by David Fulmer
It was all quite a surprise. She hesitated for a moment or two, and then nodded.
The cleaning woman ushered him into Hilma Burt's parlor just at noon and he found LeMenthe at the white grand. It was the piano man's habit to use the early hours of the day, when there were no girls working and no customers, to practice new tunes that he had written or stolen. The grand was the only one of its kind in New Orleans and he was possessive about it, so he was the last to play it at night and the first to touch it in the morning.
Valentin almost greeted him by calling out his given name, then remembered his new moniker, "Jelly Roll Morton," an assembly of family appellation and street lingo. LeMenthe told his friends that he was a performer and a performer needed a stage name, but since the only true "professor" in the District was Tony Jackson, he couldn't claim that title. So "Jelly Roll" it was. Valentin figured there was more to the story, but it was none of his business. Who was he to question a fellow who wanted to change his name?
LeMenthe—Morton—waved a free hand from across the parlor. "Mr. Valentin. Listen to this here..."
As Valentin stepped up to the piano, Morton began a stately ragtime pattern, as crisp and clean as Scott Joplin himself might play it, and he sang in a rough, high tenor.
I'm a windin' boy, don't deny my name
Windin' boy, don't deny my name
Well, I'm a windin' boy, don't deny my name
I'll pick it up and shake it like Stavin' Chain
Windin' boy, don't deny my name
Valentin grinned crookedly. All the rounders and sporting girls would know that a "winding boy" was one who could fuck all night long. And most would recognize the name of Stavin' Chain, a black hero like John Henry, reputed to have the sexual strength of a plowhorse and the physical equipment to match. Morton flashed a smile—one gold tooth glinting—and sang on.
Mama, mama, look at little sis'
Hey, mama, mama, at little sis'
Mama, mama, look at sis'
She's out there on the levee and she's shakin' her tits
Windin' boy, don't deny my name
Morton was a kid, only nineteen or twenty, but the lyrics were whiskey raw and Valentin let out a laugh. "Wait a minute, one more," the piano man called.
Sister, sister, dirty little sow
Sister, sister, dirty little sow
Sister, sister, little sow
Tryin' to be a bad girl, but ya don't know how
Windin' boy, don't deny my name
He brought the song to an end with a descending cascade of notes. "Think they'll like it?" he said.
Valentin gave him a laconic smile. "I think so, yes."
The gold in Morton's mouth glittered some more. "Yeah, people love it down and dirty, don't they? 'Specially them gals. They sure do." He fell to playing about the keys with one finger as he watched the detective. "What brings you round this mornin'?"
"I want to visit your godmother," Valentin said.
Morton stopped his doodling. "Why?"
"I want to ask her some questions."
The piano man pursed his lips, considering, then began another pattern, a slow gutbucket. It sounded a lot like something Bolden would play. Valentin said, "Where's she living at, Ferd?" He collected a sharp look. "Sorry, I mean Jelly."
"Out on the lake. St. Charles Parish." Morton stopped playing again. "Now, you tell me exactly why you want to see her and I'll tell you where exactly she stays."
Valentin leaned against the piano. "Truth is, it's this business with these murders. I just want to see—"
"—if some voodoo woman can help you?" Morton said, grinning broadly now. Everyone who knew Valentin knew of his disgust with the subject. "That don't sound like you at all," he said. "What is it? Somebody callin' a tune?" He laughed softly, shaking his head as he resumed the pattern on the keys.
"How many people you seen murdered round here?" Morton asked him presently.
Valentin shrugged and said, "Plenty."
"Plenty is right." He gave an emphatic nod. "Just so happens I'm right now working up a little song about Aaron Harris. You know 'bout him? Horrible man. First he killed his own brother. Then his little sister, a sportin' girl. She displeased him and he cut her throat. His own sister. There was more after that, but he got away with them, too. You know why? 'Cause his woman, Madame Papaloos, she was voudun." Valentin opened his mouth to steer the conversation back to the subject at hand, but Morton plunged on. "She knew all the tricks. She'd rearrange his furniture, mess up his house, so's the police never could hang nothing on him. She'd stick needles in beef tongues, so's no one could testify against him. It's a fact. That evil fellow that committed ten, twelve killings, didn't do one day of time." He shook his head in wonder.
