Jazz Funeral (Skip Langdon #3) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  There wasn’t any choice. Once the fit was upon her there was no stopping. It gnawed at her, chewed at her, wound her up and spun her around, wouldn’t let go until it was done, until it had spent its fury and left her sweaty and breathing hard.

  She needed paper—her napkin? No, she needed lots. Back to Walgreen’s, where she bought a thick notebook and a couple of Bics, the black ones she preferred. She never used pencils, they made ugly gray marks.

  Now what?

  Kaldi’s. There was plenty of light there and she could get coffee. Her head ached from the beer and tears—mostly the tears, she was pretty sure. Kaldi’s meant crossing to the back end of the Quarter, walking nearly to Esplanade, and she was impatient: Phrases were coming, little bits of melody. The first two lines, the ones she got in Mena’s, were hopeless. This was going to be the best song she’d ever written, a classic, like “Jambalaya.” Irma Thomas herself would sing it; so would Charmaine Neville and Marcia Ball—everybody would. It was going to be that good, Melody could feel it; her mind was humming, it was boiling inside her.

  But she had to put it aside for the walk, had to remember to be on the lookout, ready to duck if she ran into anyone she knew.

  The coffeehouse had carrot cake, and to her surprise it looked good to her. She got some, and a cappuccino. Sweet things would go down, it turned out. She ate every crumb of the cake and felt better; it didn’t seem right, but she felt almost okay. As long as she didn’t think about anything.

  She sat there a long time, she didn’t really know how long.

  Maybe an hour, maybe three. She drank two cappuccinos and quite a bit of mineral water. The song started to take shape. Well, sort of. The first ideas she’d had now seemed sophomoric, but she was getting more; they were coming thick and fast. Better ones; more complex imagery. She wrote a couple of versions, three or four verses, then new ones. Her mind wouldn’t stop.

  But suddenly her body gave out. This had happened before, when she practiced with Joel and Doug. She’d be going along great when all of a sudden everything turned to jelly—arms, shoulders, legs—and she felt like throwing up. Once she actually had thrown up, causing both guys to worry that she was pregnant. Right now she felt awful. Her mouth was full of acid coffee taste and her stomach hurt. She went outside to get some air.

  Okay. Better. She wasn’t going to throw up, but what she needed was a shower. Should she go back to the band’s place? They wouldn’t be there, for one thing—it was too early. For another, she didn’t want to. Didn’t know why she didn’t, just didn’t. She started to feel panicky. Where the hell was she going to sleep tonight? Not outside. Not after what had happened with the weird guy who told her to be careful.

  I’ll think of something.

  She started walking, trying not to think, especially about that. She walked toward Jackson Square, toward the cathedral, then turned away. She wanted to see Chris, just eyeball him. If she found the band, they’d want to know why she’d fainted and why she’d run away and shit like that. Even having someone ask how she felt now, was she okay, would be an intrusion she couldn’t handle.

  She didn’t need anybody, she didn’t want anybody. Realizing it, she smiled, threw up her arms in triumph. This felt pretty good. A hell of a lot better than the loneliness of yesterday. As her tiredness seeped away, the cramped, spent feeling she got after hours of focusing, it was replaced with the satisfaction of having done good work. She felt almost exhilarated.

  She stopped to listen to a saxophone player, a black man, middle-aged, kind of round and chubby-cheeked. He was good, and it made her sad that he had to play on the street. Would there be a job for him in her band? Probably not, she probably wouldn’t have horns. She thought of Ham and his dream, Second Line Square, and that made her sad too. But still, it was a good thought. She’d carry on his work, maybe form her own foundation; she’d put that side of him in the song.

  The man came to the end of his song. “Baby, you want to get stoned?”

  Melody nodded, still under the spell of the music.

  “Come on. We’ll go to my place.”

  “I thought you meant here. Maybe by the river.”

  “No, no, I’m stayin’ with a friend. Got some weed back at the place.”

