by Julie Smith
“It’s only this generation we’ve joined the middle class, Mel. You know how weird it is for me to be going to Country Day? Nobody in my whole neighborhood can get over it. But I want to be a doctor—I’ll be the first one in my family to get a graduate degree—and my mama didn’t want me going to public school and she used to work for a lady who went to Newman and she couldn’t stand her. And after she saw the campus, it was Country Day or nothing—but my daddy wanted me to go to NOCCA, just in case; only I didn’t make it. My grandparents’ generation, they’re still poor, at least they think they are.
“My daddy and my uncles made it on their music—made it a lot bigger than the family ever did before. One or two of them had a couple of years of college, but that’s all. They smoke a lot of marijuana, do other drugs, I bet, some of them. It hasn’t sunk in with them that they’ve made it, you know that? But me and my brothers and sisters and cousins, we have choices. We’re the first Boucrees who ever did, and some of us just aren’t as talented as the older generation. I don’t know, the talent gets thin or something when you aren’t as desperate.”
“But what about me?” She was terrified his theory excluded her. “I don’t come from a family like that.”
“I don’t know about you, Melody. You’re a real pretty girl from a real nice family. But you’re not happy. You couldn’t sing and play like you do if you were.”
The Boucree garage was deserted when they returned, and Melody fell asleep almost instantly, shimmering thoughts of Joel flitting through her consciousness. It was funny, she hadn’t wanted booze or pot all evening. She was falling in love with him. He was enough for her.
Sometime in the night she awoke to someone, she never knew who, playing the piano and singing, unaware she was on the other side of the wall.
My own private concert, she thought, and was as happy as she’d ever been. It wasn’t till the music was over, till the place was dark again, that she noticed something was wrong. It had been wrong for hours, had started mid-evening perhaps, but she hadn’t wanted to pay it any attention. Now, alone in the dark, a little bit scared, it was hard to ignore. It was a strange itch between her legs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was Friday night in the Big Easy, but Skip and Steve were munching a hasty po’ boy on her coffee table, having decided there wasn’t even time to go out for a bite. Both had to work that night and early the next day.
Skip was wearing a tank top and shorts, fresh from the shower but already sweating again. The ceiling fan was on, but it got hot in the tiny apartment when there were two people in it. And Skip had gotten so she very much liked having Steve in it with her, tight squeeze or no. She was realizing that more and more as the days wore on, the case wore on, and she saw him less and less. She was missing him even though she was living with him.
All of the disadvantages and none of the advantages, she thought. She sighed. It had to be. It was the nature of her work. And his.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Nothing. I’m just … I don’t know. I wish we could spend more time hanging out.”
“Hey, listen, you’re the perfect hostess. Don’t give it a thought.” He took a long swig of his beer, a huge bite of sandwich. He was eating as if he hadn’t had a meal in a week. “I’m having the time of my life, I’m not kidding.”
She sighed again. “I wish I could say that.”
“Case got you down?”
“It’s still Melody.”
“Instant replay of last night.”
“Worse. I’ve talked to a few cops who know something about runaways—kids can hide here forever, you know that? One woman looked solidly for her kid every day for six months and never did find her. The kid called home—turned out she’d been dancing at Bayou Babies. Now how could you overlook that?”
“The mom went there at different times from when the kid was dancing. Or the first time she went, she stupidly identified herself, and every time she came in afterward, someone warned the kid and she split.”
“That’s it. You stick out when you’re looking—and they protect each other. Plus, they sleep all day and only come out at night.”
“Besides which, there are just a lot of places they could be at any given time. And they change their appearance, I bet.”
“Yeah. Melody did, but her boyfriend spotted her, so now she’ll probably do it again.” Skip set down her sandwich, feeling even more depressed. “Isn’t it weird? You can’t walk outside in this town without seeing ten people you know.”
“But they’re not trying to hide.” He made a noise as if clearing his throat.
“You know what they say at Covenant House? They say homeless teenagers have a pretty lousy chance of growing up.”
“Makes sense.” He seemed distracted.
