Her departure spurred on Billy West to greater speed as he rounded up as many men as he could find to help bring in a murderer."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"How'd you find me in a country this big?" Hedges asked as the girl stepped out from the lobby of the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, looking precisely as he had been visualizing her each time he read the short and now much tattered note she had written.
Jeannie Fisher's green eyes laughed and her soft lips came wide so that her teeth flashed in the sparse street lighting. "I knew the army had withdrawn to somewhere near Washington," she answered. "I just asked every officer I saw if they knew of a Lieutenant Hedges until I found one that did … or rather, Captain Hedges."
She was wearing a bright green dress to match her eyes, with a modest neckline but fitted snug enough to the waist to emphasize her body before it flared wide to the ankles. Hedges drank in the sight of her, as if he thought she was a mere mirage which, would vanish from his sight at any moment. They were in the center of the sidewalk and the crowd had to divide to go around them.
"I think we're causing an obstruction," she said and laughed again as she reached out and laid a hand gently on his arm.
He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sorry. I find it so hard to believe my luck."
They began to stroll with the crowd, she retaining her gentle hold on him.
"We came to Washington to get jobs," Jeannie explained. "My sister and I. Something to help in the war effort!" Again the laugh. "Our neighbors back in Parkersburg think it’s scandalous of us."
Hedges experienced an unreasoning stab of disappointment. When her message had reached him out at the camp, inviting him to visit her at the hotel, he had been certain she had come to the city especially to see him.
"I think it's fine," he told her.
They strolled in silence for a few moments. He couldn't think of anything to say—only to do. He struggled to erase from his mind the memory of her naked body in the alley back at her home town, which kept becoming confused with a mental picture of his men expending their lust on the blind girl. The mere contact of Jeannie's fingers on his arm seemed to generate a fire of want throughout his whole body.
"Has it been bad?" she asked softly.
He looked at her and saw she was concerned. "The war? I didn't really think about it sensibly before I joined the army. If I had, I could never have imagined it would be like it is."
"You're different from Parkersburg," she said.
He looked at her quizzically.
"Older," she amplified. "It's only been a few weeks, yet you aren't young anymore."
He nodded sadly. "I know what you mean. I don't feel young anymore."
"And you haven't smiled since I came out of the hotel." Her voice took on a mocking tone. "Aren't you pleased to see me, Captain?"
He looked down into her upturned face and tried to smile his pleasure at what he saw. But from the flicker of nervousness that crossed her features he knew that he was showing his killer's grin. He cleared his throat noisily. "Is it all right for a working girl to go into a saloon?" he asked, "I hear Washington's got some real plush places."
The tinkling laughter rippled from her full lips again. "A working girl can do almost anything she likes," Jeannie answered. "As long as it’s legal."
Hedges gave her a sidelong glance, suspecting, but not certain, that he had read a hidden meaning in her words. Then they turned on to Fourteenth Street and he escorted her into an elegantly appointed barroom with red velvet-covered seating, crystal chandeliers and tasteful oil paintings hung on the paneled walls. He had never been in a place like this before and it was obvious that the girl was also somewhat awed by the surroundings. But an obsequious waiter led them to a booth at the rear of the long room and took their order for a beer and a sarsaparilla.
In the shadows of the booth Hedges felt more at ease with the girl, but it was again she who had to lead the conversation.
"Will you be in Washington long, Captain?"
"Depends on General McClellan, Miss Fisher," he answered. "He's been appointed by Mister Lincoln to raise a new national army. Soon as it's ready I reckon we'll be on the move 'again."
"Not as fast as you came here, I'll be bound." The low-voiced comment came from the next booth, drawled in an accent of the Deep South. The waiter brought the drinks, accepted payment with a flourish and retired.
"I haven't congratulated you on your promotion," Jeannie said quickly, almost breathlessly, as she peered through the dim light into the hard lines of Hedges' face.
"Obliged," he said softly. "In the Union army you get promoted according to how fast you can run—away from the battle."
The voice was still pitched in a low key, but the laughter it produced from a woman was shrill.
"Ignore it," Jeannie pleaded, reaching out a hand to clasp Hedges' wrist.
"Sorry," he muttered and jerked free. He slid along the seat, came to his feet and turned to peer into the next booth. The woman gasped and drew in her breath sharply, emphasizing the swells of her powdered breasts as they threatened to burst clear of her low-cut dress. The middle-aged man sitting opposite her across the table top looked slightly drunk, but still able to take care of himself. He was broad across the shoulders and had the chest of a strutter. A necktie was held against the slope of his chest by a diamond studded pin.
"You a reb?" Hedges asked as the man grinned up at him arrogantly.
"My allegiance is my own affair," the man answered. "I was merely commenting, in a private conversation, upon the state of the war. I would now thank you, sir, to apologize for this interruption and then leave us."
Hedges reached down and plucked the pin from the necktie. The woman gasped and the man looked affronted. "A thief as well as a coward," he accused, a dangerous sneer spreading across his smoothly shaved and powdered face.
"But not small time," Hedges answered. "I don't usually take anything but a life."
"Henry," the woman; said nervously, sensing the evil lurking behind the impassive face of the Union captain.
Never noisy, the elegant barroom had suddenly become deathly quiet. Pale faces turned to look in the direction of the booth.
"No cause for alarm, my dear," the man murmured and began to slide towards the edge of the seat. "This won't take a minute."
"Less than that," Hedges corrected as he folded his fist around the pin and lashed his arm forward and down. A half inch of the needle-like point protruded from the heel of his hand. This sank into the flesh of the man's face just below his eye and slashed a bloody path down the cheek to the corner of his mouth.
"You beast!" the woman screamed as the man put a hand to his torn cheek and looked in horror at his blood-soaked fingers.
"You stuck me," he gasped. He had been drinking brandy from a snifter and smoking a large cigar. As he continued to sit, held thereby the horror of what had happened to him, Hedges lifted the glass and threw its contents into his face.
"Help to stop infection," he said softly.
The man roared all the alcohol seared into the wound, and started to come up out of the seat. Hedges dropped the pin and curled his forefinger inside the wide open lips. He jerked his hand and the flesh tore an inch along the line inscribed by the pin. The lower section of the wound flapped open. The man screamed and crumpled to the floor as his hands nursed the lacerated flesh.
"Now folks can see you've got a big mouth," Hedges muttered as he turned and found Jeannie staring at him with wide eyed shock. The woman in the booth began to wail and Hedges leaned over to the ashtray, picked up the smoking cigar and crushed it down between her ample breasts. Her wails became a shriek of pain.