The black swan (8 page)

He turned down the street where George Andreas, his attorney, had his office. Carl Dorn, Andreas's secretary, looked up from the papers neatly stacked on his desk, his expression guarded and cool.

"What do you say, Carl." Tom handed him his card. "Tell George I want to see him, will you?"

In silence Carl took the card and scurried toward Andreas's office.

"Don't let hin^tell you he can't see me today," Tom called, smiling.

Carl gestured for Tom to enter George's office.

"What the hell's got him, George? You'd think I had the plague."

George Andreas sat in easy dignity behind his inlaid mahogany desk. His hands met precisely in front of him. "Perhaps he thinks you do," he said with a touch of winter in his voice.

"What does that mean?" Tom sat down, alert and anxious.

"There have been a number of ugly rumors about you. Where have you been, Tom? Your darkies are acting guilty as hell about somethin*. You ought to know if you want a secret kept, it can't be kept by a darky."

Tom rubbed his temple unconsciously; his head had begun to hurt. "There's no secret, George. I've just moved out of town . . . got a small piece of land." It was difficult going for him. He didn't know how much he dared let George know. 'Thought I might consider plantin'."

"What would you want with the headaches of a plantation? Aren't your real estate holdm's enough for you, Tom?"

"I'm satisfied. The saloons alone bring in enough and;— "

"Lately, they've all fallen off in business."

"All right, George, what you got stuck in your craw?"

"You always were too soft with your darkies, Tom. Folks think maybe you're more than just soft. There's also the matter of a slave you bought from Edmund Revanche. Seems a little peculiar that the quadroon should disappear about the same time you left New Orleans."

"That it?"

"There is the question of the slave child you took from Gray Oaks."

"Edmund knows he can't legally separate a mother from a child under ten years of age."

"He expects to be paid for the child. I have managed to convince Edmund not to do anythin' about the pickaninny, but it hasn't sat well with him. What's come over you, Tom? It's a damned good thing your daddy isn't here. He'd take the buggy whip to you."

Tom felt as though the room were closing in on him. "I paid Edmund four thousand dollars—even with his inflated ideas, that should have been enough." He said spiritlessly, "Aside from rumors and Edmund's pique, is that all?"

George's eyebrows rose. "Is that all!? Dear Lord, man, what names you haven't been called in recent weeks aren't worth mentionin'. Your business is off, you're suspected of consortin' with rebellious niggers, some say you incited them, and you ask if that is all?"

"They are sayin' that, are they?" Tom wiped his hand across his forehead. "I'm closin' the Clio Street house, George. Get the best price you can. Auction the furnish-in's. The field hands go with the house. I'll arrange for Bessie, William, and Jewel."

"This is going to add fuel to the talk."

"I can't help that."

"What about the other house slaves? YouVe educated them, haven't you?"

"Yes, they should be all right."

"Be all right! You aren't actually thinkin' of freeing them?"

"George, I don't know. Would it be so wrong to give them their papers? They've served the family for years."

George Andreas's face hardened. "If that is what you wish to do, Tom, I'm sure nothin' I might say would dissuade you. However, if you've got any sense, you'll return to New Orelans. Reestablish yourself. Give folks a chance to see there is no truth in what they hear."

"I'm not comin' back, George."

"Where shall I mail your correspondence?"

Tom looked baffled. "I'll be in now and then."

George's mouth was drawn in a thin line of disapproval.

"You're a damned fool," he snarled. "Get yourself another attorney."

Tom hesitated, then gave him the Tremains' address.

George's face brightened. "You courtin' Paul Tremain's widow? That's the first sensible thing you've said today. Zoe Tremain is a fine lady."

"Yes, she is." Already Tom felt guilty that he had involved her. "Just send my mail to her. She'll know how to reach me."

When Tom left George's office, he felt more tired than he did after a full day's work. His head buzzed with old worries and new ones. Without thinking, he headed toward the coffee shop where he and Ross and Edmund had spent so many pleasant afternoons.

He ordered his favorite, cafe brulot. The place hummed with the deep, harmonious sounds of men's voices. Through foreign eyes Tom looked at the too familiar sight of men at a leisure that neither time nor circumstances changed. With some discomfiture he saw Edmund Revanche sitting with Ross Bennett, Mark Wilford, and Etienne Bordulac.

