Mignon (2 page)

“... For you?”

“Because it’s right! He hasn’t done anything!”

Suddenly a tear was there, and as she wiped it away she said: “I’m sorry, he’s all I have—has been, ever since my mother got drowned, in the Flood of Forty-nine.” I’d never heard of the Flood of ’49, and my face must have showed it, as she added: “I mean, the Red River Flood of Forty-nine. We’re from Alexandria.”

“I see,” I said, then repeated: “For
you?
”

“Well, of course for me.
Yes!
”

“What do I get out of it for being so nice?”

She looked kind of frightened, and started mumbling about money, saying she didn’t have much, but that her father had some, made in cotton that winter, and “will pay you what’s right.” But before I could explain I wasn’t talking about money, we were locked in each other’s arms, and our mouths were mashed together. The kiss said she knew what I meant, but I wanted it on the line. I said: “You have to pay. Do you hear?”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t mind.”

She whispered it, kind of shy, kind of flirty, and somehow a little bit holy, and of course it called for another kiss. Then I buried my nose in her dress, and inhaled the same smell I had caught as she entered the room. I asked: “What is this scent you use? It doesn’t smell like perfume. It smells—
warm
.”

She held her pocketbook up to my nose. “It’s what they call Russian Leather,” she said. “They steep it in oil of lavender, which makes it soft and gives it this smell—and then they tool it and stamp it. I have a prayer book to match, and a New Testament.” Then, sniffing me: “You smell like corduroy drenched in cologne, but you have china-blue eyes like a dollbaby’s, and hair that looks like taffy.”

“My hair looks like wet hay.”

“No, Willie! I want to lick it!”

“... Where’d you get that name?”

“It’s what your mother calls you.”

“And you think you’re going to?”

“It’s sweet—matches your ’lasses-taffy hair.”

“What did your mother call you?”

“My name, Mignon.
You
can, if you want to.”

As our eyes met, as breath mingled with breath and smell mingled with smell, something unfolded between us, and then suddenly she jumped up, saying time was going by and we had to line out what we were going to do. On a piece of hotel stationery she wrote her father’s name, Adolphe Landry, and said: “I must go back now to Lavadeau’s, on account of their being so busy on the biggest day of their year, renting the Mardi Gras costumes. And if you find out anything, you come to me there—as quick as you can, Willie, before evening if it’s possible. I must go to the Ball of Erato, and if I could know something before I do, if I could see my lamb just once——!” That’s when we had our first quarrel. I said: “That’s nice, I must say it is! Here I’m to go traipsing around in the wet, finding your father for you, while you trip the fantastic toe in some damned Mardi Gras ball.”

“Willie, that’s not how it is!”

“And Erato—who the hell is he?”

“He’s a she—she wrote poetry, or something. She’s just a name for one of these things we have. But will you listen to me? I have to go to this thing. In the first place, I’m going for Lavadeau, in a costume he’s letting me have, to watch the rest of our costumes, and see that they don’t get ruined when the people begin to get drunk. But that’s not all. Willie, the one that’s taking me
must
know about my father. He knows everything up at headquarters—and he has to know about this! Why hasn’t he come to me? I told you, there’s no one here in this town that I feel I can trust. I
must
go to the ball with him to listen to what he says, and, above everything else, keep him from suspicioning that I suspicion him. Now do you understand?”

“All right, now I’ve got it.”

“Get my umbrella for me.”

I got it, then got my oilskin and put it on, came out, and helped her into her cape. She already had on her hat. As I opened the door she put her arms around me again, whispered: “I’d much rather stay here with you—and pay.” And I knew, as we went down the stairs hand in hand, more was between her and me than had ever been between me and a woman before.