  Melody nodded and fell into step.

  Am I crazy? she wondered.

  But the thrill of adventure—and perhaps, just perhaps, the edge of depression—outweighed what she knew to be good sense.

  “Herbie,” the musician said. He offered to shake. “What’s yo’ name?”

  “Janis.”

  She couldn’t think of anything for a while, finally said, “I liked your number.”

  He shrugged. “Been doin’ it all my life. Don’t pay nothin’. I just do it.”

  She pondered what he was saying, but couldn’t make sense of it. They walked in silence, and when they got to the friend’s place, Melody thought it must be a very close friend indeed. It was one room with nothing in it but a double mattress, a couple of night tables, and a chair. The sheets on the mattress looked pretty grimy.

  Herbie sat down on it and rolled a joint. Gingerly, Melody took the chair. Finally she got up the nerve to ask, “Did you mean you play music because you have to? Because there’s something in you that has to?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, you said, ‘I just do it,’ even though it doesn’t pay. I was wondering what you meant.”

  “I’m wonderin’ what you mean.” He offered her a fat joint.

  “I don’t know.” She laughed. “I don’t know what I mean.”

  She did know, but she couldn’t make herself understood. She felt small and inadequate. Decidedly unhip. Herbie was a man who probably used music as language, rather than words, and had little need to talk about the fact.

  “Hey, baby, you okay?” he said.

  She nodded, found she couldn’t speak anyway. The grimy sheets were starting to look sort of poetic, like they could be the inspiration for a line in a song.

  Somebody’d beaten her to “Empty Bed Blues.” Something less obvious anyway, something about grinding poverty and barely scraping along.

  “Why don’t you come over here and sit by me?”

  Melody heard steps on the stairs outside. Herbie’s friend? Would the two of them gang-rape her? Or was it a woman, a jealous woman who’d stab her lover and his … holy shit, his what? Guest?

  Get real, Melody.

  “Janis? Come here, babe.” He patted the mattress beside him.

  Melody’s heart pounded like John Henry’s hammer. I have to get out of here.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Janis? Everything’s all right, baby. Ol’ Herbie ain’ gon’ let nothin’ happen to you.”

  Why was he asking her what was wrong? And why was he taking that smarmy tone? It wouldn’t fool a two-year-old.

  She got up and bolted. Opened the door, slammed it behind her, and flew three flights down to the bottom, passing a young black man in a baseball cap, nearly knocking him off his pins. He called after her, “Hey, motherfucker!”

  But not a word out of Herbie. She ran all the way back to Bourbon Street, where she could blend into the crowd, and even then kept looking around her. She bought a praline, and then another, and walked endlessly, around and around this block and that, up and down, neck constantly swiveling for Herbie and his band of rapists in baseball caps.

  When she started to come down from the pot, she began to realize what an ass she’d been—going to a strange man’s apartment, fleeing, all of it. There wasn’t a piece of it she could make sense of, and she felt a fool. The independent, exhilarated feeling had drained off, and what she wanted now was a pair of arms around her. She thought briefly of her mother.

  Ha! Fat chance.

  She wanted to cry. To cry into someone’s shoulder and have her hair stroked and no questions asked. She went back to the band’s apartment, as she’d known she would all along.

  It was dark when she got there, and she thoug
ht that was good. If they were asleep, Chris would let her in and she could just slip into bed beside him and hang onto him and that would be that.

  She knocked a long time before he answered. “Who the hell is it?”

  “Melo—Janis!”

  The door opened so fast a cool breeze brushed her cheek. He was naked. “You split on me.”

  “I had to. I’m sorry, I—”

  “Listen, I’m with someone else.”

  She stared, not taking it in. She’d only been gone twelve hours, thirteen, fourteen at the most. “Someone else?”

  He shrugged. She kept staring, trying to process the information.

  Finally she said, whispering, barely able to make the sounds, “Could I sleep on the couch?”

