Линда Ла Плант - Cold Blood

‘I don’t feel guilty.’

‘Fine, then we’ll leave, yes?’

He sat down, said he needed a drink, and Rosie flung the brush on to the dressing table.

‘We can’t hang around, Bill, the flight goes in an hour and a half.’

‘I heard you the first time, Rosie.’

‘So, I am repeating it.’

Rooney stood in the lobby as Rosie checked out, looking at Lorraine’s suitcase waiting behind the desk.

‘Bill, if you want to wait, you’d better say so, they got people wanting her room. Which means if we do check out and stay on we’ll have nowhere to stay for tonight. It’s Mardi Gras, Bill, the hotels are all filling up.’

He suddenly made up his mind. ‘You stay with the bags, I’ll go over to Fryer’s bar.’

‘But what about the plane?’

He turned on her angrily. ‘We fucking miss it. Hell, if we have to we’ll hire a private plane, okay? Just wait here.’

Rooney walked out. Rosie felt near to tears; he’d never been angry at her before, never snapped at her the way he just had. But then she understood why — he was worried about Lorraine. For all his complaints about her, he really cared about her, and if Rosie thought about it, so did she.

‘Excuse me, is Mrs Page checking out or not?’

Rosie glared at the receptionist who was getting more frazzled by the day. It was always the same at Mardi Gras; she hated it.

‘Yeah, I’m checking Mrs Page out, but we need to leave the bags here, is that all right?’

The receptionist sighed; she was knee-deep in people’s luggage as it was. ‘I guess so, but the hotel can’t take any responsibility for them.’

‘Fine, I’ll take the goddamned things out with me.’

Rooney tried in vain to flag a cab down. The pavement was crowded, there were people walking arm-in-arm down the streets. More jugglers and clowns had appeared on the scene, passing out leaflets for all the forthcoming events, people already getting into the spirit. Fireworks were going off in all directions, they whizzed and banged overhead, and lit up the dark sky. A Dixieland band was playing, or rehearsing, stop-starting. It was like he had stepped on to a fairground Ferris wheel and couldn’t get off. He pushed and jostled his way along the street, eyes peeled for a vacant cab, and he couldn’t stop the feeling of panic rising. He didn’t know what he was getting so het up about — his personal life or Lorraine. Or maybe it was just the memory of Nick Bartello, but he had a hideous feeling of something coming down, and his frustration at not being in control of it made it worse. She was somewhere with a bunch of guys, and probably bad ones. She was alone, and he shouldn’t have let her go without back-up. He was her back-up man, her partner now, and he’d never be able to live with himself if something happened to her, because for all her faults and her headstrong ways, he cared about her, more than he ever dared admit. And one thing he knew, she was one hell of a cop, in the Force or out. Lorraine was in a class all her own. ‘Taxi!’ he yelled.

Rosie sat outside the hotel on the small terraced area. She was not the only person sitting by a sea of luggage. There were a lot of back-packers and families, some licking ice creams, some becoming irate with their tired-out kids, and the persistent noise of the fireworks was giving her a thudding headache.

François tooted his horn and waved over. Rosie jumped up and waved back frantically. He grinned, then realized she was gesturing for him to join her.

‘Can you get all these bags on board?’

‘Sure, you want to go to the airport?’

‘Yeah, eventually, but first can you get me over to Fryer Jones’s bar in Ward 9? Lorraine’s there.’

He jumped out, opened the trunk, and began hurling the bags inside.

Rooney was sweating. He had got into a near fist-fight with a drag queen who had flagged down the same taxi, but as he or she was a good foot higher than Rooney, he’d walked away. Now he turned as he heard his name shouted out, and he looked this way and that. Then he heard Rosie’s voice and he pushed his way through a crowd of people before he saw her waving to him from across the street in François’s car. His panic rose as he nearly got knocked down by a kid on a bicycle with three other people somehow balanced on it as well.

‘What’s happened? You heard from Lorraine?’

‘No, get in and shut up,’ she said.

Rooney sat beside her and she nudged François to get a move on.

‘We going to the airport?’

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Fryer Jones’s bar, all right?’

He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. ‘She’s my partner, Rosie.’

‘She’s mine too, in case you’ve forgotten.’

Boom went another firework, and a rocket exploded over their heads. ‘Carnival getting started!’ shouted François gleefully. ‘Man, this place hots up, don’t you just feel it all coming down all around you? This place is crazy, man, it goes wild, real wild.’

Ruby placed the steaming bowls of crawfish stew on the newspaper that served as a tablecloth. Juda, Edith and Sugar May dug in. They had chilled beers and big chunks of bread, and they ate hungrily as they had been working all day on the float. Baskets and baskets of fresh flower-heads had been delivered, and each one was to be placed around the throne to make a sea of colour for the Queen to step over as she was led to her throne.

Ruby was barefoot, wearing just an old underslip. Her hair was pinned up off her face as she’d worked up a sweat. They were tired but they would all be up and working the following morning. It took a lot of time and loving care to get the floats ready, and all the hard work only built up the excitement until it was like being drunk with it all.

Juda dunked her bread and sucked on it; it was good to be back home, good to be free. She had decided not to go back to LA, even if Elizabeth Caley offered her a fortune. She was not leaving home again. She broke off a piece of bread and was just about to dip it into her bowl when she saw the newspaper article.

‘Missing Movie Star’s Daughter — Body Found!’

‘Move your plate aside, Sugar May.’

Juda inched the newspaper around to read it. ‘They found her, they just found Anna Louise Caley.’ She pulled the paper from the table and wiped off the crumbs. ‘Oh, my Lord, she was buried in... Oh my, oh my.’

Edith looked at her sister. ‘What’s that, Juda?’

Juda folded the paper into a roll, staring at Ruby.

‘They found poor little Anna Louise Caley buried in a garden, under suspicious circumstances, it says.’

Ruby continued to eat, sucking her bread loudly.

‘Where, Juda?’

Juda kept on looking at Ruby. ‘In Miss Tilda Brown’s back yard. You know who she is, don’t you, Ruby?’

Ruby looked up and her eyes were glittering, her voice soft, almost purring. ‘I know who she is, Aunty Juda, she tied a dressing-gown cord round her neck and hanged her little self.’

Sugar May put her hand over her mouth and giggled, and received a slap across her head with the newspaper. Edith now looked in confusion at Juda, who slowly pushed her chair from the table and stood up. She wasn’t wearing her wig or false eye-lashes, just an old smock dress, her cropped grey hair thinning at the crown.

Ruby tried to be nonchalant, still dipping her bread into her bowl, but she would not look up, did not want to face her aunt. She was scared of her, even more so when her big body loomed over the table.

‘Ruby, remember what I told you, play with the devil and he’ll come for your soul.’

‘No he won’t. And whatever I done, Fryer’s taking care of, like he’s taking care of my brothers. Nobody is ever going to know nothing.’

Edith was still confused, looking from her sister to her daughter. ‘What you two talking about?’