The Outcasts (23 page)

Nate followed behind Pierre, who cleared a way through the people standing two abreast on the stairwell, and, with Gorman at his back, they walked out of the church onto the street, where the bounders and footpads clapped him on the back and the whores pressed his hand warmly and whispered into his ear things he couldn’t quite make out above the swelling noise and confusion.

He was taken to a nearby saloon, and a whiskey was pressed into his hand, which he quickly drank. And then he drank another, and another, all the while accepting with a growing sense of amazement the sly, excitable good wishes of Gorman’s ever-expanding street court, all of them assuring Nate he was now one of their own. When Gorman finally asked him the name of the man he sought, Nate shouted into his ear, “William McGill,” and told him about Lucinda traveling with him. Gorman turned his head away for a moment but finally nodded and moved off.

A fiddle, and then a squeezebox, began to scratch and wheeze above the din and he later remembered dancing with a woman, his feet moving faster than his lagging mind, until his knees could not support his weight and Gorman guided him to the door, signaling to a girl to take him home. Nate thought that home sounded like a good idea and staggered behind her for several blocks before thinking to ask her whose home he was going to. The girl put one of his arms around her shoulders and guided him into a small, one-story house, the front door unlocked, the two rooms modest and tidy.

She sat him on a chair and knelt in front of him to take off his boots, and he took her chin in his hand and raised her high-cheeked face to the light.

He asked her who her people were and she said she was Caddo. He then told her that his wife was Cherokee, and the girl nodded as though the revelation were only right and proper. She unpinned her hair and moved him to sit on the bed. But he took her arms to stay her movements and asked if she would sit on the chair for a while, just so he could look at her. She slipped down her petticoat, baring herself to the waist, and he could vaguely see the small globes of her breasts behind the black hair that fell over them.

When the yearning to touch her became too terrible to bear, he mumbled his thanks and lay on the floor, his back to her. Through the girl he was able to summon the image of his wife under lamplight: the particulars of her features, her softly rounded moon face, and the jet hair that cloaked her shoulders falling straight as rain.

He finally closed his eyes to sleep, and sometime in the middle of the night, the girl rose up and covered him with a blanket.

T
he staircase was wide and curving, made of marble and carpeted down the middle with a runner of majestic blue. Lucinda stood at the top of the stairs holding a small tin box in one hand and gripping the banister tightly with the other. She had purposely set her naked feet on the exposed marble, hoping its brittle chill could distract her from the recent memory of what had been done to her body—what she had allowed to be done—and her growing anxiety coiled and uncoiled in her stomach like a worm.

She shivered inside her nightdress, tissue thin and stained with sweat that was not her own, preparing to place one foot down the riser, and the memory of standing atop Mrs. Landry’s stairwell slid into her mind. That moment, too, had been a supposed beginning, a stepping from one life into another. She had made an expert copy of the German’s key from an impression scored into a thin bar of soap in a tin box, just like the impression she had made of the key belonging to her fish, the key that opened the front door to the house with the curving marble staircase.

Clutching the banister, she followed the first step with a second, but she could go no farther until she slowed her breathing, bringing her mind into sharper focus, ignoring the pain of the abraded flesh on her buttocks and thighs. She had had no fall for days now, but she felt clenched and ragged, as though a new kind of sickness had seeped into her pores along with the damp and the cold.

It seemed to her that everything of import in New Orleans had been built of marble: the monuments, the interiors of the mansions that lined First Street, the mausoleums in the cemeteries. To stand within a marble hall was to be comforted by the exquisite coolness of the veined white stone. But to Lucinda, looking across the grand foyer of the house, with its marble floors and columns, softly luminous in the lamplight, it now gave her the feeling of being entombed alive.

She moved her hand down the banister, her feet following suit another few steps until she stood at the midway point. She heard a door open somewhere on the second landing and she gripped the tin box until its edges broke through the skin of her palm, like a shard of metal piercing a crust of ice, and then the door closed again and she realized it was Tartine using the water closet. Minutes passed and there were no further sounds.

She padded softly to the bottom of the stairs, and though the servants had all been sent away, she peered through the darkened foyer for any moving shadows. A sudden cramping in her abdomen caused her to double over in pain, and she stared at a pinpoint of blood at her feet before realizing that the hand holding the tin box had been cut.

