Madam: A Novel of New Orleans

by Cari Lynn

  “Beulah, we’re gonna be all right,” she said sternly, needing to hear the assurance in her own voice.

  Beulah waved her off. “You’s half-cocked, girl. Good that you’s a pretty little thing, ’cause your head ain’t workin’ right.”

  “I mean it, Beulah,” Mary said as she rose. She had an idea, and maybe it was just half-cocked enough to work. Beulah’s mumbling quickly faded as Mary ran off, the notion in her mind so strong she didn’t hear or see much of anything as she ran all the way home. Once inside her tiny house, she darted straight to the bureau, pushing it aside and reaching for the cigar box. It was only at this moment, with the box in her hands, that she stopped to take a deep breath.

  This was the heaviest the box had ever been. She cracked open the lid and lifted the stack of bills. Lining the bottom of the box, a picture postcard stared up at her. She’d forgotten it was there, and the sight of it brought memories washing over her. It depicted a mansion with a towering cupola, the Arlington Hot Springs Hotel, which seemed ready to swing open its fancy doors. Come, Miss Deubler, we’ve had your room ready and waiting all this time. Here, take off your shoes for a polish, and let us launder your clothes while you change into your bathing outfit and soak your worries away in the hot springs. You don’t own a bathing outfit? We’ll just have to take care of that right away, no need to worry. There’s no worry here at all. Mary thought back to all those days she’d stared at this postcard wishing for someday, that magical someday when she’d go there, just like Mama had.

  Releasing the wooden lid, the box snapped closed over the postcard. Her hands shook as she slid all the money she had in the world into her cleavage. She put the box back in the floor and repositioned the bureau, then ran out of the house as fast as she could before she had time to reconsider what she was about to do.

  With a steady clip, Mary made her way to Tom Anderson’s saloon. She’d never before been in his saloon. She only knew it was the place where peet daddies paid their rent and that it had the biggest, fanciest sign in town: ANDERSON—you could see it a block away.

  As she stepped inside, she couldn’t help but notice that it smelled so . . . so clean, like lemons and washing soda, not at all what she’d expected since she hadn’t ever stepped into a saloon without crinkling her nose at the odor of stale booze and rotted cigars. But this saloon went beyond just clean—the deep wood floors weren’t warped or scuffed, and Mary could even see her reflection, misshapen like in a circus mirror, in the shiny brass bar rail. Row after row of bottles stretched the length of the counter, advertising that any liquor you could want was available here.

  Shyly, Mary approached the barkeep—even he was in a pressed white shirt, black vest, and bow tie. “’Scuse me, sir, where do you . . . I . . . pay rent?”

  He nodded toward the back of the saloon, where Mary saw two closed doors. With shaky knees, she headed back, dawdling just long enough to marvel at the gleaming copper ceiling, each square sculpted with designs of circles and spades. Seemed such a stretch to reconcile that Mister Anderson earned all this fanciness from the smut on Venus Alley, where the only tin decoration might be an empty can of beans occupied by a rat.

  Deep voices, followed by booming laughter seeped from behind the closed door on Mary’s right. She looked over her shoulder, back at the barkeep. “Sir?”

  He looked up, motioned to the left door. She was relieved, since she certainly didn’t want to walk in on something in progress, but as she hovered her hand over the door, she felt her stomach flutter. Am I really going through with this? Is whoever’s behind this door gonna toss me right out of here? And, my oh my, what is Lobrano gonna do to me when he steps into this hornet’s nest?

  No, she reprimanded herself, don’t think of that, don’t think of him. Instead, she willed herself to think of Charlotte and Peter. And the baby, most importantly the baby. She heard Peter’s voice in her head, You’re so smart, Mary, you’re the conductor of the train, and with this she knew, in a way she’d never known anything before, that the fate of the Deubler clan was up to her. This was a moment that may only come but once, and now it was here. Mary Deubler, you will do this.

  She knocked.

  “Who’s ’at?” came a gruff voice.

  “Um, uh, my name’s Mary,” she stammered through the door.

  “What ya want?”

  “To pay rent.”

