Elizabeth Caley believed she was cursed for playing the famous Marie Laveau, and when she had been given the opportunity to admit she had the right to do so, because black blood flowed in her veins, she had refused, publicly denouncing the allegation as scurrilous lies. To this day she was still scared that it would be proven, but as both her parents died shortly after the film of The Swamp there was no one who could betray her, only the sun. Elizabeth Caley was not allergic to the sun. It did not burn her delicate, whiter-than-white skin – it showed her heritage. If this had been known in the days when Elizabeth was a star in Hollywood, she would have lost her contract with the studio. The birth of her daughter, Anna Louise, had quietened the gossip – the child’s blonde hair and blue eyes buried Elizabeth Caley’s secret deeper, for Anna Louise took after her real father, Lloyd Dulay. Blond and blue-eyed, he was the man Elizabeth had loved for more than twenty years, but like everything else in her sad life, even that had been forced into secrecy.
CHAPTER 17
ROSIE REPLACED the receiver and looked at Rooney.
‘Caley’s maid said she just left.’
He sighed. ‘Well, maybe you’re getting youself all worked up over nothing, honey.’
‘No, I’m not, Bill, you didn’t see the way she was. You don’t understand, she’s an alcoholic – one night off the wagon won’t be the last.’
‘Hell, she was up and out before you or me, maybe she’s more resilient than you give her credit for.’
‘Yeah, and maybe I know her better than she knows herself, Billy, and if you want to know, it’s because I’ve got the same addiction. There’s been plenty of times I’ve thought I could control it, you know, just a few drinks, it won’t matter, but believe me, it matters, and I’m worried.’
‘You care a lot about her, don’t you?’
Rosie looked at him in surprise. “Course I do. I mean, we may yell at each other, but underneath it all she’s the best friend I ever had.’
‘Doesn’t look that way to me. She’s got a tongue like a viper, I know, because she’s stung me with it pretty good.’
Rosie sucked in her breath. ‘Same time, Bill, you and me are both here because of her. You and me could also have one hell of a nest-egg because of her. You said it to me often enough, she was one of the best – well, when she was sober.’
‘I know, and maybe, Rosie, what I am facing is that I’m not. She pushes me, and she can work stuff out and get on to it quicker than me, and I feel tired lately, you know? I don’t know if it’s just I don’t have the incentive any more, but I’m not a number one, never was . . . didn’t really know it until now.’
‘Yes you were, and you still are – look at the way you got that cop to open up.’
He gave a lovely chuckle. ‘No, Rosie, I belong to the old school, a dying breed, and you know something? I’ve even been scared to admit it to myself, but it’s the God’s honest truth – I’ve spent my whole life among the dregs of humanity, and I’d like to spend the next part breathing good clean air. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this.’
Rosie suddenly felt frightened: was he saying that he wanted this new life without her? Her heart lurched in her chest as Rooney continued.
‘You may not be interested, but Rosie, if we do get this big cash bonus, we should have us a good time, go on trips, maybe as far afield as Europe. I always wanted to see Vienna – that’s somethin’ else I never admitted to anyone.’ Rosie hugged him tightly. ‘Bill, I’d go anywhere with you, Vienna, China . . .’
‘China?’ he said, looking down into her upturned face.
‘Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go there, don’t ask me why. I’d like to go some place exotic, stimulating, you know what I mean?’
He beamed. ‘China it is. But first, you think we should look out for a ring, you know, make this official?’
Rosie was brimming over with happiness and kissed him passionately in the middle of the hotel lobby, oblivious to the group of old ladies passing by. Nobody paid much attention – there were a lot of things more interesting to see in New Orleans than an old couple kissing.
Lorraine was parked just outside Tilda Brown’s home, draining her second can of vodka and Coke and trying to think of the best way to go about things – whether to confront the parents and demand that they speak to her, or go to the back door and talk to the servants. She instructed François to head up the Browns’ manicured drive, and tried to get up the energy to open the car door, but she felt empty and tired out. Robert Caley was now in first place yet again as the prime suspect, and it hurt. Just as thinking about what Nick Bartello had said hurt, his death hurt, everything hurt. She couldn’t get out of the car.