H
EADQUARTERS WAS AT CARONDELET
and Julia, one block up and six blocks over, and I had the luck to get a cab. So after one last kiss I set her down at Lavadeau’s, which was on St. Charles near the hotel, and kept right on. On Julia, as soon as we turned the corner, the street was full of orderlies holding horses, so nobody could have missed it. It was a three-story building with iron-lace balconies, and a four-story annex in back that was soldered on wrong so the floors didn’t match up. I wanted to hold the cab, not knowing where my search might lead, but the driver wouldn’t wait on account of the Mardi Gras business he’d miss. I paid him off, asked my way of the sentry, and went in. It was the same old jumble of raw pine tables, camp chairs, and chests painted circus-wagon blue every headquarters is, with the same old military telegraph clacking somewhere, so I wasted no time gaping but followed the sentry’s direction and went up to the second floor. I was looking for a captain I knew, Dan Dorsey, who came from Annapolis too and was now aide to the Commanding General. I’d already renewed acquaintance when I bumped into him one night in Cassidy’s Bar, so I could get down to cases at once without singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

When I got up to the head of the stairs he was out in the hall, giving orders to a bunch of men I recognized as Northern news correspondents. They’d been kept waiting, apparently, and weren’t any too pleased about standing around in a hallway. But Dan is a big beefy man who’d held a courthouse job back home and doesn’t take any backtalk, so pretty soon he had order. Then, seeing me, he motioned me into his office, growling as he followed me in: “Actually, I’m on their side. They were told to come, for an announcement the General is making of an election we’re going to hold on Washington’s Birthday. But it’s been one thing after another—especially some damned Indiana outfit that’s on their way home but had to serenade the General on their way to the boat. So
he
had to make them a speech. So that called for asking their officers in and putting out booze for a toast. So it took an hour, and the election’s still not announced. But what the hell? Everything’s jumpy here, and at the least little thing we blow our pop. What’s on your mind, Bill?”

“Man,” I said. “Adolphe Landry. Ever hear of him?”

“Well—he’s well known. He’s held.”

“Yes, but where?”

“Right here.”

“In this headquarters?”

“Detention room down in the Annex.”

“What’s he charged with?”

“He’s not charged, as yet—just held for investigation. I can tell you one thing, though: that lad is in trouble. He’s been playing it sharp all winter, and now he’s cut himself.”

“In what way, sharp?”

“Working the godpappy sell.”

“And what is the godpappy sell?”

“New one they figured out under this law that’s just been passed, Confiscation Act of 1863, as amended. Reb, like we’ll say Landry, buys cotton for peanuts out there in Secessia, loads it on a barge, and starts it down the bayou in the general direction of New Orleans. So lo and behold, we capture it as soon as it enters our lines. So we ship it here for storage, then go to court to condemn it, proceeds to apply to the cost of the war. But then, how did you guess it, who pops up but a Union trader, waving a paper around, a godpappy paper known as a bill of sale, a deed from his friend the Reb, conveying the paper to him? And that paper is good. The court must allow the claim—he’s a loyal Union man, and loyal men make loyal cotton. So he gets the award, which includes free transportation here to market, as of course we can’t book him for moving stock in our custody. So he and his Reb friend split—and that’s the sell Landry’s been working with a highbinder partner he has, a naturalized Irishman named Frank Burke.”

“But the way you tell it, it’s legal.”

“Bill, it is, but he overreached himself. He began using the money he made to ship supplies upriver—to Taylor, the Reb commander.”

“Ouch, that’s not so good.”

“He’s playing a deep game, that’s all.”

“How deep, Dan?”

“He’s squaring things up, we think, with the Rebs for the money he hopes to make on this Red River thing next month.”

I’d never heard of the Red River thing, and Dan was quite shifty about it. But I managed to open him up, and he began whispering about “a campaign about to start to Western Louisiana—kind of an annual event. We had one last year, so now we do it again. Only this time we’re after the cotton in storage out there—even Washington’s stooping so low as to use the godpappy sell. They don’t send us an order, but the word’s been passed just the same; we’re to take the traders along on our headquarters boat when we go, and nature will see to the rest. They’ll buy off the Rebs, taking their godpappy deed; we’ll transport the stock down here, the court will say hocus-pocus, and everybody’ll be happy—especially the Northern mills, which’ll get stock to run on, and even including the Rebs, who’ll be paid some traders’ tin and be won back to their allegiance, as we’re told.” He got up, peered out in the hall, closed the door, came back, and leaned close. “Bill,” he whispered, very solemn, “you can win a war or lose it—with honor. You know what it’s called when you try to buy it?”

“I bite,” I said. “No.”

“Treason. That cotton’s already hooded.”

But he called it
who did
. I asked: “Hoodooed?”

“That’s what I said. It’s hexed.”

