Orfeo (8 page)

She could hear Earl raving when she entered the house and scowled at the sound of his infantile behavior. Shaking her head, she paused by the hallway where her cook was tending to Ron, a robust man but not as young as he once was. There was blood on his face from a cut above his eye, and he was pale and shaking but looked otherwise unharmed.

“Are you okay?” she asked, bending down to look at him.

He nodded his head and grimaced. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I tried my best, but they was determined to get inside the house. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“That’s Earl,” she muttered under breath. To the cook she said: “Get this cleaned up and call for a doctor -”

“There’ll be no need for that,” Ron began to protest.

“Call for a doctor,” Ardyce insisted. “Don’t worry—I’ll sort out our visitor.”

As she entered the drawing room she could see Earl pacing back and forth, snarling out profanities to his henchmen who were seated or standing around the room. Suddenly her anger knew no bounds.

“How dare you!” she shouted, raising her voice so that he stopped his own cursing and stared at her in amazement. “How dare you enter my house again and strike one of my staff!”

Earl’s jaw dropped as he looked at her then it was his turn to scowl. His face, the white skin covered in a sheen of sweat, was angry, made even more livid in contrast to his thick, black hair.

“He was here, wasn’t he?” he retorted.

“Who?” she asked, in control of herself enough to feign innocence.

“That nigger singer, you fucking whore!”

Without warning, Ardyce strode across the room and, raising her hand, struck him with as much force as she could across the face. Although the blow was probably not enough for him to feel real pain, he lifted one of his gloved hands to his cheek and stared at her in shock as his three
loa
, taken unawares, jumped up and moved toward her threateningly.

“Don’t you
ever
talk to me that way again!” she hissed at him. Sensing the other three moving toward her, she glanced sideways and then, her face strangely composed, she directed her gaze to Earl once more. “Call off your dogs,” she said in a low voice.

“And what if I’m not minded to?” he asked maliciously, though his eyes flickered toward the other three.

“Don’t mistake who I am, Earl,” she replied. “I’m a Dubois, and that still means something around here. You might think you’re above the law, but my family has kept a pretty mayor or two over the generations. Your power counts for nothing here.”

He stared at her for a few seconds and Ardyce felt the other three pause behind her. Then, to her surprise, he began to laugh, a low chuckle at first that then became a full blown gale of laughter. She drew a step backwards and looked at him in confusion.

“Well, that’s true enough,” he said at last when his hilarity had subsided. “You’re a true Dubois.” He nodded toward Horse, Snake and Papa. “Easy does it,” he warned them. “We don’t want to upset the lady of the house now, do we.” Returning his attention to Ardyce, he said in a softer tone: “I apologize for my cussing.”

This caused her to raise an eyebrow. “Apology accepted.”

He leaned back on one arm against the fireplace. “None of this would have happened, if you had seen me this week. I don’t take kindly to being turned away.”

“I was ill.”

He made an O with his mouth at this, a mockery of surprise. “Is that the truth? Well, if I’d have known, I’d have been able to ease your pain better than some folk, I’m sure.” As he said this, his voice became like iron and he fixed her with eyes as hard as cold, blue steel.

Refusing to respond to this, she turned away and looked at the hulking figure of Horse before transferring her gaze to Snake. The tattooed woman watched her insolently, but she was able to hold her own. As for Papa, however, just visible at the end of her field of vision, Ardyce feared that if she caught his eye her self-resolve would crumble.

“Well, I’m better now. Take your thugs and leave, Earl.”

“Oho! Thugs now, is it? I remember a time when you enjoyed the company of me and my associates. We showed you all the pretty things that a bored little girl couldn’t dream of finding by herself.”

Once more she refused to be riled. Annoyed, Earl took a step forward and grabbed her arm. Shocked that he had actually touched her, for a second fear flickered across Ardyce’s face but she quickly mastered herself.

“Let me go!” she hissed.

“Don’t you worry,” he snarled back at her. “I’ll go, soon enough as I’ve delivered my piece. I’m just thinking, ain’t it strange how the same week our pretty mistress of Xanadu hides away, that cocksucking nigger singer doesn’t show up at Apollo’s—nor anywhere else in town, for that matter, ain’t that right, Papa?”

“Certainly is,” the elegantly-dressed black man responded.

Fury in her eyes, Ardyce yanked at her arm, oblivious to the pain she was causing herself. Seeing that she would not relent, Earl released his grip.

“Don’t you
ever
talk to me about him!” she said at last.

He watched her intently, bending slightly so that his face was only a few inches away from hers. “Is that so?” he asked at last. “Well, I’ll never mention him again, but I will
promise you this, little girl. If I ever learn that he has so much as laid a finger on you, then that day will be the last that nigger ever sees on Earth.”

Lifting himself up to full height, he looked toward his
loa
, his face fixed in an expression of fake bonhomie. “Well, I think that’s all we can do here today. I’ve said my piece, and I wouldn’t like to keep Miss Dubois from her rest, she feeling sick and all.” He gestured toward the door, indicating for his companions to leave.

Ardyce said nothing as he walked past her, rubbing her arm which was sore from his grip, and now genuinely frightened as to what fate lay in store for Orfeo. Before he left, Earl paused in the doorway, his wide back hunched up in a strange posture of anxiety. When he turned his head and looked back toward her, his gloved fists balled up by his side, she was surprised to see that his face was pained.

“You will be mine again, Ardyce,” he said quietly, so that none of the others would be able to hear. “I promise you, you will be mine.”

Before she could make any answer, he had turned away from her again and walked quickly away from the door, his fists now flexing in fury as he strode out of the room.

When Baptiste called at Xanadu in the evening he was feeling somewhat pleased with himself, smug even. He had uncovered a secret that he was sure Ardyce would wish to know.

