Mignon

  “Well Corporal, gimme some light.”

  “That hat, under the bed!”

  “Brother!”

  He strode over, picked it up, and stared at the red pompon. “It’s him,” he whispered, “the one that killed Lieutenant Powell! That’s what the bosun said, the one on duty with him—he saw the man’s hat plain, it was one like the French Navy wears and had a red tassel on it!”

  “That there’s a tuft, not a tassel.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s red.”

  “Corporal, you could be letting the Navy know.”

  “You bet I’m letting the Navy know.”

  In so short a time that I barely had my clothes on, I was a bigger hero than I’d ever been in my life, and I’ve had my share of praise. The Navy got there: Ball, Sandy, and three ensigns from the Eastport; a two-striper from the flag boat, and seamen from other boats. They piled in with a Captain Hager from the Provost Guard, the corporal, more privates, a stretcher, and so many bull’s-eye lanterns the place was bright as day. They closed in on the corpse like staghounds, and all kowtowed to me as the one who had made the kill. None of them, as yet, seemed to know who Pierre was, except that he’d murdered Powell, and I certainly didn’t enlighten them, though I avoided direct statements, one way or the other, by pretending “a bad reaction—don’t ask me to look at this man.” Hager, though, when he made me admit I was the one who had asked for a bodyguard earlier on in the evening, at once began boring in, but I told him: “That was just a precaution I felt I should take, from carrying a large sum of money, and had no connection with this—that I know of, unless this fellow had heard rumors about me.” That seemed to satisfy him; he even returned me my gun. “Obviously,” he said, “under the circumstances, in this godawful, lawless place, you may need it.”

  Then he had the privates clean the room up, and Ball ordered the seamen to help. They found a pan and brooms in the kitchen, and swept up the china that was crunching underfoot, then brushed off the bed and made it up fresh. They did a bang-up policing job, and while it was going on, Sandy drew me into the hall. “Boy!” he growled. “Did you fall into the cream pot!”

  “... Cream pot? What are you talking about?”

  “Your receipt! We’ll have to sign it now!”

  “Sandy! I don’t have a receipt!”

  “I know you don’t! You don’t even have any cotton, but this is your chance to get it! Bill, don’t you see? The Navy couldn’t refuse you now and still look you in the eye—and we wouldn’t want to! After all, we look out for our friends, and you’ve just settled the hash of the killer we were looking for! You get some cotton, Bill! From your hombre if you can—the one holding the other half of your torn fifty-dollar bill! But if he doesn’t show, forget him—go buy up stock of your own, from whoever holds any titles to that cotton we took from the warehouse! You’re the only one who can get a receipt, you got a monopoly, you’ll be the only bidder, they’ll have to take what you offer, you can get hold of that stock for a song! Don’t you see, Bill? Stop arguing with me! Here I’ve been racking my brains all night for some scheme you could pull to make that twenty-five thousand dollars, and now when it’s right in your hand, you stand there—”

  “I haven’t said a goddam word.”

  “All right then, why don’t you say something?”

  “I’ll think it over, I certainly will.”

  At last they went, carrying the corpse with them, and after I’d closed the window and bolted the door, I started back to bed. But for a moment I stood in the hall, trying to gather my wits, to think what to do next, about Burke and his deadly papers, and how to do it in time, before Pierre’s identification, when the cat would be out of the bag. And then, from above, came the whisper: “Willie, have they gone?”

  “Thank God, they have.”

  “Get the ladder. I’m coming down.”

  “Have you been up there all this time?”

  “I held the skylight on a crack.”

  I got the ladder, and then she was sliding down through my arms, in nightie, slippers, robe, and beautiful smell. Then bare skin was on my hands, and time stood still as our mouths came together. I carried her into the bedroom, and nothing was there but the hunger we had for each other. Then she was up on one elbow, asking about the dead man. She said: “That wasn’t Burke they took out, it was Pierre. I saw him plain.”

  “I made a mistake. I told you wrong.”

  “What was Sandy talking about?”

