Jazz Funeral (30 page)

“Listen, I know a guy. A private detective.”

“You mean the one Johnny Dupre got to spy on his wife?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“The man’s pond scum. I don’t want him anywhere near our daughter.”

He took her hands and tried not to notice the surprise in her eyes. He felt the energy running from her body to his; it was strangely exhilarating. “Patty, I thought we agreed we were going to work together to find her.”

“I thought we did too.”

“Did you think I’d go back on that?”

“But I thought you just said—”

He interrupted her. “Trust me. Would you trust me, please? I’m just going to ask the guy for advice.”

He dropped her hands and strode to the phone, not waiting for an answer. He said it was an emergency and waited for the guy to call back. Patty went upstairs to wash her face.

When she came back, he said, “Let’s go to the Quarter.”

“But she’s been there. She told Andy Fike she was leaving town.”

“She’ll be there.” He spoke more grimly than he meant to, teeth clenched, jaw muscles working.

“You’re so damned arrogant.”

Could that be Patty speaking? She never spoke to him like that. It was as if Ham’s death had changed her, changed him, changed them all forever.

He could have tried to mollify her, but he didn’t, he was too impatient. He said, “She’ll be there, Patty. Come on. They all end up there. That’s what the guy told me. There’s a whole scene down there.”

“Scene?”

He thought he could see fear in her eyes, hear it in her voice. The guy, the detective, had told him things he didn’t want to hear, didn’t want Patty to know about. He hustled her out the door. “A runaway scene,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. “He said to try a place called Covenant House—a shelter for homeless kids.”

Patty looked puzzled. “Melody’s not homeless.”

“Come on, dammit, Patty. Listen, it’s a nice place, the guy said. They call it the Hilton for the Homeless.”

“Where is it?”

“North Rampart.”

She said nothing, merely opened the car door and sank down, looking out the window.

He might as well have said they were going to the Desire Project; no mother wanted to think of her kid on North Rampart, the street that divided the French Quarter from Treme. Right now it was one of the roughest neighborhoods in New Orleans. Still, the Cov was a nice place, the man had said; if Melody were there, she’d be fine.

It looked okay
, he thought. He could see hope in Patty’s eyes as she took in the neat brick building, the large, carpeted, pleasant reception room—well, technically not a reception room, perhaps. The sign called it a Crisis Center.

“We’re looking for someone,” he told the young woman at the desk. “We don’t even know if she’s here.”

“A kid?”

“Yes, a kid. I thought that’s what you have here.”

A young black woman came into the room, carrying a baby and holding a toddler’s hand. She looked about nineteen.

The receptionist was looking at them as if they’d just arrived from Mars. “Are you her parents?” She sounded unbelieving, even accusing.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. We offer sanctuary. We can’t really tell you if someone’s here.”

“She’s sixteen, for God’s sake.”

“We can keep underage kids for seventy-two hours before we’re required to notify their parents.”

“Bullshit!”

Patty said, “George!” and he realized he’d bellowed. The receptionist was nearly the color of a frying pan, one of the blackest people George had ever seen, yet he had the sense she’d turned pale. She stood and backed away, her eyes jumpy, like a rabbit’s.

“Ms. Ohlmeyer,” she said. “Could you come talk to these people?”

In a nearby glass-fronted office, an older woman, perhaps fifty, looked over the rims of her glasses. She was black also, and dressed in a black dress, one that looked comfortable to George, suitable for moving fast if she had to. It had a white band down the front, with buttons on it. The woman was overweight and, though her face looked serious, even stern at first, she had a maternal quality that George picked up immediately, that he associated with overweight women, and liked; that made him feel comfortable. She wore no jewelry except a wedding band and a pair of gold hoop earrings. She looked bored, but she came out of her office and stood politely. “Yes?”

“We’re looking for our daughter.”

“Come in.” Her voice was rich as meuniere sauce.

Like the receptionist, she rather pointedly didn’t ask their daughter’s name.

“We don’t get many parents,” she said. “You took Johanda by surprise. A lot of our kids aren’t really runaways—some of them are, sure, but a lot of them are what we call ‘push-outs.’” She shrugged. “Their parents don’t want them.”

“Don’t want them?” George could see Patty struggling with the concept. “Why wouldn’t their parents want them?”

