Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  But it was Bolden himself who calmed the waters. The first and second lines were snarling back and forth over the rattling drums, the marchers yelling "goddamn trash" at the second-liners and that bellicose group shouting back worse. Bottles and pieces of brick were starting to fly when Buddy lurched into the ten feet of space between the two and picked up the fast, happy version of "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" that the band was playing as it went by.

  The black-clad first-line marchers continued to ignore him, turning their backs and tightening their ranks as they walked on. Bolden took no notice, zigzagging behind them on juking legs, delighting the second-liners and upsetting the marchers all the more. His horn flew above their heads like a bird flushed from the grass and his loud, dirty wave of sound washed right over their tidy notes. Every time they tried to shift, he was one beat, one E-flat ahead. The rowdy noise of the crowd began to fall away as the skirmish began turning into a madman's show.

  It was a Gatling gun against a wall of cannon, Bolden riddling the air with notes, the marchers firing back with their heavy brass, a momentary standoff of equal forces. Then one of the marchers, a clarinet player, succumbed to Bolden's rambunctious horn, broke ranks and started to follow it. Then a second and a third marcher fell out at the ends of the front line, caught up in his rowdy noise. And then the parade fell into a chaos that only Bolden could understand, horns and drums and bodies going off in a dozen directions.

  The ranks reached the intersection and what remained of the front line tried to make a strategic turn down the crossing street. But they had taken only a few steps when someone realized that they no longer led the parade. One by one, they dropped their horns to their sides and looked around. The bass drum bumped one more time, then went silent. They turned, faces flushed. The music had gone on without them.

  The jumble of bodies behind them closed, forming a huge, slow-rolling wheel. King Bolden was the hub, standing alone in the middle of the intersection while the parade orbited him. Valentin and Justine, standing just outside the circle, saw it all.

  Bolden stood dead center, his horn pointed straight down at the cobblestones. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth. The motion of the crowd was slowing from a moving stream to a still pool. Streetcars rumbled on up Canal, but the hacks and surreys and two automobiles coming up on the intersection were all forced to a stop. Dogs jumped and yelped and small children raced around the legs of the men and the women, darting in and out to get a better view. Japanese fans and dark derby hats fluttered up little breaths of wind as parasols floated about like pond lilies.

  Buddy now lifted the silver bell of his horn into the sultry air. He played one loud, pealing note, then stopped. He played another note, a fourth up the scale, this one quicker. Then the seventh, like the crack of a brass whip. Then he was hitting notes from all over the scale as he started to move, going round and round in a tight circle and tottering on the edge of balance.

  He suddenly snapped out with his free hand and snatched a bottle of Raleigh Rye from some drunkard's grasp. A roar of laughter went up at the red-faced citizen's look of besotted surprise. King Bolden lurched on, played a fast, one-handed, downhill run of notes, took another quick swig from the bottle, played the same notes running up the scale.

  He threw the bottle over his shoulder and it smashed onto the cobbles like the crash of a cymbal and he played off that, too, as he walked faster now, almost running. The machine gun of brass sprayed the crowd and they started getting a little crazy, the second-liners dancing on the banquette and in the gutters. Bolden went faster, made his circle wider, now bent a little at the waist as if the horn was flying off on its own and he was struggling to keep up.

  Then came the moment when the two people who were standing in front of Valentin and Justine moved aside just as he was reeling by. Buddy saw his friend's face and stopped and stumbled back as if snapped by a rope, his horn still going blue blazes. He staggered a step to his left and Valentin moved to catch him before he fell, but he righted himself at the last second and the crowd nearby, witnessing the perilous balancing act, let out a whoop. The street tilted at a crazy angle and it was as noisy as a train wreck and King Bolden's face glowed, all full of black light. Every eye on the street was on him, every ear perked into the brass wind and voices were shouting out his name. "King Bolden! Oh, yes! King Bolden!"

  He looked delirious as his horn danced on the hot air and another roar of laughter went up at the look on his crazy face. But what Valentin heard coming from the silver bell was too raw and piercing. He thought it sounded like a man crying out in torment and when the crowd before him shifted again, he caught his friend's eyes and saw a harsh, helpless pain there, pleading for release.

