Imogene in New Orleans Read online

  “Hey, hold up. That’s Neil, isn’t it?” Billy motioned for Jackson to turn around. Neil flailed his arms at them. “It looks like he wants us to go.”

  Imogene shook her head. “Go where? We’re going to the hotel, ain’t we? ’Cause I’m not about to go back to that Gilbert boy’s shop again, not with that big ugly, hulking fellar Jackson spoke of.”

  Neil pulled beside them in his car and rolled down his window. “Hey, y’all hold up on going to your hotel. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you, but a friend of mine got you a deal at a better hotel. I’ll tell you about it in a bit.” Neil was talking so fast, they could hardly understand him. He was panting and drenched in sweat. He wiped his brow with his golf cap and flipped it back on. “Follow me. I gave that Lieutenant Rogers the slip. We’re going to my house, uptown.”

  Jackson followed Neil onto St. Charles Avenue. As he sped up, Billy leaned over and said, “Do you think Neil or Allen did it?”

  Jackson whispered, “Oh, come on. No way.”

  Billy pulled his sunglasses down his nose and looked at Jackson. “Neil seemed pretty mad at Glenway. You know he has a temper.”

  “Hey, boys, what y’all whisperin’ about up there?”

  “Nothing, Mama. We just think it’s odd that we’re changing hotels. And Glenway’s dead.”

  “Shoot, boys, sounds like Neil got us a deal. He always does take care of us. We been knowin’ Neil for how long?”

  “About ten years, Mama.”

  “Yeah, well, they don’t make ’em like Neil. He’s been good to y’all for as long as I can recollect. I know he’s broke up about the Gilbert boy.”

  Jackson looked out the window as they passed through the Garden District. He didn’t want to admit to Billy that the thought of Neil and Allen offing Glenway had crossed his mind. They were close enough to Glenway to have the means and opportunity, but he wasn’t sure about a reason yet. By the time he pulled into Neil’s driveway, Imogene was nearly bouncing around in her seat. Jackson watched her pat her chest two or three times, like she had a nervous tick.

  Neil immediately began helping remove the items they’d taken from Glenway’s studio. Jackson saw Imogene studying the calendar. Then she stared at the building beyond Neil’s fence, the one with the words “Lena’s Place” painted in a graffiti style and some crabs jumping into a gumbo pot.

  Billy helped her out of the car as she asked Neil, “Hey, son. Did she know Glenway?” Imogene pointed her wrinkled finger at the gumbo building made of cinder block, more of a stand than a restaurant. Lena’s Place had only a service window with prices displayed on a plastic board using red numbers, the kind found at ballpark concession stands.

  “Of course Lena knows Glenway. She and Glenway were great friends. He must have given her a half dozen paintings. Oh yeah. They drank whiskey together sometimes. And, of course, he didn’t think anyone on this side of the French Quarter could make jambalaya and pralines like her. Why?”

  Billy answered before his mother could. “Because she stole a box of Lena’s pralines from Glenway’s studio. And there’s some sort of note she’s hiding. She probably found it in the box.” Billy’s face was flushed, but Jackson couldn’t tell if it was from the heat of New Orleans or the fight with Imogene. Billy fidgeted with the straps on his leather satchel.

  “They was gonna ruin, son.” She turned to Neil. “I had a bite of one, but I gave the box right back to the boys once they asked after it.” Imogene frowned at her son, who had just ratted her out. She kicked a rock on the sidewalk.

  “Hey, listen, it’s all right. Y’all come up on the porch.” Neil walked them to the front of his house, where four columns framed a glory of an old shotgun house, with its long storm shutters on each side of the windows. Ironwork on the door allowed Neil and his partner, Allen, to keep light in and the criminals out. The front door sported a fleur-de-lis in beveled glass.

  Imogene motioned for Neil to follow her inside, trying to get away from the boys. Jackson hurried after them. He went to the edge of the foyer, just before it opened into Allen’s framing workshop, where Imogene dragged Neil. She whispered, “Listen, son, them boys stay on me like chickens on June bugs. I can’t do nothing without them raisin’ you know what.” Jackson saw her reach into her shirt. Neil took a step backward. She extracted the note from her bra and opened it. “Listen here to this: ‘Don’t let these get stale, baby. If not for you, I wouldn’t have a shop for ’em. I owe you, Glenway. I won’t never forget. Love, Lena.’” Imogene took a step closer to Neil and then asked if he thought it meant anything.

