Johnny Liddell's Morgue, page 19
Liddell dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, held it out. Waiden shook his head. “That’s what I intend to find out,” Liddell told him. He stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth where it waggled when he talked. “Suppose you tell me ‘everything you know about Susie that might have a bearing on her death.”
A twitch developed under the younger man’s right eye. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
Liddell lit the cigarette, stared at Walden glumly. “Don’t play games with me, junior. I just saw a pretty little girl stretched out on a slab in the morgue. I’ve got a sneaking hunch you know why she’s there. I’m not likely to think anything you try to pull is cute.”
Walden made another stab at pulling himself together. “You’ve got nothing on me. If you think you have — ”
Liddell grabbed a handful of the front of the man’s jacket, pulled him close. The defiance drained out of Walden’s face leaving it damp and scared. “I asked you a question.” He shoved the other man away, stared at him coldly. “What did Susie get herself into?”
Walden wiped his mouth with the back of a shaking hand. His eye twitched maddeningly. Suddenly, he made a break for the door, tumbled headlong over Liddell’s outstretched foot. The private detective pulled him to his feet, slapped him across the mouth, sent him reeling backward. He stumbled over a cushion, fell to the floor, stared up at Liddell with sick eyes.
“I didn’t know they were going to hurt her,” he whined. “I had to do it, don’t you understand? I had to.” He dry-washed his hands, rocked from side to side. “They wanted the money and I didn’t have it. They said they’d break my fingers one by one. I’d be crippled. I’d never be able to play any more.” He looked down at his shaking hands. “I couldn’t let them do that.”
“So you threw Susie to them?” Liddell growled. “How?”
Walden shrugged. “I told them I knew a girl with lots of money. I said if they gave me time I’d get it from her.” He shook his head. “They didn’t want that. They wanted me to bring her out there.”
“Out where?”
The thin lips clamped together, Walden shook his head. “I’m not saying any more.”
“Who’s the they you’re talking about?”
Walden shook his head stubbornly. The long hair hung down over his face. “I won’t tell you anything. They’d kill me.”
Liddell rubbed the knuckles of his right hand against the palm of his left. “If you don’t talk, maybe you’ll wish they had killed you. I’m asking you just once more. Where did you take Susie Laplanche and why?” He started toward where Walden lay sprawled.
The thin man scrambled backward until the wall was at his back. “No! Don’t hit me. She wanted to go to the Temple, and — ” He broke off, jammed his first knuckle between his teeth.
“What temple?” Liddell prodded.
Walden shook his head.
Liddell growled deep in his chest. He reached down, dragged the other man to his feet. “Get this through your head, Walden. You’re going to tell me what I want to know. Whether you do it with teeth or without depends on how fast you tell it.”
The younger man struggled desperately, lashed out ineffectually at Liddell’s face. The private detective held him out at arm’s length, slapped him again with the flat of his hand. A thin trickle of red started from the corner of Walden’s mouth, trickled down to the point of his chin.
“Getting talkative?” Liddell wanted to know.
The younger man nodded. Liddell let him go, watched him collapse to a sobbing heap on the floor. “You took her out to a temple. What temple?”
Walden rubbed his chin.
“Mama Laveau’s,” Walden’s voice was muffled. “Susie wanted to go when I told her I could get her in. They perform voodoo rites out there.”
Liddell pulled his cigarette from between his lips, looked at it with distaste, dropped it to the floor. “How’d you come to take her out there?”
Walden’s shoulders shook. “I got in over my head with Mendez. I owed him a bundle. He was going to cut off my supplies.” He looked up at Liddell beseechingly. “I would have gone crazy.”
“You were on it, eh? Susie, too?”
Walden shook his head. “She liked to play around with it. A couple of sticks for kicks when she came up here or at Lottie’s, but she stayed away from the white stuff.” A note of bitterness crept into his voice. “That’s the way she was, she liked to play with fire — ”
“So Mendez wanted his money,” Liddell cut him off. “You couldn’t pay and he threatened to cut your supply off.”
