by Ray Celestin
‘Thank you, Lewis,’ she said, smiling. She turned and leaned out of the bed to give him a hug, then put the book on her lap.
‘So what else has been going on?’ she asked, and Lewis paused for a moment and looked bashful.
‘I decided to take Marable up on his offer.’
‘Lewis, that’s great,’ she said proudly. ‘I knew you’d make the right decision.’
Lewis shrugged.
‘Tell the truth, I’m kinda scared,’ he said. ‘I ain’t never left New Orleans before, plus I won’t be around for Clarence while I’m gone.’
Ida gave him a sideways glance. ‘You’ll be earning money, Lewis, to pay for doctors.’
Lewis shrugged again. ‘What’s your plans?’ he asked, and Ida paused to think. She had been asking herself the same question ever since the storm. Amidst the nightmares and memories, she was also sensing something else – the possibility of a new dawn.
‘I ain’t sure,’ she replied. ‘I was thinking to ask for a transfer. One of the big offices up north. Now I know Lefebvre was on Morval’s pay-list, I reckon he’ll write me a reference.’
Lewis grinned. ‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Getting all hard-boiled.’
Ida smiled bashfully, and then they lapsed into silence for a moment. Ida looked down at the book in her lap and ran her thumb over the embossing on the cover.
‘Remember ages ago I told you that quote,’ she said, looking up. ‘There is no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation.’
Lewis frowned. ‘I think so,’ he said vaguely.
‘I thought it meant it didn’t matter how difficult a problem was, there was always a way to figure it out,’ she said. ‘Well, I ain’t so sure anymore. I mean, everything kinda fell into place, right? I think maybe there was something else going on.’
‘Like what?’ asked Lewis, but Ida just shook her head. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but she was bothered by a nebulous sense that what they had been doing wasn’t really uncovering the truth, that some other process was at work, a process of construction, rather than discovery.
‘I don’t know,’ she said at last, almost to herself. ‘I was thinking maybe we didn’t find the truth, maybe the truth found us.’
Lewis frowned at her, not really understanding, and Ida shrugged, dismissing the subject.
‘I ain’t got nothing to do for the rest of the day,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t mind spending it here with you.’
‘Thanks for the offer, Lewis,’ she said, ‘but there ain’t nothing to do here. You’ll get bored.’
‘Well, what was you planning on doing?’ he asked with a smile.
She nodded to the book on her lap. ‘Reading, I guess.’
‘Then read out loud,’ Lewis replied, still smiling at her.
He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one in his mouth and offered her another. She accepted and they lit up, and Lewis leaned back into his chair. Ida smiled and opened the book, flipping over the pages to the start of the first story, ‘The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge’.
She took a drag on her cigarette before she began reading, and watched the smoke trace endless curves in front of the pale-blue curtain. From the window high above them she could hear the gentle lilt of the river. Soon enough the Mississippi would be taking Lewis north, and Ida would probably follow, pulled by its music, its unceasing flow as steady and freeing as the tumble of words on the page before her.
REPORT OF HOMICIDE
Department of Police
First Precinct, New Orleans
Fri. May 23rd 1919
Name of Person Killed:
John Riley
Residence:
552 Lowerline Street
Business:
Journalist
Name of accused:
Unknown
Residence:
Unknown
Business:
Unknown
Location of homicide:
Unknown
Day, date, hour committed:
bet. Mon. May 12th & Mon. May 19th
(Coroner’s Clerk initial estimate,
see below)
By whom reported:
Mark Brennan,
750 Tchoupitoulas Street
To whom reported:
Corporal David Hall
Time reported:
8 o’clock A.M. Fri. May 23rd
If arrested, by whom:
Still At Large
Where arrested:
N/A
If escaped, in what manner:
N/A
Witnesses:
Mark Brennan,
750 Tchoupitoulas Street
Detailed Report
Capt. Paul Coman reports that at 8 o’clock this A.M. Fri. May 23rd, Mark Brennan, residing at #750 Tchoupitoulas Street, and a warehouse owner, came to this station and informed Corporal David Hall that a body had been discovered in the yard of the riverside warehouse he operates at North Peters and Marigny Streets. Corporal Hall immediately proceeded to the above place and on arrival discovered the body wedged into the underside of a storm-ditch.
Upon the arrival of Patrolmen James Faulks and Reginald Stevens, Corporal Hall successfully dislodged the body. He thereupon noticed the body was in an advanced state of decay, and that there was extensive bruising and lacerations around the victim’s head. A wallet was found in the victim’s jacket containing business cards that identified the man as John Riley, a reporter for the New Orleans Times–Picayune.
