Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  A few minutes before six that evening, they walked into Frank Mangetta's place on the corner of Marais and Bienville. Mangetta's was a regular joint, located halfway between Storyville and Uptown, where white, black, and Creole musicians drank and played, one of the few addresses in the District open to Negroes, but only those who brought serious talent. It was a cavernous space, a barroom attached to a grocery where imported provolone and prosciutto hung from hooks and tins of Sicilian olive oil were stacked waist-high. On the saloon side were high ceilings, hardwood floors buffed shiny, wide windows looking out onto the street, tables filling up the center of the floor and along the brick wall opposite the marble-topped bar. There was a tiny stage of bricks and lumber in one corner. Mangetta, a sometime musician himself, ran the place like a benign padrone. Everyone knew he was good for a drink or a meal when times were hard.

  The saloon was early-evening empty, save for a few lonesome souls who didn't look up from their short glasses of Raleigh Rye and mugs of beer when King Bolden burst inside and began rushing about the room, peering into every corner and under every table. He was starting to get frantic when a voice called out, "You lookin' for this?"

  From the doorway that led into the grocery, Frank Mangetta held up a cornet of silvered brass.

  Valentin leaned against the bar, talking to Mangetta. Buddy sat at a corner table, holding the horn to his breast, his right hand fingers running the valves in and out, as he guzzled greedily from the mug of beer the barkeep had delivered. Mangetta explained that the dent in the bell happened when a copper tossed the horn into one of the columns of solid oak. King Bolden's famous cornet had tumbled to a floor slick with spilt beer and rye whiskey and the contents of the overturned spittoons. Mangetta himself recovered it after the brawl died down.

  He whispered an account of that night's trouble. Buddy kept wandering off the bandstand, walking through the crowd, then went out the front door and into the middle of Marais Street, his horn loud enough to cause sports in rooms up and down both sides of Conti Street to lose their attentions. These gentlemen complained to the madams, who complained to the police, who arrived to warn Frank Mangetta to keep his entertainers indoors where they belonged. Buddy overheard the exchange and offered his own opinion on the matter, which included a comment about one of the officers' unnatural love for his mother. At which point the sergeant in charge jumped onto the low stage and dragged the bandleader down by the scruff of his neck. Bolden fought back, laughing and shouting like it was some kind of frolic, and soon six coppers and half the crowd in the saloon were in the middle of a fray. Buddy didn't stop flailing about until one of the blue coats cracked him on the side of his head with a nightstick.

  "He went down like a tree," Mangetta told the detective, shaking his head in awe as they watched Buddy seat himself at a table. "I thought they killed him." He smiled. "But look at him there. King Bolden. Don't look much worse for the wear, eh?" He went off to serve some customers.

  Valentin had taken a seat at the table. He sipped his beer as Bolden guzzled his, and the more he guzzled, the more he seemed to close up, like he was trying to shake the jailhouse off by fading into the dark brick wall behind him. Valentin thought about asking him straight out about Dr. Rall and his "prescription," but a glance told him it would be a waste of time. Buddy was gone, mumbling to himself as he fretted absently over his damaged horn. Valentin turned in his chair to survey the evening street. It was starting to rain again.

  As he watched, a New Orleans Police wagon pulled up to the banquette. Two coppers stepped down from the seat, strolled in the door and crossed directly to the bar, where Mangetta was tapping a barrel of beer. Valentin's eyes narrowed as he studied them. They looked like brothers and they looked familiar. When Mangetta saw them, he stopped what he was doing and the three men went into the grocery.

  The saloonkeeper and the two coppers reappeared a few minutes later. Mangetta saw them to the door and then stood glowering at them as they climbed back into the hack and rattled away. He walked over to the table, shaking his head.

  "I know those two," Valentin said.

  "Joe and Bill Collins," Mangetta said shortly. "Two of New Orleans' finest."

  "Were they here about last night?"

  Mangetta said, "I wish that was it."

  "How much, Frank?"

  "Too much," Mangetta said. "But I need to stay in business." He leaned a hand on the back of his chair, drew a toothpick from his vest pocket and began sucking it noisily. Bolden didn't look up. "How's the beer, gentlemen?" the barkeep asked.

