The Red Storm (3 page)

“Just right for what?”

“Look at me, kid; I ain't gonna last much longer. I'm all busted up on the inside. Last doctor I saw said that I'd be lucky to live another year or two. I just got to see my kid before I check out.”

It was hard to see Storm being emotional. The most emotion I ever saw out of him was a sadistic pleasure that came with inflicting pain onto people. Age had either made him soft, or that daughter of his had always been his weak spot.

“Let's say I want to help, which I honestly don't, I can't. I can only hire on colored clients, see. If I started hiring white clients, it'd only cause more trouble than I already have. Besides, you're a felon. Don't think I didn't read about them John Laws you killed busting out of town.”

Storm didn't say anything for a while. In time he scooted out of the booth and got on his feet. “I reckon you're right, kid. Don't want to cause you no troubles. I just figure you could do a little lookin' around for me, under the table. If you turn up something or if you don't, I'd still pay you good for your time. I got plenty of dough to throw around.”

“Is it hot?”

“Not anymore it ain't,” he said, pulling out a wad of bills.

“Keep your damn confetti. I'm not interested in your blood money.”

“All money is blood money, kid.”

“I don't want nothin' linkin' you to me. I'll do some looking around for you this afternoon, see what I can find, but that's it. After today, I don't ever want to see your mug again.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Does the mother have a name, besides ‘the witch'?”

“Frieda Rae.”

“Where did this person you know see Miss Rae at?”

“He said he saw her leaving some store at North Robertson and Canal. I checked it out myself, but I couldn't get nothing.”

“And you say he saw her less than a year ago?”

“That's right.”

“Does this person that saw her have a name?”

“No, he don't.”

“This doesn't have to do with that whole loyalty jive of yours, does it?”

“Maybe.”

I didn't press the matter. It was worthless, too. “You wouldn't have a photograph of Mrs. Rae, by any chance?”

“I figured you'd ask me that. Yeah, I do.”

He jerked a worn leather wallet out his front coat pocket. From inside he took out a three-by-five photograph and handed it to me. It was an old black-and-white photo of a nude woman with her back toward the camera. She was sitting on her feet, with her head turned back toward the lens in a tantalizing manner. Her black hair cascaded down the curves of a shapely back. Above her left shoulder blade was a minute tattoo of a lightning bolt.

“Quite a knockout, wasn't she?” Storm asked. “She told me she wanted to be a model, so I took a few photographs of her. This is the only one I have. She took them all when she did the run-out, except this one. I always kept it in my wallet.”

The photograph probably wouldn't be much help. It was doubtful that Miss Rae would even look remotely close to the way she did from a photograph that was taken nearly a lifetime ago. Outside of that, the photo would be viewed by most people as obscene or inappropriate at the least. This would make it hard to even show the photo to anyone that might recognize her.

“Where are you staying at so I can contact you later?”

“I'll give you a number,” he said. I handed him the pencil I was using for the crossword. He wrote his number on a blank margin in the paper. “I'll be waitin' for that call.”

I didn't say anything as he left the diner. Instead, I sat at the table for a bit, wondering if I should just finish the crossword, go home, and call him later saying it was a dead end. I didn't feel any moral obligation to help him out, chiefly because I took no material compensation from him, outside of getting him out of my hair. But the desire to get out and do some sort of work after such a long delay was overwhelming.

I glanced out the window once more, expecting to see the same clear sky I had been gawping at a just a bit earlier. Instead, all I saw was gray.

 

CHAPTER 3

There was only one person that could have given Storm the dope on his old lady, and that was Rollie Lavine. Lavine was Storm's lackey in New York. Back then he was a freckle-faced kid that did whatever Storm told him to do or, as Storm put it, “He's my monkey and I'm his grinder.” When Storm fled, Lavine leeched onto me and followed me to New Orleans.

I'd stayed away from him for most of the intervening years, even though he did his best to not make it so. The last I heard from him, he was fencing goods among other things.