“Yeah, but guess what the percentage is.”
“I give up.”
“A big three.”
He whistled. “Three percent! What kills them? AIDS and drugs?”
“Not that much. More like murder and suicide. Accidents caused by what they call ‘self-destructive behavior’—I guess that could be drugs.”
“And that’s if you aren’t the key to a murder case.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to find her, Steve.” She was getting the butterflies that had taken to coming when she thought about Melody.
But Steve, who normally loved to go on and on about her cases, apparently had something else on his mind. “Listen, Skip, I’ve got to tell you something. I think I owe you an apology.”
Her stomach tightened. There was something about the words “I’ve got to tell you something” that set off every internal alarm in her body. “An apology?” she said.
“For Mardi Gras. For the way I was then.”
She relaxed. But she didn’t have a clue what he meant. That was over a year ago.
“I really blew it, trying to get in on your life—get you to let me in on your case and everything. I just should have stuck to doing my own work. That film never did come together, you know that? All that color, all that drama, everything in the world going on, and I really didn’t end up with anything at all.”
“But you did.” She had seen it. It wasn’t bad either—it was partly about Mardi Gras, partly about her case, and pretty damned intriguing, she thought.
“Oh, yeah, I got something, enough to satisfy AFI, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I just never could settle on a focus—I guess somehow I expected you to give it to me.”
He had been pushy. He had been in her face about things she couldn’t do for him—like magically turn him into a cop working on the case himself. He had been a pain in the ass, and she deserved an apology. Still, she hadn’t expected one at this late date. She was taken aback.
It was what she wanted, if she really thought about it, but she didn’t know what it meant. Maybe it meant she’d been a learning experience for him and he was ready to move on. She planned to walk the streets later that night, looking for Melody, and she’d asked him to join her, but he’d declined. He had his own work to do. And she’d been disappointed. Much as she thought it annoyed her, she had to admit to herself that there was something appealing about having him panting like a puppy in her wake.
“You know,” she said, “I kind of liked having you underfoot.”
“I thought you hated it.”
“So did I. Now I’m wishing I had you back.”
He laughed. “Never satisfied.”
But she didn’t laugh with him. It was too close to the truth.
Before getting down to the Melody hunt, she had another errand. She’d phoned Johnny Murphy and gotten a grumpy, half-loaded response. She didn’t identify herself, just went to find him. He lived in the Faubourg Marigny, in an apartment hardly bigger than hers, and he was about as welcoming as if she’d been from the IRS.
“You mad about what I did with Ti-Belle this afternoon?”
“Hell, no. Bitch deserved it.”
“Then talk to me.”
<
br /> “I’m sleepy, okay?” She certainly seemed to have woken him up.
“And hungry, I’ll bet. You look like a dog’s breakfast. Go shave and I’ll buy you dinner.”
His hand went to his chin, feeling his beard. Being a musician, and a handsome one—at least formerly—he’d probably had women chasing him for most of his life.
“Oh, okay. For Christ’s sake.” She figured she’d hit a nerve, complaining about his looks.
While he devoured a plate of gorgeous, crisp-fried catfish, she sipped an iced tea.
“I’m still mad at her,” he said. “Mad enough to eat with a cop. What do you think of that?”
“We’re talking serious vendetta here.”
He looked at her, searching for a twitch, but she stayed deadpan. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
She gave him the smile he wanted. “I’m kidding. I know you’re really mad at her. I figure she must have dumped you.”
“Two years ago, you b’lieve that? I mean, that I’m still mad? But she did me in good, I’m tellin’ you. Took one look at Mr. Hamson Brocato, and said, ‘Here’s my ticket to the big-time—so long, sucker.’” He stuffed a hunk of catfish down the hatch.
