Cold Blood

by Lynda La Plante

‘No, Elizabeth Seal was just a pretty little thing. I used to feel for her, locals was against her, she was white and she was rich, and she was not Marie Laveau. Never could be, so they thought. Marie Laveau is a goddess, she is worshipped in these parts, and to get a pretty little white girl to play the part was creatin’ bad feelings. Real bad feelings.’ He curled up his legs and lay on his side. ‘So they bring in the Salina sisters to kind of calm the waters, you know, to act as spiritual advisers, because folks here think they are related way back to Marie Laveau, and if they give their blessing, well, it’s theirs to give.’

  Fryer looked at the burning stub of his joint and dropped it into the filled ashtray at his bedside. ‘I am getting very stoned. It’s age, takes less and less now. Do I have another drink? Yes, I think so. You sure you won’t join me, Mrs Page?’

  He drank from his bottle again, and replaced the cap, then started to make another joint. ‘You know why Elizabeth Seal is crazy, Mrs Page?’ he asked, his attention on his joint. Lorraine’s was on the bottle: she wanted a drink badly now.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You want for me to tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then come and sit near old Fryer, come on, sit close.’

  ‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said.

  ‘Are you now? Well if you say so, but I have never had a woman complain. I may be old but my snake never lets me down.’

  ‘Tell me more about Elizabeth Seal,’ she interrupted him.

  ‘Then will you sit by my side?’

  Lorraine shrugged, wanting to get him to talk, not ramble. ‘Maybe I will.’

  ‘Ohhh, then lemme think, Elizabeth Seal. Well, she was a girl with big hopes, big dreams, and they was all falling down because she was beginning to wonder if the film would ever get made. There was a whole lot of trouble, folks gettin’ drunk and not turnin’ up for work, an’ if an’ when they did they started fighting. Then Juda found out something about Elizabeth, don’t know how, but Juda could find out anything. Nobody ever had secrets from the Salina sisters.’

  ‘Found out what?’

  Fryer chuckled, taking much longer to roll up the joint as his movements were so slow. ‘Marie Laveau was a woman of mixed race, and Juda finds out that little Elizabeth Seal has black blood in her veins. Way back obviously, but it was there, like a sleeping cobra. So Juda gets paid a lot of money and she gets everyone together and says they got to stop the threats, stop the curses.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Hell, they had been laying coffins and conjure balls outside her trailer, beatin’ the drums so she couldn’t get any rest, making that child’s life a nightmare with their chanting and their curses. It was rumoured they’d even done some kind of sacrifice so that she’d be unable to walk or talk, or speak the shit-filled lines they was calling the script. And then one night a whole bunch of the motherfuckers took her out to the swamp, saying they was just wanting to show her rituals. Well, they done a lot more.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Fryer hesitated, taking yet another hit from the bottle, and Lorraine could see from his difficulty in screwing the cap back on that he was getting drunk as well as stoned. He rocked backwards and forwards for a moment, sucking his teeth.

  ‘She was what they call a zombie, you understand what I am saying? They had scared her so bad she was wild-eyed and stiff, no life inside her. Scared the shit outta me, scared everyone that saw her, ’cos they was supposed to be taking care of her. She was no more than fifteen, sixteen maybe, and it didn’t look like she could work no more. And . . . oh yeah, they got this big scene all set up and they was runnin’ this way an’ that, wonderin’ if they should get a doctor in to see her.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  Fryer licked his paper and rolled up another joint. ‘Then they brought back the Salina sisters, and paid them even more money. Miss Seal was locked up with her for two days. Then Juda got to a meeting, well, all the black people, called us into an old church, and they locked them doors, and Juda stood up on the pulpit and she screams and she goes into a kind of fit, and she tells everyone they done a bad thing, a very bad thing. She says Elizabeth Seal had every right to be Marie Laveau because she was as much black as she was. And she held up her picture, and her voice went real quiet and she says . . .’

  Lorraine had to wait as he puffed his joint alight.

