The Lincoln Conspiracy (8 page)

“Today, I exist,” Nail said. “Getting Negroes on the streetcars is safer than taking Negroes into Swampdoodle. You’re our first. Come inside.”

At the top of the stairs, Temple paused and turned to Augustus.

“Mr. Flaherty, in his former pursuit, drove spikes through ties for the railroad. Better than anyone. So his mates called him Nail,” Temple said. “But, as you will see, his vocation has since changed.”

Nail pulled back the door and plunged into the warehouse, but before the pair could enter behind him, he turned back and put his hand on Temple’s shoulder. “Everybody’s buzzing about Stump having his throat cut at the B&O,” he said. “Why were you there?”

“I had to meet Pint and Augustus,” Temple said. “I arrived early.”

“But why were you there? Why did you need to be there at all?”

“I’m a detective.”

“You’ve been helping Pint peddle stolen goods from them plantations.”

“And what if I am?”

“You make money however you see fit. This is America. You can make your money.”

“Right.”

“But I’m not raising a stink with you about your money. I’m thinking of something else. I’m thinking of the cards. You’re selling plunder with Pint to get a grubstake together. You’re gambling again.”

“We should go inside,” Temple said.

“You know you’ve got to mind the cards.”

“Inside.”

“I won’t be caught pulling you out of a jam again because you can’t control your gambling.”

“And you won’t have to. Now let’s have a look inside.”

Temple looped his arm through Nail’s and pulled him into the warehouse. Once inside, it took a moment for Augustus’s eyes to adjust to the shadows. There were slats in the walls, and the ceiling was arched and high. Early morning air pushed a light, lilting breeze around the cavernous warehouse, and Augustus heard the gentle, almost inaudible flapping before he was able to see anything clearly. As soon as his eyes adjusted, he dropped back a step or two, his mouth agape.

The walls to his right and left had fifty-foot clotheslines stretching across them, eight lines to a wall. Hanging from wooden pins on each line were paper banknotes, neatly spaced and numbering in the thousands, enough to fill a small bank vault. Bright pink and black on one side and a handsome blue on the other, each piece of paper moved just slightly, but their collective fluttering reminded Augustus of a deck of cards being gently shuffled or a theater audience clapping in polite measure.

“Fill your pockets if you’d like,” Nail told Augustus. “Take some for the kiddies.”

Augustus walked down the center of the room, gaping up at the sea of money that surrounded him. He looked back at Temple, who was grinning. When he drew closer to the wall and touched some of the bills, he discovered that they were slightly damp. All of them were Confederate States of America notes printed in Richmond,
Columbia, or New Orleans. Jefferson Davis’s face looked back at him from many of them.

“You stole all of these?” Augustus asked Nail.

Nail grimaced, shaking his head.

“Each and every one of the notes is a cogniac,” Nail said before pointing to the far end of the warehouse, toward a large metal machine topped by a wooden, Z-shaped press. “Homemade, with my very own bogus.”

His explanation finished, Nail curled his thumbs under his armpits and rocked back and forth on his heels with pride.

“Nail is a boodler,” Temple said to Augustus. “He floods the South with counterfeits.”

“And our government pays you no mind?” Augustus asked.

“No, our government just pays me,” Nail replied. “They wanted to dump cogniacs all over the Secesh. The more shovers I sent to the South with fake notes, the more Chase and Stanton were willing to pay me. People feel lost when they don’t have faith in the money they carry in their pockets. You spread enough bad paper around the South and it’s just as bad as gunshots. But the war winds down and my trade expires and they’ve warned me not to turn green.”

“Green?” Augustus asked.

“Stanton and Chase are starting to circulate all of these greenbacks up here, these new national dollars to replace the beauties that the states made. They don’t want me makin’ cogniacs that pass as greenbacks. They’re happy to keep the Secesh on their heels with spooky money, but they want it gone up here.”

“So you won’t?” Augustus asked.

“Haven’t made up my mind. I’ve got many mouths to feed in Swampdoodle, and those lads and their pups out there aren’t devoted to me beyond their next meal. Besides, do Stanton and Chase believe that all these mongrels in this Un-united States are going to magically accept a single currency just because some fookin’ poliotricians in Washington tell them to?”

“Now we’ve got him wound up,” Temple said.

“Well, one pot of money means you’ve got to believe in a nation, and this ain’t a nation. They’re set on this, though. They chased us out of New York before the war began ’cuz we were makin’ more money up there than the banks themselves. Beautiful days, those. That’s how I met Temple—when he was workin’ Manhattan with Tommy Driscoll. They caught me and Sam Upham. But that story’s for another day. I’ll want to know how you met our esteemed detective as well.”

Nail swiveled away from Augustus and turned his full attention to Temple.

“And, you, didn’t you have Pinkerton on you at every moment?”

“Ah, so you know him?” Temple replied. “He got humbugged, I hope. Fiona, Pint, and Alexander led him to Oak Hill, and that’s when we got out of Foggy Bottom. Did Dilly get here?”

Nail considered Temple, looking him in the eye. He walked toward him without a word.

“McFadden, you’re going to rain down grief on all of us with whatever you have in that package. This is a purposeful, muscular lot coming after you.”

“We don’t even know what we have yet,” Temple said. “Where are they?”

