"Rest assured, Mister Willoughby," Mr. Pollock confided, close to him and "chummy" enough for the passersby to witness, smiling wide as anything. But his cautions were muttered from the side of his mouth (and an unattractive sight that was for "Mr. Willoughby," in truth!) so no passersby could actually eavesdrop. "I shall begin my own probes in the morning. Subtle, casual… nought that draws attention," he said, as if despairing that Lewrie/Willoughby could do the same.
" New Orleans can be a delightful port of call," Pollock said, practically dancing, like Liam Desmond, to be on his way. "There's a cabaret not too far off, the Pigeon Coop? Many locals are regulars there. You may casually pick up an earful. Just don't gamble with 'em! The games are all 'crook.' See you in the morning, ta!"
And with that, Lewrie was abandoned on his own. He re-entered his pension and clumped up the stairs to unpack. Once there, utterly alone, he wandered about the confines of his set of rooms, intently studied the wallpaper for a few minutes, and took a refreshing sundown, river-wind turn on his wrought-iron upper balcony. Oil or candle lanthorns were being lit in front of the many residences, even as those outside shops were being extinguished. Folk were strolling below him, softly speaking and chuckling at their ease in a gather pure Parisian French or in a mangled local patois that he suspected was Acadian. There now and then was even a snatch of lispy, high-born Castilian Spanish, along with another garbled version spoken by the poorer-dressed. Pollock had told him that the bulk of the Spanish in New Orleans were humbler peasant-raised Catalans. Some Portuguese, some German small-hold farmers from above New Orleans on the Cote des Allemands, even some Spanish Canary Islanders had settled in Louisiana, undoubtedly very desperate for land or a new beginning; or perhaps the Spanish authorities were desperate for settlers of any kind!
Dammit, I'm stuck in this dump.1 Lewrie groused to himself as he leaned on the railings, which gave out an ominous creaking. I'm famished, I'm badly in need o' wine, and Pollock just up and leaves me t'rot, the hideous "ahemmin" bastard! What self-respectin' spy'd leave me free t'blunder about without a minder or something? A bear-leader!1
Looking back on his previous fumbling attempts at masquerading civilian and innocent, Lewrie ruefully realised that he'd been the sort who needed minding. Why, one could almost imagine that Pollock trusted him to acquit himself well on his own! Aye, did one have an optimistic bent and a very creative imagination! Perhaps it wasn't neglect at all, but grudging respect that he'd survived those previous missions and had implicit faith that Lewrie could be circumspect enough to survive 'til morning! Had Mr. James Peel had a private word with Mr. Pollock and "buffed up" Lewrie's dubious credentials to convince him to take him along?
Or, Lewrie glumly suspected, Pollock was simply too eager for a rencontre with his '"shore wife"! The Captain and First Mate, on their passage to New Orleans, had discretely hinted that, no matter how prim and upright Mr. Pollock publicly presented himself, he was a mere mortal after all and had found himself a luscious "Bright" Free Black to warm his bed when in New Orleans; kept her in some style year-round at his permanent lodgings. Mr. Caldecott had even winked and alluded that Pollock might've succumbed to blind lust for an Octoroon female slave and had bought her for thousands, his usual parsimony bedamned!
Damme, am I scared t'go out on my own? Lewrie asked the new-lit stars above the streets; Mine arse on a band-box if I am! After all, I'm better armed than most Press gangs!
A succulent meal, even a Froggish "kickshaw," a "made" dish in savoury, but suspect, foreign sauces, a bottle of wine or three, even an idle hour or two at the cabaret both Pollock and Ellison had named… then, as Benjamin Franklin had advised, "Early to bed, early to rise." Hah!
How much trouble could I get into in that short o 'time? Lewrie asked himself as he went back inside for his hat, coat, and cane.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Le Pigeonnier held another whole new set of scents that would've entranced Toulon and Chalky for a day or more. The acrid smell of hot tobacco leaf and the head-high pall of smoke from it; the wet reek of chewing tobacco and ejecta in the metal spit-kids along the long bar and spaced conveniently round the club's stygian interior. More hot smells from candles with badly trimmed wicks, beeswax, cheap tallow, or frontier rush dips. There was the faint aroma of bad breath and wine-breath combined, of elegant clothing too long unwashed, bodies that suffered from the same benign neglect, the slightest tinge from a hastily rejected supper spewed up somewhere in the cabaret and slovenly swabbed at; the reek that arose from the back of the club and wafted through the opened rear doors from the outdoor toilets. Hungary Water and cologne, mostly sweet and flowery, tried to mask human stink, but they could only do so much.
And there was the enticing odour of drink: the musk-sweetness of wine, the sweet tang of rum, the even more noticeable but mellower scent of aged brandy, or corn whisky down from the hinterlands. The ice-pinchy smell of juniper berry gin, the yeasty sourness of a variety of beers or ales… though it was a long way from English porters, stouts, and malts, and Lewrie had never heard a good word said for Spanish or French brews.
Here and there, in pools of somewhat honest light, dice rattled in leather cups and clattered on tabletops. In others, men, even a few bawdily gowned women, hunched over cards. "Van John" to the English, or Vingt-et- Un to the Frogs, was being played. Some jostled and perspired round a Pharoah table or a numbered wheel Lewrie supposed was a roulette game. He caught a few words here and there, enough to inform him that most cardplayers played Piquet, a popular local game called Boure, or an American game of incomprehensible nature; it sounded like it was called Poke Her.
"M'sieur?" a bartender asked from the other side of a long oak counter.
"Ah… let me have a whisky," Lewrie decided, having grown more than fond of the American decoction. "The aged corn whisky, not that watery-lookin' poison." He'd been warned off that last year!
"L'Americain," the servitor said with a faint sneer as he got up a stone gallon crock, removed the stopper, and poured a small glass half full, stating its price as twenty pesetas, in a tone that accused Lewrie of having no palate, no class, and no business in a real Creole establishment. Even tossing the man a silver British crown made no impression on the publican's hauteur.