DIVA (7 page)

And that’s how Chantelle would wind up if he didn’t find her.

At the far end of the wood-paneled hall Mama stood outside another door. “Told you nothing, right? Hard cases, those two, but you might get something from Ramona.”

Mama opened the door and they entered the room. A Hispanic girl with an angelic face and large dark eyes lay in bed, propped against two pillows, wearing an over-sized cotton shirt with a big bulge, clearly pregnant.

“This is Detective Renzi,” Mama said, “here about Chantelle. If you care about your friend, you best tell him what you know about where she’s at.”

He sat on the empty bed opposite hers. “Did you see Chantelle leave?”

“Didn’t see nuthin, didn’t hear nuthin,” Ramona said, twisting the white bed-sheet with thin bony fingers.

“Uh-huh. But I bet you got to know her a little bit, rooming with her for a few days. Did she talk to you? Tell you about her friends?”

The girl shook her head, hugging her swollen belly with stick-thin arms, gazing at him. Tears filled her large dark eyes. “She gone.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

Ramona’s eyes overflowed and tears ran down her face.

“She jus’ gone. Left me all alone.”

______

At one-thirty Frank drove into Iberville and parked his unmarked Chevy Caprice in front of a three-story red-brick building. After Katrina many of New Orleans’ public housing projects had been scheduled for demolition. Not Iberville, a two-block collection of buildings grouped in around cement courtyards. It reminded him of the projects he’d worked as a Boston detective, except that here plywood covered many of the windows.

About as charming as a sardine factory.

He walked into a courtyard, absorbing the vibe, weeds peeping through cracked cement, security lights on poles with electric wires that carried no juice. At night the complex would be pitch dark. A scary place for a teenaged girl on her own. Now the midday sun baked weedy grass littered with empty beer cans, crumpled candy wrappers and fast-food containers. On the cement were spray-painted gang tags, Day-Glo squiggles marking their territory.

A dilapidated swing-set stood in the center of the courtyard, no kids on the swings. No plywood on the windows facing the courtyard, either. Some were open, but the courtyard was eerily quiet. No babies crying, no kiddie voices, no music floating through the windows.

A creepy sensation crawled down his neck. How many eyes were watching him through those windows? His SIG-Sauer was a reassuring weight in the holster strapped to his right ankle, but it wouldn’t help much if some banger decided to pop him from a second-floor window.

Sudden motion caught his eye, jumping his heart rate.

Two black kids emerged from between two buildings, shuffling along in their Nike’s or whatever footwear the ‘bangers favored these days, heads bobbing to sounds from the I-Pods plugged into their ears. Both wore loose T-shirts and baggy pants that hung off their skinny asses.

Baggy enough to conceal a gun.

They saw him but feigned disinterest, assuming slouched postures as he approached. He’d changed into scruffy jeans and an old T-shirt, but they knew he was a cop. A spiderweb tat covered the taller one’s neck. The other had tattoos on each forearm, ugly daggers dripping crimson blood.

“Hey, guys, I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help me out.”

Got back dead-eyed stares. He showed them Chantelle’s mug shot, the full-face version with the height-chart background edited out.

“Seen this girl around here lately?”

“Uh-uh,” grunted the tall one, Spiderweb, avoiding his gaze.

“How about you?” he said to Dagger. “She lived here before Katrina.”

Dagger pointed, extending his forearm to display his bloody-dagger tat. “That her pitcher?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“Don’t know nuthin, Mr. Po-leece-man,” Spiderweb said. He jerked his head at Dagger and the pair sauntered away.

After watching them swagger across the courtyard, he mounted the steps of the nearest building and entered a dark hallway that stank of every foul odor imaginable: stale cigarette smoke, spoiled food, vomit and urine.

A swarm of gnats buzzed his head. He swatted them away.

Halfway down the hall he came to an open door and stuck his head inside. The stench got worse. Two chrome kitchen chairs with torn plastic seats stood by a window, surrounded by mounds of trash that included a broken crack pipe. Stuck in a crevice between the filthy carpet and the baseboard was a used syringe with a bent needle.

Appalled by the squalor, he flashed on Chantelle’s roommate, Ramona, fourteen-years-old and pregnant, about to have a baby fathered by her uncle. Not much older than Janelle Robinson, a black girl in Boston who’d hung out with bangers and wound up dead. Different project, same sad story.

