Mignon (20 page)

“Tell him,” wailed Mr. Landry, “what he’s to say!”

“Well, what is he to say?” I asked.

“We—have to think of something,
now!
”

“I’ve completely run out of think. And besides,” I went on, somewhat annoyed, “who the hell are we to be teaching a liar how to cook up a lie?”

“
Here they come!
”

There was panic in her voice, and when I looked out the window, here came the column of twos, Dan and Hager in front, marching down the side street.

B
UT NO ONE CAME TO THE
door, and it wasn’t until a knock sounded on the other side of the building that I realized that Burke, the last he’d been seen by the guard, was being ordered by me to report to my flat in the morning. So I went down and around to answer. Hager was up on the stoop, with Dan, Ball, and Sandy, banging to get in, the rest down below, standing around in the alley. I spoke, and when they said they were looking for Burke, I explained where he was and said: “We’re having our talk over there.” Then Dan said: “Good morning, Bill,” and said he’d been detailed “to sit in as Headquarters observer, on this shooting thing, whatever it amounts to.” I said a dead man, especially one that I killed, amounted to plenty with me, and that I’d give any help that I could, if more information was wanted. Then I led the way around, and Mignon opened the door. I introduced Hager and Ball, reminding her: “You know Captain Dan Dorsey, and also, I think, Lieutenant Gregg.” Sandy stared when he saw her, but took her hand when she gave it, and called her Mrs. Fournet. Then Burke appeared behind her, but balked when Hager told him he was wanted at the courthouse for questioning. “I’m not feeling too well,” he said. “I don’t care for marching about.”

“And what seems to be the trouble?” asked Hager.

“The wallop I took on my head.”

He pointed at the knot, and while Hager was peering at it, said: “I was out, looking for me gippo, and banged me head at the market on the awning over a stall.”

“It’s your gippo that brings us here.”

“I’ve deduced as much, Captain.”

“He’s dead.”

“Aye.”

Adolphe Landry got in it then, appearing beside Mignon and asking everyone in. The ensigns and enlisted men were told to stand by below, while Hager, Dan, Ball, and Sandy came in. Hager camped on the sitting-room settee, looking much like a judge, while Mignon, Dan, Ball, and Burke occupied the chairs, and Adolphe, Sandy, and I stood, our backs to one of the bookshelves. Hager got at it immediately, saying: “Mr. Burke, a man was killed last night, in the flat next door, by Mr. Cresap here, identified as Pierre Legrand, your personal servant or, as you call him, your gippo. What do you know about it?”

“Nothing, of course, Captain.”

“Did you know he tried to kill Cresap?”

“Not until Cresap mentioned it.”

“That your man shot at him?”

“That someone did, he didn’t know who. I twigged’t.”

That covered, in a way I had to admire, my failure to identify Pierre, so nothing had been joggled in a way I would have to explain. But I put in, on my own, that I’d only seen this Pierre once, for the barest glance, in New Orleans, and wouldn’t have known him from Adam. Burke asked: “Who made the identification, if I may make so bold as to inquire?” Hager told him: “Two sutlers and a cook at the Ice House Hotel.” Burke nodded and said: “That explains’t—Pierre always bought our food.” Then Hager got back to the point, and asked Burke very sharp: “Did you send this man to kill Cresap?”

“God forbid! Why should I?”

“Did you send him to kill Powell?”

“No. ... You think he killed Powell?”

“
We know he killed Powell
.”

Hager was murderously cold, and walked over to where Burke sat by the piano to stare down at him, hard. But Burke was strangely unfussed. “I may say it doesn’t surprise me,” he said in a quiet way, as if hearing gossip of an interesting kind.

“... Why not?” asked Hager, caught off balance.

“The bad blood between ’em,” said Burke.

“Bad blood? Between Powell? And—
this
man?”

“I don’t care for that remark,” roared Burke, with a snarl. “It seems to imply, Captain, that as between a fine gentleman such as Powell and a midge such as Pierre, bad blood couldn’t exist, as the officer wouldn’t deign and the varlet wouldn’t dare. Know then, the gentleman
did
deign, in a vulgar, ungentlemanly way, and the varlet did dare, in a way even
you
might respect. He had his pride, he was a man.”

“And when was all this, Burke?”

“Last summer. Last June.”

“And where?”