Valentin had heard these stories and a hundred more like them. He was not impressed. Anyway, he didn't need reasons to visit the voodoo woman; he didn't have a choice. "What about it?" he said. "What about Miss Echo?"
"Well, yes, of course you can go see her."
"You'll call her? Make arrangements?"
Morton came down the scale, a trickle of dirty blue notes. "She's hoodoo, man. She'll know you're comin'."
He lowered his gaze and started to play hard then, the same pattern, full of ragged tones that echoed through the empty, sunlit room.
He collected Justine after one o'clock and they carried her possessions—two satchels full—back to Magazine. He was going to leave her there to stow her things, but then he changed his mind and asked if she wanted to go along. It would be quiet out by the lake.
They walked to Union Station and bought two second-class tickets on "Smoky Mary," the small-gauge rail that served as something akin to a circus train on the weekends, carrying bands and revelers to and from the lake resorts and dance halls. Justine was delighted to have an afternoon out of the city, though when Valentin told her where they were going, she looked startled. She was a good Catholic, better than he by far, but along with the cross around her neck, she wore a dime on a thong around her ankle. Now, calling directly on a hoodoo woman, even a good one, made her uneasy.
But, truth be told, voodoo held sway in the District every day and night except for Sunday. The queens employed charms and amulets, black cat bones and mojo hands, all to help the women that came to them and to harm their enemies. French Emma Johnson, that black-hearted witch, was said to be able to seal up a sporting girl so that she couldn't carry on her trade, to cause syphilis using the scrotum of a goat and the gleet with the blood of a wasp. The faithful claimed her curses could cause crippled, idiot babies and that she could drop a man in his tracks with one look of her crossed eyes. Valentin knew none of it was true, but it didn't matter. She and another dozen like her cast spells back and forth, vicious harpies fighting like cats. There were far fewer good voodoo queens like Eulalie Echo, who applied spells to protect the girls from the wicked spirits that haunted the air. People believed; even the most devout Catholics remembered to mutter prayers to Yaya, the snake god, and often those who practiced voudun daily were also the first to Mass come Sunday morning.
So Justine prudently clutched the cross that hung around her neck as the train rolled along Bayou St. John toward the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.
The ride took less than thirty minutes, and he spent the time telling her about the extra car that ran only on weekends, designated for drunks and rough-housers returning from their day on the lake, too rowdy for decent company. Railroad guards would drag the offending characters into the car like so much baggage and when they got back to Terminal Station, a mule-drawn Black Maria would be waiting to carry them off to Parish Prison.
As he was relating this tale, he saw out of the corner of his eye the man who sat at the back of their car, watching and listening a bit too intently. Since he had been on the case, Valentin had the feeling of someone lurking about, but he had written it off to the whole jittery mess with the murders.
Now he knew his instinct had been correct. He moved his head a few d
egrees and caught the round shape of a derby hat. He glanced casually at Justine for a few seconds, then turned to stare at the man. Their eyes locked for an instant and the fellow got up abruptly from his seat and made his way to the other end of the car.
At Milneburg, they stepped off the train and right into the middle of a mid-afternoon shower. They waited under the station eaves, eating ham sandwiches and drinking from bottles of Chero-Cola that he bought at the kiosk. He watched the crowd. The man from the train was nowhere in sight.
The storm passed, the sun peeked out and they walked along a gravel road that followed the edge of the lake for a little over a mile until they came upon a tidy bungalow propped up on pilings, just as Morton had described it. A woman was fussing about with potted herbs laid out along the banister of her gallery. She straightened and watched as Valentin and Justine started up the walkway. When they moved out of the glare of the sun and into the shade, she smiled and gestured for them to come onto the gallery, then fixed the Creole detective with a look of mock severity. "You should have come sooner," Eulalie Echo said.
