Poisons Unknown Page 2
“You’re a liar, but I love it.” The blonde grinned. “But you really haven’t changed. You’re two hours late. Five years have passed and here I am still waiting for Liddell.”
Liddell caught her by the arm, headed for the exit gate. “Don’t give me that. Waiting for Liddell,” he snorted. “You got yourself married before I hardly got out of town.”
“Oh, that one,” she dismissed it airily. “That was just to show you I didn’t care that you were walking out on me.” She pointed to a light-blue Cadillac convertible in the parking-lot. “Want to drive?”
“In this town? Not if I’m in my right mind.” He shook his head. “If I tried to drive that tank down Bourbon Street, I’d scrape the fenders against the houses on both sides.” He tossed his bag into the back seat, slid into the front.
The blonde groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stay at that flea bag?”
“The Delcort, if you don’t mind, driver.”
“You remember how broken down it was last time you were here? Well, it was in first-class shape then compared to the way it is now. Why do you want to go there?”
“Sentiment. Pure sentiment. It brings back my youth.”
Gabby slid behind the wheel. “I’ve got plenty of room at my place.”
Liddell grinned. “I didn’t mean it brings back my youth exactly. I meant it brings back memories of my youth.”
The blonde muttered under her breath, stabbed at the starter button on the dash, raced the engine to a roar, let it settle back to a purr. “I’m beginning to wonder if it was worth all the trouble to connive you back to New Orleans. The town’s already full of old men.” She eased the car out of the lot and swung onto the state highway.
“What’s the real pitch on this Brother Alfred deal?”
Gabby shrugged. “The usual. He runs this so-called temple for a bunch of the local cutups. Gets away with murder, but they keep hands off because he seems to know too many right people.”
“Sort of a Holy Roller deal, eh?”
“Worse. Alfred’s a cross between Marie Laveau and Malvina Latour. Some of those prayer meetings of his would make a voodoo turn white.”
“Sounds interesting,” Liddell grunted.
“You’ll see one tonight. I made a contact with Angie Martinez. She’s one of Alfred’s pets. She’s going to pass us in.” She swung the big car around a slow-moving airport bus, pushed the accelerator to the floor. The big car leaped away, ate up the miles toward the center of town. “It’ll give you something to write in your diary.”
“Your boy Kirk really interested in finding Alfred or is he using us to bird-dog him for a kill?”
Gabby shrugged. “It figures that the heat will really be on if anything happens to Alfred. He’s been getting a lot of space lately blasting Marty. I don’t think Marty would take the chance of having anything happen to him.”
“Any idea on what did happen to him?”
The blonde wrinkled her nose. “My guess is that he’s playing house with one of his flock, and he’ll turn up when he’s good and ready. He’s got a pretty ripe reputation.”
“Then how come the papers have been giving his blasts against Marty so much space?”
“Everybody’s against sin. And Alfred’s good copy. Walks around in flowing white robes and all that sort of thing. Makes Aimee Semple MacPherson look as colorless as an albino on a snow pile.”
Gabby swung the car onto Canal, headed uptown.
“What’s my status with the police in this town, Gabby?”
“You’re all set. I registered you at City Hall as connected with my agency. They issued a thirty-day license and gun permit. It’s renewable.”
Liddell grinned. “Okay, boss. What’s the first thing on the calendar?”
“What would the Chamber of Commerce think of me if I didn’t insist on the Blue Room to take the dust out of your throat?” She threaded the big car through the traffic on Canal, turned off on Baronne, braked to a stop in front of the Hotel Roosevelt. A big black man in an admiral’s uniform came running down the steps, opened the door.
“There are some bags in the back, Nick,” Gabby told him. “Have a boy run them over to the Delcort on Bourbon Street and register Mr. Liddell in, will you?”
The doorman’s white teeth gleamed brightly in a broad grin. “Doggone, ef it ain’t. You goin’ be with us long, Mr. Johnny?”
“Depends, Nick.”
