Mignon, Page 5

“Miss Tremaine, my ears are too hot for talk.”

  “They are red, very droll, mais oui. But the offense is not too extreme. After all, you hear of my place—”

  “In a goddam bar is where.”

  “And you make some small mistake.”

  “Can I hide my face just a minute?”

  She took a handkerchief from her sleeve, held it in front of my eyes, then wiped my nose and said: “Now! Enough! Even the girl may be possible, if I satisfy me she shall not be endangered, surtout with the law. This is of great importance, so please let us talk. You care for champagne, M’sieu Crandall?”

  “If you do, I do.”

  By the door was a white china knob which she yanked, and a bell tinkled below. When the maid came, she ordered champagne in French. Having had a few seconds to think, I determined to spill what I was up to, at least enough to convince her I wasn’t a thief. I gave no names, but spoke of a friend about to be railroaded by a rat turned informer “who lives at the City Hotel.” I told of seeing the scraps, and showed her my skeleton key. I wound up: “I know he’s going out tonight, but the trouble is his valet, who’ll be on deck as a guard. If he can be lured out, I can slip in there quick, get those scraps, put other scraps in their place, and be out in five minutes—even the valet won’t know I was there.”

  “Now I am convinced.”

  “But the girl should speak French—”

  “She will. All my girls do.”

  The maid came, carrying the wine in a bucket of ice, followed by a child carrying a tray with two glasses and a silver dish with a slip of paper on it. When bucket, tray, and glasses had been set on a low table, the maid picked up the dish and offered me the slip. “Non!” screeched Miss Tremaine, and rattled off some French. The maid backed off, but I stepped over and took the slip. It was a billhead that said: “Champagne ... $8.” I fished up a ten-dollar bill, but Miss Tremaine snatched it from me and tucked it in my pocket. Then she tore up the billhead, blasted maid and child from the room with a volley of French, and stood there, her face twisting in fury. She turned and twirled the bottle around in the ice. Then she twisted off the wire, worked the cork out, and let it pop. She poured a mouthful and tasted. Then she filled both glasses, handed me mine, raised hers, and said “Santé.”

  “To your very good health, Miss Tremaine.”

  “Et succès, M’sieu Crandall-Quichotte.”

  She pushed me back into my chair, but didn’t sit in my lap this time. Instead, she half-knelt on the floor, her elbows on my knees, her glass held under her nose. She said: “If I screamed, I ask pardon, please. The bill is indeed usual; the girl committed no fault. And I love gold, as you said. But you, petit, make me feel as grande dame, which I love too, and which does not occur every day.” And then, sad, sipping: “La joueuse is vraiment demimondaine, half dame, half, hélas, madam. But, with you, I forget the one et become the other. So, ci après, if you please, attempt not to pay.”

  “Miss Tremaine, all I see is a lady.”

  “Merci. But to you may I be Marie?”

  “I’d be honored to call you that.”

  “And how shall I call you?”

  “My name is William.”

  But she laughed and told me: “This I cannot say.” She tried to say it, and it came out a cross between veal and bouillon. She said: “I shall call you Guillaume.”

  “That’ll please me no end.”

  She rested her glass on one of my knees, dropped her head on the other, and let some time go by without talking. The ice in the bucket looked clean, and I crunched a piece in my teeth. I said: “That’s fine ice, Marie. Where’s it from, if you know?”

  “Minnesota. For two years it came from Canada, by sea, and was full of small creatures. But, depuis Vicksburg, the river boats can come down, and we get the lake ice once more.”

  “Where I come from the ice is no good.”

  “And where is this, Guillaume?”

  By then, sweet as she was, and gallant, giving help when she didn’t have to, I couldn’t have lied any more, and in fact already hated I’d had to give her a false name. I said: “Maryland—it’s tidewater, and whenever we cut ourselves ice, it’s always brackish with salt.”

  “May I be femme curieuse and ask what you do?”

  “Marie, I’m an engineer.”

  “Of railroads, oui?”

  “No, hydraulic. My specialty is piles.”

  “Ah, les pieux!”

  Now someone who drives piles kind of gets used to a smile when he says what his business is, and more or less smiles himself. But the way she took it, you’d have thought I sang in grand opera. She set her glass on the table, put her arms around me, and asked, very breathless: “You are associé with M’sieu Eads? You have been sent here by him?”