“They can’t afford them. Say the mother gets a new boyfriend and her daughter’s sixteen—well, she’s a threat two different ways. Sexually and economically. The boyfriend’s a meal ticket— the mom doesn’t want to lose it.”

“But that’s terrible.”

“Or some of the parents are crack addicts.”

“Not white people!” Patty blurted, and George could have kicked her.

But Ohlmeyer smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

George struggled for control. “Look, Ms. Ohlmeyer. We didn’t push our daughter out—she ran away.”

Ohlmeyer’s face took on a wary, purposefully cheerful, but slightly phony look, the look people get when they’re about to tell you bad news. “You know, kids usually don’t run to something; they don’t call them runaways for nothing. They leave because they can’t handle conditions at home. Our kids are here for four reasons: neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or other physical abuse. Ninety percent of our kids have been abused.”

She leaned back in her chair, letting them take it in.

Patty said, “You don’t understand. This isn’t anything like that.”

If he didn’t shut her up, she’d probably say, “Melody goes to Country Day. She takes music lessons.” He realized that he was on the verge of saying it himself.

Ohlmeyer said, “She must have had a reason for running away.”

“Look, this isn’t your average runaway case—”

Patty interrupted him. “Do we look like most of the parents you get in here?”

“We don’t get that many parents. But look, I think I can reassure you on one thing—we do offer the kids sanctuary, but if a kid isn’t being abused, home is where she belongs. We encourage all our kids who can to go home.”

“But you won’t tell us if our daughter’s here?”

Ohlmeyer stared at them, assessing. “I’ve got a funny feeling. Look, I’m about to go out on a limb—are you the Brocatos by any chance?”

George saw Patty’s eyes close with relief.

“Yes,” he said, and Patty said, “She’s here.”

“Well, no, she’s not here. I just recognized you from the papers. You have all my sympathy, Mr. and Mrs. Brocato.” She clucked like a hen. “Mmmmm mmm, you surely do. You’re right, this isn’t your average runaway situation. I’ve been thinking about Melody a lot; we all have—that poor child.”

Patty looked as if she might cry. George said, “We won’t take up any more of your time.”

But Ohlmeyer said, “You’re serious about trying to find her?”

“We’re her parents!”

Ohlmeyer shrugged. “We’ve got kids in here who came home one day and found their parents had moved. But look, Melody’s out there somewhere—” She stopped. “Pray God.” She looked seriously at both the Brocatos.

George said, “We know she is. She’s been seen.”

“Well, probably what she’ll do is what they all do—she’ll try to meet other kids. That’s how they get along here. They help each other; live off each other. They get jobs as waitresses or, uh, dancers. Your best shot at finding her is to go where the kids go.” She started writing things down. “Go to Decatur Street—here’s the names of some bars they like. Go to Jackson Square. If you think she’s dancing, Bourbon Street.”

“Dancing?” said Patty.

It was preposterous. Melody dancing on Bourbon Street?

Ohlmeyer shrugged. “Go sit on a balcony. Watch the crowds go by—you might get lucky.”

“That’s your best advice? Go sit on a balcony?”

“At least there they can’t see you. If you go in the bars, you’ll stick out.”

After the initial shock, George had rethought the dancing idea. Melody was too young to get a legal job, and probably not desperate enough—he fervently hoped—to turn tricks or deal drugs. Dancing might seem an adventure to her. “Which clubs hire underage dancers?” he said.

Ohlmeyer looked almost pleased. “Bayou Babies gets most of them,” she said. “The one with the ugly sign.”

They all had ugly signs. Bayou Babies, in fact, looked less offensive than most.

It was only afternoon, but a near-naked young woman gyrated on a stage clearly visible from the door. Or visible until a man blocked the doorway, a man who’d been wearing the same wilted clothes for a while and had splashed cologne over stale sweat. He stood so close George felt himself start to gag.

“I’ll have to ask you to—”

“We’re coming in!” George snapped, handing him a folded bill to get him out of nostril range.