A hollow sensation began building in her head, and pressing her injured palm with the bottom of her shift, she leaned against a column and closed her eyes. This, then, was the moment that had been approaching since the day William McGill lay with her in her bed staring into her face, which was contorted and grinning in a stricture of pain like a death’s-head mask, promising to care for her as long as she remained loyal. She had never asked the cost of that loyalty; had never wanted to know. He was the one person who, in the moments of confronting her waking terrors, would not turn away, did not shun or pity her. He would hold her more closely, in those unmarginned spans of time, peering readily into her eyes as they stared unfocused and vacant towards the ceiling.

It was more than anyone else had ever done—more than her own father—and now the bill for the partnership had come due. Her belly cramped again and she clutched the tin more tightly.

Bill would take the impression she had made and fashion a key that would gain him access to the very house in which she stood. He would rob her fish, silently and expertly, taking all the jewelry and gold he could carry in one large carpetbag. Then they would leave for Atlanta, or St. Louis, or some other city of their choosing.

Her spine, pressed against the marble column, began to ache, and she tried to remember the last time she’d felt something other than cold. Her mind summoned an image from Middle Bayou: lying close to May in a hay field on a warm afternoon, the girl’s arms around her neck, her body expressive with the heat of youth and perfect health.

She pushed herself off the column and made her way carefully across the foyer. She slipped the bolt, twisted the brass knob, and opened the heavy door, stepping to one side as she did so, but the space remained unfilled by the expected form, and she moved out onto the darkened porch. She heard her name called softly once and saw the glow of a cigar in the crape myrtles fronting the house.

Lucinda eased the door closed and moved shivering into the deeper shadows of the trees, her hands clasped around her arms. She saw Bill reach out with one hand as though to touch her face, but his fingers closed around her throat and he shoved her hard against the wall.

He said, “Keep me waiting like that again and I will hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine.”

She handed him the tin box and he pocketed it. “Tomorrow is the night,” he said. He looked at her stained shift and shivering form and whispered forcefully, “You know, Tartine says she’s never been sick a day in her life. Stay the course, Lucy, or I’ll be taking her to St. Louis in your stead.”

He turned and walked quickly along the avenue, soon disappearing into a poorly lit alley.

Lucinda stood against the wall, which was colder by far than the marble column of the house, with her head tilted back, looking at the sky, sensing the sweat and the deeper wetness of the blood on her shift being lifted away by the wind. She considered for a time remaining propped against the stones until all the parts of her vital self were likewise evaporated into the air, leaving behind only the shell. But after a time she roused herself and walked back into the house.

N
ate woke to a whitewashed room and a prolonged pounding on the door, which was eventually answered by the black-haired girl. He sat up rubbing the shoulder that had been pressed to the floor all night and saw the barefoot boy walking across the threshold as though familiar with the house and its owner.

He nodded to Nate but cut his eyes away in a nervous reflex, jamming both arms stiffly into the pockets of his trousers. He said, “Mr. Gorman is waiting for you. He says come now.”

Nate got up and began folding the blanket he had slept in when the girl shook her head and took it from him. He gathered up his hat, fit the Dance into his belt, and followed the boy outside. He had a thought that he should pay the girl something for the evening, but she had already closed and bolted the door and so he followed the boy back towards St. Charles Avenue. He squinted against the light and asked, “What time is it? And where’s my horse and rifle?”

The boy spit. “It’s past noon. And your gun and horse are with Mr. Gorman.”

Nate followed the boy for a few blocks, and after watching him nervously scanning the streets, Nate took hold of him by the shoulder and asked, “Something you need to tell me?”

The boy licked his lips, his eyes restless and searching. “Mr. Gorman says to come on…”

A cold, smattering mist had started falling and Nate pulled up his collar against the chill. He kept a close eye on the thoroughfares, though he wouldn’t have known which of the pinched or restless faces signaled a threat until it had crawled up his back.

The boy led him to the Buffalo House and Nate saw that its porch was filled with half a dozen men who wore their pistols exposed to both the elements and passersby. A few also had Enfield rifles held in the crooks of their arms. The boy chucked his chin for Nate go on inside and then he vanished into the street crowd. Gorman was sitting at the same table as the day before, and Pierre stood up, his face as shuttered as a bank window, and gestured for Nate to take his chair before wandering back to the faro table.