“Bagdad, Mexico.”

Hager, whose reaction to surprise had been to rip at Burke, was now set back on his heels even worse than before, and to cover up, pretended disgust. Returning to his place on the settee, he said in a lofty way: “Let’s get back to Cresap.”

“Let’s not,” said Burke.

Then
he
got up and went over, so he could stare down at Hager. “At the Hotel DeGlobe in Bagdad,” he rumbled slowly, “Pierre had got’m a job, after his discharge from the Berthollet, serving drinks in the bar. And there every night came Powell. He was on the
Itasca
then, the steam schooner on blockade duty, and would come ashore at night, to inquire about cotton shipments—and to drink. To swill booze, carouse, and quarrel with Pierre in the bar, holding the boy up to ridicule, taunting’m, plaguing’m, mocking’m. It got to the point where to head off something dreadful, I took a hand with Pierre, and brought’m to Matamoros by
diligencia
one day. And then, in me growing affection for’m, I hired’m on as boy, as valet, as gippo.” His voice had risen a little, and he turned suddenly on Ball. “Am I right, Lieutenant?” he asked. “Isn’t it true? Every word that I’ve said?”

“I’ve never been to Mexico.”

“You’ve been to the Ice House Hotel—you followed Powell on that duty, right here in Alexandria. How did he conduct himself in that bar?”

“In exemplary fashion, sir.”

“Then he reformed himself, I may say.”

How much of it was true, I didn’t of course know, though some of it had to be, especially the
Itasca
part, or Ball would have contradicted. But true or false, it was a mile away from himself and any motive he might have had for ordering Powell killed, and though I hated myself for it, I had to be on his side, as I had sicked him on. He smelled advantage, and in a reasonable tone resumed: “Or in other words, Captain—”

“Never mind the other words,” snapped Hager. “Let’s get back to you. Why, in the light of all that, didn’t you once open your mouth when Lieutenant Powell was killed?”

“I? Inform on me own gippo?”

“If you knew he’d committed a crime?”

“Captain! I didn’t know it!”

“Don’t quibble! You knew about the grudge!”

“I knew of twenty thousand grudges.”

“... What do you mean by that?”

“Your own among the rest!”

“
My
grudge, Burke?
My grudge?
”

“Aye—you bore’m a grudge, you bear’m a grudge as you sit there, as this whole Army does, against the Mississippi Squadron of the United States Navy, for the rape of the cotton last week—you hate the Navy’s guts, so don’t single me out for failing to open me mouth on a matter that could have involved every man in this town—except the boys afloat!
Who didn
’
t bear
’
m a grudge?
Tell me who didn’t, and I’ll tell
him
, not you, why I didn’t speak up!”

Clammy silence settled down, and it was some moments before Hager asked: “Why would this man try to kill Cresap?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t discuss’t with me.”

“What would be your conjecture?”

“Why don’t you ask Cresap?”

“We did. He didn’t know. I’m asking you.”

“Why wouldn’t he try to kill Cresap? A man who blackened his character, did infamous things to him, only last month in New Orleans? Who attempted to make it appear the boy deserted his post in my rooms at the City Hotel, so a pretended search could be made and evidence discovered which ’twas said that I manufactured against a friend and mentor and partner, who sits here in front of your eyes, Adolphe Landry, no other, and who can throw the lie in me teeth, if I wander one inch from the truth! When all the time ’twas himself, this same clever Cresap, who forged the documents up, in the hope of discrediting me, and in that way enriching himself!” He came over and smiled in my face, so I knew what to expect, if the forged receipt came out—by hook, crook, or trick, it would be hung on me. He turned to Hager again and went on, very pious: “Pierre was plain, rude, and ignorant, and no doubt given to violence, as such boys usually are. But false to a duty he was not—
he never deserted a post!
And perhaps he brooded a bit at me own troubled spirit, when I returned to the house last night.”

“What troubled your spirit, if any?”

Hager was quite sarcastic, but didn’t ask about New Orleans, which told me he knew what had happened there, and if it told me it told Burke, he not being dumb on such things. “His rapacious demands,” he answered.

“Cresap’s, you mean?”

“For’s fee.”

“What fee?”

“That I promised’m, two hundred and fifty dollars. To free Adolphe.”

“Well? He freed him, didn’t he?”

