The Drowned Man (38 page)

Like Joe Carpenter, Dunning Malloway had too many targets, but he wasn't displeased to find Peter Cammon standing in his direct line of fire. He had been waiting a long time to shoot someone — waiting for a hundred thousand pounds sterling to kill the right someone. Dunning had never shot anyone, but he had no qualms. He hadn't faltered in the Buffalo parking lot when he had a good bead on the girl. The old detective had jogged his arm and now his interfering had come full circle. Dunning would wade through any number of bloodsuckers and bureaucrats and old men to get to the girl — he was sure that she lurked somewhere in the house — and Cammon provided that little extra motive.

It did not appear to Malloway that Peter was armed, but he might have something in his hand hidden by the table top. It was often said around the office, mostly by Counter, that “Old Cammon hides things.” Once, when a junior colleague pressed the matter, Frank Counter had said, “Cammon goes rogue from the get-go. Doesn't share. There's a dozen ways he hides things.”

Dunning waited a few seconds longer. He took an extra moment to analyze his situation, and thus, unwittingly, planted a seed of doubt in his own mind. Did Cammon really have a gun? Why didn't he move? Dunning shifted to his right to flank the dining room table and saw Olivier Seep on the floor behind the detective. At the same time, he caught sight of another man in the kitchen. He was confused. Cammon still wasn't moving; it was almost as though he had been struck mute by the pistol in Dunning's hand. Simple arithmetic told Dunning that he now had three times the witnesses to eliminate. But none of them was armed. He began to debate with himself. His gun should have produced clarity of purpose: kill them all and find the girl. Unfortunately, Cammon's stoic refusal to move provoked Malloway's indignation, and outrage is the enemy of judgement in a man who has never killed.

Peter Cammon made his own calculations and decided to wait his opponent out. The Lorcin pistol, held just below the table, lacked the stopping force of Malloway's weapon, although Peter was close enough to take a decent shot. He held to his plan: he would use the unreliable gun only under extreme duress. He could hear Tommy Verden now: “Let's see, you shot a colleague with an unlicensed popgun probably stolen from a hooker by the hooker's killer. No gold stars for you.”

Peter hoped to make this a negotiation, otherwise known as buying time.
Time burns off impulse
, he thought.
Talk leads to rationalization. Wait him out.
As long as Malloway and Pascal Renaud didn't panic, the man who spoke first would lose.

“Is the girl here?” Dunning Malloway said.

“No,” Peter said. “She was, but not now.” Malloway was staring at the bloody bundle strapped to the sideboard. Peter registered his confusion at the sight of the blood-soaked near-corpse.

“She did that to Seep? Why?”

“You've forgotten in all this, Dunning, that the girl always knew Seep killed her boyfriend. She's always had that in her mind. This is payback.”

“But she was complicit. Made a deal.”

The more he whinges, the weaker his resolve to end this with gunfire,
Peter estimated. “This is over, Dunning. Alida is gone.”

“I don't believe you.”

The fading of Malloway's hopes might well spark him to shoot, Peter knew, and his objective became to keep him arguing. Peter decided to prod from another direction while looking for an opening. “The cricket syndicate is going to be rolled up, Dunning. We know about the deal with the gamblers and the Pakistanis. We know the head man.”

“You can't touch him. You don't even know his name.”

“His nickname is the Sword,” Peter said mildly. “Real name Devi. Alida told us. Souma in Delhi confirmed it.”

“She wouldn't dare tell. And if she did talk to you, which I doubt, she can't be far away. She'll show up,” Malloway replied. He was justifying himself, and that was fine with Peter.

“She
did
show up. She was here and she won't be back. Face it, Dunning, you can't shoot all of us.”

“A gunfight can be staged.”

It happens sometimes that an innocent civilian facing a gun barrel can't stand the tension any longer and tries to interact with the gunman. Peter had seen this form of instant Stockholm Syndrome before. And so Pascal Renaud chose that exact unpropitious moment to satisfy his curiosity.

“Don't you want the Booth letters?” Pascal blurted, now positioned near Peter. “They're worth a fortune. If you kill us, they may never surface.”

“I couldn't care less about the letters,” said Malloway.

