The Axeman’s Jazz

by Ray Celestin

  Carbon copies of this report, attached Witness Statements, and Initial Coroner’s Report have been sent to the Detective Bureau at the First Precinct Station.

  Very respectfully,

  Capt. Paul Coman

  Captain Comd’g Prec’t

  W.D. Watson, Clerk

  21

  Raindrops tapped a metal rhythm on the roof of Lewis’s room. The rhythm became music and as he slept, the music entered his dream; the dream of a memory from when he was seven years old, the first time he lived with Mayann. Mayann was twenty-two at the time, and she had a new man who, looking to impress, took her and Lewis to a riverbank outside the city for a Sunday afternoon picnic. After they’d laid down the blanket and eaten the food, Mayann and the man got to drinking and sent Lewis out to explore.

  Lewis wandered off, through riverside undergrowth and clumps of trees, until he reached an open sun-baked field, where he heard a strange noise, faint and wailing, carried on the breeze. The noise twisted and doubled back on itself like an ampersand snaking through the air, music of a type Lewis could never have imagined, notes which slurred into each other like a soft, sorrowful voice. He followed the music all the way to its source – a copse on the far side of a fresh-cut field, where an ageing dark-skinned man with matted hair, ragged clothes and a wild look played a Kress horn, a dented tube of tin two feet long. The man saw Lewis and he stopped playing and smiled, crooked yellow teeth standing out defiantly against the gaps in his gums. Lewis halted and stared at the man.

  ‘What you playing?’

  ‘You ain’t never heard it before?’ The man spoke in a hard, broken accent, and Lewis shook his head.

  ‘I’m playing the blues.’

  The man grinned and started playing again. The same mournful talking sound. Percussion began to accompany him, soft at first, then louder, a steady thumping, a knocking at the door.

  Lewis woke, wiped the sleep from his eyes and opened the door to a rain-sodden Ida. She came inside without a word and they sat on the bed and Lewis gave her a rag to dry herself off.

  ‘Dammit, my hair’s gonna kink,’ she said as she wiped the rag about her head.

  Lewis would have liked to offer her some food and drink, but all he had in the house was a pail of water and some leftover catfish heads. He poured two cups of water from the pail and proffered a cigarette in lieu of food, which Ida accepted. As they smoked, she filled him in on what she had been up to since they last met – the trip to the docks, finding out the name of the garment factory owner, and the background checks she had performed to find out as much as she could about the man. She had followed the protocol Lefebvre had taught her for researching a suspect. She’d been through the Pinkertons’ own records first, and finding nothing, she moved on to the publicly available records in City Hall, and then the musty back issues of local newspapers in the library. She gave Lefebvre the excuse that she was updating the Pinkertons’ files, killing the downtime between jobs with tedious clerical work that Lefebvre was only too happy not to get involved in.

  She then mosaicked the pieces of information into a picture of the man who had been paying someone to search the crime scenes. Most of what she found related to Morval’s business, the fur-trading company he had run for over twenty years, which had made him, as she found out, one of the richest men in the city. In addition to trading furs, he had expanded into making other types of clothing and hit gold about ten years previously when he was awarded the contract to make the uniforms for a roster of local government agencies – most notably the police. Morval’s main supplier of textiles was a man named Sam Carolla, someone the Pinkertons did have files on. Carolla was a Mafioso. Ida noted the irony: the boys in blue were wearing clothes supplied by the Black Hand.

  In the court records Ida dredged through she found the lead she was looking for – Morval’s former business partner, a man named Elliot Hudson. Just before Morval landed his government contracts, he bought Hudson out of his side of the business. A few weeks later, Hudson filed a suit against Morval claiming coercion in the sale. A week after that, Hudson abruptly withdrew the suit. It all pointed to a bitter falling out, which was probably followed by Morval threatening Hudson into giving up the legal action. Ida had figured if she could convince Hudson that it was safe to talk to her, and if the man still harbored a grudge against Morval, she could use him to find out what she needed to know.

  ‘John Morval must’ve been the guy in the fox-fur coat, the one we saw questioning the kid that broke into the Maggios’,’ she said, recalling the bearlike man they had spied on in the warehouse.