  “... Now how do you know about him?”

  “Oh I know—I am femme d’affaires in New Orleans, and we of affaires know. He revives the de Pauget plan.”

  “The—what?”

  “The plan of Adrien de Pauget, our great engineer, who wished long ago, perhaps one hundred years, to drive of pieux in the river, and compel it to cut its canal through the barrière to the Gulf. It should make of New Orleans a capitale, by opening her to big ships! It should open also Vicksburg, Memphis, et St. Louis—we shall have pays cosmopolitain! M’sieu Eads, so we hear, revives it, this de Pauget plan. You are of him, Guillaume?”

  “Marie, I have to confess I don’t know him—my father does, but I don’t. And I never heard of de Pauget. But the channel is what brought me here, when Mr. Eads gets around to it. If I can get my business started, here on the spot in New Orleans, I hope to bid on the work—to be part of something big.”

  “Ah, oui. I could feel you were poète.”

  “Marie, I wouldn’t deceive you—I’m just a lad with a slide rule, a partner—kind of dumb but he does know tugboats—plenty of nerve, and one thing lacking.”

  “Money?”

  “How did you guess it?”

  “It may not be difficile!”

  She kissed me once more, then jumped up and started checking over what we’d do with the girl. I got out the City Hotel key, the one to 301, gave it to her and said: “That room’s in my name, but she can come right up, and I’ll take another, in her name, and keep the key myself.” We agreed on Eloise Brisson as a good name for the girl, and I wrote it down on paper I found in my pocket. I said: “If she’ll come around seven, we can get the thing over quick, and she’ll have the rest of the night to herself.” Small details, we decided, could be settled with the girl. That seemed to be all, and Marie got my oilskin and hat, saying she’d see me out. In the lower hall, she stopped by the door across from the room I’d been in, opened it, and beckoned. My heart dropped into my shoes; I could see blue in there, on Union officers, and had a horrible fear one of them might know me and call me by name—by then I’d met quite a few. But the faces were strange and I circulated with her, admiring the various layouts. The girl I had seen was dealing blackjack, or vingt-et-un as it’s also called, her little apron hugging her belly as it pressed against the table. Other girls dealt other games, and one ran the dice pit, but a man ran the roulette wheel, and another sat on the high lookout’s stool, a long black cane that surely had a sword inside it in his hand. She spoke to them all and to quite a few customers, some by name. In the hall she kissed me, saying: “The girl shall be there.”

  Outside, I was astonished to see my cab; I’d forgotten all about it. I drove to the City Hotel, registered Eloise Brisson, paid for her room, and took her key. The clerk winked as he handed it over, and I saw it was for 303, the room next to mine. I drove to Wagener’s and did what I’d neglected to do previously: bought a tablet of the same cheap kind Burke had bought for his note. I got in the cab again, told the driver Lavadeau’s. I was all excited to tell Mignon my latest news, the scraps I’d found in the basket, and how I meant to get them. Suddenly I thought: What do I say about Pierre? And then I thought: What do I say about Marie?<
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  “Never mind Lavadeau’s. The St. Charles,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  I WENT UP TO MY SUITE, TOOK a sheet of the tablet paper, printed something on it in pencil, then tore it into pieces the size of the scraps I’d seen in the basket. I put them in an envelope, tucked it into my pocket. I loaded my Moore & Pond and strapped it on. It was a gun I’d carried on pay day for my father’s labor, keeping it on me as I went around with my satchel of cash. Originally, wanting it to be seen, I’d worn it in the usual belt holster. But one day as I was forming the men into line, an Italian grabbed it off me, threw me down, and made a dive for the cash. A colored blacksmith clipped him one on the jaw, so no great harm was done, but then I began wondering if a gun hanging out in the breeze was quite the idea I’d thought it was. So I had an armpit holster made, and that’s what I put on now. A Moore & Pond is .36-caliber and nothing much for looks, being short and stubby. But it shoots a brass shell instead of paper cartridges and caps, which makes it handy. I buckled the straps in place, buttoned my coat high to hide them. The rain had stopped outside, so I hung my oilskin up and got my overcoat out. Then, at six, I went to dinner. I ate in the Orleans House, a saloon across the street from the hotel so situated that by sitting next to the window I could see down Common Street. What I had I don’t recollect, as I had my mind on the cab line down at the City Hotel. Pretty soon a victoria pulled out and came trotting up toward St. Charles. As it turned I glimpsed Burke. I strangled down the rest of my dinner, paid, and walked down to the City. The clerk spoke, and I went up to 303. It was identical to 301 but, with the twilight settling down, looked indescribably gloomy, or shabby, or bleak, or something unpleasant. I tried my skeleton key in its lock, and it worked beautifully. I took off my coat and hat and stepped out to reconnoiter. Then I remembered: If I should be surprised, I had to look as though I’d just come in off the street. I went back, put on my coat and hat again, and strolled to 346. Inside, I could hear a man humming. I came back, hung up my things again and looked at my watch. It said 6:45. I closed my eyes, said the Lord’s Prayer, the Twenty-third Psalm, and some Beatitudes, and counted to a hundred. When I looked again it was 6:48. But at last it came to seven o’clock, and nothing happened next door. I cursed myself for a sucker, to think that twenty dollars would buy such a date and that such a dumb scheme would work—all the time watching the minute hand as it crept to 7:01, 7:02, 7:03, 7:04. At 7:05, a key clicked in 301’s door, and on the other side of the partition someone was moving around. Then, on my door, came a scratch. I opened and a girl was there, in dark gray dress with black braid darts on the jacket, black hat, black shawl, and black veil. I invited her in, so nervous my voice shook, thanked her for being so punctual, and asked her name. “Alors, perhaps you can guess,” she said, lifting the veil.