The first dent in his armor of self-satisfaction occurred when the door was opened by Beatrice. Rather than greeting him with a sunny, open smile as was her wont, she glanced nervously through the peephole, calling out and ensuring that Baptiste was truly Mister Roussel before she opened the door to him. Her anxiety was clear on her face and Baptiste frowned, his enthusiasm faltering a little as he entered the house and felt the heavy atmosphere that lay all around him, its heaviness due not to the humidity of the summer for a change.

If he had faltered a little when Beatrice had greeted him, he deflated altogether at the sight of Ardyce herself. She was sitting nervously on a bench by the window, her hands tearing at each other on her lap and, seeing her friend and confidante, the most she could manage when he entered the room was a forced half-smile. She was wearing a light, cotton dress that made her look younger in its simplicity.

“What is it?” he said, crossing immediately to her side and taking her battling fingers in his own hands.

For a few seconds undecipherable emotions crossed her features as she struggled to find the words. At last, unable to hide the truth either from him or herself she said simply: “They’re going to kill him.”

Baptiste was not such a fool as to require further explanation, but for a while he was stunned by the news and incapable of offering even the most trite words of comfort. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before asking: “Were they here?”

Ardyce nodded.

“And... did they see him?”

She looked at him silently, her lips and nostrils trembling, her beautiful green eyes brimming with tears. She had never looked more lovely, thought Baptiste as he gazed at her. For a dreadful moment he understood perhaps just a little of what Earl must feel, how unwilling he was ever to let this woman escape from him.

Shaking her head, she answered him at last: “No, no, I don’t think so. But they
know
.”

He nodded slowly. To offer her false words now would be an insult: whatever Earl’s vices, stupidity was not one of them. Ardyce had locked herself away from all aspects of New Orleans society, no matter how briefly, and the mysterious singer who had attracted such attention had already disappeared. Minds much less sharp than Earl’s were already gossiping in Apollo’s and elsewhere.

“They’re going to kill him,” she repeated in little more than a whisper, and now the tears began to flow, her shoulders shaking as she was unable to hold back her sobs any more.

Comforting her as her head fell onto him, Baptiste placed an arm around her and rocked her gently back and forth. “There, there,” he murmured. “They haven’t got him yet, and I think this young man has more wits than you give him credit for.”

Forcing herself into a more dignified state, Ardyce pushed her head back up and gladly accepted the handkerchief that Baptiste offered her. She nodded and smiled weakly.

“I must say,” he mused at last, “this has somewhat reduced the pleasure of my own news that I was coming to bring you.”

“What’s that?” she asked, frowning, stray locks of her auburn hair falling down across her pale, lightly freckled brow.

Despite her distress, he could not resist a grin. “I’ve found him.”

For a second Ardyce’s frown remained fixed but then, forgetting if only momentarily the cause of her fears and grief, a smile broke out like sunlight piercing the clouds. “Really?” she asked. “You’ve found Orfeo?”

Baptiste nodded, his eyes twinkling with joy.

“Where—where? You
must
tell me.”

“Oh, foolish girl!” he mock reprimanded her. “I’ve been bursting to tell you since I found out. He’s currently in the Quarter. A place off the
Vieux Carré
for the past six months or so.”

A look of ecstasy at this simple news passed over Ardyce’s face, and she squeezed Baptiste’s hands with her fingers. “How do you know?” she asked.

Releasing one of her hands, he lifted a bony finger to his nose and tapped it above the trim moustache. “Never ask an old queen to reveal his secrets. I have my sources.”

“Of course, of course! Not that it matters.” Abruptly, the shining light in her eyes faded and her face dropped to her chest. Stifling a sob, she spoke so quietly that her friend almost failed to hear her: “We must warn him. We
must
!”

Less than an hour later Baptiste and Ardyce were in a cab traveling toward the French Quarter. Their driver was not a native of the city, and spoke to them with some kind of European or Middle Eastern accent, probably Greek or Turkish Baptiste surmised from his complexion. Ardyce made no response and so it was left to Baptiste to deal with the driver’s small talk.

All the time the radio was playing and, at one point, the man leaned forward to turn up the volume slightly. The music had been interrupted by a news report, and all the occupants of the cab could not help but hear—among stories of violent crime and accusations of corruption—the predictions that the hurricane season would be particularly damaging.

“It looks as though it will be bad this year, no?” the driver asked.

“Perhaps,” Baptiste replied. “They make the same sorts of predictions every year, it seems.”

The other man shrugged at this. “I hope you’re right, friend. If it gets too bad I wonder why I ever left the Mediterranean.”

Baptiste made a noncommittal sound in agreement and left the driver to continue his chatter. Looking across at Ardyce, he saw that she was chewing her lips anxiously, watching the city pass them by and urging the taxi on faster and faster.

“Just here will do,” Baptiste said at last, gesturing to the sidewalk. They had passed some of the beautiful buildings that were being preserved, multi-storey ironwork galleries and red or blue walls looking down on the streets below. Now, however, they had turned into a side street where the houses were less-well maintained, some of them shabby and even semi-derelict. Somewhere before them lay the Mississippi, flowing ever on behind the levees that conducted its slow, pulsing rhythm through the city.

As Ardyce waited on the sidewalk, pulling her coat across the thin fabric of her dress, Baptiste paid the driver. After this he crossed over to her, gesturing toward one of the nearby doorways. The door itself was dark brown, the paint peeling from the wood and a rusted iron gate closed in front of it. The rest of the building looked similarly dilapidated but lights were shining from the floors above their heads and they could hear the sound of music and laughter. The sun had barely set and already the sky was sliced into two parts: to the west, they could just make out glimmering twilight while to the east darkness covered the heavens.