The Long-Legged Fly by James Sallis Read Free Book Online Page A

rule a century earlier, that rebellious French leaders had been executed. A few blocks landward, in Congo Square, slaves were allowed to pursue music and mores otherwise proscribed by the Code Noir and femme de couleur libre Marie Laveau held court over regular Sunday voodoo rituals. Scenes from our rich heritage hereabouts. Laveau, incidentally, was said to have consorted with alligators. Obviously one hell of a woman.
    That night LaVerne and I had dinner at Commander’s Palace. Trout Almandine because they make the best in the city and a Mouton-Rothschild because we felt like it. The wine steward seemed a bit huffy at first but, as the evening went on, grew ever friendlier in proportion to the growing redness of his face.
    “You know an actress named Willona?” I asked Verne at one point.
    “Can’t say I do, Lew. But lots of girls call themselves actresses.”
    We went back to the wine and small talk.
    About two in the morning Verne’s phone rang and she rolled over to get it. I could hear a heavy, almost growling voice on the other end, but couldn’t make out words.
    “Yeah, honey?” Verne said. More growling. “Really? Kinda late for a working girl, you gotta give better notice… . Yeah, sure, honey, I understand, of course I do… . Yeah, I know where it is… . I’ll be there, sure… . Give me thirty, thirty-five minutes, huh?”
    She hung up.
    “Gotta split, Lew,” she said. “One of my regulars.”
    I nodded and she swung out of bed toward the closet. She had more clothes in there than they had at Maison Blanche.
    I waited until she’d left, then got up, dressed, and went home.

Chapter Three
    H OME THESE DAYS WAS A FOUR-ROOM APARTMENT on St. Charles where trolleys clanked by late at night and you could always smell the river. It had a couple of overstuffed couches, some Italian chairs, a king-size bed, even pictures on the wall. Mostly Impressionist.
    I parked the bug on the street and went in. Poured a brandy and sat on one of the couches sipping at it.
    I was thinking about Cordelia Clayson and the ways it could go. Maybe she was hustling on the street corners by now, I didn’t know. Maybe she was into drugs, or booze. Or plain old for-the-hell-of-it sex. Or Jesus. Anything was possible. Whatever, I didn’t feel too hopeful about the news that sooner or later I was going to have to bring her parents. I’d seen too many times what the city could do.
    Actress, I kept thinking. Actress. I didn’t know anything about acting, but I’d had a professor at college who had done a bibliography of New Orleans theater since 1868 or some such date, and tomorrow I’d give him a call. Right now it was time for bed. I finished off the brandy, undressed, set the alarm for seven, and hit the sack.
    I was wakened at six by the phone.
    “Yeah?” I managed to get out.
    “Lew? I’m calling from downtown.”
    “Don. Don’t you ever go home?”
    “Funny, my wife’s always asking me the same thing. Can you come down here, Lew? It’s Vice. They think they’ve got your girl.”
    I drove over expecting to talk to Cordelia Clayson in a detention room. Instead, I was ushered into a room on the fourth floor lined with books and what looked like cans of film. Don introduced me to Sergeants Polanski and Verrick and left. “Can’t watch this shit, Lew. Daughters of my own,” he said.
    “Something we picked up at a party down on Esplanade,” Polanski told me. “Thought you’d be interested.”
    While he was talking he threaded film into a projector. When he raised his hand, Verrick hit the lights and there we were, in dreamland.
    A big white dude in black socks was doing things to a young black girl. Alternately fucking and sucking and beating and lecturing her on the philosophy of the bedroom and woman’s natural submission. It sounded like something out of de Sade by way of Heffner and Masters and Johnson—the redeeming social significance, I guess.
    It was cheaply made, frames jumpy, figures and faces