Coq au Vin (22 page)

Damn right I wanted it.

I ran over to my instrument case, tore Mama Lou from her prison, and gave her a big wet kiss.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Williams.” I greeted the thin, dark-skinned woman wearing a red windbreaker over her brightly patterned dress.

“How you today, honey?” she answered with a smile.

“I'm fine. Much better. And I just wanted to thank you.”

She furrowed her brow.

“Let me explain,” I said. “A friend of mine gave me one of your dolls a few days ago. Like you said, I've had a lot of worries. But my luck has totally changed.”

“Well, of course,” she said. “These dolls have got some powers, girl. Powers we don't even know about.”

“I'm sure you're right, Mrs. Williams. And by the way, do you make all these yourself?”

“Just call me Ida. Yes, I make them. Each one is different, see, just like us. But they all have the power. And I'll tell you something else about 'em, baby. They only work when you ready for them to work. So you musta been ready.”

As she talked, she was subtly moving a couple of the dolls forward on the table surface. “Of course, some are a little more special than others. Look at this one here.”

“She's beautiful,” I said, “and she looks like she means business, too.”

“She” was a tall and lanky black one—a kind of mamba priestess in an intense blue sarong and orange headdress. There was a circle of wire at her neck and she wore an ankle bracelet. She, too, carried a little medicine pouch.

Ida picked up the doll and pressed her into my hands. “Now I'm not saying the one you have can't bring you what you need to be happy. But with this one, honey, you could rule the world.”

Quite a claim.

I had been playing my belief in Mama Lou for laughs, more or less. Even Justin's credence seemed a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Was it possible that Ida's faith in her creations was the real thing—that she actually believed what she was saying?

“How much?” I asked.

“She's a really special one, remember. But for you … eighteen-fifty.”

Ida couldn't possibly support herself by selling these, I was thinking; I mean, realistically, even on the best day, how big is the demand for voodoo picaninnies? But on the other hand, she was a very smooth saleswoman. If she was able to play everybody else as deftly as she was handling me—well, maybe there was enough in it to cover the rent.

I pulled a twenty from my money belt and told her to keep the change.

“You are a sweet thing,” she crooned. “Just you wait and see what kinds of good things are gon' come to you.”

I was halfway across the park. But then I turned back and ran over to her table again. “I want to invite you someplace, Ida. I'd like you to come as my guest.”

“Me? Where you want to invite me?”

“To hear me play. You like music, don't you?”

“Do I look like I don't? We wouldn't be nothing without music.”

I wrote down the address of the restaurant where my three-day-a-week gig was to take place and told Ida I would leave her name with the host up front.

“This sounds like a pretty fancy place.”

I shrugged and made a motion with my hand that signified “Don't worry about it.”

“That's okay with me, girl. I got a dress that'll knock 'em out.”

I laughed. “Cool, Ida. I can't wait to see it.”

“What kind of music you play—piano?”

“No. Sax. I'm in this trio.”

“Lord, if that don't beat all. I bet your mama and daddy real proud of you. Will they be there?” she asked.

I smiled. “Not this time.”

I put the second doll in my case, so that Mama Lou wouldn't be lonely. I just hoped she wouldn't be jealous.

I took pains, usually, to avoid Soho.

But I did have that $350 windfall, and the restaurant where I was going to be playing was kind of grownup/dress-up, and there was that one nice shop on Prince Street that sold some of the world's greatest black skirts—black chiffon skirts with lace overlays; black wool skirts slit up to where even your doctor shouldn't be looking; ballgown-length black taffeta skirts; tight ones, long ones, short ones. I like them all. So when I left Ida, I set off straight down Broadway to find something to wear to the gig.

My luck was holding. I even found a quarter on the ground.

I didn't hang on to it for very long, though. Before I reached 8th Street, an aged, pitiful-looking drag queen with big old feet hit me for money. It didn't even occur to me not to comply. I gave her the quarter and all the rest of the change I had in my pockets.

I was getting arrogant—spreading my good luck around.

CHAPTER 3

Repetition

The audience at Omega, an upscale eatery way up on First Avenue, came primarily to eat, not to hear the music. Jeff had told me that from the git. But the clientele was too sophisticated to treat us as mere white noise; there would be plenty of diners who knew the difference between elevator jazz and the real deal.

In other words, it was unlikely I was going to be discovered and whisked into the recording studio by the kind of scout who haunts the neighborhood basketball courts or the comedy clubs looking for fresh meat. But I did have to have my stuff together to play with the consummate professionals who were to be my fellow musicians.

Roamer McQueen is the cutest fat guy I ever met. He is a talented bassist and, from what I could gather, the heart and soul of the trio that gigged three days a week at Omega. He was extremely kind to me in those rushed, nerve-wracking days when I was rehearsing with him and Hank Thayer, the elegant pianist at the center of the group. In fact they were both wonderful to me.

For whatever reason, men seem compelled to come up with pet names for me. Roamer had dubbed me Big Legs. Canny showman that he was, he promised me a juicy solo for every low-cut blouse I wore to the gig. He is a riot.