  Valentin answered for both of them. "It's fine."

  Mangetta bent his head and lowered his voice. "So, what's this I hear about some sporting girls getting killed? One, what, back-of-town at Cassie Maples'?"

  "Yes, her name was Annie Robie," Valentin said.

  Bolden, who had been staring at his reflection in the bell of his horn, raised his eyes.

  "And another one Saturday night?" Mangetta said.

  "That's when they found her," Valentin said.

  Buddy's hand shot out abruptly and he knocked his empty glass across the table. Valentin and Mangetta stared at him and he stared back at them like he was suddenly hanging on every word. Valentin righted the glass. He spoke to the barkeep but kept an eye on Bolden.

  "That one's name was Gran Tillman," he said. And at the mention of the name, Buddy let out a sudden cracked laugh, and then just as suddenly fell silent. Mangetta gaped at him, his eyebrows arching in astonishment. He was about to say something, but at that moment, the door banged open and two drummers walked in and made for the bar. Mangetta gave Buddy a last puzzled glance and went off to serve the two men.

  Valentin leaned over the table. "What is it?" he said. "What?"

  "Gran Tillman," Bolden said in a loud, sloppy whisper. "Well, I guess you don't know. She and Annie ... ha-ha... they were friends, the two of them. She was the one first took Annie in. She was the one found her on the street after that Georgia nigger put her out." His dark eyes glimmered. "You know. That fellow you shot down, Tino. Gran Tillman. She was the one took her to Cassie Maples'. She and Annie was friends. Oh, yes," he finished, "they were great friends, those two." Bolden glanced dully at his empty glass, then shook his head and reached out without asking to grab the detective's mug.

  Valentin watched him drink it down in one long swallow. "Where were you Saturday?" he asked. "Before you went to play, I mean."

  Buddy puzzled for a few seconds, then shrugged and said, "Don't remember."

  He was emptying glasses of beer as fast as Mangetta brought them to the table, ignoring Valentin as he went back to whispering to himself. Valentin listened for a few minutes, trying to make sense of the mumblings, then gave up. He looked at his pocket watch. He didn't have to be to work, but he got up to leave anyway. He'd heard plenty enough. He went off to find Mangetta and the barkeep promised he would rouse Buddy in time to make the four-block walk up Marais to Nancy Hanks' Saloon, where the King Bolden Band had an engagement.

  "I can't be stayin' up there," Mangetta said. "I got a business to run."

  "I'll go by later on," Valentin said. "Nora wants me to get him back home."

  They two stood looking at Buddy, huddled over in the booth, muttering like the madman he was. "Look at him," Mangetta said with a sigh. "Well, can't say I ain't seen it coming."

  Valentin gave the saloonkeeper a glance. "What do you mean?"

  Mangetta drew another toothpick from his vest pocket and waved it about like a tiny baton. "Mr. Bolden there has got himself into a corner he can't get out of."

  "How's that?" Valentin said.

  "See, he never got schooled like them reading types, Robichaux and all them. And he can't make his horn do what he wants no more. He got all this stuff in his head, but his mouth can't keep up. He hears it but he can't play it. And we ain't talking about just any old horn player. That's King Bolden there. Ain't never been nobody like him. Ain't never been nobody done what he's done with a horn. I
betcha twenty years from now, people'll still be talking about it." He stuck the toothpick between two teeth and hooked his thumbs in the sleeves of his vest. "It don't matter, 'cause it's all over now. And that's what all this trouble is about. He just can't do it no more. He can't go no further. Everybody thinks he's playing just like before, but he's just banging his head on the wall. Ain't no wonder he's acting up. It'd drive me crazy, too."

  Frank Mangetta took a last look at King Bolden and, with a slow shake of his head, went back to the bar. A few minutes later, Valentin stepped out the door and walked away down Marais Street. Bolden didn't notice.

