“Published in Boston, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, in 1845. She had some amusing comments on dining etiquette—a far cry from ‘grabbing a po’ boy sandwich,’ I’m afraid.”
“You have some old volumes in that case over there,” I said, pointing to the glass-fronted and locked cabinet.
“They are the more valuable items,” Gambrinus said. I thought he wanted to terminate the conversation and get me out but his pride in his books got the better of him.
“
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
,” he said with a nod to a leather-bound volume. “First edition, 1891. Probably worth four thousand dollars. This one next to it is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
The Secret Garden.
It has been described as the most satisfying of all children’s books, worth two to three thousand.”
“You have a Hemingway here,” I said. “Is that a first edition? Must be—being in such illustrious company.”
“Actually, it’s a later printing but it’s signed and inscribed by Hemingway so it would probably bring about five thousand. There are a lot of Hemingway fans who are collectors.”
“
Lolita,
” I said skeptically. “Should that be in this case?”
Gambrinus laughed, a deep rumbling laugh. “Worth more than all these others!”
“Surely not?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a first edition, printed in 1955. You find it hard to believe that I wouldn’t sell that book for under ten thousand dollars?”
“Very. Guess I don’t know that much about the book business.”
“Sold a first edition of
The Great Gatsby
the other day,” Gambrinus said. “Three thousand. An even more recent book,
The English Patient,
brings a thousand—or even more if it’s in top condition. First editions of Harry Potter books bring over twenty thousand,” he added disparagingly.
All through these interchanges, he had been edging me closer and closer to the door and when I reached it, I made the required move. As the bell clanged behind me, I was thinking that Michael Gambrinus wasn’t a hot candidate for the villain but I wasn’t going to rule him out of having had some complicity.
Rain was threatening but didn’t have enough conviction yet. A faint smell of marsh grass was in the air, presumably wafted in by breezes from the bayou country. Some seagulls were performing aeronautical maneuvers at low altitude and a man in all black leather clothes was tooting on a flute. He had silver buttons, silver beads, silver epaulets and a big silver buckle on his black belt. His face was darker than his clothes and his flute-playing was clearly influenced by James Galway although this fellow had not had as much practice.
I was standing in Jackson Square, not far from the hotel. It was one of the historic sights of New Orleans according to the guidebooks in the hotel lobby. I hadn’t got to the history yet, having stopped to watch a mime while nearby, a spindly-legged fellow spun a bicycle tire on his head while tap-dancing a Bojangles Robinson number. A young woman, probably a music student, played a violin with a good deal of flair and I strolled on past the redbrick Pontalba Apartments, said by the guide book to be the first apartment buildings in America.
Shutters were snapping closed furiously for it was obviously among the most photographed sights in the city. A tour group from Scotland was listening intently to their guide explaining in a thick Glaswegian accent how the apartments had been built by the Baroness Pontalba after she had been shot and wounded by her husband who then shot himself dead.
The guide went on to fill in the details of the scandal that involved many famous names in New Orleans and in Europe. The baroness had been a fine businesswoman, though, she said. When “the Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind, performed in the city, she stayed in the Pontalba and after the singer departed for home, the baroness held an auction and sold off—at a handsome profit—all the furniture from the apartment in which Jenny Lind had stayed.
The statue of Andrew Jackson, general and later president, sits proudly on his charger in the center of the square. I edged close to the Scottish tourists to hear the guide tell about him. “If you visit South America,” she was saying, “you will see this same statue in many cities. It was so admired by the dictators of so many countries there, that orders rolled in. The sculptor simply mass-produced the statue and put a different head on each one—that of the country’s leader.”
A bunch of chattering schoolchildren crossed the square, clearly excited at the release from educational captivity, while teachers at front and back watched in earnest desperation for stragglers.
As the afternoon drew on, more musicians came onto what had been, in turn, an execution square, a military parade ground and a town square. The chords of half a dozen instruments sort of blended into a harmonious cacophony even though the players were unconnected. Many of the benches were occupied and people sat by the fountain. A clown appeared and immediately attracted the attention of the schoolchildren while a tarot-card reader was getting a hard time from a dissatisfied customer who thought her future should be more glamorous than was being depicted.
