Benjamin January 1 - A Free Man Of Color (39 page)

“No. Of course not.” January walked along, feeling a little stunned.

Fighting is either for joy, or for death. . . .

He could still see the Prussian's cold yellow eyes as he said that, bright as they spoke about the passion of his art. And he'd seen Mayerling fight, in the long upper room that was his salle des armes on Exchange Alley: whalebone and steel and terrifyingly fast. He'd heard about the men he had killed.

Suddenly he remembered Madeleine Trepagier as a child, attacking the Beethoven sonatas like a sculptor carving great chunks of marble in quest of the statues hidden within, drunk with the greedy strength of one lusting to unite with the heart of an art.

Hers was music, like his own. Her lover's was steel.

But the passion was the same. Of course they would find it in each other.

“I understand,” he said softly. “In a way it could be no one else.”

“No,” said Hannibal. His dark eyes clouded. “Too many women who have been . . . injured like that . . . don't find anyone.”

But that was not what January had meant.

They walked in silence, January remembering the occasional couple in Paris—usually prostitutes who came from five or ten or twenty men a day back to the arms of their lady friends. But there had been one pair of middle-aged and smilingly contented daughters of returned aristo emigres who ran a hat shop in the Bois de Boulogne and made fortunes off their bits of flowers and lace.

But none of that, he thought, meant that Augustus Mayerling hadn't been the one to wind that scarf around Angelique's neck.

“I still want to have a look around his rooms,” said January after a time. “In any case he'll want to hear what happened tonight.”

He cannot pass himself off as a gentleman,
Jean Bouille had said of the American Granger, little realizing that the spidery-thin sword master who had taught him was doing exactly that.

Only the mask he wore was his cropped fair hair,
thought January, and the scars on his face. But a mask it was, as surely as the elaborate thing of jewels and fur that had hidden Angelique's face on the night of her death. The man's coat and trousers were a costume as surely as that stolen white silk dress had been, more subtle because they used the minds of those who saw as a disguise.

I wear trousers, therefore you see a man.

Your skin is black, therefore I see a slave.
Except, of course, that Augustus was one of the few people in this country who saw a musician, and a man. Beside him, Hannibal said again, “Will she forgive me? Will Minou make her understand? I thought it was Minou. She was wearing Minou's dress—I thought it was Minou. I'm so sorry.”

January started to say, “It's all right, she was just scared—” and then stopped, and it seemed to him that the blood in his veins turned colder dian the rain.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered.

Hannibal halted too, looking up at him, baffled. “What—”

“She was wearing Madeleine's jewels,” said January softly.

“Who was? Minou . . .”

“She was wearing Madeleine's jewels, and whoever killed her thought she was Madeleine.” January still stood in the middle of the banquette, staring into space, shaken to his bones but knowing, as surely as he knew his name, that he was right.

“They killed the wrong woman.”

“Who did? Why would anyone . . . ?”

“The plantation,” said January. He made a move back toward Rue Burgundy, then halted, knowing the carriage had moved away from the banquette moments after he and Hannibal had left the house. “Les Saules. It butts up against the Gentilly place—wasn't one of the proposed streetcar routes Granger and Bouille were fighting over out past Bayou Gentilly? If the route goes out there the land will be worth a fortune. If she sells it all to that McGinty fellow for debts . . .”

“McGinty?” said Hannibal, startled. “McGinty was one of Granger's seconds. The pirate with the red Vandyke, holding the horses.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment, pieces falling into place: McGinty's coppery whiskers clashing with the purple satin of his pirate mask, the faubourgs of New Orleans spreading in an Americanized welter of wooden gingerbread and money, Livia's dry voice reading aloud William Granger's slanderous accusations of Jean Bouille in the newspaper, the efforts to discredit Madeleine before Aunt Picard could marry her off.

“Come on!” January turned and strode down Rue Bienville, Hannibal hurrying, gasping, in his wake.

“How did they know she'd be at the ball?”

“Sally. The girl who ran off. The one who had a 'high-toned' boyfriend—a white boyfriend. You or Fat Mary ever find out anything of where she went?”

The fiddler shook his head. “Not a word of her.”

“Ten to one the man she ran off with was McGinty or someone connected with him. He'd been around the plantation on business.”

“And tonight ...”

