to find Justine in the kitchen in one of her cotton frocks, fussing over a simmering pot. When she greeted him, he caught a flicker in her eyes that came and went in the space of a second. She was in one of her distracted moods, acting all nervous and not meeting his gaze.
He sat down in the front room and pretended to be busy reading his
Picayune.
She left her pot to simmer and went into the bedroom to lie down, murmuring of another headache. She left her purse open when she dug out her prescription, and he noticed that the three pink envelopes that had been resting there for so many weeks had disappeared.
He thought over what that might mean, then abruptly decided that he didn't want to be there when she woke up. He had some work to do anyway.
He went down the stairs and along Magazine Street, then walked all the way through the Quarter to the corner of Conti, around the white walls of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and through Eclipse Alley to St. Louis Street. Four blocks north, he found the first address.
The talk of policemen extorting money that Tom Anderson had passed on was odd business. Everyone from the commissioner to the patrolmen on the beat shared in the graft that was collected from the houses. The donations from the madams were made in an organized way, weekly, usually through the precinct sergeant, who then passed the money up and down the line. It had worked that way for decades and few ever bucked it. In the rare instance when someone did, the response was direct. Some lucky souls escaped with a brutal beating. The bodies of others who misbehaved were fished out of the muddy Mississippi days later. So anyone who knew Storyville would understand that it would be insane to step outside the bounds and risk Anderson's ire as these characters had.
Valentin stepped up to the facade of the house, a run-down two-story brick building near the corner of Robertson Street. He wasn't familiar with the address, so along the way, he picked up a copy of
The Blue Book,
the pocket-sized volume that listed almost every sporting girl in the District, by race, by religion in the case of the Jew Quarter, and by certain specialties. The ladies at No. 1604 St. Louis Street were of course billed as graduates of an unnamed academy of amorous arts in Europe—even though it was unlikely that any of them had ever traveled any closer to that continent than the Georgia state line.
He knocked on the door and was greeted by the madam herself, a fat, surly-eyed woman named Carrie Butler. She was in her stocking feet and a worn Mother Hubbard. When he stated his business, she muttered gruffly and waved him inside.
The house was filthy, reeking from one room to the next of mildewed wood, stale cigar smoke, and close sweat. The plaster on the walls showed islands of stain and the floor was buckling on a crumbling foundation. It looked like it hadn't seen a good cleaning in years, and there hadn't even been an effort to mask the grime that had soaked into the carpets and curtains.
Miss Butler led him to the back of the house and into the kitchen. She sat down heavily at the table and grunted for him to take the opposite chair. He told her he preferred to stand.
The women who passed in and out while they talked were a sorry lot. Without the blessings of rouge and mascara, their faces were dry and drawn, like they suffered from unknown ailments. Girls who couldn't have been more than twenty looked twice that age in the hard light. Each one of them appeared hung-over and wrung dry from the night before, and not one even pretended to smile as she checked him up and down with cold fish eyes.
Though the establishment was advertised in the
Blue Book
as a French house, the truth was that these women, working the bottom rungs of the Storyville ladder, would do almost anything for money. They were coarse and ugly and a few small steps away from one of the cribs on Robertson Street that rented for ten cents a day. For all that, they were as much a
He sat down in the front room and pretended to be busy reading his
Picayune.
She left her pot to simmer and went into the bedroom to lie down, murmuring of another headache. She left her purse open when she dug out her prescription, and he noticed that the three pink envelopes that had been resting there for so many weeks had disappeared.
He thought over what that might mean, then abruptly decided that he didn't want to be there when she woke up. He had some work to do anyway.
He went down the stairs and along Magazine Street, then walked all the way through the Quarter to the corner of Conti, around the white walls of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and through Eclipse Alley to St. Louis Street. Four blocks north, he found the first address.
The talk of policemen extorting money that Tom Anderson had passed on was odd business. Everyone from the commissioner to the patrolmen on the beat shared in the graft that was collected from the houses. The donations from the madams were made in an organized way, weekly, usually through the precinct sergeant, who then passed the money up and down the line. It had worked that way for decades and few ever bucked it. In the rare instance when someone did, the response was direct. Some lucky souls escaped with a brutal beating. The bodies of others who misbehaved were fished out of the muddy Mississippi days later. So anyone who knew Storyville would understand that it would be insane to step outside the bounds and risk Anderson's ire as these characters had.
Valentin stepped up to the facade of the house, a run-down two-story brick building near the corner of Robertson Street. He wasn't familiar with the address, so along the way, he picked up a copy of
The Blue Book,
the pocket-sized volume that listed almost every sporting girl in the District, by race, by religion in the case of the Jew Quarter, and by certain specialties. The ladies at No. 1604 St. Louis Street were of course billed as graduates of an unnamed academy of amorous arts in Europe—even though it was unlikely that any of them had ever traveled any closer to that continent than the Georgia state line.
He knocked on the door and was greeted by the madam herself, a fat, surly-eyed woman named Carrie Butler. She was in her stocking feet and a worn Mother Hubbard. When he stated his business, she muttered gruffly and waved him inside.
The house was filthy, reeking from one room to the next of mildewed wood, stale cigar smoke, and close sweat. The plaster on the walls showed islands of stain and the floor was buckling on a crumbling foundation. It looked like it hadn't seen a good cleaning in years, and there hadn't even been an effort to mask the grime that had soaked into the carpets and curtains.
Miss Butler led him to the back of the house and into the kitchen. She sat down heavily at the table and grunted for him to take the opposite chair. He told her he preferred to stand.
The women who passed in and out while they talked were a sorry lot. Without the blessings of rouge and mascara, their faces were dry and drawn, like they suffered from unknown ailments. Girls who couldn't have been more than twenty looked twice that age in the hard light. Each one of them appeared hung-over and wrung dry from the night before, and not one even pretended to smile as she checked him up and down with cold fish eyes.
Though the establishment was advertised in the
Blue Book
as a French house, the truth was that these women, working the bottom rungs of the Storyville ladder, would do almost anything for money. They were coarse and ugly and a few small steps away from one of the cribs on Robertson Street that rented for ten cents a day. For all that, they were as much a
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