The younger man nodded. “I begged him not to. I told him I knew where there was plenty of money, that as soon as I could get my hands on it I’d take care of him.” He swallowed noisily, wiped his nose with the side of his hand. “I told him who she was and how much money her old man had. He said he’d let me know.”
“Go on.”
Walden shrugged. “The next day he said I could get myself even if I’d talk Susie into going out to the Temple. I knew she’d go for it. She’d go for anything like that, so I said sure. I took her out there a week ago.”
Liddell controlled his voice.
“And?”
“I don’t know what happened out there. It’s all pretty hazy. But something must have happened.”
“Why?”
“She was different after that. Distant, sort of. I lied when I said I saw her last night or the night before. She wouldn’t talk to me, even. I haven’t seen her in five days.”
“Who does Mendez work for?”
Walden licked his lips, his eyes resumed their nonstop race around the room. “Cookie Russo.”
“Who’s Cookie Russo?”
The man on the floor looked up, squinted at Liddell suspiciously. “I thought you said you were a cop. You’re no cop. Every cop in New Orleans knows Cookie Russo. Who are you?”
Liddell grinned at him humorlessly. “I told you. My name’s Johnny Liddell. I’m a private detective.”
The man on the floor scrambled to his feet. “Since when do they call in a private detective to investigate a murder?”
“They don’t. Susie Laplanche wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide.”
Walden tore at his hair, screamed shrilly. “You tricked me.” He threw himself at Liddell, his arched fingers gouged at the detective’s eyes. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell Cookie.”
Liddell snorted, hit the thin man across the side of his face with the flat of his hand, knocking him halfway across the room. “Why don’t you do that, Walden? Tell Cookie you opened up all over the place and tied him in with a messy suicide. He’ll just love that.”
Walden was dazed.
When he slammed the door behind him, Walden was sitting on the floor, the flat of his hand clamped across his mouth, staring wildly in front of him.
Johnny Liddell headed back to Rampart, down to Congo Square where in the old days Malvina Latour and her followers spent the nights screeching incantations and weird ceremonies. He passed by centuries-old houses that had patiently watched the raising of four different flags over the city. After several blocks he melted into the mouth of an alley at the far end of which stood an old Spanish gate, its entrance curved and domed overhead. He followed a narrow passageway into what was once an old courtyard, now dust-grimed and noisome. A dusky-faced girl in a tight-fitting silk blouse sidled up to him. She was small, thin, high-breasted. Her mouth was a bright red smear, her teeth uneven, bad. “You like girl?” she whispered with a soft, Latin accent. “You come with Chica, Chu-Chi. Que lindo tu eres.” She rolled her eyes lewdly.
Liddell started to brush by.
“Oye, wassa matter, Chu-Chi? You no like me? I much fun.”
Liddell grinned at her. “I’ll bet. Some other time.”
The girl watched him stride past, flung up her skirt, wiggled her hips at him obscenely. “Maricón,” she screamed after him.
At the far end of the courtyard, Liddell entered another passageway, this one even narrower and darker than the last. It ran between two houses, so old they seemed to be leaning against each other for support. At the far end of the passage he emerged into another courtyard. Facing on it was an old frame house, its clapboards weather-stained and paintless, its windows empty and boarded over. He climbed the splintered wooden steps, entered a dark hallway.
A door opened. “What you want here?” a deep liquid voice demanded.
“I’m looking for Doctor Jack. I’m an old friend.”
There was a scrape of a wooden match, a faint light flickered in the dark hallway. Liddell got a glimpse of a huge, shining Negro face, its nostrils so flat as to be pasted against the face. Thick red lips failed to cover the broken stumps of his teeth, his eyes were small, bloodshot under vein-thickened lids. He had only one arm.
“Whut you want?”
“I need help and advice,” Liddell told him solemnly. He held up a folded bill where the giant could see the five in the corner. “I’ve been here before.”
The giant reached out, lifted the bill from between Liddell’s fingers, blew out the match with a quick breath. “I’ll ask Doctor Jack.” His feet shuffled across the worn floor, there was a sound of a door opening and closing. In a moment he had rematerialized at Liddell’s elbow.