Corporal Hall notified by telephone Your Office at 9.15 A.M., and also the Coroner’s Office, Clerk Paul Solomon. Whereupon Mr John Hunter, Clerk to the Coroner’s Office, arrived up on the scene circa 10.00 A.M.
By order of Mr Hunter the body was removed to the Morgue at the Charity Hospital in the First Precinct Patrol Wagon, in charge, Driver William Godfrey and Patrolman James Faulks.
Mr Hunter’s initial report (see attached, ibid.) was that judging from the levels of decomposition, the man had been killed at least two weeks previously.
Victim’s clothes (one black tuxedo jacket, one pair of trousers, white cotton shirt, cummerbund, bow tie, and undergarments) were removed to the Coroner’s Office. Also possessions: a notepad and pencil (jacket breast pocket), a box containing a small quantity of opium, a brass pipe, a book of matches from the Haymarket Cabaret (jacket inner right pocket), and wallet (right hip pocket), contents: three business cards, two dollar bills and a photograph of an unknown female.
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
J. Doyle, Clerk
EPILOGUE
Chicago, December 1st 1919
Chicago was a city of skyscrapers and snow, two things Ida had never before seen outside of a photograph. She had caught the sleeper train and had arrived at five o’clock that morning, bleary-eyed and a little dazed, the instructions in her purse. She had deposited her baggage in a station locker and whiled away some time drinking coffee in a diner on the concourse. An hour before she had to be there, she left the station and made her way to the Pinkerton offices on foot. She spent most of the journey craning her neck, dazzled by the beauty of the buildings either side of her that ascended like cliffs into the ice-filled northern sky. The snow on the streets came up to her ankles, and her feet were still half-frozen as she sat in the Pinkertons’ reception area, waiting for her new boss to arrive.
The Chicago bureau was spread over two sprawling floors of a towering office block, and it bustled with people. There was a bank of four receptionists in the entrance hall, and a never-ending flow of men and women moving between the rows of desks that lay beyond a wall of glass screens. The front door opened and a tall man in a beige raincoat strode in, and one of the receptionists caught his attention
. She smiled and gestured towards Ida.
‘Your new recruit,’ she said.
The man nodded and turned.
‘Miss Davis?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Ida, rising from her seat. The man held out his hand and Ida shook it.
‘Welcome to the grindstone,’ he said with a smile.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Now get your coat on. I only came in to pick you up.’
He grinned, turned and headed back towards the doors. Ida grabbed her coat from the chair she’d left it on and trotted out after him, back into the corridor and down a set of stairs.
‘This is a crime-ridden city, Miss Davis, and prohibition’s only making it worse.’ They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into an echoing marble hall. ‘So we don’t have time to sit still.’
‘I understand, sir,’ she said, as the man pushed through a set of revolving doors, another new invention that Ida would have to get used to. A couple of seconds later they were outside in the freezing wind, and they were both buttoning up their coats.
‘You warm enough?’ he asked, pointing at her thin Southern coat.
‘Sure,’ she said with a smile. The man smiled back and turned to look out over the snow-covered Chicago streets and Ida cast a quick glance at the scars on his face. He seemed happier than she had expected, warmer than his reputation had led her to believe, and she got the feeling she’d enjoy working with him.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I’m in the middle of a missing-person case,’ he said. ‘And I’ve been told to speak to . . .’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket and consulted it, ‘an Alphonse Capone.’
He returned the paper to his pocket and smiled at her.
‘I saw from your profile you’re a fellow Orleanais,’ he said.
‘That’s right, sir,’ she replied.
‘You don’t have to call me, sir,’ he said. ‘Michael will do.’
‘Ida.’
‘Well, Ida, let’s see what you’re made of.’
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Shem Bulgin, Nana Wilson, Dave Braga, Robert Long, Mariam Pourshoushtari, Tony Mulholland, William Culleton, Daisuke Tsubokawa, Robert Dupont, Sean McAuliffe, Jane Finigan, Susannah Godman, Juliet Mahony, everyone at Lutyens & Rubinstein, Sophie Orme, Maria Rejt, and everyone at Mantle and Macmillan.
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
RAY CELESTIN lives in London. He studied Asian art and languages at university and is a scriptwriter for film and TV, as well as publishing several short stories. The Axeman’s Jazz is his first novel.
First published 2014 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2014 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-5887-2
Copyright © Ray Celestin 2014
The right of Ray Celestin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Map artwork by HL Studios
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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