“On the table near the bogus,” Nail answered, gesturing to the back of the warehouse. “They’re sitting inside that pile of engraving plates—it was the easiest place to put them after Dilly gave them to me. It’s my homemade vault.”

“Augustus, you look first,” Temple said. “I think fresh eyes will help.”

The engraving plates sat in a two-foot-high pile on a table next to the Z-shaped press. Augustus lifted several plates off the top of the stack: reverse images of Jeff Davis, the Richmond capitol building, Andrew Jackson, Ceres, slaves hoeing cotton, George Washington, Stonewall Jackson, a Nashville bank, two women sitting atop a cotton bale, horses, John Calhoun, garlands, monuments, Minerva, and denominations of $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, and $500 were
delicately and expertly carved into the plates, each of them a mirror of the counterfeit notes drying on the lines.

“The Secesh use lithographs for their money, but in the North we print it with steel,” Nail shouted from the front of the warehouse. “I used steel plates for my Secesh cogniacs, to help bring our rebellious brothers into the monetary fold. Dry them, crumple them, and dip them in tobacco juice and they can’t tell the difference. Nobody trusts a crisp new note. They like ’em used and dirty.”

As Augustus removed more of the plates, an opening appeared in the center of the stack and he spotted the leather satchel at the bottom. He yanked out the bag and withdrew the two diaries from inside. He looked back across the warehouse at Temple.

“Go ahead, read them,” Temple said. “One of them appears to have been written by a woman. Look at that one first, if you will.”

It was indeed a woman’s script, each of the letters formed in careful, tight loops. It had been written by someone who had an education, an elaborate vocabulary, and was given over to random enthusiasms; exclamation points ended many of the sentences. Augustus began reading.

“Where do you get the plates?” Temple asked Nail.

“We bribed insiders at the banks in the South. Cotton smugglers helped us get them out. Once I had the plates, I published pamphlets for shop owners and bank clerks on how to spot cogniacs. We made sure the books said notes that looked like ours were tried and true and all others weren’t worthy of consideration. And we sent the pamphlets back down South with the smugglers; most of the shops being vigilant for fakes were using my pamphlets.”

“Well done.”

“Ta.”

“How do you know Pinkerton?” Temple asked.

“Those who got south during the war had to know him. He set up the first spy network for McClellan. And then Stanton came to hate him and he packed it back to Chicago.”

“So he wasn’t a spy for the government?”

“Of a sort. Stanton replaced him.”

“With who?”

“Lafayette Baker.”

“L.B.”

“I heard you had his horse.”

“And his riding crop,” Temple said, sliding his hand along his thigh.

“Not many people walk away from encounters with Baker.”

“And you know Baker from …?”

“Anybody dealing cogniacs has to know him. Willy Wood has the Secret Service now out of the Old Capitol Prison, and Baker runs it for him and Stanton. Most of what he does is police the District and other cities for phony notes. And for spies. They’ve spent the last four years ripping the shat out of people—killing some of them—in closed rooms at the prison to get information on the Secesh. They pick up anyone on the streets they want to, and Baker has the run of it. But he doesn’t surface with regularity.”

Temple moved a step closer to Nail.

“You’re with me, yes, Nail?”

“I have a deep debt with you, Temple. I’m with you. Tho’ I would greatly like to know what exactly it is that I’m committing to.”

“I would like to know that as well.”

Temple looked back at Augustus and paused. He was seated near the table of plates, holding two pieces of paper in one hand and one of the diaries in the other. He was staring blankly ahead. And there was a tear running down one of his cheeks.

“Augustus?” Temple asked.

No response. Temple limped to the back of the warehouse.

“Augustus?”

Temple reached him, and Augustus handed over the sheets of paper to him. It was a letter, pulled from the back of the black leather diary.

“Read it,” Augustus said.

Temple tipped the letter into a shaft of light and began reading.
“August 24, 1855. Dear Speed: You know what a poor correspondent I am …” He continued reading, placing the second page atop the first as he moved along.

“When you reach the last portion, read it aloud,” Augustus said.

A moment later, Temple started reciting: “ ‘I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except Negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.’ ”

Temple stopped, collecting himself.

“Keep reading,” Augustus said.

“ ‘Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in October. My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter, I have more of her sympathy than I have of yours. And yet let me say I am, your friend forever, A. Lincoln.’ ”

Temple looked up at Augustus.

“The letter was neatly folded in the back of the diary,” Augustus said. “The diary’s owner put it there. And if you read some of these other pages, it all becomes obvious.”

“I imagine it does,” Temple said.

“This diary belongs to Mary Todd Lincoln.”

N
ail walked slowly to the back of his warehouse toward Augustus and Temple, who stared silently at the pages in their laps. The cogniacs fluttered and Temple began tapping his cane on the floor.
Tat, tat, tat, tat
.

“This half of my find from the B&O appears to be from Mrs. Lincoln,” Temple said. “Her initials, M.T.L., are embossed at the bottom of the diary’s pages.”

“Well, you weren’t born in the woods to be scared by an owl,” Nail replied.

“Joshua Speed was once the president’s best friend.”

“What else do you have there besides letters?” Nail asked.

“The diary goes back for four or five months, but the recent entries are of great interest. Mrs. Lincoln was fearful of the men who surrounded her,” Augustus said. “She was fearful of what it meant for Mr. Lincoln, I would think.” He began reading aloud from the diary’s pages.

Augustus continued reading.