I almost wanted to laugh, but he was dead serious. “That cotton means nothing but trouble, as this whole damned headquarters knows—it’s what makes this place so jumpy. It’s what’s thrown Landry—he’s getting the side-wash already.”

“He holds Red River cotton, Dan?”

“Hundreds of bales, at least so we hear.”

“What supplies did he ship, by the way?”

“That I’m not free to say.”

“Dan! I thought we were friends!”

“I hope so, Bill; at the same time, there’s a limit. Frank Burke, the partner, the Irishman I mentioned just now—he was in, and I couldn’t even tell
him
. If I had to turn him down, I can’t justify telling you. Until authorized counsel shows up, we can’t open that file to anyone.”

“I
am
authorized counsel.”

“You being funny, Bill, or what?”

I had heard my mouth say it, and was just as amazed as he was to hear myself stand by my bluff. “I’m not being funny,” I said. “I’m his authorized counsel. What do you think I’m doing here?”

“You’re not even a lawyer.”

“He has a lawyer, but in a town under martial law, the family wants military counsel. I’m a discharged officer, I’ve sat on three or four courts, and I’m qualified to serve.”

“He hasn’t got any family—except for that daughter, the one that’s been running around with Burke.”

“Mrs. Fournet hired me on.”

“Bill, quit playing games. You—”

“
Games? Goddam it
,
you
’
re the one
—”

But even before I could finish, he cut me off with a wipe of his hand, jumped up, opened the door a crack, listened, and closed it again. “What do you mean,” he whispered, “bellering like that, with those newspapermen in the hall? Do you want this thing advertised to the world?” Later on, when I remembered it, that scared look on his face was important, but right now I was bent on one thing and gave no thought to anything else. “All right,” I said, “we keep it nice and quiet. But I have to see that file.”

“It’s in the Judge Advocate’s office.”

He slipped out, and in a minute was back with one of those stiff red envelopes tied up with tape. He undid it and took out papers, pushing them all at me, to give me a fair chance to read, but at the same time trying to help me. “Go through it,” he said, “if you want to, but it doesn’t mean anything—just a pile of rub-a-dub-dub, the covering blabber we write when papers move from one desk to the other. But here’s the works, what he’s up against, the anonymous note that came in by mail, in this envelope that’s pinned on. The facts are being checked with the leads this thing has given us, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed till we know what’s what. Landry’s mistake was he needed too much help—too many people knew. One of them turned informer—as bad a hex as there is.”

He passed over the note, written on cheap tablet paper with a soft pencil:

FEBY 5, 1864

COMMANDING GENL SIR:

MR ADOLPHE LANDRY ESQU BEN SHIPING SHOES TO TALORS REB ARMY HE SHIP BY BOAT TO MORGANZA YOU DON BLEE ME GENL SIR ASK EMIL BOSWAY CLERK IN MIFFLINS JOBERS GENL RITE YOU MORE SOON AS I KNOW

LORL PATROT

That was a blow, and I decided to take myself off as soon as I checked on whether she’d be allowed to see her father. But before I could ask about it, a commotion came in the hall, and Dan had to duck out to attend the General while the General talked to the press and then ride with him to his house on Coliseum Square. I stuck around, but had to wait the better part of an hour. However, when he got back we resumed where we’d left off. He took a package from a shelf, a thing that looked like a Mardi Gras costume tied up in tissue paper, and walked downstairs with me to find out how things stood. He went back through the hall, up a little stairs to the Annex, and on to a door that he touched with his fingertips. You don’t pound on a guardroom door on account of the men sleeping inside, and when the corporal appeared Dan whispered. Then he rejoined me, saying: “There’s no special order against it, so visitors are all right until call to quarters at nine forty-five. So what the hell? Burke saw him, and if he could she can. Incidentally, Bill, if he’s such a friend of Landry’s, why didn’t he tell her where her father is held?”

“I was wondering about it myself.”

The orderlies had stabled Dan’s horse, so we stepped out on foot in the rain and walked on down to St. Charles. There a funny thing happened. St. Charles, the heart of the theatrical district, was where the doings were lively and we fought our way along, through a wet mob of revelers, dancing and whooping and singing, to the light of red fire in the street. And pretty soon here came a witch, riding a broomstick she flogged with a whip. “Your Red River hex,” I said, turning to him.