“I found her singin’ on the street in Memphis six years ago—little Lacey Longtree, a half-cute gal with a great voice and not a clue in this world. Couldn’t even read music. About twenty pounds overweight when I found her—said she’d lost ten pounds since she left home without even trying. Weight kept fallin’ off till she got like she is now. I thought she was sick, but she said it wasn’t that, this was the way she was s’posed to be.” He shoveled in a huge bite, tapped Skip with an angry index finger. “Sounds like sour grapes, but I’m tellin’ the gospel truth when I say I taught her everything she knows. And I mean everything—I made Ti-Belle Thiebaud out of the pathetic ol’ raw material called Lacey Longtree. I figured out there really wasn’t a white female singer doing New Orleans rhythm and blues—well, there’s Marcia Ball, but she’s from Texas and she doesn’t have a Cajun name. Find a need and fill it, you know what I mean? And Cajun was where the hole was. Not that she was ever gonna do Cajun music–except just a little to make her look authentic. But what do the folks in Kansas know about that anyway? You got a French-soundin’ name, you must be a Cajun singer. Positioning was the whole ball game—she was just gon’ have an exotic name and be different from every other singer in the whole country. My idea. All of it. Every bit.” He chewed catfish.
“Mine.”
“Are you saying Ti-Belle Thiebaud isn’t her real name? And she’s not a Cajun?”
“I thought you were s’posed to be a detective. I just told you that, lady.”
“Well, if she’s not a Cajun, where’s she from?”
“Funny thing is, she never would say, even when she was a dumb little country girl singin’ on the street for quarters.” He finished off his beer and ordered another one. “Think I know, though. I saw a letter to her mom once, addressed to Doradale, Alabama.”
“So you were with her four years.”
“Four years and plannin’ on the rest of my life. I thought we were a couple. Like it was understood.” His mouth set in a hard, disappointed line when he spoke of it. An angry line that said it was a very poor plan to cross Johnny Murphy.
“What was she like to live with? Have you ever known her to be violent?”
“Violent! Ti-Belle Thiebaud? We are talkin’ a very primitive creature here, with just a thin civilized patina spread over some true savagery.” He stared off into space and laughed, clearly off in the past. “We had to replace all our plates regularly—she loved to throw everything in the kitchen at me. Fought in bars too. Only woman I’ve ever seen who does that. Did, I guess. She quit when she started gettin’ famous, but even then I had to beg her. She loved it, I think—I really think she did.”
He stared out into astroland again, and came back. “Mind if I smoke?” He lit up before she had a chance to answer. “You know that movie, Thelma & Louise? That’s Ti-Belle all over. Mad! Real mad right below the surface. Some guy’d say casually, ‘Hey, hon, loo-kin’ good tonight,’ and she’d say, ‘Shut up, asshole,’ ‘cause it was always some ol’ redneck looked like he was eight months pregnant, and it just outraged her that a guy like that had the nerve to get smart with her. So she’d call him asshole and he was always bound to say, ‘Who you callin asshole?’ or somethin’ just about as dumb, and she’d slug him. Just haul off and sink her fist in his oversized breadbasket. Sometimes he’d try and hit her back, and then somebody’d help her out—usually me, I couldn’t help it. And she’d just love it when she got the whole bar to brawlin’. She’d be in there mixin’ it up like a man. I told her, ‘TiBelle, you watch out or you’re gon’ lose some of those pretty teeth and it’s gon’ cost us.’ But she was always lucky. You ever know a woman who hit people?”
She smiled at him. There was something about him that charmed her. “I’ve been tempted myself.”
“But you never did, I bet.”
“Well, hardly ever.” Police work wasn’t always conducive to keeping your temper, but she tried to stay civilized.
“Oh, come on now.”
“Okay, never. But I pushed somebody once.”
“Pushed somebody. Ti-Belle pushed me every time she she got in a bad mood. But, hell, that was nothin’—what she really liked was yanking this.” He pulled his ponytail over his shoulder. “I think she wanted to drag me around by it. Did too. I just didn’t know it.”
“Johnny.” She gave him a level stare. “She sounds like a thoroughgoing bitch.”
“Hell, I like a spirited woman.”
“We’re talking a little more than spirited. Or are you exaggerating just the tiniest bit?”
