hair peeked above his hip. His front foot  balanced on one of the rungs and  the other hung to the floor. But the most arresting thing about the photograph was the model’s eyes. Wide open and staring at the camera over his near shoulder with an air of nonchalant innocence, they were luminous and almond shaped and framed by long lashes that curled slightly. The eyes seemed to stare into my soul.

“Those aren’t his real eyelashes.” Dominique handed me a plate with a sandwich cut in half and surrounded by a handful of potato chips. A lengthwise slice of pickle nestled on the far edge of the plate. She laughed. “Everyone falls in love with his eyelashes, but they’re false. I applied and curled them myself. Something to drink? I have beer, whiskey, iced tea, or Diet Coke.”

“Iced tea.” She poured me a glass, then grabbed her own plate and led me to a small wrought iron table with a glass top. We sat down. “Did you take the picture?”

“Yeah. Photography is a kind of hobby of mine, a different way to express myself and be creative other than music.” She took a bite from her sandwich and peered at me. “You’ve got an interesting face. I’d like to photograph you sometime.” She reached across the table and grasped my face by the chin, turning it one way, then the other.

I was flattered. “I might take you up on that sometime.”
Wait’ll I tell Paul
, I thought to myself. Paul was a good-looking man. Whenever we went out, people hit on him, tried to buy him drinks, grabbed his ass, or touched his biceps. Nobody ever seemed to notice me when Paul was around. And Paul could be a little mean sometimes. Well, not mean, but unintentionally thoughtless. Even when he told me I looked good, there was always a criticism involved. “Those pants look great on you,” he’d say,  “and just think how great they’ll look when we tighten your butt up some more.”

So this was kind of a minor triumph. I wasn’t
that
ugly.

She let go of my face and smiled. “Let me know.” She winked at me. “Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I called you.” I nodded. “Have you heard of me?”

“I know you had a couple of hit dance records.” I didn’t really want to go too far in my research on her. I assumed this was an ego-driven question anyway.

My assumption was on target. She smiled again and fairly squirmed with delight. “Thank you. Anyway, I probably could have been bigger, but the
business
of show business, I just hated. I didn’t want to be really famous, you know—I just liked making good music.” She shrugged. “But my single-minded devotion to my career turned me into someone I didn’t like. I did whatever the record company and my agent told me to do—the interviews, the public appearances, all of that stuff. It ended up costing me my marriage.” She finished the second half of her sandwich, lit a Virginia Slim and  blew smoke into the blades of one of the ceiling fans. “After I filed for divorce, I had to stop and take stock of my life. I loved music, but music had taken over my life, and for what? So I could sleep in motels every weekend and wake to find myself  on a plane or in a car heading for the next show? So I could maybe sell a few more CD’s? Anyway I made a decision to get out of the business. I’ve always wanted to own a nightclub, so I decided on this place.”

“Why New Orleans? Are you from here?”

She laughed. “Hardly. I grew up in Buffalo, if you can imagine that. My father was a French Canadian merchant seaman named Pierre Levecque, and my mother was from the Dominican Republic. I wasn’t born Dominique DuPre—I became her. My real name is, of all things, Clarette Levecque. I always liked New Orleans when I came here to perform, I liked the people and the energy of the French Quarter. So I got myself some partners and sunk my life savings into Domino’s.” Another plume of smoke jetted upward. “And now someone is trying to ruin me.”

“How’s that?” I leaned forward.

“Somebody doesn’t want me to open this club,” She said with a shrug. “The battle I have had over the liquor license--you don’t even want to know how awful that was. We’ve been reported I don’t know how many times to the city for code violations, which has further delayed the opening. And we weren’t in violation of any codes! But all the work had to stop until the city inspectors came in and checked things out, and they never come quickly. We’ve lost weeks. I was hoping to be open for Southern Decadence...” she let her voice trail off. Then she looked me square in the eye. “My public relations company thinks the gay bars are trying to keep me from opening.”

“Why would they do that?”

“The competition, I guess.” She shrugged again. “As far as I can tell, there’s plenty of room for bars in the Quarter, don’t you think?”

“One would think.”

“Mark Williams, my p.r. guy, is convinced that the owners of the other bars here are trying to sabotage my club.” She sighed. “Two nights ago someone cut the power cable. That took another whole day to get repaired. Then someone called the phone company and got our phones turned off.” She stood up. “I’m losing money every day this club stays closed, Chanse. I mean, I didn’t mind it so much when they were causing trouble for me with the liquor board or the city inspectors--that was easy enough to rectify even though we lost time. But this other stuff has got to stop.” She sat back down and slammed her fist onto the table. “I won’t have it!”

“So, what do you want me to do for you?”

“I want you to find out who’s behind this all.” She smiled. “I can deal with it—but I have to know what I’m dealing with.

