Cayenne used the opportunity of the forgotten cloak to follow Dinah. She walked quickly down the narrow streets of the Quarter, crossing into the hustle and bustle of Canal, down Magazine and into the Warehouse District. The whole time, Dinah nervously clutched the pink box in her hands. Cayenne was curious. What was so special about those elite boxes, so special that they needed to be locked in a safe?
Dinah slipped down a cluttered, nondescript alley off Girod Street. She stopped in front of an old rickety wooden door, murmured and touch her index finger to the door in a five-pointed star. The door slid open with a cranky, ominous creak.
Cay scurried down the alley before Dinah slipped behind the door. "M'am, I think you dropped this."
Dinah looked up in surprise. "How did you know… Ah. You were in the bakery. Merci." Dinah took the satin cloak from her with one hand and balanced the box on her hip with the other. "You followed me all the way back?"
"I know Mary Dan," Cay reassured her. "I need to have a word with her."
"How do you know her?" Dinah was jumpy. Cayenne noticed that Dinah clutched the pink box so tightly that the box bent against her hip.
"She hired me to find the bead, Dinah. I know about the bead." Cay stepped closer. "Can I hold that for you?" and pointed at the box.
Dinah caught her breath and shook her head. "Madame Dan is inside. Follow me." She stepped inside the building, still clutching the box. Inside, was a modest waiting room with a comfortable looking couch and a card table set with vases of flowers. Mardi Gras posters filled the space on the walls.
"Please have a seat," Dinah said.
Cay looked around the room until she knew Dinah was well out of eyesight. Then she slipped through the heavy, closed door into a large, open aired interior. Music blasted out of the room of a large high roofed warehouse.
There were no windows, so it took a few moments to let her eyes get used to the dark. Gradually the clear outline of a large float appeared before her. She saw that the warehouse contained the almost completed float of a wild cacophony of color and paper and fabric. She caught her breath. This was the Den of the Krewe du Couture.
The main focus of the float was the white, towering figure of a nearly naked woman.. She was an overwhelming figure, both sensuous and cartoonish. Her glowing skin was constructed from what seemed like a million white shell buttons and a fine jacquard silk. It was Venus in her classic pose, except built with both of her arms stretching over the mid-section of the float. One hand held a very stylish and large martini glass while the other held a lasso made of wire and beads around which a slender woman wrapped another layer of bright glass beads.
Surrounding Venus were a dozen characters, all dressed as cowgirls in various poses of roping, jumping riding and lassoing smaller figures which Cay, upon closer inspection, discovered were all naked men with joyous looks on their faces. The men didn't appear to be running very quickly. It was a Bacchian love fest, with the ladies definitely having the upper hand.
She understood why Jacques Teutite was so eager to know the Krewe's theme.
Working on the float were about a dozen women, all dressed up in vintage dresses and skirts, protected by colorful aprons.
"Goddamn me. Where's that glue gun, Carlotta?" A Marcia Ball c.d. played loudly in the background. A red haired woman tossed a glue gun to a boisterous woman clad in a shirt filled with cartoons of toasters. "Jesus, girlfriend!" the toaster lady shouted as she juggled the flying gun.
"Nice catch, Hillary," the woman called Carlotta said as she turned back to paint a beach scene of clams, oysters and starfish on sideboard covering the wheels of the float. A woman sat on the floor next to her painting a skirt of seaweed that looked like it was to hide the wheels and circle the float.
Atop the float, another woman crazy quilted pieces of bright paper to the mountains to form a backdrop behind the lassoing cowgirls. Still another was sewing tiny buttons to the bust of Venus. It was a wild, wonderful mosaic of color.
"Wow!" Cayenne said, catching her breath . "You girls like to do it up big, don't y'all?"
The den quieted as if she had dropped a bomb. Someone turned the c.d. player down.
"Who are you?" the paper quilter atop the float finally asked and all eyes bore down on Cay.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Cayenne McKenzie Del Roi of Del Roi Investigators."
The air went thick with mistrust and hostility. Cay suddenly realized that she had walked into the den uninvited and now knew the theme of the Krewe du Couture's float. The toaster lady moved in close and pointed the glue gun at Cay as if to hold her hostage.
"Investigator! What are you investigating?" she shoved the gun in Cay's direction.
"I won' tell anyone!" Cay blurted out. "Please don't kill me!"
"Ah, Ms Del Roi. You have found out little den of creativity." Mary Dan suddenly appeared with Dinah behind her, saving Cay from pleading with the fierce looking woman with the glue gun to spare her life. "Hillary, let's let her live this time. There has already been too much death."
Cay caught the meaning in her words. "You heard about Evangeline?"
Mary Dan nodded, but didn't say a word. Cay suddenly notice the beads that hung around her neck, matching perfectly with the lavender silk blouse she wore over a flouncy black skirt.