At the Decatur Street end of Jackson Square were ranks of open carriages. They had a convincingly romantic look to them and appeared to be doing good business. I had assumed at first glance that they were horse-drawn but now I saw that the pulling power came from mules, not horses. The animals were decked with ribbons and flowers and a couple wore straw hats at jaunty angles.
The leisurely atmosphere in the square applied to both residents and tourists. No one seemed in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything. It was very relaxing, and that was how I came to notice a hurrying figure going by the fountain. He was the only person in sight who was in a hurry.
He wore a checked suit in light gray which appeared to be almost a uniform, and the light gray cap with a brim added to that impression. I was looking away when a third item brought me back to look at him again—this time, his face.
How could he be familiar? Then I recognized him—it was the man from the
Delta Duchess
who had offered me the phony Belvedere book.
I watched his fast stride take him across the square. He was moving in the direction of the ranks of the carriages. To my surprise, he took down a sign advertising tours and dropped it out of sight in the passenger seat. He climbed into the driver’s seat, took up a whip, flicked it and released the hand-brake. The horse reared its head, stamped its forefeet to restore circulation and pulled away from the curb.
I dodged between musicians, tourists, mimes, clowns, schoolchildren, nurses, contortionists and hot-dog stands as I hurried toward the rank of carriages. In one of them, a West Indian driver with a luxuriant mustache was already sitting in the driving seat. He looked ready for hire and I jumped in behind him.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard myself saying, “Follow that mule!”
A
FLIGHT OF PIGEONS
took to the air, apparently small friends of the mule’s. The
clip-clop
of the mule’s shoes had a friendly rhythm and we rolled past restaurants and coffee shops that ringed around the square. We went west along Decatur Street then turned left onto St. Ann Street, which was apparently one-way.
A small painted sign said the driver/owner was Benjamin and as we made the turn, he asked affably, “Where you want to go, man? Don’t seem like you really want to follow that mule.” He flicked his whip, pointing ahead to where the other carriage was just in sight.
“I do,” I told him. “He’s a friend of mine. I just saw him pulling away but couldn’t catch him in time.”
He nodded as if satisfied, but after a pause that lasted two blocks, he asked, “What’s his name, man?”
He had me there. I could have pretended a memory lapse but didn’t think it would sound convincing. I said with a laugh, “Oh, I’m sure you know him. You see him every day.”
“Yeah.” He sounded sour and cracked the whip loudly in emphasis. “Sixty bucks he owes me now. He ain’t ever gonna pay me, man.” He looked back over his shoulder at me. “’Course, if he’s a friend o’ yours, shouldn’t be saying that.”
“He’s not exactly a friend,” I said. Maybe any man who was out sixty dollars was more of a friend than my quarry was.
“Figured that,” said Benjamin, and spat expertly into the gutter.
“Know him well?”
“Nah. None of us do. He don’t associate with us.”
“What kind of a guy is he?”
“Not for me to say,” Benjamin muttered. That meant he was going to say, so I waited. After half a minute, it came. “Owes a lot of the drivers; it ain’t just my sixty bucks. If you ask me, he got his finger in a lot o’ places it shouldn’t ought to be.”
“Trouble with the law?”
He looked at me over his shoulder. “You’d know more about that.”
“I meant the local law. I just got into town.”
“Don’t know if he’s ever done time, but guys come around asking questions about him. Some lawmen, some others.”
We were still going north, through the French-Quarter, and we crossed Rampart Street, one of the infrequent intersections to have a street sign. A large park loomed on the left and he saw me looking. “Louis Armstrong Park,” he said. “Know who he is?”
“Everybody in the world knows Satchmo.”
He grinned. “You right on, there.” The mule trotted along happily. Ahead, the other carriage was just in sight. The driver read my mind. “He won’t think nuthin’ of us behind him—even if he sees us, which he probably won’t. See us carriages all over the city.”
He beat me to it, “You don’t sound like a cop. Private?”
“Not from round here.”
“Figured that. Interpol, I bet.”