  Twilight fell on the rooftops. Valentin wandered about his rooms, picking up a book and reading a page, then putting it aside and wandering some more. At eight o'clock, he went downstairs and walked three doors over to Bechamin's to buy himself a sandwich. He ate standing on his tiny balcony, looking out over the river, trying to puzzle out the day. There was Bolden's dope-addicted, dope-prescribing doctor with the name of the murderer's second victim scrawled on a slip of paper. And later, Buddy's sudden, chortling revelation that the two dead women knew each other well, meaning that he knew them both.

  As Valentin turned ninety degrees to study the Storyville streets in the distance, he had a sudden shock of recognition, a feeling of alien foreboding that came from nowhere and told him there would be trouble tonight.

  Martha Devereaux stared vacantly out the window at the dark alleyway as she dabbed a bit of perfume between her breasts. She looked down and smiled at the way the yellow silk lapels of the dressing gown lay against her dust-colored skin. It was nice. She thought about the sport who gave it to her. Her vague smile dipped to a vague frown when she heard the tap on the door. Visitors were supposed to be announced. What'd they hire the girl for, anyway? It wasn't like she was some common piece of trash in some back-of-town French house, after all. This was supposed to be done right. Soon as this one left, she was going to say something to Miss Jessie.

  She went to the door and opened it, and when she saw who it was said, "Where'd you come from?" and turned away.

  She heard the door close and was glancing over her shoulder to say, "What do you want?" when she caught the motion of a blade coming around in a shrieking arc. She tried to scream, but the shank, plunging through her tan flesh, through muscle and gristle, caught the sound halfway up her throat. There was the sudden numbing shock and then a horrible, burning pain and she felt the splash of her own hot blood on the side of her face, down her pretty dress, on the floorboards and the white walls of the room. Her fists clenched and her eyes went blind as the room tilted and the floor flew up to slam into her face and she was numb all over and then there was nothing at all.

  A starless night had fallen and Valentin couldn't shake the feeling of something brewing. He walked to and fro around his front room, unable to sit still for more than a minute at a time. He finally couldn't stand it anymore and just before ten o'clock, went out and caught a streetcar to the north end of Marais Street. From his seat by the window, he noticed that Storyville was strangely quiet this Tuesday night. A few minutes later, he found out why. What looked like half of Uptown was jammed into Nancy Hanks' Saloon, crowding the dark, smoky room to the wide-open windows. Bolden hadn't crossed over to play in Storyville but once or twice before; this was a lagniappe.

  Valentin went in and made his way to the bar. He looked over the heads of the sports and their women to the low stage on the back wall. The King Bolden Band was running down a fast-paced version of "Funky Butt," always a favorite with the uptown crowd, full of the kind of dirty lines that Buddy liked to shout out when he wasn't at his horn. They were working hard. Willie Cornish, deep black, six-feet-four and three hundred pounds, was sliding his trombone in brump-brump-brump runs down the scale. Frank Lewis and Will Warner blew twin clarinets, twirling about each other as they traded off on the melody. Jeff Mumford, a handsome sport, flailed away on his guitar, trying to lay chunking rhythm under the noisy horns. Young Jimmy Johnson, the only one standing, pulled at the strings of his bass fiddle and sweated buckets. They were all there. Except for Bolden.

  Valentin looked around the room. He knew Buddy would sometimes wander through the audience or even go sit down next to a pretty lady, playing all the while. Or sometimes he let the others play on while he went off to get a drink of homemade liquor from the cook in the kitchen. He could even be wandering about the alley out back in a hop haze, waiting for someone to come collect him. He could be anywhere nearby.

  Could be, but wasn't. Valentin peered closer at the faces of the men on the stage and knew from their expressions that the namesake of the King Bolden Band hadn't shown up at all.

  He ordered a glass of whiskey and stood around for a good half-hour, looking now and then toward the door, waiting for the walking commotion that would be Buddy arriving at last. Two quadroon girls sidled up, giddy with drink, half the buttons of their dresses undone. One rubbed her pelvis against his hipbone while the other ran a hand along his thigh, each whispering a buffet of delights in an ear. He sent them away politely and leaned on the bar, listening to the band play earnest but mechanical versions of all the songs that Bolden jassed so crazily. He heard people around him calling out to Miss Hanks, wondering why the name King Bolden was outside the door when there was no King Bolden up on the stage. But the room stayed crowded. They all knew he could burst in like a Louisiana hurricane at any second, blowing for Kingdom come.