  ‘Just because he was in there and calling the shots, doesn’t mean he’s the owner of the place,’ said Lewis.

  ‘No,’ Ida agreed, ‘but remember there was a safe in the corner of the warehouse, and the fox-fur guy clipped a safe-key onto his belt. Only the owner or the manager’s gonna have the key to the safe.’

  Lewis gave her a look and Ida smiled. It is my business to know things, she thought, quoting from ‘A Case of Identity’. I have trained myself to see what others overlook.

  ‘I wanna interview Hudson,’ she went on. ‘He’ll tell us more about Morval, about his deal with the Black Hand. I’m thinking if Morval works with the Black Hand and he’s involved in the killings, the Black Hand’s probably involved too.’

  ‘How you so sure this guy’s gonna talk to us anyway?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘Morval screwed him out of his half of the company. Anyway, I sent him a telegram and offered him some money. I got the feeling he was on the broke side.’

  Lewis peered at her quizzically. ‘And where’d you get the money from?’

  Ida bit her bottom lip and smiled at him.

  ‘We got a fund at the office for paying informants. I dipped into it. Lefebvre ain’t gonna notice. He’s skimming money out of it himself.’

  Lewis stared at her and play-acted being shocked. ‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ he said with mock indignation. ‘How much you take?’

  ‘Twenty-five,’ she said sheepishly and they both grinned.

  Elliot Hudson lived in a boarding house in the Irish Channel, a low-rent blue-collar neighborhood populated mostly by Irish immigrants. Ida knocked at the boarding-house door and a blocky woman in an apron and a shapeless dress answered.

  ‘Hello. We’re here to see Mr Hudson, please,’ Ida said, flashing her best smile.

  ‘Third floor,’ said the woman, jabbing her thumb backwards. She stood aside to let Ida through, but as Lewis tried to pass her, the woman held up her hand.

  ‘No Negroes,’ she said with a single shake of the head.

  Ida and Lewis stopped and looked at each other.

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Ida, turning to face the woman, ‘we’re here to see Mr Hudson on business.’

  The woman stared at Ida. ‘I don’t make the rules, miss,’ she said, her voice harsh and sullen, ‘so I ain’t in no position to change ’em.’

  She glared at Ida and Ida glared back.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Lewis. ‘I’ll stay outside.’

  ‘In the rain?’

  ‘It’s fine. Just go on up,’ said Lewis, his voice soft, his eyes projecting a knowing fear – We’re in the Irish channel, Ida. Don’t cause a fuss.

  Ida frowned at him for a moment and then she nodded, realizing his concern. She grimaced at the woman and stomped into the building. The woman watched her go, and without a word slammed the door in Lewis’s face.

  Ida ascended the stairs three flights and knocked on the door with Hudson’s name on it. The door swung open and a sleepy man with a two-day stubble peered at her. He wore a vest and a pair of stained trousers held up by a cord belt, and nothing on his feet.

  ‘Mr Hudson? I’m Miss Davis. We corresponded by telegram.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Davis. Come in,’ he said, his voice strained.

  It was a one-bedroom apartment that smelled of dust and the bed-sheets of a man just woken up. A stove, a wardrobe and a bed took up most of the
room, leaving just enough space for a tiny table and two chairs by a solitary window. Hudson gestured for Ida to take a seat at the table and he ambled over to the stove, scratching his face as he went. Ida sat and noticed a foul-smelling bucket at the foot of the table.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Hudson, ‘I just woke up. Coffee?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ida, peering at the bucket, which was filled with tarry brown spit.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind Turkish,’ said Hudson as he spooned ground coffee beans into a pan.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Ida said, looking up from the bucket, not really sure what Turkish coffee tasted like.

  ‘You never mentioned which detective agency you work for, Miss Davis. You’re not from the Pinkertons, I hope?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m from the Thiele Agency up in St Louis,’ she said after a moment, hoping Hudson didn’t notice the hesitation, or the quiver in her voice.

  ‘Never heard of them.’ He turned around and stared at Ida. ‘If you don’t mind the crudeness of the question,’ he said, a smile playing on his lips, ‘how much exactly does the Thiele Detective Agency of St Louis pay for information?’

