“ I'd be happy to discuss any subject with you. Lieutenant- over dinner perhaps?”
“ Dinner?”
“ I still haven't eaten.”
“ Dinner? Okay, you're on.”
“ Good, then perhaps we can have a civil conversation?”
“ Perhaps.”
“ Have you all my things?”
“ Your handbag,” he said, lifting it from a nearby table.
“ Thank you.”
“ Shoes,” he said, handing these to her.
She took them and began placing them on. “Where's my gun?”
“ Right here. I suppose you have a permit for that. 38?”
“ I do.”
“ And what about these?” he asked, handing the rosary beads to her. “Got a permit for these?”
She gave him a mock look of disgust. “Where'd you get this?”
“ I've noticed you use 'em whenever you go into trance. What? Do the beads hold some special power or meaning for you?”
“ Haven't you seen these beads, this amulet before?” she asked, puzzled. “I mean, they must look familiar to you.”
“ No, Doctor, they don't.”
“ Stephens brought the rosary with him… I mean, sent it ahead for me to examine. Said he…said it was from one of the victims, Surette.”
“ Oh, yeah, I recall now. We found it where it'd fallen between his legs.”
“ I'll tell you what I told Stephens.”
“ Which is?”
“ The rosary beads belonged to the killer, not the victim.”
Alex measured this information carefully in his mind, testing it for meaning. “That's a remarkable leap.”
“ Are you willing to consider the possibility I'm right about the beads?”
“ Maybe. Like your gun, I didn't notice them until I picked you up and carried you down to my car. Told the people here you were a fellow cop, flashed my credentials.”
“ God, you didn't have to lie for me. The gun is registered.”
“ Guess I don't need to ask you why you carry one.”
“ Nowadays? With one fourth of the homes in this country touched by crime each year? No, no need to ask.”
“ I'll just let 'em know you're up and running; meanwhile, if you'd like a mirror and a sink, it's that way.”
She thanked him again and went to freshen up, the throbbing pain in her head reminding her to go slow.
In the mirror, she studied her image and tried to recapture what had been so shocking to her system; there'd been something unusual this time, something that didn't fit with the other attempts to see the killer. Something had changed and drastically, but she wasn't sure what it was, not yet, and the more she tried to revive the images, the more her head hurt.
She decided to sleep on it after a decent meal. Maybe it would return to her in time; maybe she'd need the help of a professional hypnotist. She'd never had to use a hypnotist before, but there was plenty of precedent for it in the literature when a vision was blocked by one's own mind, whether it was a simple memory or a psychic insight.
She would just have to be careful to instruct the hypnotist not to lead her in any way, but merely facilitate the process. She wondered if anyone on the case might suggest a competent person for the job, but she knew better than to ask Alex.
She did what she could with her hair and her face, fearing she could not do much. What little makeup she used about the eyes had run, giving her an Alice Cooper look that might easily scare Alex off. She rinsed her face of all makeup, opting for the natural look that shone through. She finished up just as he returned to the room for her.
23
Those sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.
On the drive from the hospital Alex talked about how much he loved and hated New Orleans. “Food and jazz drives the urban soul here,” he told her with a short laugh that withheld any true humor.”The chefs here are like gods, feeding the soul-satisfying food of the earth and sea, and the musicians walk on water, and you can go down some streets here in full daylight and you'll find less-than-half-dressed whores in the doorways and windows, waving you up, many of them men. There's no place like New Orleans for a cop, no. All the chefs, the jazz musicians and the whores all have one commonalty: They all whip up their unique brand of appetite-suppressant by using their inbred intuition to improvise. The transvestite community's no different. You'll find more outrageous clothing per capita here than on any block in San Francisco, I assure you.”
“ I've seen quite enough between my hotel room and your precinct, thank you.”
They were traversing the large, long bridge spanning huge Lake Ponchartrain, heading for a favorite restaurant that seemed miles off the tourist routes, a place Alex called Leopold's.
The city of 1.2 million was wide awake, bustling, threatening to never sleep. The city had maintained, after all these years, its heavy European, eighteenth-century air-as if the same air breathed in by the pirate Jean Lafitte were still available for the modern visitor to inhale. It was a place for the rich to party, to bask in their wealth, as it had always been a haven for the sophisticated and worldly; but for the poor, many of whom were black, Spanish, Creole and Cajun, the city's lack of a manufacturing and industrial base extended very little hope of improvement, elevation or advancement over the years. Alex talked of these matters in a grim tone.
She tried to lighten him up a bit by saying, “When a Creole goes to heaven, first thing he asks Saint Peter is, 'Where's the jambalaya right?”
He laughed at the familiar saying. “Either that or file gumbo.” But he lapsed back into his somber concern. “We pay homage to the past here; the past is our bread and butter; it's what brings in the tourists, the Old South in all her radiant splendor. The New Orleans port on the Mississippi was once second only to New York, but now it only supports an interest in the arcane and tourism.”
“ The past is a double-edged sword here. That's for sure,” she agreed.
“ Give me that old-time religion and that Old South drowsiness in the shade. Shame that the same mint-julep mentality which gives New Orleans its mystic flavor, old charms and her iron-lace balconies is also the same kind of thinking that has allowed poverty and homelessness to flourish at her core.”
“ But they got religion and Carnivale!”
“ Yeah, Carnival Season… begins shortly after Christmas and winds down with Mardi Gras.”
“ Fat Tuesday, I know, ends on Ash Wednesday.”
“ Then you haven't forgotten New Orleans altogether since leaving?''
“ Not at all. Laissez les bon temps rouler/” He translated for her. “Let the good times roll.”
“ One hundred and fifty years of tradition..”
“ Of spontaneous street parades and displays.”
They both knew the history well, that in 1857 a group of locals banded together to form the first Carnivale parading organization, the Mystick Krewe of Comus, and that after that other private clubs, picking up the notion, sprouted up, and the elaborateness of the balls which spilled out into the streets and became madcap parades had become a tradition. Kings and queens were still chosen from among the krewe membership, and in some Carnivale clubs, the balls still served as “coming out” parties for debutantes. It all culminated in floats, marching bands, enormous balloons, jazz bands and wildly decorated flatbed trucks. Souvenir doubloons, cups, saucers, painted coconuts and beaded necklaces were tossed to onlookers from the parading masses. All this while in the French Quarter there was the annual costume competition for the best-looking transvestites, who so colorfully and spectacularly jammed the corners of Burgandy and St. Ann Streets.
“ There's no other place like it on earth,” she said.
Alex nodded, checking his rearview as he pulled into a turn lane on the other side of the bridge. “Shame, isn't it, that such a place, known worldwide for its jazz funerals and tunes like “Didn't He Ramble” and “I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal,” and such legends as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Joe 'King' Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, and… and gaiety-in every sense of the word-has such crime problems as well.”