He leaned back and guffawed, full of catfish, working on his second beer and smoking a cigarette. A happy man. “You’re pretty smart, after all, Detective. Let me buy you a beer, okay?”
“Another iced tea.” She’d have dearly loved a beer, but maybe she’d find Melody later. She’d need all the good sense she could muster.
He signaled the waitress. “Well, I’m Irish. You gotta take that into account.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But listen, there’s a grain of truth in all that. More’n a grain. She did throw all the dishes once and she did yank my hair a couple of times. Got in fights twice—whoooo, that woman has a temper. That’s the bottom line—we’re talkin’ temper. You’d think she was the Irish one.” He upended his third beer. “What you’re askin’ is, is she violent? Does she have those kinds of tendencies? Am I right?”
Skip nodded.
“Well, she is and she does.”
Why does a woman scorned get all the bad press? Watch out for scorned men. She said, “Remind me not to ever make you mad.”
“Hey, listen, you gotta understand. Ti-Belle wasn’t just my girlfriend. I made her. I devoted four years of my life to midwifing this country’s most famous female Cajun R and B singer. She was an investment.”
“I guess that’s how she saw Ham.”
“Yeah. The name’s provocative, ain’t it?” He stared off into space, came back as an old philosopher. “In this business, maybe we’re all just pieces of meat to each other.”
“But, Johnny, what about art?”
He guffawed again, enjoying Skip, she could tell. “Heck, let’s keep it around in spite of everything. Life’s gotta imitate somethin’.”
Skip left thinking she’d found buried treasure. That put her in a good mood, and being with Johnny Murphy had been fun—an unusual occurrence when pumping someone about his ex. She was feeling sociable and wished again for Steve to prowl around with. However, Jimmy Dee would be just as good company, and he needed attention—probably either had more to say about his sister or needed light banter to take his mind off her; most likely both. She phoned him. “Want to take a walk on the wild side?”
“You kidding, officer? You need a brute for that.”
“I was t
hinking of going to bars where teenagers hang.”
“Hang? Well, in that case. Something should be done about the creatures.”
“The Blacksmith Shop in five?”
“Done.” It was their neighborhood bar. He was waiting when she got there, dapper in jeans and polo shirt, salt-and-pepper hair curling slightly over the collar. He was a hunk, if rather a smaller one than was suitable for Skip. In his law firm, most people didn’t know he was gay, and women were forever fixing him up with their single friends. The swish act he affected with Skip was for her personal amusement.
They headed for Decatur Street, Jimmy Dee keeping up a running commentary on the passing carnival. “Don’t you just love the fashion statements?” He pointed out a kid in spiderweb panty hose.
“I can’t conceive of having fashion sense at sixteen.”
“No offense, my sweet, but I can’t conceive of your ever having any.”
“I don’t know, Dee-Dee, under your tutelage—”
“Green, purple, and orange hair—look sharp now.”
“The vampire he’s with—do you love the black nails?”
“But the 666 tattoo is too beastly.”
The vampire’s face had been whited out with something like Kabuki makeup. She had black around her eyes and her lipstick was bruise-colored. Her outfit had to have taken days to think up and weeks to put together. Skip thought she was a bit too short to be Melody, maybe too heavy, but she couldn’t be sure. If she wasn’t Melody, she was still somebody’s kid, and if she was a runaway, her next door neighbor wouldn’t recognize her. How did you find one kid in this mob? The bar they liked, the most nondescript on the whole street, except that it had a few video games, was starting to fill up. They didn’t seem to be interested in drinking, just milling. And quite a few of them were already unsteady on their feet—though not from alcohol, was Skip’s guess. Quaaludes maybe.
She and Jimmy Dee walked up and down the street, around Jackson Square, over to Bourbon, back again. The night was eerie; the air was heavy as always, but this time with millions of bodies, flying termites swarming the lights. They walked side by side, incapable of making eye contact if they didn’t want to be mowed down by the crowds. Skip realized later the side-by-side setup had been a rare opportunity for Jimmy Dee, giving him the distance he needed.
