Mignon (6 page)

It clinked and she popped—out from behind the portieres, a blue flannel dress half on, silken froufrou showing. Her eyes were like blue glass. I said: “You’ve good ears, Miss Tremaine.”

“
Alors? Qu
’
est-ce que c
’
est?
”

I went over, straightened her dress, put my arms around her, and gave her a little kiss, which she took on the cheek. I said: “I wasn’t stealing your vase—just testing it.”

“It is of gold,
non?
”

“There’s no other such sound on this earth.”

“I have six—from a
château
at Reze-le-Nantes.”

“I compliment you. You like gold, I imagine?”

“I love gold.”

“Turn around, I’ll button you up.”

She turned and I buttoned her, taking a seat and pulling her down in my lap. Then I dandled her and gave her another kiss. She took it this time on the mouth, and responded a little, but with an odd squint in her eye. She pulled my eyebrows, said: “
Doux
, as
coton
.”

“They’re not cotton, they’re hair.”

“
Pourtant jolis
, as you are.”

“If I’m pretty, so is a cigar-store Indian.”

“
Et
sweet.
Et naïf
.”

“What’s naive about me?”

To tell the truth, I’d lost some of my fear, so I didn’t feel so rattled, and was beginning to be a bit chesty—as though I was now experienced in matters of this kind and could almost act like myself. She kept on pulling my brows, and said: “Oh—you give me twenty dollars—you take kisses as
lagniappe
—is not this
naïf?
You think me madam—yet you remove the hat—is not this
naïf
indeed? Don’t you know,
petit
, that with madam you keep the hat on? That this is the
insulte ancienne
a man pays to her who befriends?”

“... If you’re not a madam, what are you?”

“I am
joueuse
, of course.”

To me it sounded like Jewess, and I snapped back, pretty quick: “Well, I’m Episcopalian myself, but know only good of the Jews, especially Jewish women—”

“
Joueuse!
” she yelped. “I play! I operate gambling house! This is not such house as you think!”

“This? Is a gambling house? And you—?”

“Am
joueuse
, I have said! I am not madam!”

“Good God.”

I dumped her off my lap, jumped up, and dived for my things, all at one jerk. I said: “I’m sorry—I apologize—I’ve been making a sap of myself and I-don’t-know-what out of you, and I’m on my way, quick.”

But she was right beside me, her hand on the armoire door, so I couldn’t open it. She said: “Have I acted
désagréablement?
Have I expressed anger, perhaps? Have I desired that you go?” She yanked me away from the armoire, pushed me back into the chair, and camped in my lap again. She said: “Is
joueuse
, for example,
contaminée?
Might she not wish to help? Might she not have girls,
aussi?
Who deal stud,
vingt-et-un
,
et
faro? Cannot this matter be discussed?”

“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?

“Never mind Lavadeau’s. The St. Charles,” I said.

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.