Линда Ла Плант: Cold Blood

Juda walked to the door. ‘She knows, Edith, Ruby knows, and Fryer never took care of nobody but himself. That is the way he lives. He sold to the devil a long, long time ago.’

Edith was really worried now, and she pushed her half-finished supper away, following Juda out.

‘What you done?’ Sugar May asked in a whisper.

Ruby had just taken a mouthful of water, and she turned on Sugar May, hissing, and the water sprayed from her mouth like a jet.

‘I just used my powers, Sugar May, I just used my powers.’

Sugar May scuttled out after her mama, and Ruby sat alone. Then after a moment she reached for her mama’s bowl, and tipped it into her own. She continued eating, delicately dipping her bread into the bowl and sucking it. She felt no guilt, no remorse for what she had done, or what she had begun. After all, she had only given them what they had wanted.

Elizabeth Caley sat at Lloyd Dulay’s side, looking composed and as beautiful as ever. She wore black, out of respect for her daughter, and everyone there had whispered their condolences. The Dulays were old money, and the whole of New Orleans society had accepted the invitation out of curiosity, wanting to see Anna Louise’s grieving mother with their own eyes. Elizabeth did not let them down. She was composed and distant, as if frozen with grief and shock. She was starring in another movie, and she acted the part to perfection. She knew Robert would ask for a massive settlement, but she didn’t care. She had more money than she knew what to do with. Money had never been a priority for Elizabeth, she had grown up with it, always had it and never considered being without it. She was going to be invited to every Mardi Gras ball and top-level function in New Orleans, as she had since she was a child. She was famous, now even more so because of her tragic daughter. She was sitting next to Lloyd Dulay, the man she had always loved. She was his prize guest of honour, but tonight she didn’t relish it — tonight she no longer cared. She had determined there would be no more secrets, all she was waiting for was the right moment. It came when Lloyd rose to ask everyone to lift their glasses to Elizabeth Seal.

There was a polite murmur, none expecting her to speak, but she stood up like a queen. She held her glass in her right hand, lifting it a fraction.

‘A long time ago, I was given the lead role in a film called The Swamp. I was sixteen years of age and excited at the prospect of becoming a star. I paid no heed to the fact that I was to portray the great voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. I did not consider the culture that Marie Laveau brought to her people, it was just a movie, and I was going to be a star.’

Elizabeth gave the performance of her life, but it wasn’t scripted, it came from her years of torment, from the nightmare during filming when she had been taken and raped, curses written in blood on her body. She told them all about the doll she found in her trailer, a doll bearing her face, cursing her and any offspring that she might conceive to live in the hell of the living dead, and condemning Elizabeth Seal to spend the rest of her days feeling the weight of the great queen’s coffin lid pressing on her heart. And as those gathered became frightened by her driven, emotional declaration, they knelt before her as she at last admitted, ‘I am black and I have hidden behind a white skin. I have been punished and cursed for abusing the great voodoo goddess, Queen Marie Laveau. Every child my womb conceived was also doomed to live under her shadow.’

It was all so clear to Elizabeth what she should do, exactly what she should say, and the impact her words would have made her feel stronger than she had ever felt in her wretched life. She was going to free herself, she would be free. No need for Juda anymore, no more nightmares, it was all over.

Elizabeth still held the photograph of her daughter Anna Louise, as the drugs distorted her mind so that she truly believed she was there, dining alongside Lloyd Dulay, and that it was all taking place. He was in fact waiting impatiently downstairs when Missy came running from the bedroom, unable to wake Mrs Caley. She had screamed to him that something bad had happened.

Lloyd Dulay felt for Elizabeth’s pulse; it was very weak. She opened her eyes only once, and smiled at him, saying that everything was all right now, it was all over. Her black gown was laid out in readiness for the dinner, with matching shoes and sequined purse. By the time the doctor arrived, she was dead. She looked peaceful and calm, a sweet innocent smile on her lips. He sat down in a chair close to the bed.

‘Oh, Elizabeth, my little queen.’

Harper looked at his men. He was sweating as he listened to the radio and then rehooked it back on the dashboard.

‘They’re standing out back ready. We go in via the front, let’s keep this as tight as we can, no shooting unless... Well, we done it before, so here we go.’

He looked at Lorraine. ‘Stay back, once we got the place quiet you can come in, but not until I give you the word. Let’s go!’

Fryer Jones was sitting with Raoul at the far end of the bar, trying to get him straightened out enough to take him home and face his Aunt Juda. His two brothers were out in the yard lying stoned among the beer crates they were supposed to have been stacking. There were only the usual regulars dotted around the bar, it never hotted up until after midnight. Sugar May had crept in, and was hiding out down the back, talking to one of the hookers, thinking she was someone to emulate, when it happened.

Fryer looked in astonishment as the big motherfuckers charged in from the back yard and through the front door. Even Zak gaped. Nobody had bust them for years, they paid a high price for it not to happen, so nobody was sure what the hell was going down. Glasses were shattered, mirrors cascaded into jagged pieces as the thugs came in, screaming and shouting for everyone to back up against the wall. It was a raid. Customers raised their hands in terror as they were thrown up against the wall, others ran for cover under the old bar tables.

Fryer turned on his bar stool and yelled in fury, ‘What you motherfuckers doing, for chrissakes?’

Batons clipped heads, boots kicked groins, as everyone inside the bar tried to disappear into the walls. The more the cops yelled and hit out, the more Fryer Jones screamed abuse. The cops were laying into the customers, asking between fists and batons what their names were. One of the thick-set cops had virtually thrown the Corbello kids on to the floor and they lay curled up as the boots went in, screaming and shouting they hadn’t done anything.

Raoul was hauled by his hair from his bar stool next to Fryer, but not one cop touched Fryer himself.

‘You better have a fucking good reason for this, you motherfuckers,’ Fryer screamed.

Lorraine couldn’t wait any longer and walked into the bar. It was mayhem, screaming and shouting, people huddled in corners, crying and hunched up as the boots and batons still went in.

Lorraine shouted, ‘This is for Nick Bartello, Nick Bartello!’

Fryer squinted in the darkness down to the end of the bar.

‘His throat was cut down an alley, one block from here.’

Fryer shook his head and pointed. ‘You are a crazy bitch, you know that?’

As they spoke, cops were hurling the drugs taken from the drawer beside the till on to the bar. Two more moved up the narrow back staircase to Fryer’s private quarters.

Rooney walked in as Fryer Jones spat a spray of his beer over Lorraine. ‘You gonna pay for this, you fucking whore. Nobody come in here and takes over my bar. Nobody!’

‘You want to bet, Mr Jones? I wouldn’t bother, we already took it over.’

Rooney edged closer and said to one of the cops kicking the shit out of a guy caught between the tables, ‘I’m with her, I’m with Mrs Page.’