  At that, the door opened, and she was beckoned in by Tater. Even though Mary had seen him before, making rounds on the Alley, his scarred and crooked mug still gave her the jitters.

  Timidly, she said, “I’ve come to pay what’s owed on a crib.”

  “Which crib?” Tater barked.

  “Philip Lobrano’s, crib nineteen.”

  Tater let out a snort. “Ain’t this a sight? That mug sendin’ his whore to cover his debt. I knows without even knowin’ ya, lady, you ain’t got the cash to pay the whole of it. And he ain’t gonna be let from jail till he’s all paid up.”

  Mary felt her stomach knotting. “How much is owed?”

  With a grunt to indicate he was only humoring her, Tater opened a ledger to a page full of names and numbers. His stubby finger trailed down the line, pointing to each name as his lips moved like a child who’d just learned to read. He stopped at an entry. “This one, this say Lobrano?”

  Mary leaned in to see, and there it was: the entry giving Philip Lobrano control of a crib—and control of her. Holding her breath, Mary’s eyes followed Tater’s dirty fingernail to the number at the end of the column . . . $25. Her heart sank. Damn you, Lobrano, drinking away everything! It was more than double what she would’ve guessed. A dizzy feeling began to descend upon her.

  “Told ya, lady, you ain’t gonna cover it.”

  “That’s nearly four months’ rent, ain’t it?” Mary asked, her voice now quivering.

  “No lady, that be five months’, see? Says it right here.” He pointed to another entry. Confused, Mary looked to where his finger landed. Sure enough, there was the proof: Lobrano had been lying this whole time, telling her and Beulah that the rent had been raised and that he needed to collect an extra dollar a month from each of them on top of what they already paid him. Mary’s dizziness was replaced with a sudden fury. She could feel it burning on her face. “Cheatin’ sack o’ shit,” she muttered, unable to help it.

  Tater raised an eyebrow. Mary quickly checked herself. This was a respectable establishment, after all. “It’s just that Lobrano’s been lying to Beulah and me for a long while,” she explained.

  “That’s who you are, the girl who shares a crib with a colored? Don’t rightly know why Mistah Anderson keeps lettin’ that slide.”

  Mary was hardly listening. Instead, with each breath, she could feel the cash against her chest. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

  “I want to pay it off,” she blurted out. “But not to get Lobrano out of jail. I want to pay for the crib, and I want my name to be put there instead of Lobrano’s.” Even she was surprised to hear the words sound so bold. She pointed to the entry. “Here. My name, not his.”

  Tater gave her an oafish look. “Ain’t followin’, miss.”

  “I want my name on that crib. Miss Mary Deubler, and I’ll pay off the twenty-five dollars here and now.”

  “Don’t think that be the way it works.”

  “I’ll pay for the next month up front too. Right now, I’ll give you thirty dollars total.”

  Perplexed, Tater stared at her. Mary’s heart was thumping so loud she was certain he could hear it. Finally, he cocked his head. “I ’spect you’s just a whore, but the way I see it, your thirty dollars be as good as any.”

  Mary kept very still, so as not to let on her relief. From her cleavage, she removed the roll of cash and counted off the bills. Only two dollars remained. She’d walked in with her life savings and was to leave with two single dollars to put in the cigar box—the box that had been its heaviest just this morning. What good were two dollars to a new baby? But what good was
a cigar box of cash when there was no hope of a better life for that child? Shakily, she handed Tater the money.

  Craning over the ledger, she watched like a hawk as Tater scratched graphite through Lobrano’s name. But as he was about to write a new line, Mary stopped him.

  “Will you write it in ink, please?” she said. He again gave her a confused look. “Not in lead,” she explained, “but in ink. Please.” She didn’t want Tater—or anyone—to be able to scratch out her name the way Lobrano’s just was. She didn’t want there to be any question that Mary Deubler had paid thirty dollars and was entitled to that crib.

  “Picky thing, ain’t ya?” Tater said. Mary just smiled sweetly. He dipped a pen in ink.

  “The name’s Mary Deubler,” she repeated, and then spelled it out slowly, watching as Tater formed each letter, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth. After he was done filling in the columns and had marked PAID and the date, she gave him her biggest smile. “May I trouble you for one more thing?” she asked.

