Lost River Read Free

sometimes swore she was building a nest. So the red-light district was the last place she'd want to hear about.
    His mind was drifting back in that direction when he caught a whiff from the pot in the kitchen. He was pleased to have the diversion of the morning's first cup of chicory coffee, which he would douse with cream and honey. That and one of his books would take his mind off the maid's visit and the dead man on the parlor floor, the kind of bizarre and bloody drama that could only happen in Storyville.

    Tom Anderson was up just as early and heard about the body in the Liberty Street sporting house from one of the local gadabouts who seemed to have no purpose in life other than to sweep bits of news and gossip from the banquettes and carry them to his Poydras Street doorstep.
    By the time the maid had served him a breakfast of scrambled eggs and fresh fruit, he had learned more, including the interesting news that the madam had in her panic sent a girl to find Valentin St. Cyr, and that the long-absent Creole detective had run the girl off. He was not surprised.
    Meanwhile, the police arrived at the bordello and bumbled about for a while before carting the body away. Mr. Defoor was carried to the morgue and the next of kin were notified. It was all done quietly in order to spare the family shame, a traditional courtesy whenever a man died in the District, whether he expired from an excess of amours or a bullet lodged in his chest.
    There was one other curious detail: Those on the scene were saying it appeared that Defoor had been shot dead somewhere else and then carried into Miss Parker's house, all without being detected. The local wags would be snickering; Anderson didn't see any humor in it. But his mood was gray that morning, in spite of the misty sun that was casting a golden glow over the New Orleans streets.
    He took a last sip of the coffee that he'd laced with a hefty shot of brandy and rose from the chair with a soft groan. A substantial man, of late his bulk had begun to drag on him. Sometimes his bones ached and he found himself short of breath. There was the gout, the itching rashes on his skin, fevers that came to stay. His appetite had faded, and not only at the dinner table.
    Since his earliest days as a street Arab and the police department's most able stool pigeon, Tom Anderson had been able to perform with the ladies like a regular stag, slipping from one steamy bed to the next. Not so many months ago, he'd had his most recent wife and three or four other scarlet women hissing at each other like alley cats. But Gertrude, a former Basin Street madam whose true last name was Hoffmire, now regarded him as if he was a tired old hound that wouldn't worry a mouse. Some days, he reflected with a doleful sigh, she wasn't too far off.
    He carried his coffee cup through the silent first-floor rooms of the house, Gertrude having toddled off to Canal Street to meet a friend for breakfast and shopping. Or maybe she was on her way to see a lover of her own. He didn't know and didn't care. In any case, it would have been a perfect opportunity for him to spend a half hour dallying with the maid, a young quadroon who was round, cheerful, and ready for some work in the bedroom to start the day. He wasn't in the mood.
    His advancing years—he was now sixty-two—and a more general weariness had him feeling low. Though managing the red-light district had never been easy, it also had always been filled with pleasures. Lately it felt like tiresome, alien territory.
    And now, playing the part of a doddering old fool, he couldn't seem to make up his mind whether the death of poor Mr. Defoor was serious. He had once been able to sense anything amiss in any corner of Storyville, as if the twenty-block square was an extension of his own nervous system. Not so much anymore; especially without the services of a certain Creole detective at his disposal.
    He heard the maid calling from the kitchen and came out of his funk to