I explained my rates to her and got the contract I’d prepared out of my briefcase. She got up and grabbed a checkbook from a desk drawer. She wrote the check with savage strokes, tore it out,  and tossed it to me. She took the contract from me,  read through it, then signed her name in the same bold strokes before she handed it back to me.

“I’ll need a copy, if you don’t mind.” she said evenly.

I folded the check and slipped it into my wallet. “Of course. Mind if I fax it to you?”

“That’s fine.” She wrote down the number and handed it to me.

 I stuck my hand out to her. “Pleasure to meet you.”

She hesitated for a moment, then shook. “Please find out who is trying to ruin me, Chanse.”

“I’ll do my best, Dominique.” I put the contract back into my briefcase and stood to go.

“Talk to Mark.” She said as she led me to the door. “He’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

Attitude PR’s office was just around the corner from Domino’s, on St. Ann.

The Pub and Oz stood on opposing corners of Bourbon Street where it crossed St. Ann. The façades of the large clubs seemed to glower at each other in the sunshine as their rainbow flags waved in the breeze. I stood there for a minute, and stared at first one, then the other. Oz was getting a beer delivery.  The afternoon bartender—a gorgeous Cajun looking man with black hair and muscular forearms stood in the doorway and talked to the delivery man, who was smoking a cigarette. There were several people drinking and talking in the Pub, and I heard a Christina Aguilera remix.

How could there not be room for another dance club at this end of Bourbon Street? Both bars, despite their closeness, did good business. It always seemed to me they benefited from their proximity to each other; most people paid cover at both places and wandered between the two all night long. On holiday weekends, the street between them was bumper to bumper men. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to have another club just a short walk away? People wouldn’t choose one over the other—they hadn’t so far. Besides, a lot of people I knew stayed away from the crowds during the holidays. Another bar might just lure more of the locals to come down and party.

Attitude’s office was in a Creole cottage about halfway up the block in the direction of Dauphine Street.  Unlike the other buildings on the block, it wasn’t on the sidewalk. Instead,  it was set back behind a small yard, and blocked off from the sidewalk by a shoulder-height brick wall with broken glass imbedded in cement along the top. Just inside the wall, a huge flowering magnolia was visible through the wrought iron gate, which opened under a roll of a razor wire.  I was just reaching for the buzzer on the gate when the front door opened.

What on earth is Paul doing here?
I wondered as he shut the door behind him and came down the steps at a brisk clip. He stopped for a brief moment when he noticed me outside the gate. But then a big grin spread across his face. “Hey honey,” he said, opening the gate and kissing me on the cheek.

“Hey.” I brushed his arm with my hand. He was wearing a nice pair of pleated khaki shorts with a black ribbed tank top. Curly black hairs sprouted at the base of his throat. An errant black curl hung down on his forehead.  He had a strong nose, and bluish black shadow on his cheeks and chin from not shaving that morning.
He has the most beautiful blue eyes,
I thought. “What are you doing down here?”

“Oh.” He said.  He glanced back over his shoulder at the door. “The guy who runs Attitude wanted me to pose for the cover of their magazine. Isn’t that cool?” He gave me his big, winning grin again.

“Really?” Whatever I had been expecting to hear, it wasn’t that. I stood there, thinking, trying to remember what the covers of
attitude
looked like. I’d never really paid much attention to the magazine before. I noticed in passing. Sometimes I’d thumb through one in a bar when I was waiting for Paul to meet me, but I never kept it. I either left it where I found it or threw it in the trash on my way out.

 I did recall the covers were full-color and  glossy, and sometimes I thought the cover models were hot. I tried to remember what they wore, if anything. I was blanking on that.

He looked at me, his grin growing. “Are you surprised?”

“Well—“ Not really, now that I was thinking about it. So much for being asked to pose by Dominique.  If she ever met him, she’d forget all about me posing for her. Of course someone would want to put him on the cover of a magazine. Paul was a hot guy, a lot more attractive than me. His body was more defined, more proportionate, thicker. He could put on anything, look sexy, and get people to  look at him. He was built as well as any stripper or porn star I’d ever seen. Better than some, in fact. He looked just as good in his underwear as the guys on the boxes it came in.  And then there were the face and hair, his eyes.

 He was a great-looking guy. It made sense for someone to want him to model.  He
belonged
on magazine covers and underwear boxes.

“You don’t want me to do this?” he asked. His smile faded just a little bit, but his dimples were still there.

“I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest.” I replied. I felt my face getting hot. An image flashed into my mind— stacks and stacks of
Attitude
magazines. In my mind’s eye I saw guys leering at Paul’s picture, talking about how hot he was, how they’d like to fuck him or suck his dick or—