  He gave her a weary look.

  “Is there some kind of paper I can have, to prove this crib’s paid up and is in my name?”

  He rolled his eyes at the hassle, but Mary blinked her lashes and looked at him longingly. With a grunt, he riffled around in the desk, eventually turning up a piece of parchment. Again, his tongue poked out the corner of his mouth as he wrote in big, uneven letters in crooked lines:

  CRIB 19 BE RENTED PROPERTY OF MARY DEUBLER. PAID IN FULL.

  “Sign it there too,” Mary instructed. “Please.”

  He wrote: SINED BY TATER. He handed the paper to Mary. It looked as if a blind man had scrawled it, but it would do.

  “Thank you . . . Sir,” she said, not sure how to refer to him. “Will you please send someone to take the boards down from the crib door?”

  “I’ll get Sheep-Eye on it.”

  “Thank you, again,” she said, and turned to leave. But then she turned back.

  “What now, woman?”

  “Just so we’re all clear, this ain’t no bail for Lobrano.”

  Tater grinned big enough to reveal missing teeth. “Let him sit and dry out. But can’t keep him there forever, ya know.”

  “Don’t need forever,” Mary said, and with that, she walked confidently through the door, feeling like her back was straighter than it had ever been, and that her body was lighter, as if the pressure of a peet daddy—of nasty Lobrano—was a sack of meal she’d been hauling on her shoulders and had just unloaded.

  The other door to the right was now halfway open, and as she passed it, she couldn’t help but peek in. There, just inside the doorway, with a cigar in his hand, stood Tom Anderson himself. Although Mary had never come this close to him, she and everyone else on Venus Alley knew who he was. His name sent shivers through peet daddy circles and caused flutters with the whores. Anderson’s eyes caught her gaze, and she instantly flushed. Snapping her gawking head back to attention, she scooted herself out of his saloon as fast as she could.

  The entire way back to Venus Alley, Mary kept her hand securely over the parchment that contained a crib number and her name. Her name.

  Beulah was still wallowing on the dusty stoop, drawing circles in the dirt with a stick, when Mary returned.

  “We’re goin’ back to work,” Mary announced.

  “Girl, what kind of remedy Miss Eulalie give ya? It’s makin’ you say stupid talk.”

  “They’re comin’ to take down these boards. Only thing, it’s my name on this crib now.”

  Beulah’s face crinkled as if she were growing scared of Mary. Just then, a man with a deep mark encircling his eye rounded the corner, stopping to check the number on the crib. Taking a chisel that had been dangling from his belt loop, he loosened the boards, and one by one they clattered to the ground. He kicked them out of the way, then, with a nod to Mary, and a half nod to Beulah, he headed off. To Mary’s amazement, Beulah was struck dumb.

  “I’m droppin’ your rent to two dollars a month, Beulah, but we’re switchin’ shifts. You get daylight and I get all night. Ya ain’t gonna pay Lobrano no more. You’re gonna pay me, first of every month. And quit lookin’ at me like that. Ain’t you never seen a peet daddy with a pussy?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, which played throughout the red light district

  Ferdinand LaMenthe hunched over the old upright piano at Pete Lala’s Café. He was outfitted in his Sunday best, although he’d removed his jacket and carefully hung it across a chair to ensure he’d appear pressed for tonight.

  Tonight. Ferdinand knew that just a couple of hours from now he would embark on a momentous first, and he speculated that he’d still speak of this night many years from now, recounting tales of how, in his seventeenth year, he played before the highest of New Orleans society.

  He wasn’t so much nervous for his debut as he was eager. His excitement had become so heightened it was prickly, and he’d been unable to keep himself still until he finally settled down to Pete Lala’s piano. Even just the simple rituals, scooting the bench to the right distance for his lanky legs, positioning his foot on the pedal, and hovering his hands over the keys, instantly soothed the current sparking through him. His shoulders, which had been inching toward his ears, melted back, and his stomach settled the moment his fingers ran through a simple warm-up—a little jaunt around the cakewalk, as he liked to say in his best rag-talk.

