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

by Julie Smith

  “Well, look, none of that’s really the problem. The thing is, I met him through his mama.”

  “Oh. She’s a friend of yours.”

  “Well, not exactly. You know that program I’m in at Tulane? She’s my adviser.”

  It was always that way. Cindy Lou collected men the way a kid picked up shells at the beach—utterly effortlessly. And all of them seriously flawed. Skip would have thought she simply wasn’t discriminating if she hadn’t seen the ones Cindy Lou dumped—the ones the average psychologist might have called “suitable.”

  “Well, I would too,” Cindy Lou had said when Skip remarked upon it. “I just don’t like suitable men.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Melody had walked right by a friend of her mother’s with no problem at all. So when she saw Chuckie Parsons, a kid from school who had a crush on her, she deliberately caught his eye and smiled seductively around the snoball she was working on. He actually looked around to see who she was smiling at. Of course, she wouldn’t have dared do it without the red shades, even with the makeup and hair and all, but even that might have been okay. Her eyes looked like something off of Cleopatra’s barge.

  She would see people she knew at Ti-Belle’s set, she was sure of that, but she felt pretty confident. Meanwhile, she was waiting in the gospel tent, her perennial favorite.

  Most of the groups were black and many came from high schools, schools Melody had never heard of. Some of the singing was incredibly good. All of it was fun. But the thing that fascinated Melody, the amazing thing that had struck her the first time Ham had taken her here when she was eight or nine, was the way some of these kids were really adults. The stars, that is.

  What would happen was that the star—it could be a girl or a boy—would step forward and perhaps speak first, say a few words for Jesus, sounding like a preacher, getting to do something completely adult, unlike anything in Melody’s experience any white kid ever got to do. Maybe the kid wouldn’t speak, maybe she’d just sing. Then she’d get the whole choir going, she’d be leading her own choir. She’d get the audience to join in, and here would be this crowd of people from all over the country, adults in every kind of job—blue collar, white collar, anything you could name—this incredibly disparate audience ranging from good churchgoing people, folks from the Seventh Ward, to sophisticated music-lovers who’d made the trek from California or New York—and a seventeen-year-old kid would have the audience in the palm of her hand. She’d have been taught everything she needed to know, the poise, the leadership, the musicianship, and she’d be an adult and a star.

  Melody watched the New Orleans Spiritualettes, the Christianaires, and the Second Morning Star Mass Choir, then took off for Ti-Belle’s gig.

  Ti-Belle looked fabulous. She had on a yellow dress with black polka dots, kind of a sheath thing, with a square neck—very retro, very Ti-Belle. Her long, gorgeous hair was platinum, stunning against her olive skin; it was parted on the side and usually fell over her eye, which meant she had to shake it back pretty often, and that was always dramatic. She was positively elegant in her raw skinniness. Melody was rhapsodic, just looking at her.

  Then Ti-Belle began to talk about Ham.

  Melody blinked tears. She should have realized this was coming. Ti-Belle was talking about their time together, how much he’d meant to her and to her career, her music, how easygoing he was, how patient, how everyone depended on him because he never got mad, he never got upset. Melody was struggling like hell not to cry. She truly couldn’t afford to ruin her makeup. She couldn’t cry—after all, Ti-Belle wasn’t crying. And why not? she wondered. What had she done to keep herself together?

  Melody knew. She knew exactly what Ti-Belle had done. She had seen her do the same thing countless times—she’d stood in front of the mirror and practiced and practiced until she was perfect. Ti-Belle did not ad lib. No way was she going to get onstage without having it down pat, without knowing she could stay in one piece while saying it. Melody didn’t even know how many hours it might have taken; it could have taken all night, and Ti-Belle wouldn’t have flinched. She was a perfectionist.

  She said now that her set was for Ham, that this first song in particular was dedicated to Ham, that it was what she had to do now. Then she sang a verse, a cappella, of “St. James Infirmary,” belting as if this was a talent contest and the winner got to be Madonna. She had changed the words slightly:

  Let him go, let him go,

  God bless him,

  Wherever he may be.