‘You okay, Mrs Page?’
‘No, François, I’m not. I’m thinking about a nice guy who died, and another man who I thought was a nice guy but wasn’t. If I go in there this afternoon, I have to come out with a result or I may not be allowed in again.’
François leaned over the front seat. ‘You want some advice, Mrs Page?’
She half laughed. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, my advice is to come back tomorrow. You’re not strong now, I can feel it. Whatever you need from this house can wait.’ She smiled and then agreed.
‘Yeah, you’re right. We’ll come back tomorrow, François, and tomorrow I won’t be drinking.’
He gave that wide smile, half gaps, half gold.
‘Okey dokey, Mrs Page.’
Juda stood in the kitchen and just smelling that big pan of hot chicken made her feel good. The small house was spick and span, cleaner than she had seen it for as long as she could remember. They had carried her bags into one of the boys’ rooms and she had been touched by the beautiful, fresh, sweet-smelling flowers. The boys, wearing smart suits, and Sugar May, wearing a clean print dress, were laying the table for supper.
Edith had changed and was truly happy to see Juda, embracing her warmly, almost forgetting the terrible thing Raoul had done. They didn’t speak of it right away because Ruby’s dressmaker had arrived for a final fitting, so there was a lot of excitement emanating from the front room, Ruby screeching that nobody was to enter until the dress was fixed up.
Edith opened some beer, handing Juda a frothing glass.
‘You able to stay a while?’
‘Maybe, all depends. I got to be on hand for Mrs Caley, she was took bad tonight again, but she’s got the resilience of a wild bronco, that woman. I see her so bad, so bad, Edith, but she picks herself up again.’ Juda sipped her beer. Edith drew out a chair and sat opposite her sister.
‘You know there is always a place here for you.’
‘I should sure as hell hope so, Edith, as I’ve been paying for this house since I can recall!’
Suddenly there was the muffled sound of the telephone, hidden in a drawer, and Edith looked at Juda in confusion.
‘It’s the telephone, I’ll get it. I dunno who can be calling, as you’re the only one knows we got a number.’ Edith opened the drawer and lifted out the telephone, which was still ringing. ‘It’s Fryer, maybe, he got the number.’
She picked up the receiver gingerly. ‘Hello?’ There was the sound of bleeps and static. ‘Who is this please?’ Edith said nervously, always frightened that one day the telephone exchange would call.
‘Mama? I’m on a mobile,’ came Raoul’s voice. Edith had to sit down, her body breaking out in a sweat.
‘Where are you, boy? Where are you?
Raoul laughed and said he was calling her from his automobile. ‘I want to come home, Mama, but I ain’t coming if I’m gonna get a whoppin’ or you start hexing me. I know I done wrong, I know that, but I wanna come home see mah little sister crowned, Mama.’
Edith passed the receiver to Juda. ‘It’s Raoul, you deal with him, I am havin’ nothing to do with that thievin’, no-good boy.’
Juda grabbed the phone. ‘He’s speakin’ from a mobile in a car,’ Edith explained.
‘An’ I know whose money bought that mobile,
’ said Juda, her face turning red with fury. ‘This is Juda, you hearing me, Raoul Corbello? You get that snake ass of yours back here, and you bring me mah money – you got mah money?’
‘I have, Aunt Juda, minus a few dollars, but I ain’t comin’ back if you’re fixin’ to do bad things to me. It was a madness that took over me, and I will return all I got left. All I want to do is be with my family and get your forgiveness and see my sister crowned.’
‘You all drugged up, boy?’
‘Hell, no, Aunt Juda, I’m clean, I don’t do drugs no more, not since they made me do somethin’ as wicked as to steal from you, my own flesh and blood.’
Juda pursed her lips. ‘You got a free and easy grease tongue, boy, but you come on home. You bring me my money, and maybe we’ll sort this out real amicable, no whippin’, but so help me God, if you disappear then I’ll set the devil hisself on you.’
