“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Four nights ago, which you wouldn’t have to ask if you’d been listening.”
“So that was Monday?”
“She stopped by the house to show me one of those…pictures they take inside her belly.”
“An ultrasound?”
Prosper grunted in confirmation, then continued. “We were gonna meet for lunch at Two Sisters the next day. She never showed. Didn’t return my calls all day and night. So I drive over to her place—”
“Is she still living in the Marigny? She mentioned that, last time I spoke with her.”
Prosper directed a glimpse of bottled fury at Rusty, silently telling him one more interruption would bring this conversation to a permanent close.
“Place ain’t fit for habitation, I never understood why she chose to live there. Her apartment’s not bad but the neighborhood’s halfway to a slum. Anyway, she wasn’t home. I called the hospital where she works, they ain’t seen her. She missed three shifts in a row. They’re about ready to fire her.”
“Have you talked to the police?”
“Damn right I have. Went straight to the precinct, didn’t bother with the phone. Detective there, man named Hubbard, he brushes me off quick.”
“He didn’t even take a report?” Rusty asked incredulously.
“He took one. I gave him a picture of Marcie and all her information. Next day he calls me back, says they got nothing. Investigated her place, no sign of a crime. Her car’s gone so they think she maybe just took off. Like that’s something she does all the time.”
Rusty mulled in silence for a few paces. It did strike him as wildly out of character for Marceline to take a trip without letting her father know, but how sure could he be of that? Close as he’d once been to these people, years had since passed. He didn’t learn much from Marceline’s surprise visit to Ocean Pines last fall, except that she was pregnant and employed at a hospital in New Orleans.
In fact, he suddenly remembered, she never told Prosper she was coming to visit me. Worried it might upset him too much.
“Is there any reason you think some harm has befallen her?” he asked. “I know it’s unlike her to take off without telling you, but is there anything specific that’s got you so scared?”
Prosper stopped talking. He stopped walking, too, as if a mental image had just formed that rendered forward movement an impossibility until it cleared his vision.
“No-count son of a bitch. Man’s bad news all around, I told her that from the jump.”
“Who?”
“Abellard, for Christ’s sake. Son of a bitch who knocked her up.”
Hawking and spitting on the pavement like the name he’d just uttered left a poisonous taste in his mouth, Prosper resumed his shuffling gait. Rusty followed in silence for a few steps.
“You think this man knows where she is?”
“Course I do. She broke it off with him last month. Said she’s had enough of his disrespect, that’s what she told me. But there’s more to it than that. Man like him, he ain’t gonna lay down when a woman shows him the exit. ’Specially not with his seed already planted.”
“Abellard, huh. What’s his first name?”
“Joseph. First time Marcie brung him around, I said lose this one, he’ll bring you nothing but tears. She used to listen to me, same as you did. She says don’t worry about it, he’s only rough on the outside. Six months later she’s pregnant. She wants to break it off, but it’s too late. Man ain’t gonna let her walk, I know it.”
“Where can I find this guy? I want to talk to him.”
Without replying, Prosper stopped walking again. For a moment, Rusty thought the old man had expended enough effort to lay down right here on the uneven cement of the sidewalk. Then he saw Prosper reaching in his pants pocket for a key chain, and realized they’d arrived at the Lavalle homestead. Rusty had been so consumed by the disturbing conversation, he hadn’t even realized they’d reached the 1400 block of Camp Street.
A 1920s-era shotgun house crouched low behind a ragged row of hedges opposite Coliseum Park. A cluster of palmettos and elephant ears filled the front yard, enclosed by a chain link fence. Under the glow of twin porch lamps, the house grinned at Rusty like an old friend caught by surprise.
I’ll be damned. Looks smaller than I remembered it.
A modest domicile by most measures, the significance of this house assumed mountainous heights in his psyche. It had once been more than just a home for a young and wayward Rusty Diamond. It had been his school, his refuge, the inner sanctum where he’d spent untold hours in study of the skills that would later bring him fame.
