The Axeman’s Jazz

by Ray Celestin

  ‘Word is Lombardi—’

  ‘Ermanno,’ Rocco interrupted, ‘his name was Ermanno. Calling him Lombardi makes it sound like he’s dead.’ The sudden sadness in the man’s voice made Michael pause. There was sorrow in the brute sitting next to him after all.

  ‘Sure,’ Michael said gently. ‘Word is Ermanno got whacked for talking about the Axeman. We wanna know what he told you about it.’

  Rocco sighed and shook his head, and gazed out over the polluted waters in front of him. Two seagulls squawked in the rafters of the factory.

  ‘This is off the record, OK? I ain’t going in front o’ no judge.’

  ‘Sure,’ Michael said, ‘you’re not under arrest.’

  Rocco stared at him for a moment longer, then he ran an anxious hand through his hair and started talking.

  ‘Well, I guess it goes back a few months. ’Manno got a telegram from an uncle up north – Boston. Runs a lumberyard. Asked him if he wanted to go up and work there. Money’s good, so ’Manno says sure and starts getting ready to leave town, but then he gets asked to do a job. See, ’Manno used to run jobs for some hoods when he was strapped for cash; scare a guy here, collect some money there. Small shit. So just before he’s leaving he gets asked to do a dope drop, out in the bayou somewhere. ’Manno says sure and takes a bundle out to where he’s supposed to. But he gets suspicious, the bundle’s too light for dope, and who the hell drops off dope in the bayou, right? So he thinks maybe he’s being set up. He was kinda smart like that, you know.

  ‘So he gets somewhere quiet and opens it up. No dope in there, just rags, newspaper pages, padding. He looks in the middle and finds a piece o’ paper, some kinda letter, but it’s written in French and he don’t understand what it’s saying. But in the middle of the letter is a list, a bunch o’ names and addresses, right? He can understand that bit. So he ties the bundle back up and takes it to the drop-spot.

  ‘But no one shows. Story was, if no one showed he had to leave the bundle by the side o’ the road. So he waits around a few hours, and he gets the feeling someone’s watching him, but no one shows. So he leaves the bundle in some ditch like he got told to and he heads back home.’

  ‘Where was the drop-spot?’ asked Michael.

  Rocco shook his head. ‘I dunno no specifics. Some road leading off one of the bayous, that’s all he said.’ He shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette, looking out over the dock.

  ‘OK. Go on,’ said Michael, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘So he gets back and he’s getting his things ready to head up north when he gets another telegram; the uncle with the lumberyard dies in a fire. Yard gets burned to the ground, so no more job for ’Manno and he has to stay in New Orleans. This is about the time the Axeman killings start, and after . . . I dunno, maybe the third one, ’Manno realizes something: the guys’ names that were on that list are the same guys getting whacked by the Axeman.’

  ‘How many names were on the list?’

  ‘I dunno. A few.’ Rocco shrugged. ‘More than have been killed, I think.’

  ‘And what did he say about the names on the list, Rocco?’ Michael pressed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Were the names Italian? Were they men? What neighborhoods?’

  Rocco shook his head again.

  ‘I dunno, I can’t remember. He just said they were names. He didn’t say what kind. Just names and addresses,’ said Rocco, a little agitated now.

  ‘OK, go on,’ said Michael, and Rocco resumed his story.

  ‘So ’Manno twigs the whole thing was a set-up, like; he only got given the job because they thought he was leaving town, and now he’s staying, maybe he’s gonna get whacked to make sure he don’t go stool-pigeon. So he starts getting money together to leave town, because he needs some money if he’s gonna go on the lam, but, well, you know the rest.’

  Rocco shrugged and looked out over the water; the bloodied bodies of discarded fish floated along the dock, sodden grease-paper, tin cans.

  ‘How’d they do it?’ he asked softly, turning towards Michael.

  ‘Garrote. In his apartment.’ Michael tried to keep his tone gentle.

  Rocco nodded and stared at his feet. He swiped away a few of the cigarette butts with the toe of his boot.

  ‘I tried to tell him to get away, but he wouldn’t leave without money.’ He sighed. ‘When’d he die?’