“It's got to be someone connected with the Trepagier family. Someone who stands to inherit—and my guess is it's Arnaud's brother. Claud, the one who's been in Texas.” He strode along the banquette, heedless of the rain. “Anyone connected with the family would know she'd be at her Aunt Picard's tonight. Anyone could have arranged an ambush.”

“Then if the attack this evening wasn't chance . . .”

“They'll have followed her out of town to try again.”

Hannibal's breathing had hoarsened to a dragging gasp by the time they reached the gallery outside Mayerling's rooms. The rain was heavy now, streaming down from a tar-black sky and glittering in the lamps hung under the galleries. In the amber glow of the candles that the Prussian brought to the open door, January could see no difference, no clue to confirm what he now knew. The epicene ivory beakiness was the same. His only thought was, Even without the scars, that's one homely woman.

“Madame Trepagier is in trouble,” said January, as the Prussian stepped out onto the gallery, clothed in vest and shirtsleeves, the short-cropped blond bristle of hair still damp from its earlier wetting in the rain. “Where do you keep your chaise?”

“Rue Douane. Where is she?” He reached back through the door and fetched his coat from its peg. “And how do you—? ”

“Bring your guns.”

Mayerling stopped, his eyes going to January's, then past him to Hannibal, leaning on the upright of the gallery stair and holding his ribs to still his coughing.

“What's happened? Come in.” He strode away into the apartment, where another branch of candles burned on a table before an open book. The place was small and almost bare, but in one corner of the room stood a double escapement seven-octave Broadwood piano, and music was heaped on its lid and the table at its side.

The Prussian flipped open an armoire, pulled a drawer, drew forth the boxed set of Manton pistols with which Granger and Bouille had missed each other, and a bag of shot. From the wall beside the armoire he took down a Kentucky long rifle and an English shotgun.

During this activity January explained, “Someone attacked Madame Trepagier after she left here.” Mayerling turned his head sharply, but January went on, “She was assaulted in Orleans Alley by the cathedral. I stopped them, sent her off home, but now I think they'll try again. Her brother-in-law's behind it, he's got to be.”

“Claud?” Mayerling handed January the shotgun— thereby, January reflected wryly, breaking Louisiana state law—slung the powder box under his arm, and shrugged his coat on top of it, to keep it out of the rain. The last time he had had a gun in his hands, thought January, had been at the Battle of Chalmette. “I'd heard he was back in town, staying with the Trepagier cousins.”

“When?” asked January, startled.

“I don't know.” Their feet clattered on the wood of the stairways, down one gallery, two. “Mardi Gras itself I think, or the day before. At least that's when he sent a message to Madeleine asking to see her.”

“Did she?”

“No.” His voice was dry and very cold. “I think she knew he was going to propose to her.”

“Try to murder her, more like. She's lucky she didn't go. You know what he looks like?”

“No. Which is as well,” he added softly, “from what she has told me of the man. But why would he have men attack her? Why would he—”

“To inherit Les Saules,” said January as they reached the street.

The sword master checked his stride for a moment to regard him in surprise. “The plantation? But without slaves it's worthless. The land's run-down, there are too few slaves to work what they have, they need to replant every one of the fields . . .”

“The land will be worth a hundred dollars an acre if they put the streetcar line out from Gentilly, instead of from LaFayette like Granger's company proposed.”

“Granger.” Mayerling's light, husky voice was soft. “The duel was over Bouille's decision, of course. Since it went against Granger the line will of course be from Gentilly. And Granger's friend McGinty would have known that. He's been pressing Madeleine to sell to him for months now.”

“And at a guess,” said Hannibal, reaching out one hand to prop himself just slightly on the iron post of the gallery, “Claud Trepagier is the fellow in the green Turk costume who was talking to McGinty in the Salle d'Orleans a few minutes before Angelique came in.” “Affenschwdnz,” said Mayerling coldly. “The horse is at the livery just down the way. It will take me minutes . . .”

“Pick me up on Rue Douane below Rampart. Hannibal, you sound like you'd better stay here.”

The fiddler coughed, and shook his head violently. “You'll need a loader.”

There was no time to argue, so January simply handed the shotgun to Hannibal and took off up Bien-ville at a lope. A few minutes brought him to Olympe's cottage, where a boy of eleven or so opened the French door into the front bedroom, instead of to the parlor where he had been before.