Before Katrina, 673 of Iberville’s 836 units had been occupied. Now only 200 housed legal residents. Many of the others were occupied by drug dealers and crackheads. Forget finding someone to help him locate Chantelle. The bangers wouldn’t tell him anything, and the legal residents were too scared to talk. He scratched the scar on his chin. If Chantelle was hiding in one of the eight-hundred-plus units, he’d never find her.

Lost in thought, he pushed through the exit door into the sunlight.

“Yo!” a deep voice called. “Help you with sump’n?”

A young black man with milk-chocolate skin leaned against the side of the building. He was five-ten or so and barrel-chested with powerful arms and shoulders. Looked like he’d just worked out, the skin on his shaven head gleaming with sweat, approaching him now with a self-assured swagger. Over the obligatory baggy pants, he wore a white dress shirt. Gold cufflinks at the wrists glinted with diamond chips. Heavy bling. Surprisingly delicate features decorated his face: almond-shaped eyes, a narrow nose, thin lips.

Frank showed him the photograph. “Have you seen this girl around?”

The man stared at him with dead flat eyes. “You a cop?”

His voice was deep and resonant, sounded like James Earl Jones.

“Detective Frank Renzi, NOPD. And you are?”

A big smirk. “Mos’ folks call me AK.”

Known to NOPD as Atticus Kroll, age twenty-four, gang leader and drug kingpin. Also known as AK-47 due to his preference for that particular weapon of destruction.

“You live here, AK?”

“Hardly nobody lives here. The city ain’t got no money to fix the place.”

He tapped the photograph. “Have you seen this girl? She lived here before Katrina.”

AK gazed at him, face closed, eyes hard. “Never seen her before.”

The next moment an insolent smile parted his lips, and a gold tooth glittered at the front of his mouth.

“Nice tooth, AK. The pharmaceutical business must be good.”

The smile disappeared, the eyes hardened, and AK stalked away.

_____

Thursday, 19 October

“I better go,” Antoine whispered. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Stay a couple more minutes.” Spooned against him on the mattress, Chantelle felt his velvety-soft lips brush her neck. She loved the feel of his bare skin against hers. Loved it even more when he reached back and stroked her cheek. He’d brought her two bags of groceries, including a big package of Doritos, her sweet lover-man buying her favorite treat.

Beside them on the floor, a flickering candle sat on an aluminum pie plate, the only light in her bedroom, but enough to see the love in his eyes, the cinnamon-scented candle masking the awful stink in her apartment.

“Stay all night if I could, but Uncle Jonas be home from work soon.”

She stroked his cheek. “Thank God the cops didn’t catch you.”

“You got that right. Jesus-God-A’mighty, thought I’d die when AK shot that cop, idiot got the brains of a flea, you know, shoot first, think later.”

“Wasn’t your fault, Antoine.”

“Maybe not, but the cops’ll blame me, just the same. Woman died ‘cause AK only cares about saving his own ass. I shoulda never gone with him.”

The truest words ever spoken. Only reason her lover man did was ‘cuz AK had told him he’d protect her. Bullshit. AK was the one bothering her.

“I want you to go back to that foster home. You be safe there.”

“No! Then I won’t be able to see you.”

He kissed her mouth, a soul kiss that made her tingle. “I love you, Chantelle. I want you to be safe. Call that cop and tell him what happened.”

“You crazy? No way I be telling a cop you was in on that robbery. They put you in jail, you won’t be playing your saxophone no more.”

“You don’t someone else might. You don’t think AK be keeping quiet about it, do you? Be serious. Every guy hangs out here knows it was him.”

She blinked back tears, felt a sick-ache blossom in her stomach. “I go back to that foster home, they bust me for running off, and that trespassing charge. Besides, I can’t sing over there. Can’t meet you someplace so’s we can make music together. And make love.”

“AK finds you here, he’ll shut you up, make sure you don’t talk.”

“I’ll live on the street then. Lots of sistas do it.”

Antoine’s eyes got shiny and wet, looked like he might cry. “No. It’s too dangerous. I’ll ask my uncle if you can stay at his house.”

A warm glow swept over her. Big risk for her lover-man, telling his uncle about her. “Tell your uncle, he pick up the phone, call your Daddy in Houston and that be the end of that.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m okay here. You know me, quiet as a mouse ‘cept when I sing.”

Antoine held her tight and whispered, “I love you, Chantelle.”

“I love you too, Antoine, love you with all my heart.”