He sat at her kitchen table, watching through the open side door as Justine walked across a narrow strip of gray sand, took off her shoes, hiked up her petticoats and waded into the water. The brilliance of the sun on the lake gave her form a shimmery, dreamy quality as she kicked with her feet and splashed with her hands.
Valentin turned to regard Eulalie Echo, godmother to Mr. Jelly Roll Morton, as she poured them both a glass of lemonade. She was a willowy woman in her fifties, dark-skinned, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and kind green eyes. She was wearing a white Mother Hubbard and though her head was wrapped in a tignon, a rainbow of African dyes, he could see her long hair, going to gray, was braided Indian-style. Huge earrings, hoops of silver, dangled along her neck. She padded around a kitchen that was large and homey, with more pots of herbs covering every surface and filling the air with a rich, exotic aroma.
"How's that godson of mine?" she inquired, as if she hadn't spoken to him recently, probably within the hour.
"He's doing well, Miss Echo."
"Calling himself by another name, ain't he?" Her smile was impish.
"He is, yes," Valentin said.
There was a silence while the voodoo woman regarded her visitor thoughtfully. "If you want something, Valentin, go ahead and ask for it," she said. She put the pitcher back in the icebox and sat down across the table from him.
Valentin gazed out: the open door. "I want to put a stop to these murders," he said.
"How many now?" Miss Echo asked him.
"Four."
The voodoo woman muttered something under her breath, then said, "What makes you think I can help you?"
He shrugged. "Lulu White claims it's a voodoo matter."
"She would," Eulalie said. "Matter-of-fact, most people uptown and half of them downtown would say so, too. But you, you don't believe any of it, Valentin." Her voice was gentle. "So, tell me, whatchu doin' here?"
He hesitated. He wanted to say: I'm humoring a madam who takes all this foolishness as if it's gospel truth. To remain in her good graces. To remain in her employ. Miss Echo was watching him with a half-smile, as if she could read these thoughts. "Maybe if..."
"Maybe if what?"
"If this person, the killer, is a believer in it, then—"
"Then I can offer you some kind of a clue?" She gave him a coy look. "Or you want me to just make a spell and get him to stop?"
Valentin thought about it. "The clue would do just fine."
Eulalie Echo let out a delighted laugh. She shook her head and turned to watch Justine, now up to her knees in the cool green water. "She's a pretty girl," she said, and then brought her attention back to Valentin. "You think it's silly, eh? Like things we say to scare little children." He started to reply, but she held up a hand. "You didn't come all this way to talk," she said sharply. "So you listen now. I'm going to give you a little lesson. I believe maybe you need it."
Valentin slouched back in his chair, making an effort to hide his irritation at having to sit still for a long-winded recitation of the virtues of voodoo. Miss Echo seemed to understand this and smiled again, knowingly.
"This thing came over from Africa, by way of the islands in the Caribbean," she began. "People there, including one of your great-grandperes believed it, just like the Baptists believe in Jesus. Back there, they believe everything has a spirit. People, animals, plants, everything." She rapped her knuckles on the wooden table.
Valentin fidgeted in his chair and made a little sound of exasperation. Eulalie Echo drew back, crossed her arms and arched her eyebrows at this rudeness. "All right, then, Mr. Valentin, you want to tell me about voodoo? Or how them back-of-town people say it now? Hoodoo? Go on. You tell me everything you know. Maybe I'll learn something myself."
She waited until he said, "I apologize," then clapped her hands together. "Bon. You're not so stupid after all. So I'll tell you now. And you see if maybe it can help you put a stop to that evil over there."
She got up and made a slow show of taking a bottle of rye whiskey down from a shelf and pouring two short glasses. One she placed in front of Valentin. The other she held between her thumb and forefinger, turning it round and round before her eyes, staring through the amber liquid. "So, you know how it all started?" she said. "You know who was the first? The original voodoo queen?"
