FOURTEEN
“What will your uncle do when he learns that Thomas has gone?” Pauline asked.
“I don’t know.” Stewart wished Pauline would talk about anything else. He didn’t want to be reminded about Thomas. “I hope he’ll be understanding.”
“How do you feel about it?” Pauline asked. Her voice sounded uncertain, and Stewart remembered that the Canadians and English didn’t understand the complex bond between master and servant, and never would.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Stewart said. “But I do want to thank you again, Pauline”—he knew he should call her “Miss Martin” in Cleburne’s presence, but he no longer cared about the proprieties—”for your help. And for your presence of mind. I hope I can call on you for one more demonstration of your quality and your courage.”
“My … courage?”
“I can’t lie to you. What I want to do is dangerous. You’ll be taking nearly as great a risk as me.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
* * * *
“Sorry, my boy,” Cleburne said, “but this was the best I could do under the circumstances.”
The pistol he handed over was older, Stewart decided, than he himself was. Forget a revolver mechanism—this was a flintlock. And its flint was worn and shrunken. That the pistol was loaded was a good sign, but Stewart thought prayer would be a requirement if the thing was to fire on command.
“It’s a damned sight better than nothing,” Stewart said. He smiled at Cleburne, then clapped the man on the back. “Thanks for agreeing to help me,” he said.
“Well, I like Patton,” Cleburne said. “And I like you. And I’ve decided that my life here has become just a bit too predictable.”
“This ought to cure you of that,” Pauline said. Her voice was tight and her eyes wide. “I’m not really sure, Charles, that I can do this.”
“Of course you can,” Stewart said. “I’ve seen you on stage, Pauline. You’ll be magnificent, I know it.”
“We should get started,” Cleburne said. “I think I can trust old Nickle”—that was the ruffian who’d provided Cleburne with a brace of pistols and knives and asked no questions—”but it would be folly to give him a chance to wonder what I’m up to.”
“You’re right.” Stewart shifted the pistol to his left hand, and squeezed Pauline’s hand with his right. “Break a leg,” he said. She laughed at that, and that gave him the courage to let go of her hand and walk quickly away, to his hiding-place near the alleyway behind Mrs. Beacon’s house.
He’d been waiting there about ten quiet, nerve-wracking minutes when a furor erupted on the street in front of Beacon’s. The elderly Creole widow was standing in front of her house, screeching imprecations against the horrid—Stewart didn’t recognize the word, but assumed it was some sort of Gallic insult—who continued to blight her neighborhood.
After a minute or two of this one, and then another, male voice joined in the chorus. Soon the street reverberated to the echoing shouts, and Stewart made his move.
As he’d hoped, there was nobody in Mrs. Beacon’s back-yard. He hadn’t known whether guards might have been posted, but it was the prospect that they had that had led him to give Pauline her role in his plan. He brought the pistol to half-cock, and carefully stepped to the house’s back door.
The old woman’s shouting had become a sort of screech now. Stewart couldn’t suppress a smile, wondering what would happen if the real Creole widow emerged from her bedroom and discovered Pauline in the act of usurping her identity. Then he heard the front door slam, and a chill fluttered through his core. Get out of there, he told Pauline.
The inner door was open, so only a flimsy screened door blocked his way. The knife made that door into no barrier at all, and then Stewart was inside the house—and face to face with a tired-looking, over-painted woman wearing not very many clothes at all.
For a moment they just stared at each other. In that strange, detached fashion he’d first noticed on the battlefield, Stewart found himself carefully analyzing the woman’s features, as if his life didn’t depend on her not screaming in the next few seconds. He could not tell how old she was; her eyes had the same distant stare that veteran soldiers sometimes had, and there were lines around her mouth that were distinct in spite of a heavy hand with the face-paint.
As if they were fighting off the effects of some narcotic, the woman’s eyes slowly opened wider. Her mouth began to open as well, and it was almost as if Stewart could see the noise beginning to build in her lungs.
Then, he knew what to do and the world snapped back into its normal rhythms. Raising a finger to his lips, he said, “Shhh. I’m a friend of Captain Patton.”
The woman’s soon-to-scream mouth abruptly warped into a crook-toothed smile. “George?” she said. “You’re one of George’s friends?”
George? Stewart thought. He certainly wasted no time here.
“Yes,” he said, returning the smile. “I’m a friend. Can you take me to him?”
“Of course,” she said, and grabbed for his free hand.
Pauline had warned him that houses in New Orleans did not have cellars—the water was too close to the surface, and in many cases above it—so he wasn’t surprised to be dragged upstairs. He must love this, Stewart thought. Hiding in a prostitute’s bedroom—every young man’s fancy.
“Please don’t tell anyone else I’m here,” he whispered to the woman when she pointed out to him a door at the end of the hall. “It may not be safe for you to say anything.” That was certainly true, albeit not necessarily in any sense the woman might have contemplated.
“You may count on me, monsieur.” As the woman passed him, returning to the stairs and presumably back down to the parlor, she pinched him, laughing in a throaty manner.
He was never a captive. He’d guessed correctly, and how many men had died because Patton wanted to play hide-and-seek?
He was beginning to have an idea of what Patton’s true role on the treaty commission had been. Poor Menard, he thought. He walked to the end of the hall and tried the handle of the door. It was unlocked.
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