  Michael peered at the man – surprised at the depth of feeling. Another strange love, he thought.

  ‘A few days ago. When’s the last time you saw him?’

  ‘About a week ago. We had an argument.’

  Michael let the comment hang. He listened to the sound of the rain beating against the roof and the oily water in front of them, making the waste on the surface bob and roll. He took his cigarette case from his pocket, lit up and leaned in close to the man.

  ‘Listen, Rocco. This is really important. Who’d he get the job from?’

  Rocco turned to look at him and frowned, weighing up the pain of his heartbreak against the idiocy of informing on the Family.

  ‘I ain’t going to court. This is all off-record.’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘A guy named Pietro. I don’t know nothing about him. All Manno ever said was he was an empty suit looking to get made.’

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  ‘Small guy, Italian, greased-back hair. Maybe the same height as the kid,’ said Rocco, motioning towards Kerry.

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Late thirties, I guess. I only ever saw him once,’ Rocco shrugged.

  Michael nodded and smiled. The two gulls above them burst out of the rafters and flapped across the open river, pushing hard against the falling rain. They watched the birds disappear into the distance.

  ‘Any idea where we can catch up with him?’

  Rocco shook his head.

  ‘Manno used to meet him in some dive in the business district to get his jobs. Tito’s, I think.’

  Michael smiled again. ‘Thanks, Rocco.’

  He stood and Kerry followed suit.

  ‘Hey. You serious about maybe I’m next?’ Rocco asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘If you think someone’s after you, gimme a call.’

  Michael handed Rocco a card, tipped his hat and strode back into the factory with Kerry.

  They passed through the processing floor and out into the street. Michael’s mind raced – Lombardo’s list had had more names on it than those of the victims so far. There were more killings to come.

  32

  Lewis opened his umbrella against the rain and strolled along Perdido Street, stopping every few minutes to exchange greetings with acquaintances he hadn’t seen since his return. It was strange being back in his old neighborhood, back among the people he had grown up with. As much as Lewis cared for them, he couldn’t stop himself feeling downbeat when he passed by them on the street, the switch-blade wielders, the gamblers, the dope fiends, the pimps and their whores, all of them sleepwalking their way through their slum-dwellers’ existence. Lives that were frittered and short, with no plans, or ambitions, or thoughts for tomorrow.

  Lewis knew he was lucky to have a talent and a trade, something to save him from the poverty he grew up in. Things had changed from when he first moved to Mayann’s when he was six, when his life was a miscellany of odd jobs, scavenging and making ends meet. Mayann had enrolled him in the Fisk School for Boys, but he spent most of his time trying to keep the family in food. He sold newspapers in Front o’ Town or sung for nickels and dimes in a street-corner quartet or worked on a coal-cart, making deliveries to the cribs of the sporting women in Storyville. And when no work was forthcoming, he would go scavenging – sifting through the waste at the Silver City dump, or going down to the docks with his friends and waiting for the coal barges to be unloaded, then jumping into the empty hulls and collecting coal dust to sell around Back o’ Town at five cents a bucket. The worst
of it was when he rifled through the bins by the restaurants in the Tango Belt, bringing the discarded food he found home to Mayann, who would cut out the spoiled sections so he could return to the restaurants later and sell the food back to them for whatever the proprietors were willing to pay.

  All this, along with Mayann’s domestic-help job and the steady stream of men that passed through the apartment, meant there was always food on the table, but it was not a life he wanted for his own children, Clarence included. Lewis would always feel guilty about the boy’s accident, and would indulge him as much as he could. He saved money each week to pay for doctors and a specialist school for slow children. He prayed he could make enough money to cure Clarence, to prove the doctors wrong. And if he couldn’t prove the doctors wrong, he would make sure Clarence wanted for nothing.

