The Crescent Spy (23 page)

“Ow, easy.”

“Broken ribs,” she said. She touched again, eliciting another groan. “Likely several of them.”

“Ouch. Careful, there.”

“Moving you in that condition was a shock to the system. You’ve already got better color now, though. I suspect you need a couple of weeks of rest is all.”

“I can’t be down two weeks,” he said. “What about my leg?”

“But you were walking. Does that hurt, too?”

“Like the devil.” He pointed at his left leg. “Just below the knee.”

“Unbutton your trousers, please.”

“Is that necessary?”

“It’s either that or call for a doctor.”

He unbuttoned his pants, and Josephine tugged them off. He was wearing only his underclothes, and she was careful to look down at his legs and not . . .
elsewhere.

There was a nasty, swollen lump on his left leg roughly two inches below his knee. To her relief, the bone wasn’t deformed—that level of break would mean the surgeon’s saw—but when she poked at it, he bit down on his knuckles.

“Broken?” he asked, voice strained.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if it is, all that walking didn’t help. I should have risked a cab.”

“You did the right thing.”

“You’re not getting up, that’s for sure. If the bone separates, you’ll lose your leg. I’ll splint it tomorrow.”

“I can’t stay here.”

“You can and you will. Right in that bed, not moving a muscle except to sit up with the bedpan. I’ll sleep on the floor and bring you food.”

“But what about your landlady? Doesn’t she clean?”

Josephine thought about Nellie’s habits. She entered once a week to scour the bedpans, sweep, beat the rug over the balcony railing, and wipe the windows with water and a rag. And Josephine didn’t think she could be easily put off from it, either.

“She comes every Friday. That gives us almost a week.” Josephine bit her lip, worried that she wouldn’t be able to move him that soon.

Franklin needed help.
She
needed help. Josephine glanced to the Oriental box on the dresser. Inside was the pocket watch with the curious gilt cover. Surely if anything counted as an emergency, this was it.

A
t dawn, someone came banging impatiently on Nellie Gill’s front door. Josephine had been dozing fitfully in the rocking chair by the window, and sprang to her feet, alarmed. Her pulse slowed when she looked out and saw one of Solomon Fein’s delivery boys below her on the porch, panting and out of breath, an envelope in hand. Nellie poked her head out and took the message. The boy waited while Nellie came back inside.

Josephine had washed up last night and put on her nightgown, and now she threw her shawl over her shoulders and made for the bedroom door so she could get in the hallway before Nellie came up with the note.

Franklin lay on his belly, with his bare back uncovered. The bruising looked even worse by the light of day, now a deep purple, one injury spreading into the next. He was snoring softly, and she shook his shoulder to wake him from his well-needed rest. He turned his head, blinking, a groan emerging. She slapped a hand over his mouth and put her finger on her own lips. Then she hurried to the bedroom door as Nellie came creaking up the stairs.

She came into the hall with the shawl around her shoulder as Nellie reached the top. The woman handed over the note. “From the newspaper. Is it about the fire at the hospital?”

Josephine unfolded the papers. Solomon Fein’s spiderlike script crawled across the page.

Dear Miss Breaux,

You’ve no doubt heard about the fiendish attack
on the hospital arsenal. If you have written
anything, send it post haste. No need to go to the hospital. Keller will be covering the story. He is General Lovell’s cousin.

Josephine scowled. Cousin? And because of that, Keller had an inside track to a good story? Was that what Fein was claiming? What did that matter when Keller couldn’t write? In past articles that she’d reworked on his behalf, a German had been confused with an Englishman, a murderer swapped for his judge, and Florida had migrated north until it was somehow located between Georgia and South Carolina. If Keller wrote about a mule, you could be sure he meant a horse.

Nellie studied her face. “What does it say?”

“They’ve given the story to some dolt.”

“Oh, I thought maybe people had been killed. You looked so upset.”

Nellie’s naïve comment reminded Josephine how foolish her professional jealousy was, given the situation. She looked back at Fein’s letter to read on.

But don’t fret, I’ve got a better story for you. A chance to play the heroine again. A woman came in this morning looking for you. She lives on Duggan Street, near the Marine Hospital. Saw two figures flee the hospital not five minutes after the blast: an injured man and a woman supporting him. Overheard them talking about sabotage. Said she has a good description of them both.