I parked my 1937 Ford Club Coupe on Napoleon Avenue, in front of the one-bedroom cottage where Lavine was living.

The cottage was rotting with siding stripped off from the humidity like peeled rinds. I knocked on the door several times. I knew Lavine was there. He was nocturnal, and spent his days sleeping.

It took much pounding on the door before a “Who the hell is it?”

“It's Fletcher.”

“I'm sleepin'. Get lost.”

“Open the damn door or I'll break it down.”

The door opened and Lavine stood just inside the entryway. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. His auburn hair had once been a full mop, but it had thinned and lost most of its volume. He was wearing gray khakis and a stained yellowish undershirt.

“What'd you want?” he said.

I didn't answer, but forced my way in. Clutter littered the flyblown main room and I had to kick things aside to clear a path. Along the wall sat a secondhand single-cushion sofa. Its upholstery was worn so thin that springs and stuffing protruded out. In front of the sofa a wooden crate stood in for a coffee table. A collection of drug and smoking paraphernalia, including a bag of rolling tobacco with an Indian chief on the front, a pipe, lamp, dispensers made of porcelain and a ladle, items all used for opium, were scattered on top of it. Insufficient ventilated air suffocated the room. It smelled of sweat, stale tobacco, and human decay. The unfurnished kitchen had a single-burner stove that had not been in use in some time. Old newspapers and mail were stacked on top in a state of disarray.

“If I'd known you were comin',” he said, “I'd have picked the joint up.”

“Sure you would've,” I said. “I want to talk to you, but not in here. This place is downright disgusting.”

He led me through the back door, which went into a courtyard that was stone-walled in to shield it from its adjoining neighbors. I took a seat at a wrought-iron patio table. Lavine accompanied me, but could not disguise his annoyance.

“What's dis all about?”

“I want to ask you a few questions,” I said.

“Suppose I don't feel like answerin' them?”

“Suppose you start thinkin' about your health because you're startin' to piss me off!”

He tried his best to not sound intimidated. “Aw, you can't scare me. You ain't a fighter no more! You gettin' old and soft.”

“Do I look soft?”

“No,” he said. “But you ain't lookin' too good either. I didn't think you could get any uglier. All them hits to the face done a number on it.”

“We ain't here to talk about my beauty,” I said. “You been keeping in contact with our old friend.”

“Who's that?”

“You know damn well who it is,” I said.

“You talkin' about Bill Storm? I haven't chatted it up with him since he went on the lam.”

“Stop talkin' out of your hat, Rollie,” I said. “Storm came to see me this morning. Said someone here tipped him off about seeing his old lady. You're the only one in these parts that would know who he is, besides me.”

“Okay, so I jawed it up with him once in a while, they ain't no crime in that.”

“Except he's a known fugitive that bumped off two cops,” I said. “How'd you stay in contact with him?”

“By wire. I couldn't mail him nothin' because he'd move around so much, and he never left no forwarding addresses. He'd just send me a wire from time to time, askin' about things. I told him how I thought everyone here was crazy, but you got to be crazy living in a city that's six feet below the river.”

“Nobody asked you to come here,” I said.

“Yeah, I know that. Storm said the same thing. He also asked about you.”

“What'd you tell him?”

“Nothin' much, seein' as you don't ever talk to me. I told him you turned shamus. He didn't believe me at first.”

“Of course he didn't,” I said. “You told him you saw his girl on Canal. Is that legit or was it a ploy to get him to come out here?”

“It's on the cuff. I met her before she took off. Real fine piece of leg, but I told Storm she can't be trusted, and he best keep her on a leash or somethin'. I wasn't surprised when she ditched him. That's just women for you. They ain't worth trustin' at all.”

“You sound like you're talking from experience,” I said.

“I am. See, I learned real fast about dames. Did you know I was married once?”