“He cares about the girl,” Peter said, trying to keep his voice even. He shifted to block the gunman's angle of fire on Pascal, while continuing to shelter Seep on the floor behind him. He held the pistol motionless under the table. “His patron, the Sword, wants her dead.”

Seep began to revive, exhaling deeply between groans and whimpers. He struggled against the cable that bound him to the sideboard. Malloway took two steps to the right and fired a shot into Seep's right foot. The professor screamed and flailed, his left foot slamming against the floor. The blast caused Peter and Pascal to jump, even as Peter noted the accuracy of the shot. He fought to stay in position. Fortunately, Malloway still failed to see the tiny pistol under the table.

“Where's the girl, Professor Seep?” Malloway said.

Peter risked a step to his left, so that he half-shielded Seep. “Dunning, you don't get it, do you? He doesn't know where the girl is planning to go. If he did, she would have killed him rather than just beating him. She's covered her tracks.”

Malloway's dilemma was evident to Peter and Pascal.
Guns transform men, it is said.
Malloway, having fired once, felt the authority of the pistol, Peter could see. Malloway turned to Olivier Seep and started to crouch down. Peter took the opening to raise his weapon.

The back of Dunning Malloway's head exploded in a way that morbidly recalled to Peter the Zapruder film of
JFK
's assassination. The right rear quadrant of his brain burst from its cavity. Minute pieces of the carapace carved like shrapnel into thirty expensive paintings, while brain matter and blood re-coated the artwork in arterial red. The paintings rattled with the discharge of the .45.

Peter clutched the unfired pistol in his hand. He looked from the gun to Neil Brayden, who seemed as if he might fire the .45 again.

Cammon saw what Brayden saw, that a second bullet would be unnecessary. Brayden pointed his gun slightly downward but did not immediately move from the far doorway. His left arm hung at an odd angle. Peter noted that like himself and Pascal, Brayden had tiptoed in without shoes. His big toe was sticking out through a hole in his sock.

“I saw all your shoes in the entrance,” Brayden said, his voice hoarse. “It's like an effing mosque out there.”

Pascal Renaud leaned against the kitchen doorway with relief, Malloway's brain spray not having quite reached him. But Peter knew that the crisis wasn't over. For one thing, Brayden wasn't moving and it was a short segment of a circle to a new deadly vector. Peter made sure the safety on the Lorcin was off.

“Neil, why did you do that?”

Brayden's eyes were glazed. “I killed him.”

Peter grasped that he wasn't referring to Dunning Malloway. “Who?”

“An hour ago. Tom Hilfgott.”

Of all the people Peter had encountered lately, Tom Hilfgott was the least connected to violence. “What happened?”

“He thought I had slept with Nicola last night. He got it wrong. Any other night, sure, but it was Malloway who slept with her. Tom thought I had screwed his wife. Ironic, isn't it? He must have heard something going on in her bedroom. He came after me with a golf club.”

“Self-defence,” Pascal whispered. Peter wasn't sure if his friend was trying to comfort Neil Brayden or reflexively offering an academic's observation.

“Shut up, Pascal. Neil, what made you come here?'

“Nicola tried to stop the fight,” Brayden said. “She told me Malloway was on his way here.”

“Neil, you have to put down the gun.”

“I have to go,” Brayden said. He was out of the room in five seconds. Peter moved quickly to Seep and checked his vital signs. His breathing was harsh and his pulse was elevated, signalling shock. Peter wadded his jacket and jammed it against the foot wound. He had Renaud unhook the bleeding man from the sideboard and check for major cuts and bruises while Peter went to the telephone in the kitchen and dialled 9-1-1.

As the emergency operator answered, in French and English, Peter heard a shot from outside. He tried to gauge the direction of the sound. If Brayden had fired the .45 again, it logically should have come from the front of the house, his escape route, but Peter remained unsure. He had no idea of the size or configuration of the backyard, and doubted that he could easily gain access. But however illogical it seemed, Peter was confident that Neil had fired the gun at the rear of the residence. Peter had no idea who the target might be.

“Attends,”
Peter said and passed the phone to Renaud, who accepted it with his blood-smeared hand. “Give them directions. Police
and
ambulance. Tell them one gunshot around the back. But stay here, Pascal.”