  ‘Look on the face of your Queen, look on her face and tell me if you don’t see the likeness.’ He began to chortle, curling his legs up again. ‘I said to myself, I’m gonna have a piece of that beauty. She was so good, so powerful, an’ she shut every mouth up, made them get so scared. She says every hex laid at Elizabeth Seal’s door is gonna come back doublefold on them. They screamed and hollered, man, they screamed that church down. Like the windows shook from their yelling like crazies themselves.’

  ‘Was it true? Was what Juda was saying the truth?’

  He turned on her and his face suddenly became angry. ‘Who knows what is truth and what isn’t? Those two sisters was being paid more’n me, more’n any of us, on the condition they got that film moving. I dunno what is true an’ what ain’t.’ He sighed. ‘All I know is that the only scene in the film that’s any good is that little girl dancing with the snake. She sure as hell didn’t look white, didn’t act white, and from then on Juda and her sister stayed in her big fancy trailer until they finished the film.’

  Fryer opened his bottle again and drank. His big black eyes were becoming unfocused.

  ‘What do you think happened to Anna Louise Caley?’

  He lifted his hands up. ‘Hell, I don’t know, but I’d say something bad. A girl don’t disappear round here unless they want to, or something bad took place.’

  Lorraine opened her briefcase. ‘I want to show you something.’

  He rubbed himself and leered at her. ‘I’ll show you something if you’d come and sit by me.’

  Lorraine took out the voodoo doll wrapped in a towel.

  ‘I found this at Tilda Brown’s, she was a friend of Anna Louise’s. Do you know what it means? More importantly, do you know who would make something like this?’

  Fryer stared at the doll nestled in the towel. He sniffed and sat back. ‘Where you say you got this?’

  ‘Tilda Brown, she committed suicide. This was hidden in her room.’

  Again he sniffed, and then covered the doll up. ‘Mrs Page, I am not a believer but I don’t play with this kind of thing. You get it outta here, and you go with it. Go on, get out, get out!’ He sprang from the bed, scaring her, pointing his gnarled finger at her chest. ‘Take that shit outta my place. I don’t believe, Mrs Page, but that’s not to say that I don’t get uneasy, understand me? I don’t meddle with them, and they leave me alone.’

  ‘No, I don’t understand.’

  He leered at her. ‘No, I don’t expect you do, no white does. You all try to take it apart, try an’ understand, but you never will. Just as black is black and white is white. You want some advice, throw that thing away, burn it because—’

  ‘Because what, Mr Fryer? Why don’t you tell me what this thing is?’

  ‘I’d need a lifetime, honey.’

  Lorraine picked up the doll, rewrapping it carefully. ‘I have only a few more days to try and trace Anna Louise Caley. I need all the help I can get.’

  He pointed at the doll. ‘Somebody is trying to frighten someone. Whoever gave that to that little girl wanted her to hurt long and bad, so bad that destroying it would make it worse. That is one bad, bad thing: that’s terror.’

  She snapped her briefcase closed. ‘Maybe that’s what it did, frightened a young eighteen-year-old girl into taking her own life.’

  ‘I seen worse.’

  ‘What could be worse?’

  Fryer pulled the poster down from the wall. ‘What they did to Elizabeth Caley, slave to the drums, slave to the drums.’ He sat down on his bed and picked up his trombone. ‘You know, it’s all about being a slave. I am a slave
to this instrument, it dominates my life, I am only a whole man when I am playing. Losing myself, feeling the sounds, like that little Elizabeth Caley feeling the earth beneath her feet and dancing herself into a trance until she felt the blood she had denied flowing like juices, and she could dance. Do you dance, Mrs Page?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s sad. But then you have a sadness to you. I feel something from you, Mrs Page, sit by me. Come on, now, share a drink with me.’

  She did, not wanting to, but drawn to him and to the bottle. He unscrewed the cap, wiped the bottle neck with his sleeve and passed it to her, no longer being sexual towards her, just kindly. The bourbon hit hard on the back of her throat, warming her, and she smiled at him as she took another swig.

  ‘You know when they brought the slaves here, they dragged them from their roots and their religion by their chains. They buried their dead in big open graves with cats and dogs. They were confused and frightened, seeing their loved ones without food and water to travel to the other side. They were fearful because they believed that if the dead did not have sustenance for that journey, their souls would forever walk the earth. And superstition, brewed with fear, is a powerful weapon.’