  “Oh—cockeyed scheme he cooked up.”

  “I heard him say cotton.”

  “Yes, he did mention something about it.”

  “Willie, if I ever hear the end of that, that’s when I leap up and holler. And if you ever get yourself in it, that’s when I wring your neck. Now what was this scheme of his?”

  I told her, not going into any details, and when I was done she said: “It’s out! I never want to look at cotton again as long as I live. Do you hear me?”

  “I do, and cotton doesn’t attract me.”

  “Because listen, Willie Cresap—”

  But I still hadn’t got to the main point, and I cut her off with a kiss, telling her: “Mignon Fournet, you listen to me!”

  I said our time was short, and that I had to explain some things that could mean her life as well as her father’s. I took it from the beginning—why I’d left New Orleans, what Dan had said on the boat, what I’d really meant when I came the day before, calling on her in the rain, what had gone through my mind when she told me their receipt had been signed. I told of my trip to the Eastport, and the faked-up story I’d told about the torn fifty-dollar bill. I told of my trip to the hotel, the answers I’d got from Ball, and Burke’s sudden appearance. But when I mentioned the pass, she cut in quick: “But I never asked for a pass!”

  “I figured that out, myself.”

  “But what was Frank thinking about?”

  Her eyes, opening with disbelief, became two big black moons as I told about the receipt, how I was sure it was forged from the name on her pass, its connection with Powell’s murder, and what it would mean if found with Burke’s papers, once it became known who Pierre really was—”you’re tied in through the pass, and your father’s tied in through his articles of partnership.” And then, as an afterclap of the bitterness I’d lived with so long: “Not that he doesn’t have it coming, after what he did, using you as bait—”

  “Using me as what?”

  “You heard me! As bait, to Burke.”

  “Oh, how wrong can anyone be!”

  She said the bait was “the Pulaski cotton, the chance to buy it in a tremendous big cache on the Sabine River, that we had to dangle at Frank, to keep him from burning his papers just from pure spite. And where I came in, why I had to be on Red River, was that I was the one who knew them, those people in Texas, those growers who hold the titles, through Raoul, before the war.” Of course, that corresponded with what Burke had said when he first started talking with Ball, and I hauled in my horns quick, especially after hearing point-blank, out of her own mouth, that she hadn’t been close to Burke. But when she started going on with more about her father, I cut it off by asking: “Where is he, by the way? I have to see him, and quick.”

  “I told you yesterday. He went for venison, to the Ransdell place back of town. But sometimes, when the Indian who brings in the deer is late, he has to stay overnight, and—”

  “When’ll he be back?”

  “Won’t be too long after sunup.”

  “Then I can see him in time—we hope.”

  “... The dawn’s early light. I have to go.”

  “Hold on, Mignon, not so fast—let’s get back to Powell and why he was killed. If you don’t believe it’s true, my notion about that pass—”

  “Willie, I know it’s true.”

  She got up, and in the graying dark started putting on the robe. She said: “And I know what has to be done. So if my father, with Pierre out of the way, doesn’t go to Frank with a gun,
take that receipt and burn it, along with every title to every bale of cotton we ever thought was ours, you know who’s going to do it?”

  “I am.”

  “No, Willie. I am.”

  Chapter 19

  SHE LET ME IN IN A RED-CHECKED gingham dress, the first time I’d ever seen her wearing anything but black. It was just a morning dress, but went with her color somehow, and she seemed pleased when I said how well it became her. Then she brought me into a flat that was the duplicate, in reverse, of the one I was living in, and yet was as different from it as day is from night. In place of the coconut matting, the halls had Axminster runners; in place of the mustard paint was decent wallpaper, with lords and ladies and dogs; in place of the Sunday-School smell was her smell, the smell of books, and the smell of ham frying; in place of the Prussian kings in the sitting room were books—hundreds of them, in shelves as high as your head almost covering the wall. On top, stuck around every which way, were all kinds of pictures and stuff, from photographs of her as a child to old dance programs, filled out. The furniture was old-fashioned, but nicely upholstered in tapestry. At one side was a Steinway grand, at the other a long table, with an iron stand on it, supporting a wash-boiler, with a muslin skirt on it and a spirit lamp underneath, taking the chill off. When I asked who played, she sat down and clattered the keys, saying: “That’s Mozart—Father loves Don Giovanni.”