He rolled away from her and sat up. “What’s that?”

“What? I don’t hear nothin.” But then she did, a scratchy sound, metal against metal. Her heart jolted, beating fast and crazy like a bug at a light bulb. “Somebody messin' with the lock.”

With frantic haste, they put on their clothes as footsteps sounded, then AK’s deep distinctive voice. “Where y’at, Chantelle? I know you in here.”

Her heart exploded in a spasm of fear, her body shaking like a tree in a hurricane. Antoine wrapped his arms around her. It didn’t stop her trembling.

AK barged into the room with a big flashlight. Smiled his evil smile to show off his gold tooth. “Time you and me had a talk, Chantelle.”

“What we need to talk for?” Hating the tremor in her voice.

“Let her be, AK,” Antoine said. “I did what you wanted.”

“Where you at when the cop showed up, girl? You ‘sposed to warn us, anybody comes.”

“How’d she know he’s a cop?” Antoine said. “Wasn’t wearing a uniform.”

“Neither was the one came here Monday looking for her.” Smiling his evil smile. “Had a mighty fine picture of you, axed me and my boys if we seen you lately. How come?”

“I don’t know, AK. Honest.” Heart racing, hands wet with sweat.

“Why he looking for you, this cop? How come he knows you?”

Tears blurred her eyes and sweat prickled her temples.

“I-I-I don’t know, AK, I swear.”

Antoine said, “Maybe the Houston cops asked him to look for her.”

“Yeah,” she said. “My moms in Houston, don’t know where I’m at.”

AK ran his tongue over his gold tooth and smiled. “You get yo’self some nooky tonight, Antoine? Maybe I get me some, too. AK-Forty-Seven runs Iberville, gets to fuck any pussy he wants, Chantelle included.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Antoine grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. “C’mon, Chantelle, we best be going.”

She was so scared she was afraid she would wet her pants.

AK glared at them. At the last second, he stepped aside to let them pass.

“Either one a you talk to the cops, you dead.”

CHAPTER 7

London Friday, 20 October

Applause thundered through the Royal Festival Hall, rolling waves of sound like a jet plane racing down the runway. He leaped to his feet, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of Belinda’s breasts. His beloved was winded after her demanding encore. A brilliant stroke.

The Brits loved Gershwin, and her spectacular variations on “I’ve Got Rhythm” had won her another standing ovation. The first, after her stunning performance of the Khachaturian, had lasted three minutes. She’d graciously asked the orchestra to rise, but the players had refused, joining the audience in applause. The Diva in all her glory.

She bowed deeply and coppery waves of hair fell over her face.

Dazzled by her beauty, he feasted on the pale flesh revealed by her low-cut royal-blue gown. Imagined those silky tresses caressing his naked body. His erection was an insatiable beast in his groin, hot and ready for his beloved. He glanced at the man beside him. White hair and a walrus mustache, lips parted in a broad smile. A glittery necklace adorned his wife’s wrinkled neck. Rich Brits, able to afford seats in the fifth row. No scrimping for them, unlike the sacrifices he’d made.

The recently refurbished hall—2800 plush new seats and gleaming new walls of polished elm and walnut—had marvelous acoustics, allowing him to bask in Belinda’s rich sultry sound, though at times the brasses had intruded, shrill sounds that offended his ears.

A roar from the sell-out crowd drew his attention to three little girls in white frocks tossing rose petals onto the stage at Belinda’s feet. Gazing out at the audience, Belinda raised a hand to her lips. And blew him a kiss!

His heart almost stopped. Some primal instinct had told her he was here, her most loyal fan! Soon they would meet. Soon he would be with her. Soon there’d be no need to go into debt as he traveled to her concerts in the United States and around the world.

With a final wave, she gathered the skirt of her gown and swept offstage. The rhythmic clapping began, a European ritual, the sold-out crowd applauding in rhythm. But The Diva wouldn’t be back. Nothing could top that encore. His beloved would greet her most important fans at a gala reception at the Royal Trafalgar Hotel.

He edged down the row toward the aisle. This afternoon he had met the man he’d contacted on the Internet. He had expected a seedy type with furtive eyes, but the man was just the opposite, a dapper well-dressed older man who resembled John LeCarre. After collecting his fee, the man gave him his documents. The name on his new credentials was not his own. He doubted Belinda would remember meeting him all those years ago but she might remember his sister.