  He replaced the cap on the bourbon and picked up his battered trombone.

  ‘You give that thing you brought here to someone who is not afraid, it means nothing but a bad smell. But if you give it to someone who believes, it burns the nostrils and it becomes a terrible thing, a curse. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  She was trying to follow what he said, wondering if Tilda Brown would have known what it meant to receive such a hideous curse. ‘Do you think that Juda or her sister could have made it?’

  He stared at her, and she had to look away from his dark, unfathomable eyes. ‘No, no, they would never abuse what they believe is a gift from the spirits. They do good work, Mrs Page, not bad.’ He touched the centre of her forehead. ‘They have the sight right in there, they can see the past and the future.’

  ‘But you don’t believe?’ she said softly.

  He closed his eyes, his hands stroking his trombone. ‘I have seen them working themselves up into trances, plucking out evil, healing pain. But I never wanted to be a part of it, because I could never be. I’m not like them, my soul is young, my soul lives in my music and I am a happy man. I never wanted all that pain, never could deal with it.’

  He pursed his lips and blew two low blasts on his trombone. Then he looked at her with a smile, his gold teeth gleaming in the faint light. ‘Find the maker of the doll, Mrs Page, and you’ll have the evil, or stay beside me and we’ll make sweet music’

  Lorraine smiled back, unafraid of him, liking him, and he knew it because he laughed.

  ‘That’s my evil, I am a ladies’ man. I sure do love the ladies, and I can tell you, I have had many, and not one went away unhappy.’

  She stood up, laughing with him. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘No, I ain’t ever sure about anything but this.’ He held up his trombone. He didn’t look up when she walked out, but started to polish the instrument with the edge of his shirt, seeing his grizzled face looking back at himself. He knew he had said too much, but that was always the way with him when he was stoned. He rested back on his pillow, and frowned.

  Something scratched at his neck and he slipped his hand beneath the pillow to feel the necklace. He hadn’t worn it since the boys had returned it covered in sticky blood. It had unnerved him, scared him a little, and he would never wear it again. But he sure as hell wanted it close when he slept because it could have been his throat those crazy kids had cut open. It had been given to him by Juda. She had loved him then and never wanted any harm to come to the man she cared about. She’d even warned him never to part with it as it warded off any evil coming his way. So far he’d been lucky, unlike that poor limping son-of-a-bitch.

  Lorraine was walking very unsteadily by the time she got back to François, but she had another drink on the way back to the hotel, telling herself she’d sleep it off – once she got some black coffee inside her she’d be fine. She was feeling pretty laid back now, smiling, but as they got closer to the hotel her mood began to plummet, and she hurled the Coke can out of the window, swearing and muttering under her breath. François saw it all in the rear-view mirror, saw her run her hands through her hair and lurch from one side of the seat to the other as he took the corners, not even at speed.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t drink no more, Mrs Page.’

  She leaned forward, her face contorting with anger.

  ‘Fuck off, who the fuck you think you are, tellin’ me what to do? Just drive the fucking car, that’s what you’re paid for, you son-of-a-bitch.’

  ‘Sure, lady, we’re almost there.’

  He saw her stumble as she walked towards the hotel, saw her stop, smooth down her skirt and put on dark shades. She looked like she was taking deep breaths before, straight-backed and head held high, she walked into the courtyard and disappeared behind the palms.

  Lorraine found Rosie and Rooney sitting under the palms in the hotel courtyard.

  ‘Where the hell were you two?’ she snapped.

  ‘We could ask the same of you,’ Rosie replied angrily.

  Lorraine sat down, kicking off her shoes. ‘Working, that’s what I’ve been doing.’

  ‘Well, maybe we have as well,’ Rosie said, prodding Rooney under the table for him to say something.

  Lorraine leaned her head in her hands and told them briefly what she had been doing, then stretched her arms above her head, yawning. ‘Fryer’s right, we got to find out who made that doll.’ She signalled to the waitress. ‘You want another beer, Bill, or are you pissed enough already?’