  “If not for you, I wouldn’t have a shop…?” Neil said. He scratched his black hair. The whites of his eyes seemed to stand out under his bushy eyebrows. Jackson could see that the escape from Glenway’s studio was weighing on his friend’s mind.

  “Yeah, that’s what it says, son. To the letter. Them boys thought I was holdin’ it back, but I was waitin’ to see what you figured on it.” Imogene looked at her reflection in the glass on one of Allen’s finished frames. “Good God, I look like I’ve been whooped.” She removed her sun hat. Her gray hair was plastered flat on her head.

  Jackson saw Allen approach from the back of the house and walk toward his partner. Allen had a wild and ponderous beard that trembled as he spoke. “Neil, what happened?”

  “Glenway’s dead. Someone killed him. We found him lying facedown with blood on his scalp.” Neil leaned against a framed picture of Jackson, Billy, Neil, and Allen, taken at the French Market on a previous trip to the city. “And then a big oaf of a lieutenant named Rogers chased us out of the studio. We took some of Glenway’s things.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Allen was skinny and deliberate, sort of like a philosopher or poet. His small eyes looked through prescription glasses, always concentrating and intense, as if something great had just happened or was about to happen.

  “Because I panicked. You know Glenway got paranoid this summer about people stealing from him. He said the cops weren’t paying attention to his complaints of the thefts. I didn’t believe him.” Neil’s eyelids crinkled up at the edges as he spoke. “And then seeing him dead made me realize what a fool I was not to believe him. So, I told the boys to help me gather everything they could carry out. I didn’t help him when he was living, but I’ll damn sure help him now.”

  “Okay, just calm down. We’ll sort this out,” Allen said. Imogene stepped closer to him. “Hi, dear.” The tip of his beard touched Imogene’s shoulder as he hugged her. Jackson walked into the open workshop.

  Neil’s face darkened; he appeared to be concentrating on some thought. “Allen, what’s this about Lena and Glenway?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What’s this about Lena and Glenway’?” Allen peered over his glasses at his partner. He rocked on the pads of his feet.

  “I mean, Glenway’s dead and Lena’s left a note with her pralines that says something about not having a restaurant if not for Glenway. That sounds like a financial boost of some sort. You’re the one who helps with Glenway’s money.” Neil stroked his mustache. “Did you know about Glenway giving Lena money to save her shop?”

  “Hey, calm down, Neil. You know Glenway gave money to all his friends.” Allen took Neil’s hand and squeezed it.

  Neil looked out the window at Goose and Billy standing on the front porch. “Well, I’ll find out the truth even if I have to force it from Lena’s mouth.” Neil started to leave, but Allen grabbed his arm.

  “Wait. You should take a few deep breaths before you go flying off mad. Remember that Lena and Glenway were friends.”

  Neil turned his head away from his partner, and Jackson saw his eyes fill with water. Imogene patted his shoulder. “Shug, it’s gonna be all right. I know you loved that Gilbert boy. I sure did myself, and I hardly knowed him like y’all. Allen’s got the idea. Why don’t you sit down a bit until you get your nerves right.”

  Allen held on to Neil. “It’s gonna be all right, bud.” They went outs
ide to sit on the porch with Jackson and Imogene following. She was the first to relay what the note said.

  Billy grimaced. “I knew that note said something important, Mama. You’re not the only one who knows stuff.” He had the blood-pressure cuff wrapped around his arm but concealed by his leather satchel, as if he didn’t want anyone to see his obsessive behavior in full force.

  “Shoot, ’ccording to you, I don’t know nothing.” She plopped down in one of the empty lawn chairs.

  Jackson said, “Well, we need to speak with Lena Ward. Does she even know Glenway’s dead?”