Ross ostentatiously moved his chair so that his back was to Tom, but Edmund's cold, snapping eyes waited with knowing patience for Tom to greet him.

"What'cha say, Edmund?" Tom asked softly as he approached their table. "Goin' to have a big cane crop?"

"Looks good, Tom. Pull up a chair. You've kept yourself scarce these days. Old friends forgotten, Tom?"

"You know better than that. Hello, Ross, Etienne, Mark."

Ross made a sound somewhere between a clearing of the throat and a laugh. He downed the remainder of the warmed sling in his glass and hailed one of the scurrying bilingual waiters to refill it for him.

Tom spoke briefly to the other two men and fell silent trying to concentrate on the conversation his arrival had interrupted.

Mark was saying, "The Underground stations are only a day's ride apart. My God, they'll have 'em in a line door to door if it isn't stopped. I tell you, Etienne, these damned nigger stealers won't give up until they've forced us into war!"

"If anybody's gonna start a war, it should be us," Ross

agreed. "The Abolitionists are challengin' us, an* there ain't a Southerner worth his salt that don't show a challenger who's boss. Ain't that right, Mark?"

"The boys are a bit riled." Edmund balanced his chair on the two back legs enjoying the spectacle. "There's been the usual talk of uprisings and conspiracies. Now there's been a passel of rumors that some of the nigger-lovin* bastards are of our own kind. That won't go down in these parts. But, of course, our friends miss the main point."

Tom kept his eyes in earnest study on one of the many paintings of voluptuous and licentious women that adorned the walls. He said, "No one is goin' to start a war over the niggers."

"That is precisely what they will do. Of course the war, when it comes, won't really have anything to do with the niggers, but the loyal patriots who promote war will use the inalienable rights of mankind guaranteed by our estimable Constitution to serve their own ends. What a noble war it will be for future historians!"

"Damn, you're the most cynical, cold bastard I've ever met," Tom said, awed, as though seeing Edmund clearly for the first time.

Edmund laughed comfortably. "Because I say people are asinine enough to blunder into war? You've mistaken cynicism for clear-sightedness, Tom. We Southerners are a political minority. Political minorities get defeated and overlooked for their own good, particularly when their economic mainstay is a target of active fanaticism of the Northern majority.

"Abolitionists attack us on moral grounds. Save the soul of mankind! Yet their true attack comes at our economy. Whether they believe in their bigoted preachments is beside the point. What matters is that profit-seekin* Northerners will parrot the words of their abolitionist preachers. The South will become the symbol of evil."

"Who the hell cares what they think!" Mark shouted. **We don't mix in with their way of slavery. They kill 'em in their sweatshops! Damn, they don't give a good spit about any o' their people."

"We oughta hang the damned abolitionist bastards," Ross said sullenly.

Etienne said, "Do go on, Edmund. What of cotton? Would they risk closin' their own mills and factories to rid us of slavery? Our cotton and raw exports represent

sixty per cent of the export value of the entire nation. New Orleans is a more active port, by value as well as volume, than even New York. Can they do without us?"

A knowing smile played on Edmund's mouth. "Can they do without us?"

Ross laughed in satisfaction. "Hell no, they can't!"

"Can't they?" Edmund laughed bitterly. "Cotton, gentlemen, mountains of cotton. That's our Achilles heel. We need the North. We can hurt them economically, but, by God, they can bring us to our knees. We've already given away our rights to an equal voice in the government a word at a time."

"Then, the great Compromise was just another loss for us."

Edmund shrugged. "It drew the battle lines for the admission of each new state and territory, did it not? Did not the people of California lose all voice in the matter of slavery? Where are their inalienable rights? The Northern industrialists are imposin' their way on us and the new state, because their needs are not the same as ours.

"The North," he continued, "isn't agricultural in the same way we are. Theirs is subsistence farmin*. In fact, gentleman, no section of this vast country is agricultural in the same fashion we are. It makes our politics and our lives different. Our government is becomin' a toady of Northern interests to the detriment of other sections.

"You talk of war, gentlemen? I talk of survival. We need manufacturing, railroads, shipping. Of course there will be a war. The question is when, and will we be prepared."

"Calhoun was the only damned man who knew what he was talkin' about. Our daddies shoulda been uniting the South back in the thirties," Mark said. "Damned Yankee insurrectionists."