Gorman gestured to Nate’s face. “You’ve got a black eye.”

Nate touched the tender flesh and said, “From the recoil on the Whitworth, I guess.”

Gorman waved to a serving girl and she brought to the table steak and eggs and coffee.

Nate took off his hat. “Those men out there because of me?”

“Everyone in New Orleans has heard of your shot.” Gorman smiled tightly. “Duverje has his men looking for you.” He eased a small bundle wrapped in paper across the table in front of Nate. “You embarrassed my enemy and made a lot of money for me, Mr. Cannon.”

Nate pushed the bundle away. “I don’t need that. I just need to know where McGill is.”

Gorman poured a cup of coffee for himself and took his time blowing it cool. “There have been of late some unexplained killings in the district. Men murdered and robbed in alleyways and on dark streets. Their throats slit. I think it may be your man McGill, though it’s unusual for a man-killer of his ilk to change his tactics. From what I’ve been told, he likes to gut-shoot his victims.”

Nate started to eat from his plate, nodding tensely in agreement.

“McGill is here, I can tell you that, but no one has seen him since he brought a girl, your girl, to Hattie Hamilton’s sporting palace. The girl has not shown up for several days, but Hattie believes she and McGill are working a game to bilk one of her regular clients. The mark, if he’s still alive, will not remain that way much longer.”

Nate thumbed his plate away. “Where is this client?”

Gorman paused for a moment, seemingly to study the pattern on the coffee cup. He said, “Better than most, I understand the desire for settling disputes in a more time-honored fashion. The war robbed us of a great many things, but one thing we in New Orleans mourn the loss of, perhaps more than anything else, is the ritual for regaining our pride. McGill certainly does not respect those rules, but I believe you do.”

Gorman set down his cup.

“Therefore, I will admit to certain grandfatherly feelings towards you, Mr. Cannon. And I will tell you in all earnestness that instead of encountering McGill face to face, you should shoot him in the back. Lie in wait for him in the dark if you must, because if you don’t, he will be the one to kill you.”

Gorman propped his elbows on the table and leaned closer. “I will tell you that as much influence as I may have over some of my people here, I have very little over the police, even the ones I pay. There is also the complication now of Duverje, who does not put too fine a point on honor.”

Gorman gestured to the serving girl and she brought a bottle of brandy and poured some into both cups. “You should stay here until dark. Then the boy will take you to Hattie’s. You’ll have until first light tomorrow to find McGill and do what you came to do. After that, you must leave; for your own safety, and because those men out there are costing me a small fortune. You’ll get back your rifle and horse once you’re on the boat for Galveston. You’ll not see me again, I’m afraid, Mr. Cannon. But I wish you
bonne chance.
”

He walked out of the Buffalo House and disappeared into the street, and Nate passed the afternoon drinking coffee until he felt his hands shaking when he loaded fresh powder into the Dance. He sat watching the clock and the people that wandered in and out of the Buffalo House, some of them to find a drink or a girl, some of them to take a turn at cards. He suspected more than a few had come to gawk at him while passing pleasantries with Pierre, even placing bets on whether or not he would make it onto the steamer the following day. He tried to find a place of rage or even grief that he could sharpen his intent on, but in the well-ordered and functional arena that was the Buffalo House, the best he could find was a kind of nervous expectation.

The barefoot boy appeared at his table just after dark, and he led Nate past the armed men—who nodded to him with a kind of professional wariness—into the rain-swollen alleyways of Canal. They weaved their way through the numberless outhouses, stables, and sheds of Basin Street to Hattie Hamilton’s palace. He pointed for Nate to go in through the front door and then leaned against the gate in an attitude of alert waiting, hands in pockets, one bare foot cocked over the other.

The entranceway to the sporting house was flanked by two life-size statues of disrobed women, each holding in her outstretched hands live gas torches, and Nate followed after a man in evening dress, surprised that the door was not locked but rather opened readily on its oiled hinges.

The reception hall led to a grand parlor the likes of which Nate had never before witnessed. Seated on velvet couches and satin chairs were women of such confounding, artful beauty, their near nakedness reflected in infinite tides through the gilt mirrors filling every wall, that Nate was stunned to immobility, and a feeling of confined desperation swelled in him when several of the women looked in his direction and smiled through parted lips.