  “She might. She might have done the deed herself.” Neil blurted it out. He tensed his lips, and he moved to the edge of the chair. “Call her over here, Allen.” The boys had dropped all Glenway’s belongings on the front porch, and Neil grabbed the calendar first and reviewed it. “You see, what we have here is a big mess. I bet we’ll find some answers on this calendar. Look, Lena’s name is written three times during this month alone.” He flipped the large desk calendar back a month to July. “And here she is again. ‘Meeting with Lena.’” He continued looking and then jerked his head. “Oh. No.” He smacked the calendar. “I met this ass today, Lieutenant Rogers. Look at him. Glenway’s written his name twice in July. In fact, he planned for a meeting with him on the fifteenth and the twenty-third of July.” He flipped the calendar again to the current month. “And in August. Look. The sixth, too. And here we are on August eighteenth and Glenway’s dead. What did you say, Imogene, ‘deader than four o’clock’? That’s it. First things first.” Neil rolled the calendar up and jumped out of his chair. Before Allen and Jackson could stop him, he leaped off the porch and ran next door to Lena’s Place.

  * * * * *

  Moments later, the group saw Neil dragging an older African-American woman to the front porch. She wore a New Orleans Saints cap with a mesh back.

  “You ain’t gotta yell, baby. You gonna run off my customers. Quit your fussin’, Neil. Dawn it.” She shuffled beside him, her hands outstretched on either side of her, as if at any moment she could fall. “And stop yellin’ in front of my assistant. Lord knowed she was hard to find, and I intend to keep her if you’ll hush up.”

  Jackson studied the woman. Imogene took a few steps forward to help her. She had a completely opposite reaction to the woman as Neil currently had. He frowned, and Imogene smiled. Lena looked only a few years younger than Imogene. She wore a hairnet under her cap and spoke with a singsong cadence to her voice.

  Imogene mumbled, “I thought she was Billy’s age. Lord, she looks like me, only black.” She hobbled down the steps to meet the woman.

  Lena said, “Shoot. Y’all got a family of visitors here, and you carryin’ on in such a way.” The woman removed a handkerchief from her pocket to dab her sweaty face. “And here it is close to quittin’ time. I was lookin’ forward to a cigarette and a tall glass of lemonade on y’all’s porch. Not all this ‘what you do’ and ‘how you do it, Lena Ward?’ Accusin’ me of something I ain’t did and don’t know a farthin’ about.” Lena shook her head as she spoke. “Now, Neil, you know me better than all this.”

  “Lena, Glenway had his head bloodied and we just found him today. Now, you were supposed to meet him twice this month. Twice.” Neil picked up the calendar. “And all I want to know is the purpose of the meeting.”

  “Well, first off, baby, Glenway wadn’t yo property. He was my friend too. And for seconds, I’m a grown woman and my business is my business. What if we was meetin’ for the fun of it. To have a cigarette and enjoy a drank? What would you say to that?” Lena shook her shoulders trying to straighten her back. She grabbed her hip and grimaced. She looked at Imogene. “’scuse me, ma’am, but I gotta sit down a minute.” As she sat, she gritted her teeth, the same way Imogene did when her bones hurt.

  Imogene reached her hand out to Lena. “Hey, shug, you know Old Arthur too, I see. Honey, my bones been achin’ ever since my husband, Virgil, passed.” Imogene smiled even at the sight of Lena frowning.

  Lena still managed to say, “Oh, yeah, baby. Ol’ Arthur seem to have me in his grips. I sho hate arthritis. My hips, my legs…shoot, even my fangers.”

  Imogene nodded. “Yeah, honey, do I ever know. I’m Imogene Deal McGregor. Me and the boys come down to see Neil and Allen. We seen that awful business with the Gilbert boy by accident.”

  Lena smiled and leaned forward to shake Imogene’s hand. “I’m Lena Ward. Pleasure to make your meetin’. Now, can you tell your friend and my neighbor Neil to stop his carryin’ on ’fore the law gets here?”

  Imogene gave Neil a sympathetic look, even as he stood crossing his arms and scowling at Lena, peering down at her. “Son, don’t you think this here could be a coincidence? God knows she could’ve given the Gilbert boy them sweets a week ago. And how come you think she kilt him, bless his soul?” Imogene held her knees as she spoke, so as to steady herself. She kept her back straight and looked at Lena.

  Jackson noticed Lena’s fascinating gray eyes, which were glazed and weary from a long day in her shop. They brightened at Imogene’s words. She grinned. “Baby, now this woman Imogene Deal McGregor got sense. You best listen to her. She know coincidence when she see it. Now, you say poor Glenway met his fate with a beatin’? How you thank an old woman like myself gonna whoop a big boy like Glenway?” Her eyes seemed to almost pierce Neil with their grayness. When the light hit them, they flashed a few dark specks like some sort of exotic marble.