  Valentin drank off another short Raleigh Rye, then went outside onto the banquette to get some air. Inside, the music wound down and then stopped. Jeff Mumford stepped out the door a few minutes later, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. He saw the detective leaning against the building and walked over to join him. The two men shook hands.

  "If you're lookin' for Buddy, I believe you're wasting your time, Mr. St. Cyr," the guitar player said. "I don't expect you'll see him tonight."

  "Frank Mangetta was supposed to bring him by," Valentin said.

  "Oh, yes," Mumford said. "Mr. Mangetta brought him by early. And Buddy went right to the bar and started drinkin' up a storm. I turn around and he's headin' out the door. Said he was goin' down the line. Said he had business down there, but that he'd be back. But I ain't gonna count on it."

  "What business?"

  "Somethin' goin' on with some woman," the guitar player said.

  "In the District? What woman?"

  Jeff Mumford wiped his brow again. "Some sportin' girl down at Jessie Brown's," he said.

  Valentin gave him a puzzled look. "Those are all octoroons."

  Mumford shrugged. "I guess that's right. But that's where he said he was goin'."

  Valentin didn't like the sound of it at all. He lowered his voice. "When you say something going on..."

  Mumford waved a hand, palm out, stepping away from the subject. "You're askin' the wrong fellow," he said. "What's he up to anymore? Gettin' in some kind of trouble. Gettin' himself thrown in jail. All I do know is what he ain't up to anymore, and that's playin' music."

  "You sure he said Jessie Brown's?"

  Mumford nodded and looked away for a moment. "And he said he has some woman down at Florence Mantley's, too," he half-whispered. "Another yella gal. So he said." Valentin, more than startled by the news, shook hands again with Mumford, then started to walk off. "But lookey here, you find him, don't bring him back," the guitar player called after him. "I don't believe we care to see him at all."

  Valentin walked down Iberville, away from Florence Mantley's gallery, at an angry pace.

  The madam had stood there, hands on her wide hips, looking at him like he was some kind of simpleton. King Bolden? Here? She shook her head. What would he be doing in her house, her eyes said, cooking in the kitchen with the other niggers?

  He murmured something about a certain girl he might be friendly with ... all the while Miss Mantley just frowned and shook her head side to side. He apologized and walked away, seething. Bolden, chasing after some Storyv
ille girl? What had he been thinking? He decided right then that he wasn't about to waste his time going on to Jessie Brown's. Keeping an eye on Buddy was one thing, getting caught up in his crazy business and making a fool of himself was something else entirely. He was finished with that before he started.

  It was at that very moment that he glanced down Basin Street and caught sight of Beansoup running his way, arms and legs flailing, dirty face all pink and streaming sweat, heading for the precinct station on Royal Street with the news about the woman in the upstairs room at Jessie Brown's.

  One of the other girls found the body just before the midnight hour and her screams set off the whole house. Miss Jessie rushed up the stairs and down the hall. When she opened the door to the room and saw what it was, her mind went blank. She closed the door, grabbed the still-screaming girl and slapped her so hard she knocked her down, then chased the rest of them downstairs and sent a street urchin running for the police. She had put everyone out of the house and now sat in her parlor, staring at the wall, her face growing whiter by the minute. She heard the wagons rolling up to the banquette and then the coppers came swarming inside.

  When Valentin stepped into the foyer, Picot turned around and held out a hand, fingers extended, as if pointing one would not do the trick.

  "No, you don't," he warned.

  "Who was she?"

  "Out," Picot ordered.

  "I'd prefer that he stay," a heavy voice intoned.

  Tom Anderson stood in the doorway. He was dressed in a tuxedo of ebony black. Behind him were two young men, Mississippi toughs in suits that were too tight for their hard bodies and holding derbies that were too small for their round heads. Anderson rested his eyes on Picot. Valentin stepped out of the way of that flat blade of a stare.