“He see you.”
He caught Liddell’s elbow in a hamlike fist, led him down the hall, kicked open a door. The room beyond was lit only by a cheap kerosene lamp that smoked in a corner, its flickering light giving life to the shadows that danced on the walls.
The only furnishing in the room was a huge iron bedstead. On it, an extraordinarily unkempt Negro sat, his legs folded under him. His long white hair was rolled and knotted on the top of his head, his body was bare to the waist, showed signs of extreme emaciation. He studied Liddell from little animal-like eyes, rocked back and forth.
“Why you come here, white man?” His voice was shrill, edgy.
“I need advice and help. It used to be that you could help me.” He shook his arm loose from the big man’s grip. “I used to run a detective agency here in New Orleans five years ago. You remember now, Doctor Jack?”
The man on the bed continued rocking, his bright little eyes never leaving Liddell. “I remember, white man. There was much my people could learn for you.” A tongue licked at thin lips. “You were willing to pay for help.”
Liddell brought a roll of bills from his pocket. “I still am.”
The old man nodded his satisfaction, unrolled his matted hair, let it fall to his waist. It was knotted and tied in such a way that it formed a number of pockets. From these, he took his magic paraphernalia — pebbles, dried lizards and frogs, bird skulls and small vials of oils rendered from snakes. He signaled to the one-armed giant who put a chipped basin on the bed in front of him.
The old man spilled some pebbles in the basin, covered them with a foul-smelling snake oil, stirred them with his finger. He muttered incantations over them, rocking all the while. Then he looked up, stared at Liddell. “Whut do you want to know, white man?”
Liddell looked over at the one-armed giant quizzically, then back to the old man. “This is private, Doctor Jack.”
The old man stared into his basin, dropped in a piece of dried lizard, stirred it with his finger. “You see no one disturbs us, Bras Coupé,” he ordered in his piping voice.
The big man left the room, closed the door behind him.
“A man named Mendez. Another man named Cookie Russo. A temple run by somebody who calls herself Mama Laveau,” Liddell told the old man. “What do you know about them?”
Doctor Jack cackled, his toothless gums gleaming pinkly in the dim light. “You been away long time, white man?”
“Five years,” Liddell nodded.
“Much change,” the old man scowled. “Russo, him real bad white man. He come to Vieux Carré two, three maybeso four years ago. He take over all the dream powder in New Orleans. We fight him for a while, but even Doctor Jack’s gris-gris not strong enough to break his evil power.”
Liddell scratched at the side of his jaw. “That makes it a little more complicated. I thought you and your followers still ran that end of it. Then, when they tied in a temple — ”
The old man on the bed spat. “The temple is run by a woman who claims many powers, claims she is the granddaughter of Marie Laveau.” He leaned forward. “Many white folk go there. There is much voodoo. Many of my people go there.”
“Her voodoo must be stronger than yours.”
“It is a lie,” the old man screamed. “She pay my people, this Mama Laveau. She cannot make strong magic. She is just — ”
“Where is this temple?” Liddell broke in.
“Across parish line. In San Vincente.” The old man leaned back, studied Liddell curiously, “You want to go there?”
Liddell nodded. “What do I need? A membership card?”
The old man cackled. “There is saloon on Iberville called Sportsman Café. In there Cookie Russo can be found.” The cackling stopped. “You be careful, white man. Him very bad, very evil.”
Liddell peeled several bills off the roll, dropped them on the bed. “I’ve got news for you, Doctor Jack. If I can get into that temple and find out what I think I’ll find, that gris-gris of yours will work on Russo.”
The old man on the bed nodded delightedly, dry-washed the thin bones that were his hands. He looked in his basin, dropped in more charms. “I see much trouble for this bad white man,” he chortled. “Tonight I make much strong gris-gris for him. My people very glad when he die.”
The Sportsman Café was a reproduction of an old-time pre-Prohibition saloon, exact in every detail right down to the swinging doors and the sawdust on the floor. Johnny Liddell leaned on the bar, studied the life-sized painting of a fullblown nude that decorated the back bar. He drained his glass, signaled to the waiter for a refill.