  The man had asked the question breezily, but Ida could tell the easy tone was forced, that he was trying to hide some financial desperation.

  ‘That depends on the information, sir,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Well, that’s a businessman’s answer if ever I heard one.’ Hudson chuckled and turned back to the stove. He stood over the pan for a few moments then he poured the coffee into two tiny cups of chipped, yellowing china and shuffled over to the table. He set the cups down and sat opposite Ida. As she took the cup in her fingers she noticed Hudson was staring at her, scanning her face for something or other.

  ‘You got black in you?’ he asked, frowning, the tone of his voice more surprised than suspicious, as if he had just noticed that there might be something not completely European to her.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Ida, the confrontation with the landlady fresh in her mind.

  Hudson stared at her a moment longer, and then he nodded, believing her lie. He picked up a packet of Piper Heidsieck lying on the table, lifted its sky-blue lid and took a pinch of the flaky chewing tobacco from inside.

  ‘So what exactly is it you wanna ask me?’ he said, rolling the tobacco between his fingers.

  Ida took her notebook out of her bag and flicked through a few pages.

  ‘Am I right in assuming – and sorry if I’m being forward here, Mr Hudson – that John Morval forced you to sell your side of the business to him?’

  Hudson smiled. ‘That’s one way to put it.’

  Ida smiled back. ‘Would you mind telling me what happened?’

  Hudson peered at her again with the same searching look, as if he was making a judgment of her character.

  ‘This is strictly between us and the agency,’ he said, his tone serious. ‘My name doesn’t get mentioned anywhere.’

  Ida nodded.

  ‘OK then,’ he said, smiling. He tossed the pinch of tobacco into his mouth and began to chew.

  ‘John had some associates of an Italian disposition, if you get my meaning. And one of these associates had bought someone in the mayor’s administration, a high-binder responsible for handing out government contracts for the procurement of uniforms for municipal workers. John’s associate, the one who bought the contracts, had a criminal history.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Hudson,’ Ida interrupted, ‘would this associate be Sam Carolla?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Hudson with a smile. ‘Now, it didn’t look right for a government contract to go out to someone with a criminal history. So John came up with a proposition – he’d graft the government contracts himself, and in return John would make the Italians his main suppliers of textiles. I had a compunction against working with those kinds of people. So he forced me out.’

  Ida smiled and took a sip of the grainy, bitter coffee. She rolled the liquid around her mouth a moment and decided she quite enjoyed the taste.

  ‘Is Morval still involved with these associates?’

  ‘I shouldn’t see why not.’

  ‘And was Morval ever involved in any counterfeiting that you know of?’

  Hudson frowned and shook his head, then leaned forward and spat a stream of tarry saliva into the bucket.

  ‘Never heard he did anything like that,’ he said. ‘John’s involved in a hundred and one underhand things, but I don’t believe that’s one of them.’

  Hudson picked up his cup for the first time and without taking the wad of tobacco from his mouth, took a sip.

  ‘Are you aware of a Mrs Romano?’ asked Ida. ‘She was a worker in Morval’s factory.’

  ‘Can’t say that I am.’

  ‘Mr Hudson, would you say Morval had it in him to kill?’

  Hudson stopped his chewing for a moment and raised his eyebrows. ‘You investigating a murder?’

  Ida smiled and stayed quiet, and Hudson nodded to himself.

  ‘John could kill a man as easy as buy him a drink,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. He paused and Ida noticed a solemnity in his demeanor. ‘He’s the closest thing to evil I’ve ever come across. A dark, vicious thing, Miss Davis.’ He paused again and stared at her, his face cold and stony. ‘I’ve known the man since we were children. We grew up in the same village, out north of Lake Borgne. Morval Senior was a trapper, too. Used to take John out with him from when he was a child, showed him how to kill animals, how to skin them. You gotta understand what seeing that much blood so young can do to a man. It changes his appetites, if you know what I mean.’

  Hudson said the last with a snide, knowing intonation that unsettled Ida. ‘If someone’s wound up dead, Miss Davis,’ he continued, ‘and John’s one of the suspects? I’d put him top of the list. Now, I think I’ve given you about enough of my time. How’s about that money we were talking about beforehand?’