  I may search this wide world over;

  I’ll not find a man like him.

  Then the band came in and she sang the whole song. If there was a dry eye when she was done, it would have to have been the miserable orb of a person so insensitive he might as well be dead, Melody thought. She herself was openly bawling, having given up the fight to save her makeup. She didn’t dare take off her glasses, so they were thoroughly steamed up by the time the song was over. There being no choice now, Melody removed and dried them quickly, keeping her head down. But she was sure she needn’t have bothered. All eyes were on the utterly riveting Ti-Belle, who now broke the elegiac mood with a song of her own, one of Ham’s favorites, she said, called “Afternoon Delight.”

  It was rollicking and bawdy and the folks loved it. From there on the performance soared into the stratosphere. Melody, so overcome only a few minutes before, was transported to a new level of ecstasy, a musical ecstasy, a fine, vibrating, physical pleasure that was like a drug high, only better. Or an orgasm. She hadn’t had one yet, but surely it couldn’t be better than this. She threw her hands high above her head, swung her hips, moved her feet, and boogied like she’d been born to it. And she had, she had, she was born for this—she knew, even in her trance, her zoned-out no-holds-barred ecstatic transport, that that was the title of a song she’d write soon, after she finished Ham’s song. It would be about music and what it meant to her, but not the creative process, just the physical, primitive sensation, the thing the cave people must have felt the first time one of them beat on a hollow tree and invented the drum.

  She forgot all about Ham, all about everything except the music and the sun and the luxuriant pliancy of her own little body. She was singing, dancing, screaming, hands waving in the air, in seventh heaven, when all of a sudden she felt something. Eyes. She knew what eyes felt like. She could tell when a boy was looking at her in class and when someone in the next car was staring in the window. Someone was looking at her now.

  Quickly her own eyes swept the crowd, and she saw who saw her. Someone who was moving toward her. Her nemesis. The last person she wanted to see, or expected to see. A person who shouldn’t be here if there were any logic left in the world. But there hadn’t been for four days now, and she couldn’t worry about it. She had to go.

  Bodies pressed close to her, thick as a Mardi Gras crowd, everybody boogying but staying in their own space. It worked fine so long as no one disturbed the equilibrium. Melody was messing it up bad; plowing through like some human bumper car— “‘Scuse me; sorry”—but still getting dirty looks.

  The way it worked at JazzFest, there were a couple of tents—one for gospel, one for contemporary jazz—and other than that, open-air stages, lots of them, of greater and lesser importance. The more important ones drew the bigger crowds, of course, and the crowds could expand as much as they needed. They thinned on the edges and eventually melted into the greater, strolling JazzFest crowd.

  Ti-Belle was at the Ray-Ban stage, the biggest and most important; before he died, Ham had made sure she was far the most important act on at her time. The crowd she’d drawn was enormous, probably the biggest of her life. Melody felt as if she were moving through Jell-O, in slow motion. Then she was at the end of the crowd. She started to run. And hit somebody head on, fortunately a large man, possibly a biker, someone who was only stunned, not hurt. But he was angry. She might have got away, but she heard him pointing her out to her tracker.

  Wher
e to go? If she got into another crowd, she might be able to disappear, or she might get trapped. The tracker had binoculars; Melody had seen them, thought that was odd, and then had seen the figure start to move. She had to disappear altogether, become invisible even to the possessor of high-power magnification.

  She knew how she’d been spotted, and it had taken a clever person to do it. She had painted her hands scarlet, made her hands look like someone else’s, except for one tiny thing—her trademark cameo ring. Everyone knew about the damn ring, and yet it was such a tiny detail, who would spot it? Someone watching her dance, throwing her hands up in the air, the only parts of her body that stood out of the crowd, that could possibly be identified. Why hadn’t she thought of that? In a fury, she jerked the ring off and tossed it into the crowd. “Finders keepers,” she hollered, and all might have been well if the finder hadn’t been a girl of nine or ten.