The doorman shook his head, grinned. “You better stay around till Mister Weiss gets back from his trip. He awful mad if’n he miss you.”
Liddell slipped a folded bill into the man’s hand and led Gabby up the short flight of steps into the hotel.
The Blue Room was dim, cool, intimate after the heat of the street. Johnny Liddell told the waiter to bring two Ramos and two bourbon and settled back.
“Doesn’t feel as if I’ve ever been away. Nothing ever changes much, does it?” The waiter deposited two frothy white drinks in front of them, laid two jiggers of bourbon alongside them.
Liddell took a swallow from the white drink and made a face. “I never could work up a taste for that stuff. Take it away,” he told the waiter.
Gabby frowned at him. “What was that all about? What did you order it for in the first place?”
“For five years I’ve been trying to remember what it tasted like.” He washed the sweet taste from his mouth with the bourbon. “Now I remember why I don’t like it.”
“How are we going to tackle this Brother Alfred chore, Johnny? Marty expects action, and he gets pretty nasty when he’s disappointed.” She fumbled in the depths of her handbag and came up with a pack of cigarettes.
“Fill me in on this guy. How long’s he been operating? What’s his graft?”
Gabby lit two cigarettes and held one out to Liddell. “I’ve got a whole file on him over at my place. Nobody knows where he came from. He showed up here about five years ago. Started this Eye Almighty cult. First just the frustrated old dames who fall for any racket like that flocked around. But then, when word got around, it became fashionable to be a member.”
“How’s it operating with him out of the picture?”
“He’s got a high priestess. A big full-blown gal named Wanda. She’s been standing in for him. You’ll get a chance to see her in action tonight. I understand she’s real gone.”
Liddell emptied the second jigger of bourbon. “Any line on her?”
Gabby shook her head. “Rumors around are that she’s a New Orleans octoroon, but I’ve never been able to nail it down.”
“How about the cops in this burg? They used to be pretty tough on that kind of operation.”
“The temple is just across the parish line. And you know how some of the parish sheriffs are down here.” She finished her drink. “Want to go up to my place and look over the file?”
Liddell took a last drag on the cigarette and snubbed it out in the ash tray. He pulled a wallet from his pocket and dropped three bills on the table. “Living in the same place?”
Gabby shook her head. “I moved over to this side of Canal a year or so ago. Not as picturesque as your side, but more livable.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “When a gal gets to twenty-five, she’s willing to trade quaintness for comfort.”
• • •
Gabby Benton’s place turned out to be an elaborately furnished apartment in one of the expensive cliff dwellings that had sprung up along Carondolet and all throughout the modern area of New Orleans since the end of the war. She led the way through a cluttered foyer into a cheerfully furnished combination living-room and den. She pushed a pile of papers off the settee onto the coffee table, dropping her handbag on top of them.
“There’s some pretty fair rye and Scotch in the decanters, and I’ve got some real old bourbon hidden under the bed. What’ll it be?”
“Bourbon.”
The blonde nodded. “You get the ice and water. I’ll get the bourbon.” She disappeared in the direction of the bedroom.
Liddell wandered out to the kitchen, found a bowl, filled it with ice. He brought the ice and a pitcher of water back to the coffee table and set them down.
The bedroom door opened; Gabby handed a bottle out. “Make the drinks, Johnny. I’ll be out as soon as I freshen up.”
Liddell took the bottle, dropped some ice into each glass, drenched it down with bourbon. He added a touch of water, swished the liquor over the ice. “Now I remember why I left this town. It’s an oven,” he called in.
“Take off your jacket and be comfortable. I intend to be.”
Liddell shrugged out of the jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. He sniffed at his glass, approved, took a deep swallow. It tasted as good as it smelled. He was just refilling his glass when the door opened and Gabby came in.
She had changed her blouse and skirt for a housecoat of clinging blue material. Her yellow hair was piled on top of her head, her face looked as though it had been freshly scrubbed. She wore no make-up except a smear of lipstick.