  They sat on a perron as the parade moved on down the street and the horns and drums and shouts and laughs receded like a passing storm. Bolden had disappeared, too, a child's stick drawing staggering off into the echoing distance with the second-liners following in his ragged wake. Quite suddenly, it was another quiet, late Saturday afternoon in uptown New Orleans. Up and down Canal Street, the sounds of the rattling wheels of the streetcars and the clop of horseshoes on cobblestones could be heard again.

  "I found out something," Justine told him presently. "Ella Duchamp, she's gone. Left town. Went off to Lafayette where her people are."

  Valentin glanced at her, surprised again at her quick wits. He saw that she wore a troubled frown as she watched a last group of sporting girls straggle off. She looked so forlorn that he said, "What's wrong?"

  "It's them girls from Miss Antonia's," she said after a moment. "The way they were looking at me."

  "How's that?"

  She stared into the distance. "Some of 'em were kinda sad, like they wish they coulda got out, too. But the other ones, the older ones, they was lookin' at me like ... like 'you'll be back, young miss, don't you make no mistake about it.' Like that." She sighed. "I spose that's true, eh?"

  Valentin said, "Not today, no," and she smiled wanly.

  He went digging into his vest pocket for the note from Tom Anderson. He unfolded the paper and read the flowing scrawl: Your services won't be required at the Café this evening. Please meet me tomorrow 9 a.m. at Miss Mantley's mansion.

  "You gotta go on to work?" Justine asked him.

  He shook his head. So simple a message could have easily been whispered in his ear. The delivery of the note was as telling as the words that were jotted on the paper. Anderson's stiff, silent greeting had been a show for the assembled crowd. He wanted it to be noted that he had accepted the private detective's hand, as a gentleman would, but that he had not spoken so much as a syllable to him. Valentin snickered darkly at his own foolishness; he had been roundly shamed in front of half of Storyville and hadn't even known it. He put the note away. "So what would you like to do?" he asked Justine.

  She looked up and down the dirty street. "Go somewhere. Away from here. Up the bayou, maybe. Somewhere we can swim." She brightened. "Without no clothes."

  The heavy banging on the door woke him from a dream about a parade of prostitutes walking through the gates of St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, a platoon of floozies, black, white and Creole, some in chippies, some in Mother Hubbards, some stark naked, their breasts bulging. A brass band marched along and though it seemed the whole thing was happening underwater, he could see a line of identical Buddy Boldens, each one wearing the same wild, hungry look as they manned the horns.

  Then came a pounding like an angry drum and a rough male voice was calling his name. Justine woke up with a sharp cry; in one swift motion, he jumped out of bed and went for his pistol.

  "Who is that?" She sat up, still half-asleep.

  Valentin shushed her quiet, pulled on a pair of baggy trousers and went out of the bedroom as the pounding continued. He crossed to stand beside the front door. "What is it?" he barked.

  "It's Willie Cornish," the voice rumbled. "Nora Bolden sent me."

  Valentin opened the latch. Cornish, six-foot-three and black
as pig iron, looked down at the detective. He appeared no happier to be there than Valentin was to have him. Valentin let the pistol drop to his side and opened the door the rest of the way. "What do you want, Willie? What time is it?"

  "I'm—" he began, then: '"Bout one-thirty, I believe."

  Valentin waved him inside and closed the door. "What's this about Nora?"

  "She sent me round," Cornish said. "I mean, one of her neighbors telephoned at my sister's house. Said to tell me to go get Mr. Valentin and have him come to Buddy's."

  "Now? What for?"

  The big man shrugged his shoulders. "Whaddya think, what for? He's goin' crazy again."

  "Valentin?"

  The two men turned. Justine was standing in the bedroom doorway in her nightdress, looking like a sleepy child.

  "It's about Buddy," he explained and turned back to Willie Cornish. Justine leaned against the jamb, listening. "The police been called?" Valentin inquired.