  “Mees, mees,” she screamed, and with a sinking heart. Melody realized that she was foreign, Jamaican perhaps, or African, that she didn’t speak English, and that, childlike, wanting desperately to do the right thing, she wouldn’t rest till she returned the ring. She was small, and fast too—she’d catch Melody and slow her down, keep her there being polite until the tracker could get to her.

  Melody turned around and shouted over her shoulder, “Keep it! It’s for you. Keep it, keep it!”

  The tracker was gaining. The girl stopped for a second and pointed, possibly telling the story to her mother or sister. Someone else, someone with more English, shouted, “Mees, mees! Your ring—I have your ring.”

  Melody tried again. “Keep it. It’s yours—wear it in good health.” She had learned the phrase from television.

  More people were chasing her now—a crowd of black people, shouting, most of them children. What irony, Melody thought, everyone Uptown was afraid of getting robbed by black people, and here was a whole fifth grade class and all their chaperones trying to chase her down to return her property.

  She was getting close to Congo Square now, the part of the Jazz and Heritage Festival dedicated to the African part of that heritage. The original had evolved from a slave market to a voodoo site and black culture center. This one had rethought the market idea and given it a more palatable twist. There were T-shirts for sale here, as everywhere at any festival, and some cassettes, and that was about the end of ordinary merchandise. The rest was all dashikis and djellabas and rattles and jewelry and curious musical instruments. It was a great place to shop; Melody could spend hours there. But right now it was about the last place she wanted to be. If her pursuers were African, someone here might speak their language and try to help them out, and the shopkeepers would all have seen a running white girl. She was doomed.

  Desperately, grasping at anything, she picked up a scarf, something to make her look different. She grabbed it as she sped by, shoplifted as the owner’s back was turned. But a customer saw and pointed.

  “Hey!” the merchant shouted. “Hey, you thief!”

  Shit. It was hopeless. She was nearly numb with depression and she was breathing so hard her lungs were probably going to burst. And then she’d be dead. She hoped it wouldn’t be a painful death. After all this, surely she deserved simply to slip away. She turned a corner.

  “Goddamn you! Watch out, bitch!”

  She had run right into a man who hadn’t had time to move. “What you want?” he yelled, outraged. He was a big man, and for some reason he had grabbed her wrist. She couldn’t move.

  She’d probably have given up right then, except that due to the circumstances, she was jammed right up against him and he’d asked a question. She thought later that the smell of patchouli incense that someone was burning had been a contributing factor. That and adrenaline.

  What you want?

  There was nothing for it but to give an honest answer.

  “Hide me,” she said, and she looked into his eyes, wishing she weren’t wearing the shades. “Please, please, hide me.” And because his chest felt strong and good against hers, and she could smell his sweat, it occurred to her to reach for his crotch with her free hand, to brush it lightly and to whisper, “I’ll give you a blow job.”

  The shouts were getting closer. Without a word or change of expression, the man raised the piece of India print fabric that covered his table of wares and pushed her under it. Just like that. One moment desperation, the next a dark, enclosed space all her own.

  Melody crouched and concentrated on the pain in her chest, sure she could be heard breathing at fifty paces. She wished there were a way to lie down.

  The first group of pursuers had closed in. “Blond bitch run through here? Red shorts?”

  No answer. Probably her benefactor had merely shrugged.

  “Hey, man—she stole somethin’. Come on—you seen her?”

  More silence. Melody imagined him shaking his head.

  There was a rustling as the shopkeeper hurried by, he and whatever entourage he’d gathered.

  Melody’s chest sounded to her as if it were inhabited by frogs; every breath was a croak.

  The second wave came. A lilting, lovely voice.

  “You see a young lady? She lose her ring.” The little girl was probably holding up the ring, all innocence, brown eyes wide and gentle.

  “What did she look like?” the man said.

  “Oh, she have two-color hair, white and purple.” Mass giggles. There must be a dozen children out there.