She’s a German, name of Otz. Wants to give the story to you, because she thinks there’s spies in the army and the government. I figure she wants to see her name in the paper under your byline. This is a chance to get the story first. Maybe we can find these fiends and get them talking before Lovell and Hollins string them up.

She looked up to see that Nellie was still studying her. Josephine kept the alarm from her face. Who was this Otz woman? Had Josephine been so careless as to mention sabotage during their flight from the hospital? She couldn’t remember doing so, only remembered urging Franklin on, but her head had been ringing, her ears stuffy from the blast. Events were hazy. It might be true.

What was clear enough was that Otz had accurate information. How close was her description? It had been dark, but she must have noticed the bandages around Franklin’s head. That wound on his forehead was too low to conceal with a hat; if the woman gave an accurate description, he’d have to flee the city. How could he do that with several broken ribs and a fractured leg bone?

She turned to the second page.

Mrs. Otz will be at the Paris Hotel for lunch. We will pay, so collect a receipt for the cost of the meal. Look for a handsome woman, about thirty-five or so. She’ll be alone, watching for you through a lorgnette. 12:30.

Yours,

S. Fein

P.S. Suggest something cheap off the menu. Don’t let her order the lobster and filet. The haddock is good.

“Go downstairs and hold the messenger boy,” she told Nellie. “I have a return note.”

Back in her room, she grabbed her notebook, her fountain pen, ink, and blotter, and sat at the desk, where she scribbled a quick reply.

Mr. Fein,

Couldn’t get to the hospital, so have no story. Was stopped at the gates by soldiers. Meant to return this A.M. but will meet Mrs. Otz at P.H. instead. If she has good inf. I’ll find these villains and get a story before they hang.

Yours,

J. Breaux

P.S. The haddock at the P.H. isn’t fit for a starving cat.

B
y the time the cab carried Josephine toward the French Quarter a few hours later, she was bathed, her hair brushed and pinned, wearing crinoline and petticoats over a velvet bodice, with mother-of-pearl combs holding her dark curls under her hat. If she’d carried a small French handbag instead of the leather satchel with her writing implements, she could have passed for a fine lady on her way to a benefit luncheon to raise funds for the Confederacy.

When the cab rounded the corner at Royal and Hospital Streets, she looked south and saw a cloud of smoke still hanging gray and sluggish in the air toward the hospital. If she hadn’t been so worried about what this Otz woman did or didn’t know, she’d have leaned forward and ordered the driver to carry her there. She had a good idea of the devastation they’d wrought to General Lovell’s efforts, but wanted to make a visual confirmation. And, she admitted to herself, she couldn’t bear the thought of that idiot Keller botching the story.

The cab clattered down the uneven cobbles into the Quarter and shortly pulled up in front of the Paris Hotel. She paid the driver and went inside, studying every single person coming and going, from hotel guests to bellhops. A sharp-eyed young officer in a gray coat was smoking near the restaurant entrance and studied her as she approached. Her heart rate kicked into a brisk trot.

Miss Breaux, is it? We have some questions for you. Yes, some very hard questions.

But when she stepped past him, he only nodded. “Afternoon, miss.”

“Good afternoon to you, sir.”

Once inside, she looked across the restaurant. It wasn’t busy on a Sunday afternoon, and there were only seven or eight tables with patrons. Of these, only one person was alone, a woman in a green silk dress with a lorgnette held up to her eyes, who was looking toward the entrance. She spotted Josephine and waved her over.

Josephine sidestepped a waiter as she crossed the restaurant. She kept her face relaxed, and had mostly tamed her emotions by the time she reached the table. Then the woman dropped the lorgnette.

It was Francesca Díaz.

Josephine froze. “What are you doing here?”

“We have an appointment, do we not?” Francesca said with a smile.

“There must be some mistake.”

“Is there, now? Miss Breaux, the so-called heroine of the Confederacy, and Mrs. Otz, a German lady who witnessed something most peculiar near the Marine Hospital last night.” She said this last part with a German accent. “You see, dear, you are not the only one who can play a part. Are you going to stand there drawing attention to yourself? Or will you join me for lunch?”