  By the time Ida exited the house, Lewis had been standing on the street for the best part of twenty minutes, and it was never a good idea for a colored man to be standing on a street in the Irish Channel for that long. The city’s Irish and Negroes were competing for work on the riverfront just two blocks away, and the Negroes were winning, something that made people like Lewis even less welcome than usual. So when Ida made her way out of the building, Lewis heaved a sigh of relief, waved away her apology and started off down the road as quickly as he could.

  They walked in silence along an avenue lined with orange trees and huddled-together houses bordered by overflowing gardens, before turning onto Tchoupitoulas Street. They passed by the river and along the levee which had been planted with willows that swayed in the rain, and eventually they reached St Mary Street, home to the neighborhood cattle pens and slaughterhouses, where the stench of livestock, manure and pig’s blood filled their noses. As they arrived at the last of the pens, Lewis noticed four urchins taking shelter from the rain under the eaves of one of the abattoirs. They were young, with red hair, string belts, and trousers ragged at the ankles.

  Ida caught on that Lewis had seen something and followed his gaze, and the urchins noticed them in turn, and spoke to each other in quick whispers. They moved out from under the eaves and stood in the center of the walkway. Lewis scanned the surroundings – they were completely alone, in an open area of mud and ditches, the river on one side, the butcheries on the other. As they approached, two of the boys stepped aside to let them through, all of them leering at Ida. When they had gone a few paces forward, he heard one of the boys behind him shout in a nasal voice, ‘Aintcha ashamed!’

  Before Lewis knew what had happened he was stumbling forward and falling to the floor, a sharp pain in his back. He heard only scratches of noise as the ground spun around in front of him, Ida screaming, the boys shouting.

  He tried to stand, but something on his back was pressing him down. Then kicks starting pummeling him, cracking into his sides, his ribs, his hipbones and kidneys. He heard Ida crying, the abra
sive sounds of a tussle. He flailed an arm out to his side and somehow managed to grab hold of a foot. He pulled as hard as he could and one of the attackers fell to the ground with a thump and rolled about, clasping his knee. The tallest of the boys was on top of him now, swinging punches, while the other two were dragging Ida into a storm-water ditch. Lewis lurched upwards, knocking the tall one to the side, getting in a blow to the face, dropping him to the floor.

  Lewis watched the boy writhe in the mud for a second then ran over to the ditch – the two remaining boys had pinned Ida to its muddy bottom; one held her wrists, the other was pulling at the waist of her skirt. Lewis jumped on them, knocking one over. The second one swung a punch his way and hit Lewis square in the jaw. Lewis stumbled and collapsed and as he reeled about in the mud, he caught a glimpse of Ida creeping up on her two attackers, a rock in her hand. Lewis heard two cracking sounds and then he felt something in his hand – Ida’s fingers, slippery with blood and rainwater. She pulled him up, and as they climbed out of the ditch, Lewis cast a look back. He saw the two boys sprawled out on the ground, their heads coated in blood.

  They ran down the road till the panic burnt off, checking behind them through the rain as they went. Lewis was the first to stop, a five-minute eternity later. Despite the fact that his ribs seared with pain every time he breathed, he leaned against a fence and hyperventilated.

  ‘They’re gone,’ he said between heavy, rasping gulps.

  He looked up at Ida for the first time. She was crying, fear and shock distorting her face. She looked at him with a confused, terrified expression and he didn’t know what to do except push off the fence and hug her. He felt the weight of her body heaving against him as they held each other under the darkening sky, the two of them trapped in the wires of rain.

  22

  While Captain McPherson stood at the front of the third-floor meeting room and addressed the crowd of policemen gathered there, Michael leaned against a table next to him, his arms folded, barely listening to what was being said. Instead he stared out of the windows, watching the rain shimmy stupidly down the panes, his mood dark. The meeting had been called because the previous afternoon the officers trawling through the prison records had completed their work. Lists had been compiled. And now the department needed a troop of men to cover the city to try to find all those who had been in prison or the insane asylum during the eight-year gap between the killings in 1911 and the current murders.