Looking at the stooped old man trying to find the right key on a rusted brass chain, Rusty saw him unobscured by the ravages of age and the gap in communication that yawned between them. He’d never known a man like Prosper Lavalle. More than a mentor or even a father, during the formative years of Rusty’s life he’d been something close to a living god. And his daughter, Marceline, once seemed no less than the embodiment of love itself.
“I’ll find her,” Rusty said.
“Ain’t your problem, son. Police already done what little they’re willing to. I’ll stay on them, at the end of thirty days maybe they’ll get serious and start asking for some DNA samples. Meantime I post flyers around town, call the hospitals and central morgue every night. Bracing myself for the worst. All the while, I’m waiting for her to show up on this stoop, out of the blue with some funny story about where she’s been.”
“Prosper, I’ll find her. I promise.”
Those words didn’t come easily, reminding Rusty of the last time they’d been together and the wafer-thin basis of trust connecting them.
Prosper shook his head in protest, but it was a meek effort.
“Don’t trouble yourself. You got some guilt you wanna pay off from what went down in Vegas, fine. I’ll hold the money for her, and if…”
The sentence died unfinished. Rusty knew Prosper had caught himself before saying, if I ever see her again.
He’d probably thought those words a hundred times in the past several days. It was Rusty’s unannounced appearance out of the past that brought them to his lips. Both men knew it.
“Why don’t you invite me in? Make me some of that jasmine tea I remember so well, and we can talk about it.”
4.
Rusty leaned against a lamppost by the streetcar stop as his wristwatch ticked over to 1:16 A.M. One hand instinctively reached for the wallet in his hip pocket, to make sure it was still there.
He wasn’t worried about losing the thick roll of cash it held, or even his ID. The wallet’s most valuable item was a small piece of paper on which he’d scribbled some crucial data while hunched over a battered coffee table in Prosper’s living room.
Marceline’s home address. Her landline and cell numbers. Her car’s make, model, and plate number. Name and address of the hospital where she worked as a maternity ward nurse. Name and number of the Sixth Precinct detective who’d taken the report from Prosper three days ago.
It was a solid list, enough to get him started. He’d strained to think of anything else that might prove valuable but came up with nothing. By that point, Prosper was already ushering him to the door. The old man looked so exhausted that he was moving like a somnambulist, lids drooping heavily over eyes devoid of their usual spark. Rusty said he’d be in touch the minute he learned anything useful.
He glanced down Felicity toward the shotgun house, hoping Prosper was already asleep. Then he started walking. After eight blocks, his legs began to complain so he was relieved to see a cab heading in his direction. He called out for it and gratefully climbed into the back seat.
“Where to, baby?” the heavyset driver asked with a glance in the rearview mirror.
“Cornstalk Hotel.”
“Mmhmm,” the cabbie hummed, punching the meter. “Fancy joint.”
The drive progressed in silence. Rusty stared out the window with
out taking notice of the darkened cityscape flashing by. Just before they crossed Canal into the French Quarter, he leaned forward in his seat.
“Change of plans,” he said, reaching for his wallet.
“Mmhmm. Talk to me.”
Rusty unfolded the piece of paper with his handwritten notes.
“1242 Burgundy. That’s in the Marigny.”
“I know where it is,” the cabbie mumbled, easing into the left turn lane. “Sort of a different kind of destination, ain’t it?”
A few minutes later, the taxi took a right onto Burgundy. They drove for a dozen blocks into a poorly-lit residential neighborhood, each block less inviting than its predecessor.
When they reached the 1200 block, the cabbie slowed to a crawl. Rusty peered out the window, surprised by the seediness of this street. His memory of the Faubourg-Marigny was a hip district loaded with live music joints and funky shops. This section looked closer to a ghetto.
“Slow down a little,” Rusty said.