“Let’s take the drinks and the makings out to the sun deck,” she suggested. “That’s the only place we’ll get a breath of air.”
She led the way through a French door to a porch that seemed to be pasted to the side of the building with no apparent support from below. It had a gaily colored awning that protected it from the sun and the curious above, and fan-shaped, opaque glass guard screens that guaranteed it privacy from neighbors on either side.
Liddell looked around, staring out through the heat mist that seemed to be settling over the city. “This is all right. The private-eye business must be good down these parts.”
Gabby shrugged. “It’s a living.” She dropped onto a large divan drawn against the side of the building, drew her knees up under her. “The apartment is the only thing I got out of my brief plunge into matrimony.” When she leaned back, her breasts strained against the fabric, threatening the seams. “I suppose you know that I always blamed you for the bust-up of my marriage?” She sipped at her glass.
“Me? What are you talking about? I was a couple of thousand miles away.”
Gabby nodded. “I know. But you spoiled me for other men.” She leaned forward and raised her half-parted lips to him, seemingly unaware that the front of her housecoat had sagged open with breath-taking effect.
When he covered her lips with his, she shuddered deliriously, drew away. She studied him with half-closed eyes and bit at her lower lip.
“I read all about you and that newspaper girl, too, Johnny.” She patted the couch at her side. “It sounded serious.”
Liddell dropped down beside her, shrugged. “Muggsy’s a swell kid. But a guy in my racket has no right to ask any gal to share the risks.”
The blonde put her hand on his knee. “I’m in the same racket.” She turned the full power of her eyes on him, then grinned. “Okay, Liddell. I’m not trying to make an honest man out of you. One fling at matrimony proved it’s not for me, either.” She took a deep swallow from her glass. “I guess we’re two of a kind.”
“Discouraging, ain’t it?” Liddell grinned.
She drained her glass and held it out for a refill. When he handed it to her, she set it down on the floor next to the couch, swung her feet up, lay back in his lap. She caught him by the tie, pulled his mouth down to hers. After a moment, her arms slid around his neck, her nails dug into his shoulder. Her lips moved against his.
The phone in the living-room started to jangle. Liddell straightened up, glowering at it.
Gabby made a halfhearted effort to pull the robe together over the broad expanse of flesh it revealed, but gave it up as a bad try. She looked at Liddell and chuckled. “You look good in lipstick. My lipstick.” She touched her lips lightly to his, swung her legs off the couch, walked in to the phone.
Her round hips worked smooth and easy under the thin fabric of the gown. When she returned a few seconds later, the effect was as satisfying from the front as it had been from the rear.
“That was Martinez, Johnny. The gal that’s going to sneak us into the temple tonight. We’re to be at the back door at nine.” She consulted her watch. “It’s almost six now.”
Liddell handed her her drink, staring up at her. “Three hours.”
The blonde took a sip, studied him over the rim of her glass.
“Think you’ll be bored waiting?”
He got up, stood close to her. “I never used to be, baby.” He grinned crookedly.
She pressed against him, found his mouth with hers. After a moment he started to pull away. She shook her head frantically, sank her teeth into his lower lip. When she finally drew back, her lips were moist, soft, her eyes glazed.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Johnny,” she told him huskily. “Five long years.”
She slid out of his arms, shrugged her shoulders free of the gown. It slid down past her knees, and she stepped out of it. Her breasts were firm, full, pink-tipped, her waist trim and narrow. Her legs were long, tapering pillars; her stomach flat and firm.
“Maybe we can turn the calendar back,” she whispered.
She slid back into his arms, melted against him. As his lips found her half-open mouth her nails dug spasmodically into his shoulders. She emitted little animal cries deep in her chest, quivering uncontrollably.
Liddell kissed her cheeks, her closed eyes, the lobes of her ears.
“You’ll never know how much I’ve wanted you. How very much,” she breathed heavily.
He got a pretty good idea.