  "I don't know 'bout that," Willie said. "The phone rang and this here woman's yellin' in my ear, sayin' Nora Bolden says please go get Mr. Valentin, have him come to the house right quick." The musician looked around. "You ain't got no telephone?"

  "No, don't want one," Valentin said absently.

  Cornish fidgeted. "Well?" he said. "You gonna go?"

  Valentin thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "I'll go. Let me get dressed." He glanced at Willie. "You want to come along?"

  "No, thank you, sir," the black man said with a frown. "I ain't goin' nowhere near him. I'm goin' home to bed." He glanced over at Justine and the expression on his face said he believed that's just where Valentin would be if he had any sense. He left without another word, closing the door behind him.

  There were no streetcars running, but Valentin managed to catch a ride with a teamster who had chosen that odd hour to haul a load of nail kegs from the docks to a warehouse on Dryades. The driver, an ancient Negro, gave him a curious eye as they rolled north through the city. Down the streets to their right, the lights of Storyville glowed on like dozens of tiny fires.

  He climbed down at the corner of First and Colonades and walked the remaining five blocks, all too aware that this could all be a waste of time and sleep, that when he reached the Bolden house more likely than not he would find that Buddy had either been hauled off to jail or was sleeping peacefully alongside his wife. And that he would face the two-mile walk back to Magazine in the dead of night.

  But when he turned the corner onto First Street, he was met by the sight of what looked like half the neighborhood gathered around No. 2719. A mule-drawn police wagon was parked at an angle in the middle of the street. Valentin hurried his steps, then slowed as he moved closer and saw people milling about, talking and laughing. He heard the clink of bottles and the tootling of a harmonica. He made his way around the edge of the crowd of blacks, Creoles of Color and Italians. A New Orleans City patrolman lounged on either side of the perron at the Bolden front door. They were relaxed, enjoying the night air as they lazily twirled their nightsticks. Valentin glanced inside the house to see more people crammed into the front hall. "Is there a problem here?" he asked one of the coppers.

  "Not anymore, St. Cyr," the other one said.

  He turned to find the patrolman, a white man his own age, wearing a sleepy smile beneath a waxed mustache. "You don't remember me?" the officer said. "Name's Whaley. We was in academy together."

  Valentin placed the face, suddenly remembered the fellow as one of the few on the force who didn't join in shunning him and stayed halfway friendly after his run-in with the drunken sergeant. He was a jolly, sloppy sort, probably a bit too fond of the bottle, but a good beat cop, as Valentin recalled it. They shook hands.

  "You out working this evening?" Whaley asked.

  "No," Valentin said shortly. "What happened here?"

  Whaley spit tobacco juice over his shoulder, hitting a bare patch of dirt six feet away. "Bolden comes home from Rampart Street, but instead of going to bed like a good fellow, he stands out here on the street, playing his trumpet and yelling and screaming. Woke up the whole neighborhood. We got a call. We was all ready to carry him downtown and lock him up, but by the time we got here, they had a damn ball going in the street." He laughed suddenly. "The same woman called in the complaint, she just came by and gave us hell for harassing law-abiding people trying to have a good time."

  Valentin tilted his head toward the open front door. "He's inside?"

  The patrolman nodded. "I believe they all in the kitchen."

  He found Buddy at the kitchen table, holding court under the dim yellow glow of an electric light. The room was crowded, six or seven men and two women who looked like sporting girls. He was sitting in a straight-backed chair, his horn in his lap, drinking Raleigh Rye from a water glass. Bottles and glasses covered most of the tabletop. Nora was nowhere in sight.

  He was in the middle of a story, something about a gentleman getting tossed off the gallery of a sporting horse and right into a pile of horse manure, when Valentin stepped into the room. He stopped in mid-sentence and his face lit up with drunken delight.

  "Well, good God almighty, look who's out makin' the rounds!" he shouted. "Siddown, Tino. Have a drink." He waved his glass in the air.