“Mama, she with a lady, sir,” said the boy politely, in slurry Creole French. “You come in, though, it pourin' out.” He stepped aside. Through an open door into the other bedroom January could see three more children, like little stair steps, sitting cross-legged on a big bed with a large, broad-shouldered, very kindly-looking mulatto man who was reading to them from a book.

The man got up at once and came in, holding out his hand. “You must be Ben. I'm Paul Corbier.”

Once upon a time January could have pictured Olympe marrying no one less impressive than the Devil himself. Looking at his brother-in-law's face he understood at least some of his sister's mellower mood. “I need to speak to Olympe, now, quickly. I think our sister's in trouble . . . Dominique. I need somebody to find Lieutenant Shaw of the police—or any of the police— and send them out to the Gentilly Road, out to the Trepagier plantation at Les Saules, quickly. There's an ambush been laid, murder going to be done.”

“They'll want to know how you know this,” said Corbier.

January shook his head. “It's not something I can prove. Lieutenant Shaw will know, it's part of the Crozat murder case. Tell him I think Madeleine Trepagier is going to be ambushed there and we may need help. I'm going out there now.”

Harness jingled and tires squelched in the mud, and turning, January saw over his shoulder the chaise that had carried them out to the Allard plantation for the duel. Dark-slicked with water, the horse shook its head against the rain. By the oil lamp in the bracket above the door, and the lesser gleam of the carriage lamps, Mayerling's scarred face was a pale blur in the dark of the leather hood.

“Dominique's with Madame Trepagier. Get Olympe to go, or send one of the children, but hurry!”

January sprang down the high brick step, across the banquette, vaulting the gutter and scrambling into the chaise, crowding its two occupants. His last glimpse of the light showed Paul Corbier turning to give some urgent instruction to the oldest boy as he shut the louvered door.

Mayerling lashed the reins. The wheels jarred and lurched in ruts and mud and jolted as they passed over the gutters, sprays of water leaping around them with the black glitter of liquid coal.

“Hannibal tells me your sister Dominique is with her.”

“I had to take her somewhere. Minou knows enough not to speak of it later.”

“Trepagier will have hired his men in the Swamp,” said Hannibal, clinging to the two long guns and swaying with the violence of their speed. “For a dollar Nahum Shagrue's boys would sack the orphanage if they thought they could get away with it. The mutable, rank-scented many . . . Keelboat pirates . . . killers.”

“I've met Monsieur Shagrue.” January remembered those pig-cunning eyes, and the stink of sewage dripping off his coat.

“The green Turk was with Charles-Louis Trepagier at the Theatre on Mardi Gras night,” said Mayerling in time. “I remember his words concerning Madeleine.” The thin nostrils flared with silent anger. “I'm sorry now I didn't settle the matter there and then, in the courtyard. Capon. I suppose by then he had decided that he would rather kill than wed her.”

“McGinty would have told him a proposal wasn't any use,” said January. “He'd already tried it, as soon as Arnaud was dead—which means he knew there was a chance of the streetcar line going through even then. That must have been when he sent for Claud, and when he started romancing Sally, to keep an eye on Madame Trepagier's movements. Of course as a broker who'd handled Arnaud's affairs he'd have met her. It must have been Sally who told him Madame Trepagier was going to the quadroon ball to talk to Angelique.”

“Told him she was going,” said Hannibal, “but not what she would wear.”

“And Claud hadn't seen Madeleine since her wedding to his brother, thirteen years ago. He couldn't have, if he'd embezzled money and stolen a slave. So when he saw a woman of her height and her build, wearing her jewels. . . .”

“It refreshes me to know,” said Mayerling, never taking his eyes from the road, “that upon occasion, some people do get what they deserve. By the way,” he added, “thank you for telling her to get out of there. I had no idea of her intention until I saw her, looking in at the ballroom door.”

“She was with you until ten, wasn't she?” January kept his voice steady with an effort, for Mayerling drove like the Wild Hunt, and once beyond the lamps of the Faubourg Marigny the road beneath the overhanging oaks was pitch-dark. An occasional glimmer of soft gaslight through colored curtains flickered through the trees like a fashionable ghost to show where houses stood, but even those grew more sparse as the road got worse.