Mignon (11 page)

“I go by what’s covered up.”

He then lit into me so bitterly I knew that
he
knew his case had blown up. But Dan interrupted, asking permission to speak. When the colonel nodded, he said to me very coldly: “Bill, not one word that’s been said here—by you, Mr. Landry, or Mrs. Fournet—is true; but we make allowance, as I told you before, for the Red River cotton, which makes people do queer things. But if you think, by suppressing information now, you’re helping Burke, Mr. Landry, and Mrs. Fournet cash their chips, you were never so wrong in your life. Because, if you cooperate, if the three of you do, we could equalize, somehow. For example, those articles we found when we searched Burke’s place last night, that partnership agreement, we might void for some reason—such as fraud figuring in. That would restore Mr. Landry his titles, and might lead to a handsome profit. Now that we know the shoes were a trumped-up thing, we’d be disposed to treat him kindly. But if the three of you keep on associating yourselves with Burke, it breaks the bank for you. It so happens I’ll be in charge of the trading passes next month when the invasion starts to roll, and, I promise you, this oily, slippery, crooked Irishman will not be on board the boat. That’ll extinguish all titles because, don’t forget: The godpappy has to be there, in person, to claim his seizure receipt. Without it he can’t litigate. Do you hear what I’m telling you, Bill?”

“I hear you, so far as that goes.”

“But you still refuse to cooperate?”

“I have nothing more to say.

“You persist in shielding Burke?”

“I’m not shielding anyone.”

“
Yes he is
,
he
’
s shielding a woman!
”

“Madame, hold your tongue!”

The colonel snapped it out like the crack of a whip, and she shut up for a second or two. Then to Dan she said: “You think your old headquarters boat is the only way to Alexandria? Well, there’s others.”

“That’s right, you can walk—or swim.”

“We’ll get Frank there, don’t worry.”

“Then I wish you luck.”

After ordering the guard to quarters, the colonel told Burke: “You may go.” Then, except for the military, we were all clumping downstairs. In the lower hall, Mr. Landry grabbed my arm, saying: “Bill, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t throw away that money. I know Frank did me a grievous wrong, but to get back at him, I’d have to—”

“It’s all right, business is business.”

“I should have talked against him, perhaps, but——”

“Well, I didn’t; why should you?”

“Bill, I may say you surprised me. That woman—”

“
Oh
,
the hell you say!
”

I ripped it out, very bitter, and in fact was perfectly furious that not only she but he, after what I’d accomplished for them, should have the gall to object to a thing already explained by the officers themselves—even the colonel had caught the reason for my bringing a woman in. At my tone he cut it off, and started mumbling about my fee for acting as his counsel, “which I should have brought up sooner, but didn’t.” To me, that was just a pain in the neck, and I started for the door. Then something hit me on the chin—warm, wet, and ticklish, and I realized she had spat from where she was standing nearby. The previous day, the smell of spit from her lips had been intoxicating to me, but now it made me so sick I thought I might lose my breakfast. I ducked out onto the street, and turned the corner before I got out my handkerchief and wiped the stuff off.

A
T THE HOTEL I WASHED MY FACE
, then went down for something to eat. Back in the suite again, I sat down and tried to take stock. I was rocked to the heels, I knew, by what she’d meant to me and by what she’d done to me—unreasonably, I thought. But there was no doubt in my mind as to what I should do about her. It was clear I had to forget her, root her out of my heart completely, so no trace of her would be left. After a while I concluded the best way to do it was to get back to the original tune, the twenty-five thousand dollars and how I would get it. Remembering the talk about bankers we’d had the night before, I began wondering if they weren’t the answer and figuring how I might meet some. Then the numbness seemed to start wearing off, but I was deluding myself—more afterclaps were due, and my troubles had hardly started. Around three, I guess, a knock came on the door, but I waited a second or two before opening, to steel myself to be tough, in case she was there, taking back what she’d said and wanting to make up.

Who was there was Marie’s guard.