Peter slid the patio door open about two feet and got down on his hands and knees. He crept across the threshold and onto a wooden porch, where an opaque panelled railing shielded him from the lawn. He paused to check the small pistol. The dining room chandelier cast a faint glow through the window but otherwise the backyard remained in shadow. He heard movement from the end of the property but could see nothing. Peter had no choice but to stand if he wanted to evaluate the danger. Whoever Brayden had shot at likely had the house under surveillance front and back. Brayden must have seen the men waiting at the front and dodged around the side lane to the backyard, firing a shot as he ran. Too late Peter understood his own mistake. Brayden was still at the side of the house and thus had not triggered the photosensitive floodlights at the rear. But Peter did so now by standing up. Below him emerged Neil Brayden in stark blue-tinged light at the edge of the lawn. He turned to Peter in agony, and then looked back towards the far reaches of the lawn, which remained in darkness.

A shot came from the dark but missed Brayden and slammed into the base of the porch, launching splinters everywhere. Peter had encountered death-by-cop before. He vaulted the railing and landed hard, just behind Brayden. He kept the gun in his hand as he jumped.

The figures hiding in the back bushes saw only two agitated men with weapons in their hands.

Another shot went over Cammon and Brayden's heads.

Peter shouted, “Deroche!”

Brayden, taller than Peter by several inches, aimed the .45 at a noise in the hedge in front of him. If he let loose with the big pistol he would blow apart everything in range. Peter began to raise his feeble weapon.

Sylvain Deroche rushed out of the shadows directly at Brayden in a foolhardy bid for glory. It was a suicidal tactic and it drew a second policeman from the hedge, pistol drawn. Brayden had both officers in his sights. Deroche's man fired at Brayden but missed. The bullet struck the picture window in the dining room and imprinted a spider web pattern in the glass. Peter was now pointing his weapon at a slight upward slant at Brayden's skull. As the pistol touched the man's hairline Peter pulled the trigger.

Brayden got off one shot. Another policeman fired twice, bullets zinging over the heads of the men on the grass. Peter fell to the ground. Deroche launched himself to his right and onto Brayden's crippled shoulder, but the man was already dead. Peter saw the .45 fall from Brayden's grip.

Deroche turned over to look at Peter, who in all the chaos still clutched his pistol. One of the officers gently wrested it from his hand. Peter turned to the inspector and both men instinctively gazed back at the one thing that had struck both of them as not making sense. The dining room window had not shattered. Olivier Seep had installed bullet-proof glass in his residence.

Sylvain Deroche got to his knees. “Let me guess, Peter. We won't find any old letters inside.”

Peter nodded. “Not even one.”

Eight men laid into the oars, five on at the down-current gunwales, three to the upstream side. They rowed into the unwelcoming fog. The wind had abated and the surface of the St. Lawrence lay flat as a table, at least until the crew and passengers lost sight of it entirely in the enveloping mist.

The Marylander moved back from the bow and took shelter from the drizzle with the horses at the centre of the vessel, which was as much raft as boat. He marked his large trunk stacked in with the other luggage at the stern. To pass the time, he read the notice tacked to the tethering post. It advertised the Queen's insistence that excise be paid on imported goods and boxed liquors at the Montreal landing. He smiled his actor's grin, but only for a few seconds, for he felt a rush of loneliness as he floated between invisible shores. The South lay far behind him.

The fog might have stood for young Booth's single-minded lack of interest in the Canadas, and in both the river and the anticipated city on the coming shore. He listened to the crew cursing in French but understood none of it. Montreal was a mystery to him, except that the Virginia papers called it Little Richmond for all the Confederate agents and escaped prisoners who had taken up residence there. But he had his own special mission in the City of Saints. He cautioned himself to display his usual charm, if only to remain anonymous and unchallenged while in the town.

The fog dissipated like a rising proscenium curtain to reveal the bustling harbour a hundred yards ahead and the giant mountain beyond. Booth believed in icons of good luck and he marked the spire of an old church poking above the retreating mist.