“That’s the place there,” the driver said, pointing at a red brick building on the left side of the street. It was a duplex split down the middle into two adjacent units. Lights burned in the windows on the left side, while the right side was entirely dark.
“Just cruise past it, slowly.”
The cabbie braked as they reached the end of the block.
“We stopping here, or is this a drive-by only?”
“Tell you what,” Rusty said, pulling a twenty from his wallet and handing it through the partition. “There’s another fifty in it for you if you’ll just hang here for a few minutes. I won’t be long.”
“I suppose I can do that.”
“Pull around the corner, and kill your lights. But keep the engine running.”
The cabbie rotated in his seat to face Rusty.
“This gets more interesting all the time, babe. Now I’m not so sure I need that fifty.”
“Nothing sketchy going on. I just want to see if a friend’s home. If she isn’t, we’re out of here. If she is, I’ll come back and tell you to split. The fifty’s yours, either way.”
“How come I get the feeling she ain’t expecting you at this late hour?”
“’Cause you’ve been driving this cab long enough to pick up a thing or two,” Rusty said, opening the door. “We got a deal?”
The cabbie hummed in contemplation for so long that Rusty started to think he was putting him on.
“Deal,” the cabbie finally said. “You don’t show in ten, I’m leaving without that fifty.”
“Fair enough.”
Rusty got out and shut the door softly.
The driver put it in gear and crept around the corner. Rusty waited to make sure he didn’t keep driving. The cab came to a stop just out of sight and the taillights died. Satisfied he wasn’t getting ditched on this unfriendly street, Rusty started walking toward the duplex.
Each footstep echoed on the pavement with amplified volume. The street appeared utterly empty of pedestrians, not so much as a stray cat on the prowl.
All the buildings were residential and rundown in a way devoid of the elegant decay that gave similarly unkempt parts of the Quarter a sense of charm. Only a few cars parked on the street, none of them recent makes.
Three cement steps got him from the sidewalk to the front stoop of Marceline’s apartment. An overhead bulb buzzed and emitted a greenish light. A pair of doors stood before him. Flanking each door was a narrow window. A mailbox next to the right door read “Lavalle.”
Rusty peeked through a gap where the inner curtain didn’t quite meet the window frame. Darkness inside, and not a sound to be heard. Retreating a few steps, he craned his head back to gaze at two square windows facing the street from the second floor. Both of these were also dark, with the blinds drawn.
The apartment next door was clearly occupied. Dull light seeped through the drapes and the murmur of canned laughter wafted out. Rusty pondered circling around to the rear of the building to see if there was anything to be learned back there. He started to take a step and stopped cold.
He couldn’t believe he’d missed it until now. The front door to Marceline’s apartment was open. Less than an inch, but clearly ajar. A thin black line of empty space filled the gap between the door and the frame.
Rusty quietly returned to the door and pressed an ear to the crack, straining to hear anything that might tell him what was happening inside. Silence. Another rumble of televised laughter from next door rendered further surveillance from this position futile.
He laid a palm on the door and slowly pressed forward. It swung inward an inch at a time, allowing a dim glow from the outside light to creep across a polished hardwood floor.
Rusty stepped inside, hand still on the door. He took a quick scan of the room, eyes gathering as much information as possible while keeping the door ajar.
He was standing in the entryway of what looked like a living room. A two-seater sofa sat on the right, with a glass-topped coffee table in front. Across the room was a small TV perched atop a wooden cabinet. A stairway in the far left reached up to the second floor. Beyond its narrow bannister, the hardwood floor switched to linoleum tiles leading into a kitchen.
Sealing this information in his mind’s eye, he quickly pulled the door back as he’d found it. The room went black. Rusty stood there a moment, adjusting to the darkness.
A tactile sense of place rooted in his mind. He recognized it. During his time as a magician on the Vegas strip, Rusty had performed complex and frequently dangerous acts while deprived of sight. Twelve times a week in the Etruscan Room at Caesars Palace, he did an entire segment of his show blindfolded—throwing and dodging knives, juggling chainsaws, walking a tightrope above a cage filled with live scorpions, and narrowly avoiding dissection from a swinging pendulum.