  Before Lewis had left the house that evening, Clarence had asked him to tell him a bedtime story when he returned. ‘A new one,’ Clarence had said. Lewis tried to think of a new ghost story to tell the boy but for the life of him he couldn’t conjure one up. He’d been through the complete roster of Louisiana folk-ghosts in his attempts to sate Clarence’s appetite. He’d told him about the loup-garou, the French werewolves that roamed the swamps and were scared of nothing except frogs. He had told him of Bras Coupe, the runaway slave and his renegade band, who attacked plantations and were immune to death. He’d told him of the needle men, the white medical students from the Charity Hospital who came into Back o’ Town at night, armed with syringes full of sleeping liquid, ready to steal away black folks to use in experiments. He’d even told him of the mystères, the voodou skeletons that dressed in top hats and tuxedos, and were named after French aristocrats Baron Kriminel, Baron La Croix and Baron Samedi.

  But Clarence’s favorite stories were about the Pirate Jean Lafitte, who each time he buried treasure in the bayous killed a shipmate so his spirit would guard the hoard. The spirits were said to manifest themselves as the jack o’ lanterns and will o’ the wisps that were seen in the bayous after dark, the lights that receded as they were approached and drew travelers off the safe paths.

  Lewis turned a corner onto Bienville Street and approached his destination – the Mahogany Hall, a whitewashed colonial building set behind a tiny well-kept garden. He stepped onto the porch, happy to be out of the rain, and knocked on the door. It opened to reveal a beautiful light-skinned girl of his own age. He explained who he was and she led him into an airy, well-decorated hall where he took a seat on a red leather button-back armchair.

  Lewis glanced around the room – Persian carpets lay on the parquet floor, tacky gold chandeliers hung from a high, arched ceiling, and a grand piano stood in a corner. On the chaises longues and sofas strewn around the parlor, girls in lingerie relaxed and chatted, odalisque-like and weary. All of them were young and attractive, and most importantly, light-skinned, because the Mahogany Hall only hired octoroons – girls who were one-eighth black, seven-eighths white – what was considered the most desirable mix of blood by the Caucasian men who made up the Tenderloin district clientele.

  It was still early in the night and the room was relatively quiet – the only customer in the parlor was at the bar, buying drinks. He happened to turn and noticed Lewis staring at him, and he was obviously surprised to see a young Negro sitting in the parlor like a client. Black men weren’t allowed in any of the Storyville parlors, at least not as customers, a restriction that led to the rise of Black Storyville, the red-light district for Negroes a little further uptown, where Mayann had worked and Lewis had been raised. The customer shook his head and returned to a chaise longue, where a smiling young girl waited for him, feet tucked underneath her, a finger twirling her hair. The girl glanced at Lewis as the man returned and passed her a champagne flute. There was something embarrassed in the way she looked at Lewis, and despite her beauty Lewis felt sorry for her.

  Some of the other girls milling about the lounge cast him glances, too, wondering why he was there. The girls reminded him of Ida. Not just in their looks – light-skinned, pretty and young – but also because they possessed the same rootless, distrustful air he had noticed in his friend. They had the sadness of exiles about them. Cast adrift by both races, they had washed ashore in the bordellos of New Orleans, where they took what society told them was their defining characteristic and turned it into a commodity, a taste of the exotic, which they sold back at hourly rates to the men who had orchestrated their exile.

  Lewis smiled back at the girls, who, depending on their character, smiled back or turned to look the other way with haughty swings of their eyes. He didn’t recognize any of them from the time when he’d worked at the establishment years before, when the Mahogany Hall was located on Basin Street. The old Hall was a four-story building decorated with herringbone floorboards and Tiffany’s stained-glass windows brought all the way from New York. Jelly Roll Morton used to lead the house band there, but when he left to seek his fortune up north, Kid Ory was hired to replace him, and Lewis landed a job with the new group.

  The doors to a back parlor swung open and an immaculately dressed light-skinned woman came over to Lewis.

  ‘Lil’ Louey!’ she exclaimed in a thick French accent. Lewis stood and the woman embraced him, squashing his face against her bosom.

  ‘Hello, ma’am,’ said Lewis, talking directly into Lulu White’s breasts. ‘I can’t breathe.’