3
THE EYE ALMIGHTY TABERNACLE was four miles from downtown New Orleans, just across the line in San Vincente Parish. Gabby nosed the big convertible past the row of ramshackle frame buildings that clustered on the parish line, and headed for the open country beyond. After a few minutes’ drive, she swung the big convertible off the state road onto a macadam road that wandered back through a clump of trees.
After a moment, the car’s headlights picked up the boarded-up windows of an old paint-peeled white house.
“You sure this is the place, Gabby?” Liddell grunted.
“What do you want, neon lights and a brass band?” The blonde guided the big car around the building and stopped in a weed-choked parking-space in the back. There were a dozen or more other cars huddled there in the darkness. Gabby cut her motor and lights. She snapped on her dash light, consulted a tiny baguette on her wrist.
“Pretty nearly on the head. Eight fifty-five. Let’s go.”
They walked over to a door set in the rear of the building and knocked. The door creaked open, spilled a long yellow triangle of light that seemed to spread across the yard toward the cars.
“Gabby?” A girl asked in a low voice.
“Yeah.”
They stepped in through the door, shut it behind them. The girl was small, mousy. Her eyes seemed to pop as she studied Liddell; her upper teeth were painfully prominent. She pushed a wisp of mousy hair out of her face, tucked it untidily into place behind her ear. She was dressed in a flowing white gown that reached to the floor.
“Be careful, will you, Gabby?” she pleaded. “If Wanda ever found out I passed you through, she’d give me a hard time.”
Gabby nodded. “We’ll be careful, Angie.” She motioned for Liddell to follow her, led the way through what was obviously once a big kitchen, now unused, dust-ridden. As they crossed the butler’s pantry, Liddell became aware of a dull, monotonous beat that made the old place vibrate.
From the pantry, a long corridor ran to the front of the house where a heavy, black-velvet drape sealed off the parlor beyond. In the corridor the monotonous beat was identifiable as the pounding of a drum.
Gabby stopped Liddell at the drape with a tug on the arm. “Just melt into the back of the crowd,” she cautioned. “Nobody’ll notice.”
She pushed back the curtain; they slid through. As they entered the room beyond, the wild beat of the music poured over them, enveloped them with almost physical force.
The ceiling and the floor to the room above had been torn out making the room huge, two-storied. Heavy drapes covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and on the floor a thick pile rug completed the soundproofing.
At the far end of the room there was a small dais; over it a tremendous eye had been painted in luminous paint. It seemed to glare down with personal malice, follow their every move.
The room was bathed in a dim light that transformed the faces of the people scattered around it into leering gargoyles. There was no furniture, but men and women of all ages were draped on cushions scattered around the floor. No one even looked up as Liddell and Gabby entered and found some space in the corner of the room.
Soon a cleverly disguised door to the left of the dais opened; two young café-au-lait colored girls came out, their heads wrapped up in the traditional tignon.
They spread a small tablecloth in the center of the room and placed lighted tallow candles at the corners of it. As a centerpiece, they put down a shallow woven basket filled with herbs, and scattered little white beans and corn around the basket.
An old Negro stood in the corner, astride a cylinder made of staves hooped with brass and headed with sheepskin. With two sticks he started up the monotonous deep-throated beat they had noticed in the corridor. Keeping time with him, another Negro was sawing away at a two-stringed fiddle. It had a long neck, a body about three inches in diameter that was covered with a brightly mottled snakeskin. The third member of this primitive orchestra twirled a long calabash, made of a native gourd filled with pebbles.
The door alongside the dais opened again, and a tall woman came out. She wore a long scarlet robe; her black hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She walked with a peculiar gliding motion, ascended the dais, started to chant a wild sort of ritual song.
“That’s Wanda,” Gabby whispered.
Liddell nodded, keeping his eyes on the scarlet-robed woman. As she sang, she seemed to grow in stature; her eyes began to roll in wild frenzy. Her head started to bob in time with the chant and the primitive wail of the two-stringed fiddle.