"You found them. You found the beads!"
Mary Dan's hand went to her beads and she smiled. "This is the entire set, minus the most important and largest bead. I keep them on me now that the other bead has been stolen.
Cay reached out to touch the beads strung around Mary Dan's slender neck. They were delicate, fragile. Even in the dim of the den, they seemed to glow with an old fire.
"I sense you are not hear to tell me that you have found the bead, are you?"
Cay reluctantly removed her hand from the shimmery beads. "No, I'm afraid not. But I'm not here to steal your float idea either."
Mary Dan nodded and swept her hand in the direction of the float. "This year's float is Rodeo Romance. I think we have outdone ourselves."
"It is fantastic. How do you afford all this?
"Garage sales." The woman of wire and beads balancing on the float said. "Where y'at? My name is Janna."
"Lorelei up here." the paper cutter waved.
"Lelani." the button sewer tipped her needle in Cay's direction.
The skirt painter poked her head up over the edge of the float, a dab of paint on her cheek. "Andreah, here."
A tall, willow of a beautiful woman walked in from the back room with a hand full of cups. "Go cups, ladies. Pink and brassy and ready for bourbon. Just came in today." She started tossing them out to the crowd.
A cup came flying squarely at Cayenne and she caught it out of self-defense.
"Hi, darling. I'm Samantha," her server smiled. She disappeared into the back room and almost immediately returned with a bottle. "Maker's Mark?"
"Ms Del Roi, are you familiar with the Mardi Gras tradition of parading? Perhaps, if you solve this case and find the beads, you may want to join our krewe?" Mary Dan looked quite seriously at her.
"Krewe with a K not a c, right?" Cay was pleased to see a smile on Ms. Dan's face. She took a good glug of the bourbon and felt it burn down her throat.
"Oui, a K" Dinah said, She had appeared from the back room with the King Cake, cut and placed on a beautifully painted antique platter. "King Cake, mademoiselle?"
Cay politely declined. Dinah continued on to the others.
Mary Dan continued. "The Carnival traditions of parading and throwing gifts and masking and hosting balls and electing queens and secret captains goes back for two hundred years. Most Northerners think Mardi Gras is getting drunk and flashing breasts, but ah, Ms Del Roi," Mary Dan moved closer, "there is magic, food, music, art, fun. There are so many traditions that I lose track of them myself."
Cay leaned over and whispered into Mary Dan's ear. "Ms. Dan, did you know that Evangeline and Traceaux both had their throats sliced with a zydeco rubboard? Does that make any sense to you?"
Mary Dan turned pale and swayed from side to side. "Their throats slit?" she gasped. "My God!"
"Mare-sy. Sit down here." Hillary told her and helped her to a chair. The warehouse fell silent and were again looking at Cay with suspicion, almost violent stares. The toaster lady moved in close again.
"Someone is using the bead to destroy... " Mary Dan composed herself and then turned to Cayenne. "The bead you seek is very powerful. It is most powerful when separated from the rest of the strand. It turns evil. It corrupts the good, and makes the generous greedy."
She fingered the beads around her neck. "If we can get it back, we can return it to rest with the others. I know this doesn't make sense to you, but it is more important than ever that you find the bead."
She turned to the krewe. "We must continue." She nodded at the King Cake. "If we can't find the bead, maybe it will find us. Pick courageously, mes amies. The baby may be our only hope."
Whispers floated through the air as each member chose a piece of cake and ate it reverently, as if taking communion and washing it down with a stiff belt of bourbon.
Suddenly Hillary shouted, "All hail queen for the day! Read 'em and weep, my lovelies!" She held up a little plastic fellow between her fingers.
After a beat of silence, Carlotta yelled. "Hail, queen! Damn, don't you make a fine piece of royalty!" She grabbed a piece of twisted seaweed paper maiché from the float and presented it as a scepter.
Janna wrapped a piece of beaded wire from her pile into a knobby orb which she frisbeed over to Hillary. "M'lady," she said respectfully. "Your crown."
"Bourbon!" Hillary shouted. "The queen desires more bourbon." Samantha moved in to fill her glass.
"I'm going to beat you to that bead, rookie!" she said, tipping her glass in Cay's direction.
Cay smiled, then posed her question to the krewe captain. "Ms Dan, what is in those cakes from Philippe's? Evangeline had a baby on her when they found her. Just like Traceaux. Doesn't that frighten any of you?"
"Philippe's cakes are a special recipe. Only a few krewes deserve the pleasure of eating from them. Some say they are magic." Mary Dan paused, as if measuring the words she spoke next.
"Your father refused to eat any other cake during Carnival season when he worked for the New Orleans Police Department."
Cay felt her head start spinning. "Did you know…?"