He didn’t wait for me to speak, but whipped out his sword, shoved his foot in the door, and called out in French, all in less than a second. Then Marie appeared, in the same little gray dress, with black darts and black shawl, she’d worn that night in the other hotel. He backed me into the room to the space between the windows, and when my head banged the wall told me “Reach.” I did, and then she pushed in close, waving my three twenties in front of my eyes, pulling my mouth open, stuffing them in, and pushing my chin up. They weren’t new bills, so they tasted indescribably filthy. Then she started to work me over, firing the first slap so hard my ears rang. I reached for her wrist automatically, but he jabbed the steel in my stomach, telling me: “Keep ’em up! Keep ’em up against the wall!” I did, and she kept on with her slapping, the licks coming so fast I sounded like a razor being stropped. The shawl slipped off and she flung it aside. The jacket came unbuttoned and she flung it aside. Her hat slipped over one eye and she flung that aside too, causing her ringlets to twist askew and hang over her face. Real, she was ten times the Jezebel she had been, pretending, to entice Pierre from his post. And at last, free of all encumbrance, she let me have it hard, pulling off one shoe and banging my cheekbones with it.

Then, exhausted, she told him: “
Assez
,
assez
,
assez
,” and he told me put down my hands. Then to me she said: “Wash you! Then hear me, what I shall say!” I started for the bath, but kept on to the bedroom, first spitting the bills out on the floor, then digging into my bag and coming up with my Moore & Pond. I went back holding it on them, and he dropped the sword cane, both parts at the same time. I put my foot on the blade, then lifted its hilt to snap it, and kicked stump, point, and scabbard against the sofa. When I looked up she was reaching for her purse. I remembered the derringer in it and kicked over the table she’d put it on. Then I picked it up and dropped it in my pocket. I said: “All right, now suppose you
git
. The two of you, march!”

She said: “I must dress me, please.”

“Then
you
git,” I told him. “Git and keep on gitting. If I open that door and you’re there, it’s the last place you’ll be on this earth. Did you hear me?”

“I did.”

“You did,
what
?”

“I did, sir.”

“That’s better.
Now
—”

But he was legging it for the stairs as I closed the door. When I turned, for the second time that day I felt a wet tickle on my chin, and from the look on her face knew blood must be running down. I took out my handkerchief, but she grabbed it and started to wipe. I knocked her down. Then I went to the bath to wash up, first rinsing out the horrible taste of the money. My face, when I looked in the glass, was so cut, bruised, and puffed that I hardly knew myself. But when I laved it with the witch hazel I used after shaving, it was better—not much, but a little.

When I went back to the sitting room, she was still there on the floor, a tiny heap of blonde ringlets, tousled froufrou, bare arms, and pretty, silk-stockinged legs. But one look and my insides collapsed, as the reaction set in, not only from this scene now, but the preceding ones too, in Dan’s office and in the headquarters hall. I’d worked up quite a sulk, but the bottom fell out of it, and I knelt beside her, picking her up, in a clumsy, laborious way staggering to my feet, and making it to the sofa. I sat down, snuggling her in my lap and having a look at her chin. It was beginning to swell, and of course that made me feel wonderful. I said: “I’m sorry, Marie.”

“I too am sorry, Guillaume. I excuse me.”

“I had it coming, if you mean the beating you gave me. The only surprising thing was I didn’t get it sooner—that you took so long finding me.”

“I found you the same night. It was not
difficile
, please believe me, for me to locate some—”

She hesitated, and I said: “Yank with a game leg?”

“...
Ingénieur
with hair of gold.”

“That’s a very nice way to put it.”

“I came yesterday morning—you were not here. I came last night—you were not here. I came for third time today——”

“And I kept the appointment.”

“I have said,
I excuse me
,
please
.”

That seemed to mean she apologized, which was about all I could really ask. She put her feet up, then stretched her legs out full length, so practically everything showed. Then: “Guillaume, always it is the same, you are
gentil
, I
gamine
. Today, I confess it, I tell the truth: I tried to demean you, to make of you some creature—it was my reason to beat. To see the
élégance brisée. Et après?
You compel Emil to say
Sir
. There, in one word, was my
grand seigneur
. And what have we here,
aussi?
”

“All right, what?”