I shook my head. I was married once too in what now seemed like another life. I tried to picture what she looked like, but couldn't. Too many hits to the head, perhaps.

“Yeah, it was a long time ago,” he continued. “I was just nineteen, and she was a real catch, if you get what I'm sayin'. But when we got hitched things were different. Nothin' was good enough for her, see, and she spent the dough faster than I could earn it. Started racking up debts, until I cut her off. Thought that'd be the end of it, but I come home to find she stole my stash and shoved off. Didn't see her again until a few years later when she came around asking for money. Said she owed some fat cats a lot.”

“Did you help her out?” I asked.

“Hell no. Told her she could go whore herself out for the cash. She cried and blubbered, but I didn't give her a dime, see. Not one goddamn dime. I figured that'd be the last I'd be hearin' from her till I get word from her sister that she went off and hanged herself. I still got her obituary tacked up somewhere inside. It gives me a good laugh every time I come across it.”

“You are a bitter, ugly, little man, Rollie,” I said.

He shrugged. “I've been called worse.”

*   *   *

With not much to go on, I had to take to the streets for leads. I hugged the curb adjacent to the small market stand on North Robertson and Canal, and gaited up to the elderly Creole man that was running the corner fruit stand. I showed him the photograph and it caused him to gape up at me in horror. He screamed an earful of vulgarity and told me to leave him alone, and that my business was not welcome.

I liked most French Creoles. They were far more accepting of coloreds, like France was. Plus, a lot of them shared African blood. Yet some had an overly pretentious attitude that grew maddening at such times as this.

I flashed the photo here and there to the local transients that panhandled the same spot for months. What I got for my troubles was responses like “Damn, if I ever saw that dish, I'd remember.”

In the middle of flashing the photo to a blotto that was so bent that he could hardly stand on his own two feet, let alone focus on a picture, I heard: “Why, I know that woman.”

I crooked around to see a short, older woman, with white-gold lorgnette folding glasses and a black woven straw hat with a wide dark taffeta ribbon.

“You do?” I asked.

“Why, yes. I only recognized her because I saw photographs of her similar to that one when I was helping box up her belongings.”

“You were a friend of hers?”

“I wouldn't say we were close. We knew each other from going to the same church and functions. I volunteered to take care of her belongings after she passed away.”

“How long ago did she pass?”

“It was only a few months ago, the poor dear.”

“Did you know her daughter?” I asked.

“I saw her a few times, but I didn't know her well. Frieda tried to get her to go to church with her. She went a few times in the beginning, but never again. Too bad, it would have done her good. I heard she's singing at some shameful club on Bourbon Street. They play a lot of that jungle music there.”

“Do you know which club?”

“Not offhand. I only recall this because a few of us from church were leaving flyers around there, to try and talk some sense into the unfortunate girls that work that street, when one of them saw her performing.”

I thanked the woman and made my way to Bourbon.

The street was thirteen blocks I often avoided at night. By day, it was quiet and by all accounts just another street, but at night it was a different story. Soon as the neon lights came on, the street become a congested three-ring circus of criminals, whores, the promiscuous, drunks, and tourists.

The area was sort of the city's unofficial red-light district. The official one ran along Basin Street near the French Quarter and was known as Storyville. The sixteen blocks of vice got its nickname from a city councilman who wrote the ordinance. It was only when the famous Blue Book that listed more than seven hundred prostitutes got into the hands of the navy boys stationed nearby that the Secretary of the Navy was prompted to demand in 1917 that the area be closed. Yet it never really closed, it just moved elsewhere.

I stopped and tipped the kids that sidewalk tap-danced, and a few other local homeless men that worked the street. Most of them knew me. There was no room to be a lone wolf in my business. The types that went around demanding information out of people never lasted long. The truth of the matter is nobody is in a legal sense obligated to talk to a private detective or provide them with any information at all. Threatening, tricking, or making people think I was part of law enforcement to get information out of them was sure to land me in jail.