"He was a good man, Ms. Del Roi. He loved New Orleans and he loved Mardi Gras. I know that if earthly forces can find the bead, his daughter will be able to do it." She then smiled a Mona Lisa smile and dipped her head. "But I do not stick all my eggs in one basket."
"Yeah, or stick all our pins in one doll," Lorelei quipped from the float. The whole den broke into loud laughter. Samantha passed the bottle around again and the krewe turned their attention back to gluing and sewing and enhancing the tableau. The c.d. player went back on again and Marcia Ball sang loud and clearly, "La Tee Dah!"
Cay felt she survived a hazing. And the toaster lady was going to let her live. She found herself thinking that being a part of the Krewe du Couture would be a barge of fun, though a little hard on the liver.
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"You reek of bourbon, chere." JeanMarc handed her a flute of bubbly liquid. "Here drink something a bit more pleasant for the rest of the evening."
A tall waiter with a long ponytail walked over carrying a plate of oysters, complete with hot sauce and a small dish of vodka ice. "Here's a dozen raw to get you started."
"Ah, my friend!" JeanMarc greeted the big man. "Chere, please meet the best oyster shucker in the Quarter --T. Scott Boyle. He was awarded the lifetime achievement award for oyster shucking last year, yet still he works here at humble Felix's and personally guarantees us the best oysters in the Gulf. Merci, mon ami."
"Charmed, m'am," the soft spoken man nodded to Cayenne. "Just wave me down when you are ready for the next course."
Cayenne stood at one of the counters at Felix's Oyster Bar jostling elbows with other customers and watching JeanMarc slurp down a raw oyster and wash it down with French champagne. He had insisted that champagne and oysters were the only way to end an afternoon of work, or begin an evening of play.
JeanMarc caught her looking and grinned rakishly. "Chere, do not let me eat too many of these. You know what they say about oysters. Your feminine safety will be in great danger."
Cay had hoped to use the same wily ways of the Sweet Potato Queens that had worked so well on Mike Piéce to pump JeanMarc for information. But she kept getting distracted by his blue bright eyes, the angle of his cheekbones, and the way his French accent made everything sound sexy. She tried to focus.
"Did Philippe know Evangeline Pon Pon? The police say a baby from one of his King Cakes was found on her when she died."
"They are old friends," JeanMarc picked up another oyster and dashed on a bit of vodka ice. "Do the police suspect Philippe, now? Mon dieu, he probably talked and fussed her to death. They say his babies are magic. But I do not believe them to be murderous."
"Actually, her throat was slit."
JeanMarc dropped a shell in mid-oyster and quickly made the sign of the cross. "Mon dieu! Pas possible! C'est voodoo!"
"Voodoo?"
"The sacrifice of the chicken is always the slitting of the throat. Perhaps what Philippe says is right."
Cayenne felt her interest rise. "What does Philippe say?" as she poured more champagne in his glass.
"You are too obvious, chere," he said picking up the glass. "But I am a simple man and can be bought."
He continued. "Philippe and Evangeline used to be in the same krewe many years back. The King Cake was their special recipe. They no longer parade together, but there is something about the cake is a treasured ritual. He'll only make them for a few krewes and he guards the recipe. Even I don't know what it is.
"Is that why you lock up the cakes?" Cay pushed the last raw oyster towards him.
"No, no. We had a break-in at the beginning of Carnival season, and Philippe has been locking up his special cakes every since." He noisily slurped down the oyster and waved the waiter toward where they stood.
"Anyway," JeanMarc continued, "Philippe said the krewe broke up when Evangeline fell in love with a voodoo priest. Everyone started squabbling over who was the rightful captain of the krewe. There was bad blood. Perhaps his babies are being used for dark magic."
She took a sip of champagne. "But how did Shawn Traceaux get a slice of Phillippe's cake? Was he involved with the krewe too? Was he into voodoo?"
"Traceaux?" He swept his hands up and shrugged his shoulders. "Do you know how many Traceauxs there are in this land of French names? The man who runs the bodega down on Bourbon is named Traceaux. There's a bartender at a dive down in le Vieux Carré, and there is councilman named Traceaux who represents Metairie, though I believe his first name is Max. And still, you will find another three dozen Traceauxs in the phone book."
He picked up his glass of champagne and drained it. "I do not believe in voodoo anyway. I believe in love. I believe Philippe loves Dinah. I believe that Evangeline once loved an old voodoo priest, and I believe I love champagne!"
On cue, T. Scott Boyle beelined to the counter with a platter in his hand and slammed down a steaming plate of Oysters Rockefeller, stuffed to overflowing with spinach and smelling of Pernod and garlic.
"And oysters," JeanMarc rubbed his hands together lustily, and winking at Cay. "I believe I love oysters!"
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CHAPTER SEVEN: Eating Dust at the French Market