“You’re a shrewd fellow. So what’s his name?”
“Earl Whelan. Want him bad, huh?”
“Don’t want to lose him.”
“We won’t. Don’t you worry none. Myrtle’s the best in the city—ain’t you, old girl?”
A flick of the tail indicated that the mule recognized her name as she plodded steadily along. “Females make better carriage mules than male—you know that?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s good to know, though.”
He laughed, a chuckling, half-wheezy laugh. We passed underneath State Highway 10, thick with traffic. Darkness was falling fast.
“Still heading toward the lakeshore, aren’t we?” I knew the city from looking at maps and had a rough idea of the layout.
“Right, but we ain’t goin’ there.”
“We’re not? Why, do you know where he lives?”
“No, but he don’t live lakeshore, you can be sure o’ that. More likely, he live where we comin’ in now. Old Metairie, got a famous cemetery here, lotsa folks visit it. You into cemeteries?”
“Not before my time—and that’s not yet,” I told him, and got a deep chuckle.
It was a marginal neighborhood, not downright slum but not too appealing: rows of small houses on narrow streets. We had moved closer to the other carriage now that the traffic was much lighter, and Benjamin slowed Myrtle’s steady step. “Gonna nail him?” he asked eagerly.
“Not right away. I want to watch him a bit longer. See who he’s with.”
“When you cuff him, can I get my sixty bucks first?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Wanna watch him so’s you can get the rest o’ the gang too, huh?”
“Something like that.”
After a few minutes of slower progress due to the narrow streets and clogging traffic, Benjamin said, “He’s stopped.”
“Stay back but keep him in sight.” I said it the way any Interpol operative would say it, crisp and commanding.
We stopped a full block away and across the street. The houses here were old and looked none too firm. The one that Whelan approached had a large building on the side. Whelan opened a door, then a bigger one swung open. It was a barnlike structure and he proceeded to back the carriage into it, disconnect it, then put the mule in there, too.
“Is that legal?”
Benjamin shrugged. “’Round here they don’t care. Long as they get the rent.”
Whelan closed the larger door from the inside. We waited and watched. It was probably ten minutes or so and we were both feeling impatience. I had to prevent mine from showing—Interpol agents should be used to long vigils.
A door in what had to be the attached house opened and a figure came out. It was female and she wore a long coat. She strode off along the street, away from us.
“Follow her,” I said. “Just close enough to get a look at her.” She was fairly tall and had a long swinging stride. She looked to have dark hair but I had to wait until we reached an intersection where there was enough light before I could see her properly. “Slow down,” I said urgently. “Don’t get any closer.”
“Get a good look at her?” asked Benjamin eagerly.
“Good enough,” I said. It was good enough—for me to recognize her. She was Leah Rollingson, the part-Chinese beauty who had been one of the Witches’ kidnapping team.
We followed, keeping nearly a block behind. I recalled Emmy Lou Charbonneau’s words: “We think one of the Witches is mixed up in this.” Did she—or one of her sister Witches—know or at least suspect more than that? Did one of them know who it was and what her involvement was?
Ahead, a wide street crossed the one we were on. It was lit, and traffic buzzed by. Leah turned onto it and stopped.
“Bus stop,” Benjamin said, slowing down his mule. “Number thirty-six, goes all the way ’cross town.”
“Let’s wait. She may have something else in mind.”
We watched, and within a few minutes a bus came. She did not have anything else in mind—she got on the bus and we watched it until it disappeared from sight. Benjamin shook his head. “No way Myrtle can catch that,” he said.
“I didn’t think so. Let’s go back to the house.”
We parked a block away. “You’d better stay here. I won’t be long.”
He shook his head firmly. “No way, man. I’m comin’ with you.”
“You don’t have to, you—”
“Ain’t doin’ it ’cos I have to, it’s ’cos I want to. I ain’t sittin’ here alone.”
“What? A big man like you? Afraid?” I chided him.
“This here’s a dangerous city,” he said, still shaking his head.
“What about Myrtle? Is she okay alone?”
“Can’t take her with us,” he said reasonably.