  Rooney looked away, pissed off by Lorraine, but by no means pissed. Rosie watched Lorraine carefully: she hadn’t been sure at first, but now she was, she could smell the drink. Lorraine scanned the terrace from behind her dark glasses, her voice just a little too loud.

  ‘Ruby Corbello is first on my list tomorrow. She was sacked from the Browns’ same day as Anna Louise arrived in New Orleans. Maybe, just maybe, she got the diary out of the Polar bear, and that diary is very important. It might be all we’ve got, it might also give us a clue as to who gave her that doll. And we got to find out when she was given it. Did you check out that newspaper date, Bill?’

  The waitress appeared and Rooney was thankful; he hadn’t checked it out, and judging by Lorraine’s mood there would have been trouble. She ordered a black coffee and a sandwich.

  ‘So, Rosie, you get the Corbello address?’

  Lorraine listened and lit a cigarette, her foot tapping on the table leg in mounting anger as Rosie told her what they had done.

  ‘I don’t recall telling you to fucking go and see Edith Corbello, or make up some stupid story about wanting a doll made. Jesus Christ, I’ve never heard anything so dumb! Gonna make it tough for me going there now. Why? What made you do it, Bill? I’d have thought you, of all people, would have known better. You’re supposed to be the professional, for chrissakes.’

  ‘You mean like you?’ Rosie said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can smell it, Lorraine.’

  Rooney frowned, looking first at Rosie, then at Lorraine.

  ‘I had some liqueur chocolates.’ Lorraine laughed, humourlessly, too loud. She peered over her shades. ‘You fouled up, Bill.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He shrugged.

  ‘It’s not good enough!’ Lorraine snapped.

  Rosie was getting really uptight.

  ‘We waited here for you, and when you didn’t show, as we had agreed, and we found out you’d left the Caleys’ house, we didn’t know what to think. So don’t you get uptight with us, it’s you that should have come to the hotel and told us what you were doing.’

  ‘Piss off, Rosie, go on, just fuck off, will you? You’re getting on my nerves.’

  Rosie pushed back her chair.

  ‘
I’ll do just that, and maybe when you’ve sobered up we can have a proper conversation, like professionals.’ She marched off. Rooney looked after her, then back at Lorraine.

  ‘She’s talking bullshit, so come on, what’s the matter, Bill? Lost your tongue as well as your touch?’ Lorraine asked sarcastically.

  Rosie was still within earshot and spun round. ‘Leave him alone,’ she snapped.

  ‘Oh, you talking for Bill now, are you? Well, tell me, Rosie, did he find out about the newspaper the doll was wrapped in?’

  ‘Shit, I knew there was something,’ Rooney said uncomfortably, noticing that people at other tables were beginning to look at them.

  Lorraine stared at him. ‘You search Nick’s room for the gris-gris?’

  Rosie looked at him and then at Lorraine. ‘We should get her back to her room, Bill.’

  ‘I asked him a fucking question,’ Lorraine cut in. ‘Well, did you find it or didn’t you?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t.’

  Lorraine slapped the table. ‘Why don’t you go up there right now and search? They’ll be renting it out any day, they might already have done, so ask if they found anything at reception.’

  Rooney pushed his chair back. ‘Rght, whatever you say, but keep your voice down. Everybody’s looking at us.’

  Rosie stepped closer to him. ‘Don’t take this crap from her, Bill, she’s drunk. Can’t you smell it? Look at her!’

  Lorraine had now got to her feet, knocking over her chair as she pointed at Rooney. ‘It is what I say, Billy, and I wish the two of you would stop fucking it up. From now on, please just do what I tell you to.’

  Rooney walked away from the table. He seemed depressed and heavy, and Lorraine knew it, but let him go. She hadn’t finished, and she couldn’t find her shoes. Now she turned on Rosie. ‘You know, you got to stop play-acting at this investigation business. It isn’t a game, it’s serious!’

  ‘Oh, is it? That why you fucked Robert Caley? That was very professional! Now get yourself together and get up to your room.’

  ‘At least I got developments, which is more than I can say for you two, bumbling around like amateurs. You’ve both just tipped off Edith Corbello.’