  But then: “I have to watch my meat,” and I followed her back to the kitchen. It was like mine, but looked used and had sacks and bins and canisters. She had a fire going, and in a skillet pieces of ham that she speared with a fork and turned over. She seemed proud of how she could cook, explaining: “I learned it in the convent at Grand Coteau. We were studying to be ladies, but when the war began to come on, the Reverend Mother insisted we study to be cooks.” She gave me breakfast in the dining room: stewed prunes, ham, eggs, and hominy; when I marveled at the menu, how good it was in a place overrun by the war, she said: “Don’t forget, Father keeps store. He knows where stuff is, and how to get it in.” But as I finished my coffee she held up her hand. “That’s Father,” she said. We went into the pantry; she drew the bolts of the trapdoor, I gripped it by the holes and raised it. Mr. Landry came up, dressed roughly, half a skinned deer on one shoulder. He needed a shave and was thinner, but for some reason he seemed younger than I remembered him—it could have been the way he handled the deer. Once again, I noted how strong he must be.

  When he saw me, he shook hands, very quiet—not surprised, not upset, and not glad. I said I had business with him, and he said: “Very well, sir—I’ll be with you as soon as I take this carcass apart and get it down in the cistern, where it’ll be cool.” When I told him there wasn’t time for that, he looked at me sharply, dumped the meat on the kitchen table, sat in the chair beside it, and waited. I gave it to him quick, everything he needed to know, down to my killing of Pierre. I said: “They’ll identify him, sure. When they do they’ll go to Burke—they’ll question him, they’ll fine-tooth-comb his place. You’re in mortal danger, as Mignon is, for the reason—”

  “I can see the reason, please.”

  “Where does Burke live?”

  He pointed beyond the back fence to a brick house facing Second Street, cater-cornered across from the market Burke had mentioned, now all shuttered up. I asked: “Can you go in the back way?”

  “I have the key, as Frank has to my store.”

  “Then, you have to move fast, or else—”

  “I know I have to move fast!”

  He shriveled me with his tone, then sat there, not looking young any more but horribly old. He passed a hand over his face, then said: “So.” And then, after some moments: “Here I am, at the end of the line.”

  “That’s right,” I said, my old bitterness speaking once more. “After chasing that will-o’-the-wisp, that pot of gold you thought was under the rainbow, to hell-and-gone and back, up the river and down the lake, here you are, right where you started from, with every bale of that cotton lost—because once you burn that receipt, the rest of it’s nothing but paper. It’s what you get, my friend, for hooking up with that skunk, the one who turned on you for the sake of making some tin. There’re other things, occasionally, more important than tin.”

  “Sir, by what right do you censure me?”

  “The right of a man who wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for you. When you brought Mignon, I had to come too—I hated it, I tried to shuffle it off, to pretend there was no need. But here I am, and I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for what you did, we’d all three be in New Orleans, she and I would be married, and life would go on. Instead of which, you stand, and not only you but her, in the gallows’ shadow, and—”

  “It may not be so simple as that.”

  “It’s exactly as simple as that.”

  “That cotton was made over to me by people in desperate need, people I’d helped in one way or another. They’re proud, and it was their way of paying. But they’re still in desperate need, and if there was any way I could cash in, so perhaps they could share——”

  “Oh my, listen at Santa Claus!”

  “I did share, as you yourself can tell.”

  “And when was this noble deed?”

  “I bought those boys shoes. You defended me for it.”

  “... I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “What else could I do for these people?”

  “Fight for their country, maybe—and yours.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

  “I hear different, Mr. Landry—very different.”

  “Our country’s Louisiana. War’s over here.”