The man behind the bar made a production of selecting a bottle from the back bar, filling the jigger to a hairline of the top. His eyes bugged at the size of the roll Liddell tugged from his pocket to pay the tab. He picked up the twenty Liddell dropped. “This the smallest you got, boss?”
Liddell flipped through the roll, nodded. “Sorry. I’m fresh out of small change.”
The bartender shuffled down to the cash register, rang up the sale, deposited a small pile of bills and change on the bar. Liddell picked a bill off the pile, handed it to the bartender. “Have a drink on me,” he invited.
“Stranger in town, mister?” the bartender asked.
Liddell nodded unenthusiastically. “In from Memphis. This town’s shaping up as a real disappointment to me, I can tell you. I heard so much about New Orleans and here I find it’s nothing but Memphis with a lake at its back door.”
The bartender found that almost unbearably funny. “You just don’t know the right people.” He watched while Liddell drained his glass, refilled it. “One for the road,” he winked.
“That’s the first neighborly thing’s happened to me since I hit town,” Liddell told him. “You know, it’s not like I was looking for a woman or anything like that. I just figured — ”
The bartender seemed to lose interest, his eyes started to wander down the bar.
“Well, you know how it is,” Liddell continued. “In a town like Memphis they forget just because a man’s president of a bank he’s still a man. Expect him to act like some kind of stuffed shirt. You know?”
“President of a bank?” There was a new note of respect in the bartender’s voice. He looked up and down the bar. “Now, I’m not promising anything, you understand, but I may be able to put you next to something real interesting. Something you’ll never see any place but right here in N’yorleans.” He dropped his voice. “You ever heard of voodoo? Real honest to Gawd voodoo?”
Liddell nodded.
The bartender winked. “Maybe I can get you in to see some of it. Right tonight.” He raised his hand solemnly. “So help me, you never seen anything like it. Enough to give a white man the chills, you understand.” He looked up and down the bar again. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Johnny Liddell watched while the bartender picked up a phone from the back bar, pressed a button on its base. He talked into it for a moment, seemed to be arguing. Then he shuffled back to where Liddell stood. “It’s all set,” he nodded. He glanced up at the clock on the far wall. “The thing starts about 11. You be back here at 10:30 or so, there’ll be a car to take you out.”
Liddell fished the roll out of his pocket. “That’s wonderful. There must be some charge to it.”
The bartender made an effort to tear his eyes away from the roll, lost the struggle. “You take that up with the driver, mister.”
Liddell nodded, stripped a five from the roll, folded it into his palm. He shook hands across the bar with the bartender. When he got his hand back, it was empty.
A big black sedan was parked outside the Sportsman Café at 10:30. Johnny Liddell stuck his head in the window. “My name’s Liddell. Are you the driver that’s taking me over to San Vincente?”
The driver stared at him incuriously. He was small, his face tanned to a dark mahogany, he wore an oil-stained chauffeur’s hat on the back of his head. The frayed end of a toothpick protruded from between his teeth.
“You ‘re the guy the bartender spoke to earlier?” he wanted to know.
Liddell nodded. “He told me there’d be a car here at 10:30.” He opened the door, settled back against the cushions. “It sure sounds like an exciting evening.”
The driver grinned around his toothpick. “You’ll get something to write in your diary. That’s for sure.” He waited until Liddell had slammed the door, slid the big car into gear, guided it expertly through the narrow streets of the Vieux Carré out onto the broad thoroughfare of Canal Street. He resisted all efforts of Liddell to draw him into conversation, fended them off with a noncommittal grunt. After a few tries, Liddell gave up, settled back, watched New Orleans speed by the car window.
The business district that sprawled along Canal gave way to a more suburban area as the unpopulated stretches became longer and longer. Finally, the driver wheeled the big car onto a narrow parish road, headed for the country. About forty minutes from the café, he swung off the macadam onto a hard dirt road that rambled back for a little over a mile through a clump of old moss-bearing oaks. After a moment, the headlights of the big car picked out the boarded windows of an old white paint-peeled frame house.