  Lulu unclasped him, stared at him, and smiled. She was a handsome woman, middle-aged and stout, with short hair and wide hips. Lulu was the owner of the Mahogany Hall, and had been since Storyville’s heyday. In the blue books – the tourist guides to the District, which listed the reputable brothels and catalogued the girls by beauty, race and open-mindedness – Lulu had advertised the Hall as the ‘Octoroon Parlor’, where all the girls were, like Lulu herself, one-eighth black. She promoted herself as the ‘diamond queen of the demimonde’, and the promotion worked – she spent forty thousand dollars on building the Hall, and covered her costs within a couple of years. When the Navy forced the closure of the District, Lulu moved to these new, shabbier premises. Gone were the Tiffany stained-glass windows, but there was still something to the place, a last remnant of la belle époque.

  Lulu took Lewis through to a private parlor and ordered two cups of hot chocolate topped with peppermint schnapps. They chatted briefly about what they had both been up to in the few months since they had last seen each other, and then Lewis turned the conversation to the subject of Morval. He told her about the Axeman, and that Morval had been snooping around the crime scenes, and the theory he and Ida had about his involvement. He felt a little foolish explaining things to Lulu, but as he talked he realized how much they had uncovered, how close they were to figuring something out.

  ‘What I couldn’t understand,’ Lewis said, ‘was Dots said Morval was a pimp, but I never heard of him when I was working Storyville.’

  ‘That’s because Morval never worked in the District,’ Lulu said. ‘He was private. Had a stable of kids he sent out on demand. And his clientele were big-wigs. All very . . . hush-hush.’

  ‘Kids?’ Lewis repeated, to make sure he had understood her, and Lulu nodded. ‘Anything a few years either side of puberty,’ she explained flatly. Then she gave Lewis a look and a shrug, as if to say she’d long ago come to terms with the barbarity of her fellow humans. Lewis pondered the news for a moment, and remembered Dots telling him Morval was a devil. They looked at each other, then Lulu drained what was left of her drink, and ordered two more cups from a serving girl.

  ‘I’m not sure how much of this – Morval’s stable, I mean,’ she continued, ‘would have to do with the Axeman. Morval closed shop about the time the District got made illegal. The mayor removed his protection and Morval moved on to other business.’

  ‘Ida said Morval worked with the Black Hand,’ Lewis said. ‘You think that had anything to do with Morval shutting up shop?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘Matranga and Mayor Behrman fell
out when the new ordinance came in, too. It could be related to that.’

  Lewis nodded. He knew the story. When the Navy closed down the District, Carlo Matranga ignored the new ordinance and carried on running brothels regardless, something which landed Mayor Behrman in trouble with the War Commission; but Behrman couldn’t do anything to stop Carlo as his own affairs were so intertwined with those of the Matrangas.

  ‘I’ve met Morval a few times, you know,’ Lulu said, ‘and he gives off a feeling, something dead in his eyes. Makes you scared just to be around him.’ Lulu waved her hand – the extent of Morval’s nastiness was beyond words.

  ‘You know anyone that knows Morval? Someone friendly I could talk to?’ asked Lewis, and Lulu smiled. ‘For sure,’ she said, ‘I’ll go get you the address.’

  Lewis left Lulu’s as the clock turned towards eight. Evening had descended on Storyville and the lights of the bars, saloons and revues were shining neon against the inky night. Wispy music escaped from the cabarets, laughter and boozy chitchat, and the streets were thronging with people – tourists, johns, street-walkers, drunks, and advertising men trying to coax customers into their clubs with bawdy rhymes and wisecracks. The sporting business was still going on, but it wasn’t the same as before. Lewis could sense a difference, something was missing, an emptiness at the heart of it all. He thought about Lulu and the new Mahogany Hall and he had the same sense that something had been lost. Storyville was beginning to feel like a remnant of another time, like the ghost-pirates out in the bayou, clinging on to a world they no longer belonged to, searching for treasures that had long since disappeared.

  Lewis pushed against the flow of the gathering crowd, heading towards Back o’ Town. In his pocket, he rolled the piece of paper Lulu had given him through his fingers, hoping the rain wouldn’t get onto it. As he turned a corner, he heard the sound of church music wafting over the noise of the street, solemn music, earnest and lilting. He moved a little further up the road and came upon its source – a handful of women, middle-aged and stony-faced, standing in a semicircle at an intersection. They held tasseled banners and handed out leaflets to passersby, who for the most part strode past with shakes of the head and stares fixed in the opposite direction.