  “Marie!” I exclaimed.

  “You did not know me, petit?”

  “Well, you were wearing that veil, and——”

  Actually, she seemed pleased at having fooled me, and pretty soon asked: “And our pigeon—he is in?”

  “Yes. I just now checked.”

  “He is alone?”

  “He’s singing—must be to himself.”

  “Bon. Now I prepare me.”

  She ducked into the next room and was gone a couple of minutes. She came back looking half-boiled, her ringlets askew, her jacket off, her camisole mussed, so she looked terribly exciting. “One shall appear séduisante,” she whispered.

  “There should be a law against it.”

  She laughed and stretched out on the bed. “It is not yet time,” she said. “One must wait for the gaz in the hall, which the night maid shall light. One should not encounter her, when she comes.”

  “My God, I should say not.”

  “If we watch, the transom will tell.”

  She beckoned and I sat beside her, but she moved over for me to lie, and I lay. She snuggled against me, then felt the gun. She took it out, set it on the night table. I said: “I’m sorry, but to be safe, I thought—”

  “But oui. I too.”

  She opened her pocketbook, and even in the murk I could see the brass sheen of a derringer. “One takes precautions,” she said, “but your pistolet hurts!”

  With the gun out of the way, she practically wrapped herself around me, her skirt slipping up and most of her froufrou with it, so bare skin was touching me in all sorts of intimate places. She lined my lips with the tip of her tongue, then gave me a long, wet kiss. “One is not always femme sérieuse,” she whispered, “or grande dame. Sometimes I amuse me.”

  “To say nothing of me,” I whispered.

  “How long will you be? In that room?”

  “Why—no more than five minutes, I’m sure.”

  “Alors? Then we shall have the evening?”

  “... Ah—yes. Of course.”

  “We may dine? You like Antoine’s?”

  “I’ve never been to Antoine’s. Sounds fine.”

  “Then theater? At the Variétés are vaudevilles.”

  “You can’t beat vaudevilles.”

  “And then? We come here?”

  “If you want to, Marie, that’s fine.”

  “Or chez vous, perhaps? Where do you live, Guillaume?”

  “... At the St. Charles, for the time being.”

  “I think better chez moi.”

  “You have a very beautiful place.”

  She snuggled close, then rolled over on top of me and covered my face with little kisses. “It shall be chez moi,” she whispered.

  Light showed through the transom and she got up, even more rumpled than before. She asked: “Have I the appearance of some poor helpless one, who has brandy, for example, a bottle in her room, and no way to extract the cork?”

  “Have you the booze is the question?”

  “Oh I brought. Fear not.”

  “Then the appearance is overwhelming.”