‘I’ll be home soon, Aunt Juda, bye now.’
Juda slammed the phone down. She would have liked to have told him that she personally would whip him until he bled, but she wanted her life’s savings back first.
Edith prepared herself for an onslaught about Raoul, but before it came there was a holler from Ruby that they should come and see her. Juda heaved herself up on her feet and Edith reached out and caught her hand.
‘She’s changed, Juda, it happened so quick. You’ll see, you won’t hardly know the little girl you last saw running around.’ Juda drained her beer and carefully put the glass down.
‘She a good girl, Edith?’
Edith nodded, and linked her arm through Juda’s. ‘She looks just like we used to, Juda.’
Juda held on to her sister’s arm. She spoke softly, not wanting Jesse and Willy to hear. The pair of them, dressed in their best suits like choirboys, were afraid to so much as take a Coke from the fridge without permission. Fryer’s thrashing had instituted good behaviour, for a while anyway.
‘How much like us, Edith?’ Juda asked.
Edith stared into Juda’s eyes. ‘In every way. I didn’t think so, but she helped me today and there was something there, I felt it.’
Edith pushed open the door, Juda just behind her, and both of them felt for each other’s hands because of the emotion of seeing Ruby. Even the bad-tempered old dressmaker was close to tears, pressing against the far wall, smiling with pride.
Ruby turned slowly to face her mother and aunt. There was only one lamp lit and its radiance surrounded Ruby like a faint halo, the dress so richly embroidered in golden thread that it seemed to glow. The skin-tight bodice displayed the girl’s slim waist perfectly, while the neckline, surrounded by exquisite garlands of embroidery, revealed the smooth brown skin of her bosom and throat. The cut, though, was modest, and the long blue sleeves were full-length, fastened with a dozen tiny golden buttons between elbow and cuff. At Ruby’s hips, the dress was gathered at the back in an effect which could have been worn only by a girl who was as slender as a gazelle, reminiscent of an old-fashioned bustle and train, the skirt almost filling the floor space of the room.
‘Look Mama, look.’ Ruby smiled, lifting the hem at the front to show the dress’s silk lining and net underskirts, then her own delicate ankle and high golden shoe. She swished her skirts and the embroidery danced and sparkled like the gold of sunlight on water. Edith wiped a tear from her eye.
‘There’s a mantle too,’ Ruby cried, beckoning to the dressmaker, who unfolded a blue silk cloak, lined with the same golden silk, and fastened it on Ruby’s shoulders with two scalloped golden clasps while Ruby reached behind her head and skilfully wound her long dark hair into a sleek knot.
‘Here, girl, put these on before your headdress,’ said the dressmaker, unfastening the gold hoops that hung on her own ears. ‘Just try how they look with your hair.’ Ruby slipped the rings through her ears, her eyes cast modestly down.
‘Oh, my, my, my,’ whispered Juda.
‘You approve, Aunt Juda?’ Ruby asked softly, and only then did she lift her eyes, the colour of night, to meet her aunt’s, and they were eyes that held secrets, that would see into nightmares and dreams.
Juda whispered, almost in awe of her niece, ‘Oh, I approve, I approve. Now you are ready to be a real queen, Ruby. You got a light inside your eyes now, child, you feel it glowing? Don’t you abuse that now, honey, never abuse it, for it’s very precious.’
And then it was gone: the dressmaker fastened the headdress of tall ostrich plumes on Ruby’s head and she was the laughing, posing, teenage Queen of the Carnival again. But Juda knew what she had seen, and looked at her sister, and they did not need to exchange a word – both knew that the sight was precious, just as they knew it would exhaust and weigh the young girl down. But they would be there when the darkness felt like it was dragging her into oblivion, just as their mama had been, and their grandmama and great-grandmama.