  Most evenings, when the customers thinned out from the café, Ferdinand was permitted to trail from Southern staples of minstrels and folk songs and work on his own music. Within the scope of a few moments, he would fully transform from lighthearted piano man to serious composer, pounding and twisting and painstakingly piecing together his original compositions. As was the case now: with creased forehead, he pressed the same three keys over and over, humming to himself as he struggled to make the piano perfectly match the music in his head. He leaned his ear closer to the keyboard, as if listening for the tiniest distinctions or as if he might hear something he hadn’t noticed when he pressed the same key a second earlier.

  It was amidst this relentless concentration that the rest of the world faded away, and, but for his attention to the piano, his other senses dulled into hibernation. Hours felt like minutes; hunger didn’t exist. He heard nothing but the music. Within this space of just the instrument and him was where he found his true self: a jumble of pride and disgust. One moment impressed with his abilities, the next infuriated by his limitations, real or imagined.

  A faraway voice called his name, and a wrinkle of irritation crossed his face as if he were absentmindedly flitting at the buzz of a fly. Only, the voice wasn’t far away at all. “Ferd,” it repeated, now gently demanding. After another moment or two: “Ferdinand LaMenthe, you listen up now.”

  Jarred, Ferdinand looked up, glassy-eyed. Standing in front of him, holding a steaming clay pot of red jambalaya cradled in a towel so as not to burn her hands, was Hattie Lala.

  “Don’t make me fuss at you to eat,” she warned, setting the jambalaya on a nearby table.

  Slowly reentering reality, Ferd caught himself twisting in what surely must have been a sour mug. But he quickly covered, not wanting Hattie to sense she’d disturbed him.

  “Don’t want you getting so thin you have to stand up twice to cast a shadow,” she said.

  “You betta listen to her, cap,” added Pete, popping his head out from the kitchen.

  Ferdinand looked from Hattie to the table, where the meal awaited him. Even though he was onto something in his composition, he forced himself to lean back from the keys, push away on the bench, and move to the table to eat. The Lalas had been good to him, and he mustn’t be showing disrespect.

  After all, it was Pete Lala who’d supplied Ferdinand with his very first musical opportunity—a paying gig. Sure, it was just playing to locals who stopped in for a hot meal between work shifts, but playing for patrons had given Ferdinand confidence. And the clientele seemed to en
joy the music, so much so that a coal seller told his wife about the fine playing, and she told the wealthy lady of the house who employed her as a servant, and the lady—whomever she might be—went on to inform a prominent judge of young Ferdinand’s talent, and, lo and behold, an invitation showed up at the café, requesting Ferdinand to entertain at a fancy-dress party at the home of the Honorable J. Alfred Beares, senior judge of the Civil District Court of Orleans Parish. Tonight was the night.

  Mindful not to muss himself, Ferdinand carefully spread a cloth napkin over as much of his pressed white shirt as it could cover and tucked a wide corner behind his collar. He then moved his face as close to the steamy bowl as he could get. The smoky aroma of andouille and beans met his nose, and he suddenly realized he was quite hungry after all, as if the composing had depleted him and the jambalaya was now warming him back to normal sensation, to the sights and smells of the little café and the hum of Pete and Hattie’s chatter.

  “Eat up,” said Pete. “There’s gonna be trays of food walking all around you at that party, and you aren’t gonna be allowed any of it.”

  “Leave him be, Pete,” Hattie scolded. Having no children of her own to flap over, she looked to Ferdinand with parental pride. “He’s going tonight with the honor of playing, not eating.”

  Pete laughed. “They know how to get their money’s worth, then.”

  Ferdinand smiled a mouth full of stew, knowing it was true—no matter that he was thin as a matchstick, he could eat as if there were five of him.

  Pete untied his apron and retired it to a hook, then pulled a chair next to Ferdinand and sank onto it. “Ah, don’t it feel good to sit for a minute,” he sighed. “So, how’s your composing coming along?”

  Ferdinand forced his smile to remain. “Slowly,” he said, hoping the subject wouldn’t linger. “Doesn’t matter for tonight, though. No one will be angling to hear my original works. I suspect common Dixieland will suit those fancy dans just fine.”