Chasing the Devil's Tail Read Free Page A

keep this quiet," he said. The black-skinned madam let out a grateful sigh, but her frown returned when he said, "That's not possible. You'll have to call in the coppers. But we do have a little time. You can tell me about the young lady upstairs."
    Miss Maples clasped her hands in her lap. "Her name," she began, "is Annie Robie."
    As the madam recounted it—and as she had herself heard it late one night from the dead girl's own mouth—Annie Robie was descended from slave stock, her grandparents recognized as property of the family of the same name of the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, which was where she grew up, pretty and long-legged, with her mother's black-on-black skin and her father's high, West African cheekbones and slanted eyes.
    She had been swept up one dizzy Delta night by a handsome Negro with pomaded hair, a gambler and moonshiner wandering far from his Georgia home and carrying a two-dollar Sears 6c Roebuck guitar, like many of the young men did nowadays. She was delivered two weeks later on Cassie Maples' doorstep with nothing but the rough cotton dress on her back. The guitar player had gotten all he wanted and had run off and left her as soon as they reached New Orleans. She was wandering along the riverbank when a local sporting woman found her, took pity, and carried her to Cassie Maples' South Franklin address directly.
    Because, like all the bordellos in New Orleans, Miss Maples catered with an eye to color. It was a matter of specialty, and Cassie Maples' back-of-town door was open to the deep browns and "Ethiopians," as some called the true black-skinned girls like Annie Robie.
    She was nineteen, the madam explained, and except for when she went off for a few days with some fancy man, she
had been a regular for two years, first as a maid to the working girls, later as a full-fledged member of the house, paying her fifty cents a night for the use of the room.
    She was well liked and she did not cause trouble. She did not drink whiskey in excess, was never a hophead, and did not get into brawls with other girls and cause the police to be called.
    "What about her male guests?" Valentin inquired.
    "Only the better class of Negro gentlemen," Miss Maples replied with quiet pride.
    "Creoles of Color?" The madam nodded. "White men?" She hesitated, glanced at Miss Antonia. "Now and again, yes," she said in a low voice.
    Nothing odd had been heard or seen last evening. Miss Maples had gone off to bed, and the maid, making late rounds, had found Annie lying in that posture, complete with black rose. The maid had run to rouse the madam.
    "If it wa'nt for that rose, I would have thought she was just sleeping," Miss Maples told him, her voice trembling.
    Valentin drank off his coffee and stood up to stretch his back. The madam dabbed her eyes with one hand and gestured tragically with the other. The maid scurried from the shadows to replace his cup, bringing a gamy cloud of sweat. She shook some more, rattling the china, then ran back to her corner and faded into the furnishings. Valentin glanced at his pocket watch, replaced it and said, "Did Annie have any special friends?"
    Miss Maples pondered. "Well, there was that fellow that brought her down here in the beginning. I believe his name was McTier or McTell, something like that." She saw the strange look the detective gave her at the mention of the name. "But I haven't seen him around in a year or more," she finished.
    Valentin was staring down at the worn carpet, seeing a handsome Negro with pomaded hair stretched out on a saw-dust floor, blood bubbling from the hole in his chest. "That would be Eddie McTier," he said. "And he had no part in this. He was shot dead in a card game over in Algiers some months ago." The news was delivered in such an odd, muted way that the two women exchanged a glance that produced a question mark.
    "What now, Mr. Valentin?" Antonia Gonzales said.
    It took him a moment to raise his head and meet her gaze. "Now you can