“
La créature
,
moi
,
regardez
.”

“Oh I wouldn’t quite say that.”

“
Ah oui
, I am nothing.”

“Stop being silly with this kind of talk.”

“
Petit
, I am
demi-mondaine!
”

Then suddenly in a torrent of tears she was kissing my face, every welt and bruise that she’d put there, winding up with my mouth, I kissing back and meaning it. She kept saying: “You make me feel as
grande dame
—as what I wanted to feel and
could
not.” I kept whispering she
was
a
grande dame
, and should stop talking this way. She listened, and soon the weeping began to slack off, so it was just comfortable little sobs as she relaxed in my arms. Then she was loosening her clothes, and not objecting much when I began taking them off.

Pretty soon she was in pantalettes, stockings, pink garters, shoes, and not much else, except for a thin gauzy sling for her attachments above. I patted her, soothed her, and she purred almost like a kitten. Then, after a long time, she asked: “Guillaume, why did you not say? You did what you did for Mignon?”

“... Mignon? You know her?”

“Mignon Fournet? But of course!”

“I hadn’t realized.”

“Not well, but—agreeably. Fournet I knew—too well. When he has lost everything in the war, he comes to me—and loses it
encore
. To him I have returned—all, all that he loses to me, at roulette, at
vingt-et-un
. I owe her nothing, and—”

“She means nothing to you?”

“
Ah oui
,
rien
,
rien!
”

“Then that’s just what she means to me.”

“Then why did she quarrel with you today?”

“So you heard about that too?”

“It is my business, as
joueuse
, to hear all, but I understand not why her father should reconcile with Burke.”

The ins and outs of that had to be explained, and she listened closely. “The answer was tin,” I said. “He made that plain last night—no matter
what
Burke had done to him, he couldn’t afford to pass up sixty thousand dollars. Well, maybe she quarreled with me so Burke wouldn’t quarrel with her and spoil her father’s game.”

“To me, this is not really clear.”

“To me either—
but she means nothing to me
.”

“Why did you leave me, then?”

“If I hadn’t, you know what would have happened?”

“We said dinner,
non?
At Antoine’s? And—”

“Marie, I’d have spent the night in your bed.”

“...
Alors? Alors?
”

“I had work to do that night.”

I told of the paste-up job, the letter, the two copies, the arrangements I made with Olsen. I said: “It had to be done that night,
everything
—or I couldn’t take Burke by surprise.”

“But this you could have explained.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of me, Guillaume?”

“Of myself.”

“Why did you not explain me? By—letter?”

“To be honest, I was ashamed to.”

“
Did you go to her that night?
”

“I swear to you, Marie, I did not.”

She thought that over, lying there in my arms, with the look in her eye of a stud-poker player who knows how to read your mind, then asked: “Have you spoken to her of
les pieux?
”

“Yes—last night, after dinner, to her and her father both. They didn’t take much interest. I have to say, if it had been a Red River job, I think it might have been different—their reaction, I mean.”

“Fournet made this complaint.”

She went into some detail about this boy from the Teche who had started a law practice here, married Mignon, and then found out that all she could get her mind on was stuff about Red River. Then suddenly: “She is
folle
.”

“Well? Aren’t we all, more or less?”

“She makes combinations—which prevail not.”

“I’ve had a few flukes myself, Marie.”

“She put Fournet in
coton de la guerre
.”

“And—she put her father in, so she says.”

“For Fournet it was a catastrophe.”

“For Mr. Landry it may turn out better.”

“He is in—not yet out,
petit
.”

“At least he’s out of jail.”

“Thanks to you, not to her,
pourtant
.”

There may have been more about Fournet, his moral collapse after the cotton broke him, his gambling, his enlistment, and death; it seems to me there must have been because I wound up knowing a great deal about him, but then, very solemnly, she asked me: “Guillaume, do you love her?”

“I swear to you I don’t.”

“Your
demi-mondaine
could love.”