  “Taylor’s fighting for Louisiana.”

  “Taylor’s a fool. I look down on, I despise him, any man that asks boys to die for a cause already lost! I don’t call that patriotism, I just call it dumbness! But if, by using a trick, I don’t care how crooked, I can break out of this hell we’re in, this half-war they’ve inflicted upon us where they won’t let us fight and won’t give us peace, I can get some of their tin, to divide up with my long-suffering people, I’ll do it, I don’t care who I have to hook up with. So it’s Burke, and he turned on me, you tell me. So he did, and I’d kill him, give me the chance. But did he, any worse than the rest? Which of them didn’t turn—on me, on all of us here? I’d kill ’em all! I hate their bluebelly guts, and—”

  “But not Willie, Father!”

  She stood there in front of him, and he swallowed once, then said: “All right, not Willie.”

  “He saved you, don’t forget.”

  “... How’s Miss Tremaine?” he asked me.

  “But when I opened my mouth to answer, she closed it with her hand. “Are you going?” she asked him.

  “Of course I’m going. I have to.”

  But he still sat there, apparently gathering his courage, and she said I should cut up the meat. She got a knife, steel, and cleaver from a drawer, and told me: “First you take off the haunch, then the loin, then the foreleg, then the neck, then the chuck, which leaves the rib in one piece—then it’ll all fit in the tub. But first, before anything else, take off the shanks—I can use them tonight for soup.” But while I was whetting the knife, he suddenly pointed outside, and that ended the meat for a while. On Second Street, up by the market, Burke was coming down, walking slow, peering around. “He’s looking for Pierre!” whispered Mr. Landry. “He must not have heard he’s dead!” As the three of us stood by the window, Burke reached the corner, which he had all to himself at this hour, looked in all four directions, and kept on. He disappeared beyond his house, but in a few seconds popped out from the back door into the yard. Then, after snooping into the outhouses, he ducked through the gates in the fences, headed for our back door. “He’ll come in with his key,” she said to her father. “You talk, and talk right—have him come up, and don’t give any sign.”

  To me she whispered: “You cover him.”

  By then she’d seen the gun, which I??
?d reloaded before coming over and strapped on under my coat. I drew it, and took position with her just by the kitchen door. Mr. Landry went to the pantry and called. It had its own partition, but was really a continuation of the hall, and the kitchen door was alongside. Burke answered, and we heard him come up the stairs, heard the trap close as Mr. Landry lowered it to cut off retreat. We looked at each other as Burke said: “Adolphe, I’m scared to death—Pierre’s not in the house, hasn’t been in all night. And—did you know?—Cresap’s in town! And I heard shots in the night! And with Pierre detesting’m so, it could mean, God forbid—”

  “Real trouble, couldn’t it?”

  I stepped out, chocking the gun in his ribs, slapping him up quick, and taking a Colt Navy gun that he had in one coat pocket. I handed it to her, motioned him into the kitchen, and sat him down by the table in the chair Mr. Landry had used. I told him put down his hands. “We have some talking to do. And just to start it off friendly, cast it out of your mind, all worry about Pierre Legrand. He’s dead.”

  “... You lie.”

  “No. I killed him. After he tried to kill me. Who told him to, I don’t know—but shooting a man asleep is a dirty Irish trick no Frenchman would ever think of.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Ask the Provost Guard.”

  “And what do you want of me?”

  “As to that, I’ll let Mr. Landry say.”

  “Adolphe! Don’t tell me you’re in with this thug?”

  “Frank, there’s things I have to ask you.”

  “But your home, that you bade me come to, that you invited me into just now, no more than a moment ago, and that I entered all in good faith—where’s the sanctity of’t?”

  “That bothers me, I own that up. But this is life and death. Frank, what about that receipt, the one the Navy gave you, for this cotton I made over to you?”

  “Well what about’t? I have’t!”

  “Mr. Cresap thinks you forged the signature.”

  “I forged’t? Is the fellow daft on this subject?”