  The man laughed too. “White and purple? Now how I’m gon’ forget somethin’ like that?” There was a pause. “She went by a minute ago. That way.”

  Okay, that was it. Except for the tracker. Her nemesis was still out there, and she couldn’t warn this man, couldn’t tell him not to pick up the cloth at the wrong time or she was screwed.

  He did. He picked it up now. “Is that all, sweet pea?”

  Melody closed her eyes and shook her head, desperate. “Ten minutes. Please, okay? Just ten minutes more.”

  “Sure. Sure, baby. Stay just as long as you like.”

  She closed her eyes again. Her breath was coming more evenly now, her pulse slowing down, and she realized how hot she was.

  Her makeup had probably melted, but that was the least of her problems. The tracker could have heard her talking to the man, could easily stick around till he lifted the cloth again, and there she would be, staring dead-on into the eyes of the enemy.

  She squeezed her closed eyes tighter, banishing mental pictures, bits of her old life, and tried to think what to do next.

  Okay, if the tracker was there, what?

  Run. Get out of there fast.

  And if not? She had a potential ally here, and her benefactor seemed a nice man, but there was a problem—she’d made a deal with him and he was bound to insist on payment. Maybe violently.

  Melody wondered how that would be. Could she just sort of close her eyes and think of something else? Wasn’t that what nineteenth century ladies did? She could, she supposed, if she’d made a slightly more basic offer.

  “Hide me and I’ll fuck you?” What would have been wrong with that? She could have gotten through that, probably. Why had she gotten fancy?

  The truth was, Melody had only a very dim idea what a blow job was, and wasn’t at all sure she could actually perform one; knew she couldn’t without coaching. This guy probably thought she was a pro. What would he do when he found out he’d been had?

  Anyway, how strong was her stomach? This guy was a stranger, and a pretty big one at that. His dick was probably in proportion, and she knew she had to put it in her mouth (though she hadn’t a clue what the next step was). Could she do that? Quickly, she put her hand over her mouth to stop the noise coming out of her throat. Just thinking about it, her gag reflex had kicked in. She had to get out of here.

  She lay still and thought. Finally she got up the nerve to roll out from her hiding place, to stand facing her benefactor, smiling, knowing she was about to pull a double-cross and wishing it d
idn’t have to be that way. Her eyes darted, looking for the tracker. No one she knew was in sight. She smiled at the man; seductively, she hoped. She even moved closer to him, touched his chest with her breasts and moved back, teasing him a little.

  “Ready to collect?” She wished her voice was breathy.

  He smiled. He was really very handsome. “Mmmmm-hmmmm, baby.” All lazy and nice, like he did it all the time, bought sexual favors from fleeing criminals.

  Fleeing minors, she thought, aware that a grown man shouldn’t have made such a deal with her. She had no call to feel guilty— the man was a child molester.

  She turned and looked over her shoulder, still smiling, still seductive. “Catch me.”

  He looked surprised, but not yet daunted. Apparently, he still thought it was a game.

  Melody ran, dodging men, women, and children, ran in earnest and as if she were desperate. “Help!” she screamed. “Somebody please help! Police! Rape!”

  She sneaked one more look and saw the man staring after her, frozen, terrified to move an inch.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Nick was watching the swarm around Ti-Belle, hanging back on the sidelines, thinking that this was perhaps the first time in his adult life that such a thing had happened—that he was not the center of attention. He was currently being as decidedly ignored as the tall chap with the video camera in the other corner. He was enjoying both the anonymity and Ti-Belle’s success. As a matter of fact, he was conscious of grinning like an idiot, and kept trying to remind himself to stop in case the fellow with the camera decided to notice him.

  Ti-Belle had been truly brilliant. He was so proud of her he would have busted buttons if he had any. It was a pleasure to be associated with such a woman.

  “What’d you think?” asked Proctor.

  “Oh, man,” said Nick. “Oh, man, oh, man.” And then was conscious of having become speechless. However, with Proctor, who’d seen him throw up the first time he got drunk, it hardly mattered.