  He stepped aside and padded back to the mattress on the bed. Vaguely, Melody was aware of another face shining, somewhere in the bedding. But she caught only a glimpse; she was fascinated by the sight of Chris’s naked backside, smooth and nearly white in the dark.

  I’ve never seen that before, she thought, and almost keeled over from the pain of it, her first sight of a lover’s butt, yet she couldn’t enjoy it because her brother was dead and she had no family or friends. And the lover was headed toward someone else. The enormity of it, the way it all piled in like that, put her on overload. She miscalculated and fell on her way to the couch. Now she had humiliation to add to the pile. She felt the sobs beginning to rise as she picked herself up and stumbled toward the bathroom, making a racket, bumping into things, unable to cork the deep, ugly sounds from her throat, the sounds of a baby with croup struggling for breath. Yet even so, she heard Randy and Sue Ann fucking in the bedroom.

  That’s it. I’m going to die, she thought, as she turned on the hot water. That was the last thought she had. She tore off her clothes, stood in the shower, sobbing her guts up, standing there till her fingers wrinkled, and then made herself a bed of wet towels and curled up in the tub. Her mind was a perfect blank, aware only of the water and the rhythmic sounds of her grief.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was late and everyone had gone when the phone rang. George had fallen asleep fully dressed, on top of the covers, and Patty was applying acupressure to her face. She had learned a system guaranteed to keep her skin youthful to her dying day, and it might be helping, but it wasn’t the answer. The signs were starting—ten more years and she’d have to have her face done; she was resigned to it. Still, she made tiny circles at a dozen pressure points every night.

  People had called all day, of course, but the phone had stopped ringing sometime ago. Surely only one person would call this late. George sat up in bed: “Melody!” But he was groggy with drink and grief, and it was Patty who got to the phone first.

  “Patty? Andy Fike.”

  “Who?”

  “We’ve met. We’ve met several times. Don’t you remember me?”

  Patty was furious. The caller was drunk or otherwise loaded, and had a hell of a nerve. This was a house of mourning. But something, she didn’t know what, told her not to hang up. “I’m afraid I don’t,” she said, unable to keep the frost from her voice.

  “I’m Ham and Ti-Belle’s housecleaner.”

  A dim memory emerged, of someone pale and lanky, a little unhealthy-looking. “I see.”

  “Shit, I don’t know why I’m doing this. A kid needs its mother, I guess that’s why. She’s too damn young to be on the streets.”

  “Melody? You’re calling about Melody?”

  “Look. I read the papers and all.” His voice was lower and suddenly he sounded sober. “I just wanted you to know she’s all right.”

  “Is she with you?” Patty could hear the urgency in her voice. She hadn’t meant to telegraph her terror.

  “No. God, no, she’s not with me. But she came over today. I saw her.”

  “What did she want? Why did she come to you?”

  “She’s a friend of mine.” He was suddenly defensive.

  “Do you know where she is?” Patty was practically yelling.

  “Hell, no, I don’t know where she is. Jesus, try to do some people a favor—” He hung up.

  She simply stood there, holding the phone in her hand, staring at it, and felt George’s arms go around her, supporting her. It was an unaccustomed gesture.

  He said, “You look like you’re about to fall.”

  “She’s okay.”

  “Come on. Let’s sit down and talk about it.” Gently, he led her to the bed. He was so solicitous, so different from his usual self. Dignified in his grief, Patty thought. Suddenly she felt the loss of this George, the one who was present now, yet normally absent from their daily life. Having him now, like this, made her realize once again how much she was missing, and any happiness she might have felt at the news of Melody was dispelled. Nor was the irony of it lost on her.

  I’m crazy, she thought. This is why I’m not happy. Because I’m crazy. I can’t be happy. I don’t know how.

  And yet she knew that was wrong too, that no woman could be happy with the everyday George, the one she lived with. She told the story of the phone call.

  George was excited. “Where does he live? If she came to visit him, that gives us a starting point.”