With a thickening tongue, Ross boasted, "No Southerner is gonna let no-count Yankees make no never mind. There's ways of takin' care o' insurrectionists and nigger-lovers. There's ways, an' I'm one Southerner who believes in doin' what has to be done." For the first time he looked directly at Tom, his handsome face contorted by hostility and drink. "Ain't those your sentiments, Tom, or have you had a recent change of heart?"

"You know how I feel, Ross, how I've always felt."

Ross laughed harshly.

"That's no way to treat a new bridegroom, Ross. Last thing on Tom's mind is politics," Edmund said smoothly.

Tom's head snapped up. Mark and Etienne looked at him curiously. "You have been married, Tom?" Etienne asked.

Tom's heart was hammering so hard he began to shake. He placed the cup of cafe brulot on the table to avoid spilling it. Edmund Revanche followed the movement with amusement.

"Yes, I am, but—"

"That calls for a toast and an apology!*' Mark said. "Not a one of us invited to the festivities. Tom! What have we done to offend you?"

Tom squirmed, his mind working sluggishly. Edmund, as intended, had caught him off guard. "She . . . uh, my wife is an . . . uh, she's an orphan. We married quietly, at her home."

"We don't know her?" Etienne stared. "She's not a New Orleanian?"

"No. You wouldn't know her," Tom said hastily. His head and heart still hammered as he tried to sort out what mistake he'd made that told Edmund of his marriage to Ullah. Likely, the Negroes had talked along their infamous grapevine. At least Edmund had not told the others. It was as obvious that Mark and Etienne did not know the full import of his marriage as it was that Edmund did. Now Tom wished Edmund had been cold or disapproving when he'd first come in. Edmund's easy assumption of friendship was a bad sign.

Uneasily Tom glanced at the four men, their faces highlighted and shadowed by the numerous lamps that brightened the coffee house. "Well, gentlemen, it's been nice seein' y'all, but I must be on my way."

"Not without a toast," said Mark. "We'd be mighty insulted, not bein' invited to the weddin', if you reject our toast to your happiness." He signaled the waiter.

"Whatever happened to that slave gal, Ullah, Tom?" Ross asked, as though the thought had just come to Ijim.

"I sent her to my sister ... in Kentucky."

"Sister!? Lawd, you are full of surprises today. Damned if I didn't recollect your whole family was wiped out by yellow fever."

Tom was sweating like a hog in August. "See y'all.*'

"One moment, Tom." Edmund's hand was on Tom's arm. His dark eyes glowed, betraying the fury that burned inside him. "We can't have your wedding go unheralded. Your bride will want to meet her neighbors and friends. It isn't fittin' to neglect the amenities. Sunday next, at Gray Oaks y'all, we'll have a barbecue and ball in honor of Mrs. Tom Pierson. We've got to get a look at Tom's lady, haven't we?"

"I thank you, Edmund, but—"

"You're not goin' to refuse me, are you, Tom? There isn't somethin' about this weddin' you don't want us to know, is there?"

"No! Edmund—"

"Then it's agreed. I'll provide the party. You provide the entertainment, Tom. We'll put on a soiree no one will ever forget. It's settled, Tom?"

Edmund had left Tom no way to refuse, knowing full well he dared not show up. "It's settled, Edmund. Excuse me if you will, gentlemen."

"Hey, Tom!" Ross called after him. "I'm gonna nut me a dirty nigger lover pretty soon now. Want to be in on the fun?"

Tom hurried from the coffee house, Ross's crude laughter in his ears. He strode quickly toward his attorney's office. Damn Edmund Revanche! He'd seen him play such cruel tricks on others. He'd watched innumerable times as Edmund took one then another oblique step, leading his victim into position. Just so, Edmund had won today. He'd set his trap, springing it as soon as Tom allowed himself to be lulled by the war talk. And what would come next?

He burst into Andreas's office unannounced. "George! I want you to sell everythin' ... stocks, warehouses, saloons . . . everythin'!"

Andreas half rose, his cheeks quivering in indignation. "What is the meaning of this, Mr. Pierson? This office is private!"

Tom glanced shame-faced at an elderly man whose eyes were wide in startlement. "I'm sorry, George." He bowed in deferential embarrassment toward George's client. "I beg your pardon, sir, I'll—I'll wait outside. I must see you, George, it's urgent."