  Neil lowered his head as if he was studying her. “Lena, listen. You and I have always gotten along, and I care about you, but if you think I’m dumb enough to believe there wasn’t anything going on between you and him, then you’re wrong. Now, he never told me about all these meetings with you or about the money he apparently gave you.”

  Lena grabbed her mesh hat off her head and rubbed her scalp. “So, you tryin’ to say you tell Allen ever’thang you do, Neil? Don’t take Lena Ward for no fool, baby. You sayin’ you ain’t got no secrets between y’all and y’all livin’ together for fawty years?” Lena stamped her good foot on the concrete steps. She slid to the edge of the stoop to wait on Neil’s response. He glared back at her and grunted, as if he wanted to speak but could only sputter.

  Lena nodded. “Dat’s what I know. You got nothing on me. Shoot, we grown-ass people…” She turned to Imogene and lowered her voice. “’scuse my tongue, Imogene…but sometime grown people do keep thangs from one another. All’s I know is we need to get over this here. ’Cause I plan to keep doing what I do till I go meet the Lawd.” She stuck her chin in the air as if she’d said all she needed to say.

  “Amen to that, sister,” Imogene said. “You told it plain there. Now, Neil, can you leave all this be for a minute and take a rest? I don’t believe we need to go no further.” Imogene slid closer to Lena, clearly hoping she’d met a kindred soul.

  Neil’s mustache trembled. “Can y’all bring Glenway back from the dead? I’ll let this go when I see Glenway walk on this porch and sit beside you. Now, he did something for you, Lena Ward, something you’re not telling, and I plan to find out what it was if I don’t do anything else.” He rolled the calendar up and smacked the column, knocking a few chips of white paint onto the porch. He marched over to the edge and stared out past Lena’s praline shop, away from everyone else, and began mumbling to himself. He nervously switched the rolled calendar from one hand to the other.

  Just then they heard the screech of tires. A vehicle approached the house at full speed, and even though they lived on a busy thoroughfare, where no less than fourteen parades passed on Fat Tuesday, the noise from the approaching vehicle caught their attention.

  Jackson turned to see who it was just as an unmarked police car jumped the curb and nearly rammed the concrete wall separating Neil’s yard from the sidewalk. Lieutenant Rogers swung open his door and bolted out of the car with his pistol in his hand, pointing it straight at Neil’s chest.

  “Stay still, Ned, or whatever the hell you�
�re name is. You run again, and I’ll put a bullet in you.” Jackson heard the officer click the revolver, ready to unload on Neil.

  Four

  “Baby, I told you to stop your carryin’ on,” Lena swung around to face the gunman. Neil raised his hands and the calendar high above his head.

  “Oh, it’s him,” Lena mumbled. “That devil will shoot, too. I wished I stayed makin’ prawleens over at the shop.” Imogene touched Lena’s shoulder in a sort of gentle prompt.

  “Shoot me, Lieutenant Rogers. Go ahead, you ass. My name’s Neil. That’s N-E-I-L. Do you know my friends at the city council? I’ll have your job quicker than you can say the word ‘unemployment.’” He barked the words but still kept his hands in the air.

  Rogers huffed, as if he’d heard worse. He took a few steps onto the property. A cop car drove up and parked on the curb behind the other vehicle. Two police officers jumped out and pointed their guns at Neil.

  “I don’t care who you know. You can’t take evidence from a crime scene. Surely, your ‘friends’ on the city council understand that.” Rogers walked toward Neil and motioned for his subordinates to keep an eye on the rest of the folks. Jackson didn’t move and neither did Allen, Billy, or the senior citizens. Goose looked up at Neil and scooted toward him, hoping to get in on the game. The bells of a nearby church struck the sixth hour. The subordinates turned their firearms to the porch and pointed them above Imogene and Lena’s heads. “Hey there, fellar, why you wanna shoot two old women?” Imogene asked.

  Lena curled her lip. “’Cause it’s New Awluns, baby. Dey shoot anybody down here. Dat’s why. Dawn it.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Dis is ridiculous and all ’cause Neil wanna have hell here at the house.”

  “Shhh, Lena. Stop it,” Allen said. “Let them do their job and be on their way.” Allen scratched his beard.