seventeen, with no prospects and no real interests other than seeking a good time with a succession of good-time Charlies, she quickly found her way to the nightlife. She lived alone, restless, on the verge of becoming the drifter she would remain until old age.
Marielle’s father had been born into an old Creole family. He was a doctor with a solid practice when he died of cancer at forty-five. He left Marielle a decent inheritance, but his brother, serving as executor, lost most of it on bad investments, forcing her to drop out of college in her first year. She inherited her psychic powers from her mother, who grew up on Martinique. After being widowed, her mother told Marielle that she would have to fend for herself eventually, and she taught her all she knew about witchcraft, divination, and what she called “medicinals.”
Camille and Marielle crossed paths at large family gatherings—weddings, funerals, Christmas dinners—and they spent one summer month when they were children at another cousin’s house on the Gulf. That was as close as they ever got. There was one occasion in their twenties when Marielle had a chance encounter with Camille outside the family, which she remembered well and related to Ruby.
“I met your father,” she told Ruby one night, lighting up a clove cigarette. “It was in February 1960, and I was walking in Jefferson Park with a girlfriend. And there was Camille, all dolled up and grinning, on the arm of a man. She waved to me, and I could see right away that she was crazy about him and that he didn’t give a damn about her. He looked my friend and me up and down, real quick, but he couldn’t once look me in the eye. He smiled, but I didn’t feel it was connected to anything inside him. Then, just a couple of years ago, I was at a private party in a nightclub when I saw Valentine Owen again. There was a crowd. Cops, gangsters, politicians. He was in a corner, deep in conversation with two large men who happened to be detectives. He didn’t see me. He was too busy trying to talk himself out of a jam. He had been stupid enough to try to extort a drug dealer who happened to be the son of a city judge. Owen had done some business with this guy, helping to arrange for cocaine to be smuggled in from Saint Croix. He got his cut, then turned around and demanded more money. He had no idea who he was messing with. They could have knocked him off on the spot, and no one the wiser, but they decided to use him instead. That’s how the police operate here. The police chief, Mathias Beaumont, really runs the city. He took over the largest crime syndicate and directs it from the police department. He answers to no one. He’s untouchable.He’s corrupted half the force and killed anyone who crossed him, hoodlums and politicians alike. His MO is tossing them into the Mississippi chained to anchors. For a while, I went out with his half brother, Wick, who was nothing like Beaumont. He had a weakness for cards, but he was a decent man. Still, he’d seen and heard plenty, just because of who he was. He explained to me later what was going down when I spotted Owen at that party. He told me those detectives were giving Owen a choice: he could go to jail and wake up with a knife in his gut, or he could do them a service and then get out of town. It was a dirty piece of work, helping to set up an honest cop they wanted out of the way, as in shot dead. It wasn’t a complicated plan. They showed Owen a photograph of the cop. They said he ate lunch every day at one o’clock at Morel’s Café on Antille Street. Owen was to go there the next day at twelve forty-five, order a meal, pay his check at one-fifteen, and walk out, making sure the cop noticed him. A minute later, he was to run back in and shout that there was a robbery in progress at the jewelry store across the street. When Owen asked, ‘Why all the theater, why aren’t you just icing him outright?’ the detectives said, ‘Because we need him
Marielle’s father had been born into an old Creole family. He was a doctor with a solid practice when he died of cancer at forty-five. He left Marielle a decent inheritance, but his brother, serving as executor, lost most of it on bad investments, forcing her to drop out of college in her first year. She inherited her psychic powers from her mother, who grew up on Martinique. After being widowed, her mother told Marielle that she would have to fend for herself eventually, and she taught her all she knew about witchcraft, divination, and what she called “medicinals.”
Camille and Marielle crossed paths at large family gatherings—weddings, funerals, Christmas dinners—and they spent one summer month when they were children at another cousin’s house on the Gulf. That was as close as they ever got. There was one occasion in their twenties when Marielle had a chance encounter with Camille outside the family, which she remembered well and related to Ruby.
“I met your father,” she told Ruby one night, lighting up a clove cigarette. “It was in February 1960, and I was walking in Jefferson Park with a girlfriend. And there was Camille, all dolled up and grinning, on the arm of a man. She waved to me, and I could see right away that she was crazy about him and that he didn’t give a damn about her. He looked my friend and me up and down, real quick, but he couldn’t once look me in the eye. He smiled, but I didn’t feel it was connected to anything inside him. Then, just a couple of years ago, I was at a private party in a nightclub when I saw Valentine Owen again. There was a crowd. Cops, gangsters, politicians. He was in a corner, deep in conversation with two large men who happened to be detectives. He didn’t see me. He was too busy trying to talk himself out of a jam. He had been stupid enough to try to extort a drug dealer who happened to be the son of a city judge. Owen had done some business with this guy, helping to arrange for cocaine to be smuggled in from Saint Croix. He got his cut, then turned around and demanded more money. He had no idea who he was messing with. They could have knocked him off on the spot, and no one the wiser, but they decided to use him instead. That’s how the police operate here. The police chief, Mathias Beaumont, really runs the city. He took over the largest crime syndicate and directs it from the police department. He answers to no one. He’s untouchable.He’s corrupted half the force and killed anyone who crossed him, hoodlums and politicians alike. His MO is tossing them into the Mississippi chained to anchors. For a while, I went out with his half brother, Wick, who was nothing like Beaumont. He had a weakness for cards, but he was a decent man. Still, he’d seen and heard plenty, just because of who he was. He explained to me later what was going down when I spotted Owen at that party. He told me those detectives were giving Owen a choice: he could go to jail and wake up with a knife in his gut, or he could do them a service and then get out of town. It was a dirty piece of work, helping to set up an honest cop they wanted out of the way, as in shot dead. It wasn’t a complicated plan. They showed Owen a photograph of the cop. They said he ate lunch every day at one o’clock at Morel’s Café on Antille Street. Owen was to go there the next day at twelve forty-five, order a meal, pay his check at one-fifteen, and walk out, making sure the cop noticed him. A minute later, he was to run back in and shout that there was a robbery in progress at the jewelry store across the street. When Owen asked, ‘Why all the theater, why aren’t you just icing him outright?’ the detectives said, ‘Because we need him
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