Josephine glanced up to see the waiter approaching and pulled up a chair at the table. She took the menu and waited until the waiter was gone before fixing on Francesca again. “What do you want?”

“At the moment? Lunch. I’m hungry.”

“And I’m busy. I have stories to write, and I don’t need this nonsense. Did the Colonel send you?”

“No. In fact, the Colonel begged me not to come.” Francesca shrugged.
“
‘Begged’ might be a strong word. He was uncomfortable with my purpose. And he doesn’t relish the thought of his precious Josie falling into trouble. But we have suffered setbacks of late, which calls for difficult decisions. Once I convinced him that any trouble was of your own making . . .”

Josephine couldn’t stomp out of the restaurant until she knew what cards this woman held in her hand, but first she had to take control of the conversation. She’d been caught off balance when Francesca lowered the lorgnette, but she was regaining her wits.

“When did you know it was me?” Josephine asked. “From the moment we met on the ship out of Havana, or not until that night at Congo Square?”

“Neither. You looked terribly familiar when I first met you, but I was too excited to be meeting the famous Josephine Breaux. I still couldn’t place you until we were lying in the dark after the swamp man rescued us from the sand bar. Then you said that bit of bravado about not being afraid of the man groping you in the dark. It reminded me of someone I once knew—a girl with the swagger of a riverboat gambler. Someone also named Josephine. Hah. Pretty clever. Not you—me, for figuring it out.”

“You sound quite self-satisfied,” Josephine said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I already told the Colonel I don’t want to see him again. If you’re here on your own behalf, fine. If you’re here on his, you can forget it.”

“I didn’t call you here for either of those reasons. You have something that belongs to us.”

“No, I don’t. If you’re talking about the box, it was given to me. Anyway, I sold it on Exchange Alley, like I told the Colonel.”

“I don’t believe it. The Colonel told me what was hidden in the box, how valuable it was. So tell me, if you didn’t sell it, how did you end up with all of this?” Francesca waved her hand at Josephine’s dress and gestured at the mother-of-pearl combs in her hair.

“I work hard. I earn money for my efforts.”

“I’ll bet you do. Money for
all
of your efforts. Be that as it may, you’re twenty years old. I was once twenty, and willing to do all manner of things to survive. But a young woman like you—mother dead, no money to her name, no family to search out and beg for help? She’s destined for the brothels or the dance halls. You’ve apparently done none of this.”

Josephine bristled, in part because she knew it was true. She had no doubt that if left destitute
now
, she’d pick herself up and start over using her wits and confidence. But four years ago had been another matter. Without those gemstones, where would she be now? For that matter, if she interviewed the painted women in the Irish Channel, how many would she find who had once been full of hopes, every bit as clever and ambitious as Josephine?

The waiter came, which saved her from having to respond, at least for the moment. Francesca ordered the lobster and filet. Fein would be delighted at that. Josephine asked about the haddock. Thankfully, it was not in stock, or Josephine would have felt obligated. Instead, she picked something chicken with a fussy French name.

“We knew you had money,” Francesca said when the waiter had left. “But we couldn’t figure out where you kept it. That time you caught the Colonel was the second time we’d searched your rooms.”

“How dare you? I should summon the police right now.”

“Save me your sanctimony. So we’ve been following you. That’s why we were at Congo Square that night. It wasn’t a coincidence. Two other times we saw you there, meeting with that handsome man with the mustache. That same fellow was on the blockade-runner. Strange coincidence.”

“And?” Josephine affected nonchalance. In reality, her palms were sweating. “I am allowed to have gentlemen suitors, am I not?”

“Again, with the act. When will you drop it? You know the rest. I told it to your newspaper friend. Mrs. Otz spotted two people fleeing the conflagration at the Marine Hospital. One was a wounded man with a mustache. The other was you. Mrs. Otz, of course, was me. I couldn’t figure out why you’d gone to the hospital. So many questions I have.”

“You can’t expect me to explain everything,” Josephine said. “There are enemies in New Orleans. Union agents who wish to punish me for the spying in Virginia I did for the cause.”