I was subbing for sax player Gene Price, the third Musketeer, whose penchant for cheese grits and filterless cigarettes had him in the hospital for bypass surgery.

If I have to say so myself, I looked incredible in that button-up-the-back number I bought on Prince Street. Before I left the apartment that night, I asked Mama Lou and Dilsey (that is what I named the new doll) to work their special hoodoo to bring me good fortune at the gig. I blew each of them a kiss as I breezed out the door. I hopped right on the First Avenue bus, whistling “Liza” as most of the sentient males checked me out on the long seat at the back. I was riding pretty damn high.

Yeah. Once again I was making the mistake of not paying attention to another old black female figure in my life. Her name is Ernestine and—being my stern if quixotic conscience—she can be a real pain in the butt. Ernestine doesn't seem to like it very much when I'm riding high. I'm sure she was trying to warn me, but that night I just wasn't listening.

They fed us at the restaurant; that was part of the deal. And the food wasn't bad. Certainly it was better than the pay. But in any case I was too keyed up to eat.

Both Aubrey and Justin were working that night and couldn't make the set, but they had promised to come see me later in the week.

I'd miss them, sure, but the one I found myself so looking forward to seeing was Ida Williams, the doll lady. It was almost like having your eccentric grandmother out there cheering for you on opening night.

I had gotten into the habit of dropping off containers of hot tea at her table every time I was in the vicinity of the farmers market. Sometimes Ida looked like the tough old bird and master salesperson I had first encountered, and sometimes she seemed frail as parchment, distracted and rueful. Complicated, in other words. I was hoping that someday soon I could talk my mom into coming into the city so that the three of us could go out to lunch.

I had been told that Omega did well. No lie, apparently: the ordinarily supercool maître d' was overwhelmed. People were pouring in. Drinks flowing. A good buzz in the room. Omega was a far cry from some smoky basement club where Monk and Charlie Rouse or Art Tatum or Max Roach was about to make history and (
your favorite junkie horn player's name here
) was out back scoring a nickel bag. But what the hell? This was still fun. I was still riding high.

The first set started at nine. Hank had a pretty arrangement of “Stella by Starlight” that was to open the set. The three of us stood schmoozing on the slightly raised platform near the front window of the restaurant.

In the midst of the throng of customers I spotted Ida talking to the coat check lady, who was helping her with her wrap.

Go on, Ida! Wow, what a dress. Classic chic-lady-out-cabareting threads. I wondered if she had found it in one of the expensive antique clothing stores in town, or if it was a number she'd been keeping in mothballs since the fifties. Understated nubby wool, clinging in all the right places, too. As Justin would say, not a sequin in sight. Plus, she had done her hair up in a fabulous finger wave.

I broke into a grin and waved hello, but she was too far away. She didn't see me. The small table near the bandstand was all arranged for her, and I was just about to step down to thank her for coming and find out what she wanted to drink. But that never happened.

The room suddenly exploded.

Gunfire and shrieks of terror.

Customers and staff alike went diving for the floor. I felt Hank's fingers around my wrist. He snatched me under the piano seat and my saxophone went bumping off the bandstand.

It was all over in a few seconds. There was confused disbelief on every face in the room: no, the sky wasn't falling; no, we weren't being robbed of our jewels by a band of masked brigands; no, the lunatic terrorists were not herding us into the back room. None of that.

Then what the fuck had just happened?

Roamer and Hank were on their feet again, brushing off their suits and exchanging confounded looks.

I remembered then. Ida!

I hoped she hadn't been trampled in all the confusion.

I ran to the maître d's station, where a knot of people were staring down at the floor in horror, all the women in the group with their hands at their mouths.

Ida.

One perfect hole in the middle of her face. A pool of bloody goo under her head.

I dropped to the floor and began a frantic check for any signs of life. Useless. I let out a dreadful deep moan that soon shot up into the high register. After that, I must've spaced out completely—gone somewhere deep in my own head. I went into some sort of trance and I didn't come out of it until I felt Roamer and Hank leading me to a chair.

“Oh no,” I wailed, over and over. “Not again.”

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Acknowledgments

For friendship and support offered, for the examples they set and for the luck they have brought me, I wish to thank Lisa Carlson, Larry Eidelberg, Susanna Einstein, Estelle Gerard, Margo Jefferson, Martha Jones, Patricia Spears Jones, Frank King, Bill Kushner, Bernadette Mayer, Suzanne McConnell, Mark McCormick, Jackie McQueen, Shirley Sarris, Laurie Stone, Serpent's Tail, Lynne Tillman, Gary Woodard.

About the Author

Charlotte Carter is the author of crime novels including the Nanette Hayes Mysteries—
Rhode Island Red
,
Coq au Vin
, and
Drumsticks
—featuring a saxophone-playing street musician and crime solver. Though Nanette is from a solidly middle-class black family, her salty language, boho ways, and irreverent humor undercut her bourgeois upbringing—and often land her in the middle of a murder case. The books have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch.

A recipient of the Chester Himes Black Mystery Award, Carter has worked as an editor and teacher. A longtime resident of downtown New York City, she has also lived in France and North Africa, where she took writing workshops with Paul Bowles.

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