The dancing girl wasn’t Melody, and his first thought was to leave, never mind the two-drink minimum, until he saw the girl on the bar. She was lying there on her side, her feet got up in some kind of mermaid’s tail, but the rest of her stark naked except for the two-by-two-inch G-string they all wore. She rested her head on her right hand and had her left arm folded over her breasts, so that the effect wasn’t erotic, merely shocking. Shocking because she was a teenager with a pageboy, a kid about Melody’s age, looking as if she was lying by a swimming pool. Shocking because her face was a baby’s face, the face of a child whose worst problem ought to be algebra. She wasn’t even wearing makeup.

He was staring at her, trying not to gasp, not to change expression, when he heard Patty say, “Oh my God.”

He turned toward her—toward the center of the club—and saw what she saw: a short-haired girl with walnut-sized breasts, brand new, just sprouting, barely budded little things. She was standing on a chair, pulled up to a table, pumping her pelvis. The girl was thin, like Melody, wearing only the ubiquitous G-string and a pair of knee-length boots. Her crotch was about six inches from the face of the man sitting at the table.

“Don’t look,” he said to Patty, he didn’t know why.

A waitress led them to a table and brought them a pair of five-dollar Cokes. George stared at a landscape dotted with “table dancers” like the girl with the walnut breasts. In the center was a carpet-covered stage, inhabited by three more naked beauties, performing on their backs—doing somersaults, leg lifts, getting into contortions that looked like weird yoga postures. They probably were yoga movements, it dawned on him—these clubs didn’t have choreographers; the girls probably had to use whatever they knew.

But these girls were background—the table dancers were what hurt. High school kids shaking their booties in men’s faces. It made him want to throw up.

Patty reached for his hand. “Do you see Melody?”

“No.” It came out like a squawk. A girl came and whispered to Patty, who answered. The girl drew up a chair.

“She asked me if I wanted to buy a table dance for twenty dollars to embarrass you,” Patty said. “I said we’d give her twenty bucks to talk to us.”

George nodded. “Do you know a girl named Melody?” he said, knowing how futile it was.

She shook her head. “My name’s Tulip.” She spoke in a high baby voice.

“How old is that girl?” He pointed to the one lying on the counter.

“Twenty-two. Me too.”

What was there to say?
Where should we look for our daughter?

“I bet you’d never guess that,” said Tulip. “Because of my voice. I sound like a baby, don’t I?” Her words were slurred. She was pretty loaded. “The owner here told my girlfriend, ‘Tulip’s butt’s too big, but I had to hire her because she sounds like a child and I love to fuck children.’” Tulip giggled. “You get along however you can.”

George threw his Coke against the wall. He didn’t know he was going to do it, later wondered how he’d decided to aim for the wall instead of the fat, stinking barker, who proved also to be the bouncer. The man was at the table, grabbing George under the armpits, muscling him out before the shards of the glass had hit the floor.

“My money!” cried Tulip, her too-red lips twisted in despair.

“I’m leaving, goddammit! Let me pay her!” The man let go.

George tossed her two twenties and stalked out, Patty trailing.

Blinking in the brightness outside, Patty was pale. “What happened, George? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” He spoke louder than he needed to, yelled at her, really. They walked in silence to their car. Only when the motor was running did George turn to her. “You read about that stuff, you know? You hear about it.”

She nodded, her brows drawn together, as if she were trying to keep her face from falling apart.

“But it doesn’t prepare you—I mean, you don’t know until you see it. You just don’t know.”

Patty was shaking. She wasn’t crying, she was just shaking, as if she were very cold.

Melody took the shuttle back to the Quarter, breathing everyone else’s beer fumes and wishing she could have gotten loaded at JazzFest, could have found someone to buy beer for her. This time, she was really at the end of the line; no turning back. She’d seen someone she knew and been chased. She couldn’t sing with the band anymore because people knew what she looked like now; Flip would spread the word. And she couldn’t stay with them because it was too sad, now that Chris had someone else. They probably wouldn’t let her anyway, if she wasn’t going to sing.

She could go to the bar on Decatur Street, the one where the runaways and punks hung out, and try to meet someone to stay with, but she was afraid to. She’d had enough of the kindness of strangers for a while. She wanted to see Joel.

He’d be practicing right now with Doug, practicing like crazy because he was going to play when the Boucrees performed tomorrow. She made a decision. It wasn’t rational, it was crazy, it was probably even stupid, but her brain wasn’t working, only her heart was. Or whatever lonely, longing part of her desperately wanted to be with someone she cared about.