  “Well, here, I guess—I don’t see how he could have cleaned for Ham if he didn’t.”

  “Let’s call Ti-Belle and ask her.” He started to dial, but Patty had stopped him.

  “George, wait. If Melody’s in New Orleans, we can communicate with her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s call the Times-Picayune and make a plea. Plead with her to come home.”

  He stared at her as if she had just grown horns. He thinks I’m stupid, she thought, and maybe he did, usually. Maybe that explained his dumbfounded expression.

  “That has some merit,” he said finally. “That really has some merit.”

  Patty fairly preened.

  “They’ll talk to us and they’ll run it—they’ve been pestering us all day. This way, we control the situation.”

  He called the paper. Without consulting Patty, he issued the statement:

  “Melody’s mother and I want to say something to our daughter. We love you, Melody. We miss you. Please come home to us. We need you.”

  Just those few simple words. Patty listened with pride as he evaded the inevitable questions: Was Melody’s disappearance connected with Ham’s death? Was there fear that she’d been kidnapped? Had she gotten along well with her brother?

  Everything short of, “Why’d she kill him?”

  “George,” she said when he had hung up, “we have to call that detective. Langdon—the one at Ham’s party.”

  “About Andy, you mean? No.”

  “No?” Patty didn’t get it. “But maybe he’s the one. Maybe he kidnapped her.”

  “We’re not leaving it to the damn cops.” He started to put on his shoes. “Call Ti-Belle, will you? Get his address.”

  Not sure what he was planning, Patty didn’t protest, didn’t dare confront him. She dialed Ti-Belle. “No answer.”

  He grabbed a phone book. “Here it is. Andy Fike—shit. Burgundy Street.”

  It wasn’t a terrible neighborhood, but it wasn’t the sort they’d normally visit. George looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in—” He stopped. “No. Come with me.”

  Patty couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Come with you?”

  “To drive. I don’t want to try parking there.”

  “What are we going to do?” But it didn’t matter, as long as they were doing it together. She had already pulled on jeans. She zipped up and looked for a T-shirt.

  They went downstairs and she watched George go into his study, take something from a desk drawer and pocket it.

  “What’s that?”

  “A gun,” he said casually.

  “A gun? For what?”

  “A gun, Patty. Did you think I said nun?” The old George. “You have one—why shouldn’t I?”

&n
bsp; “I just didn’t know you did.”

  “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  He could say that again, and he probably would. He said it often. He seemed to like it that way.

  They didn’t speak on the way to the Quarter. When they had pulled up in front of Andy Fike’s building, George said, “Drive around the block until I come out. If she’s in there, I’ll have her in ten minutes. If I’m not out in fifteen, call Langdon.”

  George was a big strong man who could do anything, so far as Patty could see. If anyone could pull this off, he could. But if Fike had kidnapped Melody, he wasn’t your everyday business problem. Patty had a frisson. She said, “George. I love you.”

  He gave her a half smile and a chin chuck.

  “This guy might have killed Ham.” She didn’t know why she said it, she knew he had thought of it. It sounded like nagging, and she wished she could take it back.

  He was out of the car now, his back toward her. He made an impatient gesture at shoulder level. Quick, dirty, and eloquent:

  “Leave me alone.”

  That was George. Mr. Leave-Me-Alone. But right now she felt oddly bonded with him; they were in this together, rescuing their daughter. She drove.

  He was on the sidewalk the second time around, alone. He pushed her out of the driver’s seat, obviously having a need to control something, to assert himself with a piece of heavy machinery. He accelerated way too fast for the neighborhood.

  “God, what a dump!” he said.

  “She wasn’t there?”

  “Not now, and God help her if she ever was.”

  “Why’d the guy call us?”

  He shrugged. “He’s an addict. Maybe he was trying to get money. Did he ask you for any?”

  “No. George, maybe she was never there. Maybe Fike’s like one of those people who confess to crimes to make themselves feel important.”