  She said: “When you return from the recherche, please drop your stick on the floor, to claquer, as signal to me. I shall send him for glasses, then come to you here vite, and together we disappear.” I said that would be perfect, and she put the gun back in my holster, helped me into my coat, and gave me my hat, saying: “You shall be ready to leave in one coup—I shall dress me as we go down.” She stood, soft, sloppy, and mussed, then kissed me quick and went. While I watched, holding the door on a crack, she drifted down the hall and flitted around the angle. I heard a knock, then voices—hers and a man’s, talking French. Then here she came back with Pierre, walking unsteadily, holding onto his arm. He was giggling, and carried a corkscrew in one hand. They went in 301, and when the door closed I tiptoed out.

  I floated down the hall, turned the angle, stopped at 346, and got out my skeleton key. But when I put it in the hole and twisted, nothing happened. I twisted two or three times, and still the thing stuck. Then in kind of a panic, I twisted both ways, back and forth. On forth the thing turned. Then I realized the door was open—Pierre hadn’t locked it when he went down the hall with Marie. I went in, found everything as it had been, except that a gaslight was on over the desk. The basket, when I picked it up, had all kinds of stuff in it, a newspaper, a crumpled-up cardboard box, some string, maybe papers, I don’t recollect. But in the bottom were the same old scraps I’d come for. I took everything out and dumped them out on the rug. I sprinkled my own scraps in their place, put everything back as it had been, set the basket in its place. Then, on my knees, I gathered them up, two or three at a time, and dropped them into my envelope. How long it took I don’t know, but it seemed at least an hour. I pocketed the envelope, opened the desk drawer, made sure the tablet was there, as well as a package of envelopes of the kind the note had been mailed in. I stepped to the door, got out my skeleton key to lock it, then remembered not to. I tiptoed back to 303.

  I listened, and laughing came through the partition—Marie’s laugh, and Pierre’s, everything quite gay. I poised my stick on the strip of bare boards between the rug and the wa
ll. I was all set to let it drop, when I thought to myself: Why? You signal her, and you know what’s going to happen, as you like her, plenty. I thought: Are you, after doing all this for one woman, going to ruin it by hopping in bed with another? I thought: How can you be such a rat, after the help you’ve been given by this brave, saucy little thing, as to leave her now in the lurch, without even telling her thanks? I thought: Rat or not, that’s what you have to do! I shoved the stick under one arm, opened my wallet. I got out two twenties, dropped them on the bed. I put the wallet away, went to the bare boards, poised my stick again, and dropped it to make a clatter. Then I snatched it up, tiptoed quick to the hall, closed the door softly, and sneaked down the stairs, listening as I went.

  On the second floor I sensed something.

  I wheeled, and looking at me was another man with a stick, who had also apparently been listening. Suddenly I remembered him: Marie’s guard, the one I’d seen on the high stool in her gambling room. I saw he remembered me, and went plunging down to the lobby and on out to the street. I tried to tell myself I needn’t feel like a rat any more, that if this man had been brought to act as emergency guard that took all the danger out. I felt still more like a rat, a rat that had been caught.

  Chapter 8

  THAT DIDN’T GET RID OF THE FACT I had what I’d hoped to get, and as soon as I got back to my suite I worked like a wild man for the next couple of hours putting the scraps together. It wasn’t too hard a job, once I got system in it. My first gain came when I realized that pieces along the outside must have a straight edge. By studying the ones with lines and other ones without, I was able to figure out which scraps went at the top, which ones at the sides, and which ones at the bottom. When I laid them out on my escritoire blotter, I came up with kind of a frame around a blank space in the middle. Now finding edges that fitted edges was just a question of patience, and pretty soon I had all the pieces in place. Then I got out my gum arabic, the little bottle I had in my draftsman’s kit, and with that glued them in place, using hotel stationery as backing. At last I could read what they said, and it was damning so far as Burke was concerned. Because it was not only a trial draft, as I had hoped it might turn out to be. It was that, but it was also a translation from proper English, such as Burke always used, into dumb lingo, the kind an illiterate writes. In other words, on odd lines was a note, decently spelled and punctuated, giving details of the shoe shipment, while on even lines, under words to correspond, was the rough, misspelled printing of a pretended ignoramus, even to the signature LORL PATROT—everything in exactly the same style as the note I’d seen at headquarters.