“Aye, but look what he did to me! Got me accused, unjustly, so I spent a night confined, as a common thug, in a cell! I refused to pay’m a cent, and last night he renewed his demands—Lieutenant Ball will bear witness for me, how he called me aside in the hotel, wanting payment, and your guard will corroborate that he ordered me, on the street, to report here today, else bear the consequence—he made threats against me.”

“What threats?”

“He questioned me passes, Captain.”

It all matched up, it didn’t sound collusive, and it concealed real motive. It was a masterly job of lying, and I had to get in step. When Hager turned to me, I said: “I doubted, and still doubt, if this man has proper permission to be here—he came when the Reb Army was here, and a Reb permit isn’t valid, it means nothing to a Union marshal. However, that’s not for me to decide. As to what he says in general, allowing for distortion, self-pity, and overpraise of the gentle Pierre, I would say he’s pretty well covered the ground. Now that I know who I killed, I admit he had grounds to dislike me.”

“The passes, Burke? Let’s see them.”

Burke got them out, from the same old stuffed-up wallet—letters, from prominent Rebs in New Orleans, that he’d used on the trip up the Teche to enter the Confederate lines; stuff concerning Pierre, including his French discharge; and a U.S. custom-house permit for the importation of cotton, covering, Burke said, “right of access to me property”—meaning, his presence in Alexandria. While Hager was reading them over, small things happened. Ball, who had snickered at “the gentle Pierre,” looked over and threw me a wink. Sandy leaned close and whispered: “This Mignon package—you like her?”

“Yes, I guess so,” I whispered back.

“I was hoping to lift her skirt.”

“
I
hope to make her my wife.”

“
Ouch
—I didn’t say it; you misunderstood me!” And then, for a real fast switch: “Bill, did you notice Ball? How friendly he’s acting toward you? You’re still hot!”

“So? What then?”

“You can still get that receipt!”

“For what?”

“For cotton, stupid!”

“I don’t have any cotton!”

“Goddam it, get some!”

Next off, Hager, Ball, and Dan had their heads together, and just once Dan shrugged. Then Hager reached out and handed Burke back his papers. It was over, with the officers marching out after saluting Mignon and thanking Mr. Landry for his kindness in asking them in. Then there we were, Mr. Landry, Burke, Mignon, and I, drawing trembling breaths. And then: “Frank,” said Mr. Landry, “I couldn’t ever forget what you did just now, in the way of what could be called, I suppose, convenient prevarication. And I
hope
I never forget the horrible reason for it.”

“The horrible reason,” I told him, “was that knowing a skunk for a skunk, you still partnered with him—for the money. So if you don’t like how he smells, you may smell the same way, yourself.”

“Willie,” she snapped, “don’t be ornery.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “orneriness clears the air.”

“And well the air needs’t,” Burke flung at me with a sneer. “As the author of the idea, you smell a bit yourself.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. “No doubt.”

“But in a wholesome, mephitic way!”

“Damn it, I owned up to it, didn’t I?”

I sounded hysterical, and slammed out of there.

I
N MY FLAT, I HAD A
bad reaction and lay down for a while to think. It was going on noon, and I’d decided to visit the hotel for lunch when a tap came on the door, and I got up to let her in. She had a platter of ham, cornbread, and lentils, all warmed up very nice and covered with a napkin, and a pail of hot coffee. She served us in the dining room, using Schmidt dishes, and as we ate she talked, mainly about Burke and how he’d leave soon, as soon as his head didn’t hurt, for the Sabine to buy in the cotton. She said she’d written a letter for him, addressed to people out there, giving him a “character,” and that her father had written him one, addressed to Kirby Smith, the Reb commander in chief, “as of course that whole country is still in the Secesh lines.” She talked of various things, as though nothing had happened at all, and I found myself wondering if anything really had. She made me eat up every speck, so she could wash the things in cold water, and then when she’d put them away, led on up the hall. But instead of turning off to go out, she kept on to the sitting room and, though I took a seat, kept on marching around, restless. I said again how pretty she looked in the gingham, and she said: “I like red—and it likes me, I think. It’s my color, kind of.”

And then: “What was Sandy saying to you?”

“Why,” I said, “he wanted to know if I liked you. He let drop he’d been hoping to lift your skirt.”

“Well he tried! Did he let drop about
that?
”