"Marie Laveau," Justine said from the doorway. She was standing there in bare feet, the bottom six inches of her cotton dress soaked gray with lake water, her shoes and stockings dangling from her right hand.
Miss Echo smiled. "Come in, child," she said.
Justine crossed to the table, sat down, laid her shoes on the floor near her chair and placed her stockings inside. Eulalie Echo watched the younger woman with a smile.
"Who doesn't know Marie Laveau?" Valentin said with the same edge of impatience.
"Well, then, you know her true name?" Justine said. "Do you?" Valentin opened his mouth, closed it. He looked at Miss Echo, who was smiling, then back at Justine.
"Her given name was Marie Glampion," Justine told him. "She was a colored Creole woman and she did the hair of all the rich French ladies. She'd hear them talkin', about their husbands, about their back-door men, about the other rich ladies. And Marie, she listened until she knew everything them folks was doin' and with who and when and where. She came up to the big houses to work and she met their husbands, too. And she started makin' arrangements for the real pretty octoroon girls to go meet the men. So she had all their secrets. And she'd tell them she'd keep their business to herself, but they had to pay her. And they did."
Valentin listened, not a little astonished. How did this country girl know all this New Orleans history, harking back to the days of the Octoroon Balls, where the young French aristocrats made market for comely mistresses that they'd keep for the rest of their lives?
"But Miss Glampion, she was voodoo, except they called it voudun, the French way," Justine was saying. "And pretty soon everybody knew, whatever you want, you go see Marie Laveau. She really was a queen. She had power over about all of New Orleans. The rich French people and the downtown Creoles. The madams in the mansions all up and down Basin Street and all the girls and the sports from way back-of-town, too. Everybody." She lowered her voice dramatically. "People say she could lay on a curse just by looking at you one way. Or she could give protection so nobody could harm you. And some people say she could heal the sick and raise the dead."
Valentin broke his astonished gaze to glance at Miss Echo. The voodoo woman went on rocking slightly in her chair, her eyes closed, as if she was listening to a student's recitation.
Justine reached out, picked up Valentin's glass of rye and took a small sip. "Then, later on, after Marie died, there was a whole other woman ... she took to callin' herself Marie Laveau, but her true name was ... um..."
"Malvina Latour," Miss Echo said quietly.
"Yes. She was still alive when I
was a little girl. Even out in the country we heard about her. Some people say she was Marie's daughter, other people say it was Marie comin' back from the grave and startin' over again with another name. She could do that, that's what they said. She was like a cat. She had nine lives."
Eulalie Echo laughed softly. Valentin and Justine looked around to see her amusement was directed at his slack-jawed gape. He was truly surprised. In the whole time he had known her, Justine had rarely spoken more than a half-dozen words at a time. But now she sat across the table, her dark eyes wide open and her face infused with a strange light, all full of the story.
Miss Echo leaned her head toward the younger woman. "Go on," she said.
Justine chewed her thumbnail for a moment. "That second Marie Laveau, they say she was a real black voodoo woman. She could put a curse on as fast as you could blink. Or take one away, same way." A pause. "She'd have these..."
"...ceremonies," Miss Echo offered.
"In a house," Justine said, barely missing a beat. She looked at Miss Echo. "Somewhere out here, on the lake."
There was a nod of agreement from the older woman. "Maison Blanche. And it ain't a stone's throw from where we're sitting."
"She had these here parties," Justine went on. "Hoodoo parties. They'd build a big fire and have a band to play, a man beatin' on a drum and all them African horns and such. The girls, they'd go all crazy and take off their clothes and dance." Her small, tan face seemed to turn older and darker. "The men would come to drink and dance with the girls. And that Marie, she'd make her voodoo. And then they was all on the floor ... or they'd go out the door onto the beach..." Her expression lightened and she giggled. "Everybody was naked, women laughing and screaming and thrashing all around, and that music'd be playing, and it'd go on all night long. And Miz Latour, she'd sit there in a rockin' chair, watchin' it all, like she was ... the queen ... the queen of..."
