“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?
“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.