He removed his hat, and a shadowed motion caused Nate to turn. A tall black man had come to stand at one shoulder, but before Nate could take a step back, the man placed a restraining hand on Nate’s right arm. The man’s other hand was hidden under his long coat, gripping what Nate was certain was a knife concealed in the waistband of his trousers.

He said, “No guns allowed, sir.”

The man relinquished his hold on Nate’s arm, and Nate handed him the Dance. The man pointed up the stairs. “Miss Hattie will see you directly.”

Nate walked across the parlor, his boots striking loudly on the marble floor, conscious of the women and their customers watching him with hooded eyes. Before he had stepped onto the first riser, a woman joined him and led him up to the second floor. Her dress, what there was of it, was nearly transparent and cinched broadly with a corset of scarlet whalebone, the back laces falling between the curved, swaying cheeks of her backside. Nate took a steadying intake of air, breathing in the musk of her body, and he let her gain a few steps before following after her again. She led him to a door, opened it, and gestured for him to go in alone.

He walked into a spacious room, heated with an elaborately painted corner stove, and saw a large rawboned woman smoking a small cigar seated at a man’s desk, both her feet propped up on a tufted stool. She rested her elbow on the desk, and gestured for him to sit in a chair facing her.

She looked him over and tipped the ashes of the cigar into a crystal bowl. She said, “Sam has asked me to help you find someone.”

She squinted at him for a minute through the smoke and Nate heard the door open and close behind him, and he sensed, without seeing, that the tall black man had stepped softly into the room.

“What will you do when you find him?” she asked.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said. “Given the chance.”

She ducked her mule’s jaw into her neck and smiled at him in a way that might at one time have been considered coy. “What makes you think Bill hasn’t offered me a lot of money to keep that from happening?”

For the first time, Nate saw a Colt on the desk within arm’s reach, and he calculated the likelihood of his reaching the gun before the madam could. She was as big as a man, and from the size of her thighs and shoulders, he guessed her reflexes might be as quick as a man’s as well. Nate listened for movement from behind but heard nothing.

“He has, you know,” she said, brushing more ashes into the bowl. “Offered me money to be his eyes and ears. Quite a bit of money.” She drew on the cigar and waited.

Nate reached into the pocket of his jacket and tossed a coin onto the desk as he stood up, saying, “You might as well go ahead and take all your clothes off. A whore is usually naked when she’s diddling with a man.”

He heard the rushing footfalls of the black man approaching, but Hattie yelped with laughter and held up one hand to stay him. She waved Nate down again and wiped at her streaming eyes with the back of one hand. She said, “When you get to my age and stage in life, you can’t put a price on peace of mind. I want William McGill gone. He’s bad for business. He scares the customers. And he ruins my girls.”

Nate said, “And he scares you as well, doesn’t he? Which I’m guessing is not easy to do.”

Hattie’s mouth tightened, and Nate jerked a thumb over one shoulder. “Why don’t you send your man to do the job?”

“I need Lucius here. He never leaves this place.” She said it with her chin raised, as though Nate would challenge her.

“Then it’s on me.” Nate stood up again. “You know where McGill is?”

“I know where he’s going to be. McGill’s girl is setting up a client to be robbed tonight. I’ll tell you where the client is, but I want something in return for it. Or, rather, I want something returned to me that’s mine. Lucinda has a contract to fulfill.”

“A contract,” Nate said.

Hattie stood up and came around the desk to face him. “I invest quite a bit in my working girls, Mr. Cannon. I want her brought back here afterwards.”

“She’s going back with me to Texas.”

She shook her head. “It never fails: a man with a stiff prick always wants to rescue a whore.”

“I’ve never even met the woman.”

She crossed her arms, propping one meaty thigh on the corner of the desk. “Goddamn me,” she muttered. She cut her eyes to Lucius and then back to Nate, as though making a decision. “My loss, then. The client’s house is on First Street. Number twenty-three.”

Nate put on his hat and turned to face Lucius, who stood barring the door.

Hattie waved the black man away. “Mr. Cannon,” she said. “One last thing. The client requested another of my girls earlier today. She should have returned by now. I’d go in wary if I was you.”

Lucius followed Nate down the stairs and across the grand parlor, the big man making no more noise on the marble floor than a woman in evening slippers. He opened the front door, his face as expressionless and smooth as the statues fronting the entranceway. He handed Nate his pistol and closed the weighted door.