The countless hours he’d spent developing his senses of hearing and touch to compensate for a lack of vision, they all came back to him now.
Rusty took two and a half steps forward, knowing without seeing how far away the coffee table stood. He stopped just before his shin collided with the glass top. Turning to the left, he took a slow breath. Four more steps got him to the staircase.
He reached out and laid a hand on the bannister as easily as if the room were brightly lit.
That’s when he knew there was someone else in the apartment.
It wasn’t the sound of breathing, not at first. Rusty sensed rather than heard a corporeal shift in the room. A moving presence he hadn’t felt before.
Standing motionless, hand still on the bannister, he waited to hear what he knew must come next. It came—a slow, compressed exhalation. Slightly ragged, it sounded male in origin. Whoever was in here must have been holding his breath ever since Rusty entered the apartment.
He’s behind me, Rusty thought, spinning around and raising a protective arm.
Something hard struck him above the left eye. A glancing blow, it yielded only an angry surge of adrenaline.
Rusty swung wildly with his right fist, having a good idea of where the attacker stood, but only guessing at the man’s height. He aimed too low, striking what felt like a shoulder before his left ribcage exploded in pain. A heavy boot had drilled him in just the right spot to create a maximum loss of balance. Rusty felt the floor rising to meet him but prevented a bad fall by extending his right arm downward.
Footsteps shuffled away from him, toward the front door.
“Stop, fucker!” Rusty shouted.
Lurching upright, he flailed with both arms to grab the unseen assailant. His fingers briefly grazed a handful of greasy hair, but slipped free as the attacker ran forward. Rusty heard the creak of hinges and the door swung wide.
“Stop!”
Half a second gave Rusty a fleeting view of the escaping man, silhouetted in the doorway. Medium height, thick muscular build. A long tangle of dark untended hair. Rusty bolted after him, but he’d lost the critical moment.
The man bounded off the stoop
. He took all three steps in one misplaced jump and landed badly, falling to one knee on the sidewalk.
Rusty charged through the doorway, onto the porch. The man was just pulling himself upright, gripping his ankle in pain. Rusty knew he could catch him with a flying tackle.
Knees bending to propel himself with maximum velocity, Rusty never saw the length of chain swinging at his head. It struck just behind his right ear, raising a cluster of stars in his vision. The stars faded into a white glare and he was down again before he realized he’d been hit.
“Just stay right there, asshole.”
Those words came from behind him. Rusty decided to do as he was told, feeling the back of his head roar.
He just barely registered the sound of a car door slamming, followed by an engine coming to life. When he heard a squeal of tires, he knew the man inside Marceline’s apartment had gotten away.
5.
“Don’t do anything stupid now,” the voice behind him cautioned, sounding as calm as if reciting the ingredients for buttermilk pancakes. “Your fun’s all used up for the night.”
Rusty rotated to the right and saw an XXL pair of dirty blue jeans positioned a few feet away. He raised his eyes to get a fuller picture of the man who’d just knocked him senseless. Well over six feet tall, with a closely cropped head and handlebar mustache, this able citizen was glowering down at him and holding a two-foot length of heavy chain.
“That’s what you belted me with? Christ, you could’ve killed me.”
“Never happen, pal. I got me some real good control. Just looking to incapacitate you long enough to get 911 on the horn.”
The big man added in a gentler tone, “Why don’t you do that, peach. Tell ’em we got a break-in suspect neutralized and ready for pickup.”
Rusty turned and saw a woman standing in the doorway of the apartment next to Marceline’s. She held a sleepy-eyed toddler to her breast. The child toyed with the belt of her robe and didn’t seem at all bothered by the late night disturbance.
“Don’t worry about it,” the big man continued. “This fool ain’t going nowhere.”
Blind Shuffle Page 3