Lorraine sat at the cheap veneered table in her hotel room, updating their information. There had been a note from Rosie and Rooney to say they had gone out to dinner, telling her the name of the restaurant and how to get there. There was also the number of an AA meeting, and a special note, underlined, from Rosie saying that if Lorraine had any sense she would go. Despite the suggestion that she should join them at the restaurant, the note made Lorraine feel excluded, and guilty about the fact that she had been drinking all day, but moderately, so that she was sure that even someone who knew her as well as Rosie could not have detected it. She hid the bottles she had bought – with so many beds to choose from, there were plenty of mattresses under which they could be stashed – before ordering some more cans of Coke, a hamburger and fries.
She finished her notes, making sure they were all neat and intelligible. Nothing must give her away, nobody must have any inkling that she was drinking again: she didn’t even admit it to herself.
It was late, after midnight, and Fryer Jones rocked in his chair, looking from Juda to Edith, a half-smile on his face. Sometimes he’d forget which sister he’d married, and he couldn’t be absolutely certain it wasn’t both of them. He’d had them both on numerous occasions, which was the reason Eddie Corbello had taken off, and he was unsure which of Edith’s kids were in fact his. He wasn’t all that sure if he was actually divorced from Juda. He wasn’t about to break their good-humoured drinking session, as once again they refilled their glasses. Now they drank to the most powerful queen of voodoo, Marie Laveau, whose light was still shining now in Ruby Corbello’s eyes. As the wine took hold, they determined in slurred voices that no one would ever destroy the past that belonged to their people. Juda and Edith touched glasses for yet another toast as Fryer got to his feet; he’d had enough.
‘Goodnight, y’all. Watch over that little tinderbox Ruby, an’ if she gets into trouble you call me. You two witches may not appreciate this, but I play a major part in this family.’
He walked down the alleyway between the small crumbling houses, looking forward to playing some music that evening, the way he always looked forward to it. He reckoned he had covered all his tracks, and Ruby and the boys, be they his or not, were safe. Soon he’d have his old cracked lips round the most kissable thing on earth, his trombone.
Lorraine ploughed on through her note-book, checking back on information and jotting dates and names into a new book, and it was after twelve when she fell into bed. There had been no calls from Robert Caley, but she had told the desk to tell him she was not in her room. She was to be woken at seven in the morning, and a message relayed to Rosie and Rooney that she wanted a breakfast meeting at 7.30.
Lorraine was so exhausted she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but she was awake before the alarm call, already showered and changed. She checked her notes once more before heading down to the dining room. She had taken only a small slug of vodka from the bottle, and had then performed her usual routine, emptying some of the Coke out and then topping the can up. Nothing in her manner, she was sure, could give her away.
Rooney and Rosie were
already seated, even though it was only 7.25.
‘Morning, thanks for making it so early, we got to get moving.’
‘That’s what we’re here for, standing by, ready and waiting, boss,’ Rooney said, pouring her coffee.
Lorraine put down her can of Coke and opened her note-book, not even bothering with small-time chit-chat.
‘Okay, did you find that gris-gris necklace of Nick’s in his hotel room?’
‘Nope, not in his room,’ Rooney replied, and Lorraine chewed her pen tip.
‘You sure he had it on when he went out?’
‘No, I never saw him leave, but he had it on earlier in the day. In fact, he hadn’t taken it off since Fryer Jones gave it to him.’ She made a note and then looked at him.
‘Newspaper, you got written confirmation it was dated February fifteenth last year?’
Rooney nodded and pulled the folded copy of the page from his pocket. ‘Means the doll was given to Tilda on that date or maybe the day after. Reason being, if someone was wrapping up something, they wouldn’t use the fresh morning papers, but maybe the previous day’s was lying around? So we more or less know when Tilda was given the doll.’
‘Mmm,’ Lorraine said, sipping her coffee. She flipped her note-book closed and picked up the menu, then tossed it aside. She had no appetite for anything but the can of Coke, and reached out for it again. Rosie looked quickly at Rooney, and then at the can. She interrupted as Lorraine began to outline the developments of the previous day in matter-of-fact fashion.
‘What did you just say, Tilda Brown was screwing Robert Caley?’
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