  Valentin shook his head slightly, and then gestured to the hallway behind him, his eyes flashing a message. Buddy's smile fell away and his neighbors got quiet. With a pronounced sigh, he drained his glass, stood up and walked out of the room. In the narrow hallway, he gave Valentin a cool look. Behind him, the chatter and laughter started up again.

  Valentin saw the career of the day in Buddy's face. The first part of the afternoon in a saloon, then the wild performance at the funeral march, then the evening jassing for the sports and the sporting girls in some Rampart Street music hall (just as he and Justine frolicked under the stars in the cool, black waters of the bayou), then leading a crowd to a house party that included the better part of his First and Liberty neighborhood. The usual fight with Nora interrupted by the arrival of the police wagon. Buddy calming everything, then starting the party all over again as his wife carried Bernedette down the street to a neighbor's. And now his friend Valentin had appeared like a spell of cold rain.

  Buddy crossed his arms and stared at the floor. "Whaddya want here?" he mumbled.

  "Nora had somebody call when the coppers showed up," Valentin said. "She thought you were going to jail again."

  Buddy looked up, exasperated. "It's just a social, is all. She ought not to worry. And you ought not to bother."

  Valentin jerked a thumb at the two patrolmen standing just outside the door. "If they wanted, they could have taken you downtown anytime," he said. "Maybe you don't care, but it upsets her."

  Buddy slid his bloodshot eyes at him. "What, is she payin' you, Mr. Private Detective?" Valentin didn't rise to the rough challenge. "Maybe you ought not be puttin' your nose where it don't belong. Maybe you could find somethin' else to occupy your time."

  "You know, you're right," Valentin said. "Maybe I should just leave you on your own. And we'll see what happens."

  It came out louder and harsher than he had intended, and the chatter in the kitchen behind them stopped abruptly. They both stood against the wall, not looking at each other, thinking their own thoughts. A young quadroon moved by, a neighborhood girl, giving them both a look as she went into the kitchen. Buddy watched her pass and smiled suddenly. "You ready to take that drink?" He looked happy again.

  "I'm ready to go home," Valentin said and turned away.

  "Hey, Tino," Buddy called out. "You wouldn't be so damn cranky if you got outdoors more."

  Valentin stopped by the front door. "Is that right?"

  The stiff, angry set of Buddy's eyes had gone away and he was now grinning like a fool. "You missed it," he said. "Funeral parade today."

  "Oh, yes, for Florence Mantley," Valentin said, watching his friend's face. "That madam that got murdered in Storyville." Buddy stopped, looking co
nfused, like he had forgotten what he had been talking about. "What about the funeral?" Valentin said.

  "Oh." The bright expression crept back. "You shoulda seen me. I showed them damn marchers how."

  "I saw," Valentin said.

  Buddy's smile faded again. "You were there?"

  "You knew Miss Florence?" Valentin asked.

  He hesitated again. "I knew who she was."

  "You hear what happened? Seems she caught someone creeping around the house. Surprised him. She was murdered on the spot. Pushed out the window."

  Buddy nodded vaguely. "Uh-huh."

  "You've been round her mansion, aintcha?"

  Now Buddy's lip curled like he had just come upon something distasteful. "Me?"

  "That's what I heard. You were looking for that octoroon girl. Miss Duchamp, ain't it?"

  The horn player stared at his friend. He was about to say something when a renewed burst of laughter erupted from the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder and when he turned back, his face had resumed its drunken giddiness. It was all making Valentin dizzy. "The parade," Buddy said. "You were there?" Valentin nodded. "How come I didn't see you?"

  "It was a quite a crowd."

  Buddy looked uncertain for a moment, then he laughed.

  "It was, wasn't it?" he said. "And did I show them damn marchers how?"

  He watched Tino walk out the front door onto the dark street, then sagged against the wall and put fingers to his temple. His head was starting to hurt again. He heard someone call his name and he straightened and headed back to the kitchen, where his bottle and his audience waited.

  Outside, Valentin asked one of the neighbors for a cigarette and leaned against the house to have a smoke before starting his long walk home. The crowd out front was thinning as the two patrolmen were urging the revelers to go to their homes and their beds.