It was the 18th day of October in the year 1864 and it seemed to John Wilkes Booth that all of the city was descending on his hotel, the St. Lawrence Hall. Men in Richmond had called the hostelry “Confederate Headquarters” and by far the best place to stay in the city. His wagon driver had to wait in a long line of similar wagons and stylish carriages. The actor instructed him to leave the trunk inside and meanwhile made his way through the traffic to the front door, only to be swept inwards by a crowd of soldiers, deliverymen, and merchants and their wives, all gathering for grand festivities. British regulars in scarlet and blue uniforms clustered in the lobby and for a moment Booth worried that his presence would be challenged; Union spies regularly reported the arrival of their Confederate opposites to the authorities. But he realized that the crowd gave him the invisibility he wanted, and he proceeded towards the registration desk.

Booth wearily crossed the expansive outer and inner foyers of the Hall while the raucous buzz of conversation flowed around him. Off to his left, through the rotunda, music and the clack of billiard balls emanated from the main bar. Farther on he noted a grand staircase leading up to a second-floor salon; on his right he marked a reading room with newspapers hanging on wooden racks.

Booth was used to being recognized, so he wasn't surprised when one man in the throng did. Henry Hogan, a thickset hotelier with Burnside whiskers and a friendly, all-knowing smile, had run the hotel since its opening in 1852. He often used a peephole in his office to monitor entrants to his place but this afternoon he remained at the front desk. His practised eye sized up the visitor as something more than the usual salesman. The arrival exuded a worldliness merged with youthful arrogance, while his long coat with the astrakhan collar and his high riding boots, now splattered with Montreal mud, set him apart. The jet-black hair was striking, too, and he was blessed with smooth, pale skin; Hogan found a resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe, the Baltimore poet and journalist. But the initials “
JWB
” tattooed on the man's hand gave him away. Hogan now had a decision to make, whether to acknowledge the customer's identity or let him be. As it turned out, the famous actor solved the dilemma for him.

“I would like a room for the week,” the man said, in a pleasant, modulated voice. “I have a trunk.”

“I will give you room 150, at the back of the hotel, away from the worst of the noise,” Hogan replied, and rotated the register towards him.

Booth, without hesitation, signed “John Wilkes Booth.”

Hogan smiled and, still uncertain as to Booth's business in Montreal, kept his voice low. “I saw your brother, Edwin, perform in New York, and your father some years ago in Philadelphia. Are you appearing on stage in the city, perhaps?”

The dark young man looked up and his expression intensified. “I have given over my theatrical activities for more important drama.”

It was an intemperate thing to say. Henry Hogan was a Union supporter and known to pass information on his guests to colonial officials. But Hogan remained star-struck and continued, “We have two grand theatres. The Crystal Palace, alas, is closed for repairs but the Theatre Royal boasts fifteen hundred seats, gas lighting, too. I am sure you might arrange one of your nights of readings, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade' and ‘Beautiful Snow,' perhaps.”

Before either man could address Hogan's question, a figure intervened at Booth's left elbow, causing him to turn. The man was short, ruddy-faced, and earnest; had Hogan been asked to label his profession, he would have replied “Southern agitator,” and he would have been correct.

“John Wilkes?” the
intervenant
said, keeping his voice low. Booth called up his actor's smile.

“If you would see to my traveller's trunk, Mr. . . .”

“Hogan. Of course I will.” Hogan turned to imagined business as Booth and the new man left the desk.

They hustled towards the entrance to the hotel, and the man introduced himself in the same low tone. “I am Patrick Martin. From Baltimore. We share friends in Maryland and Virginia.”

“I wish to be introduced to more of your friends,” Booth managed to say through the din of the crowd.

They retreated to a tavern up the block near the Place d'Armes. Most of the patrons in the gloomy bar, Booth noted, spoke French but the barkeep was bilingual and Martin ordered rum for himself and brandy for the actor in English.

“We're both from Baltimore?” Martin began.

“I'm from Bel Air, just to the north,” Booth said. “Our estate is called Tudor Hall. But, yes, consider me a Baltimore man. What is going on at the hotel? Is it wise for me to stay there with all that military about?”

Martin grinned. Booth saw a man comfortable in himself. “You don't want to stay at the Donegana Hotel,” Martin stated. “That's where the escaped
CSA
soldiers who don't have any money put up. Now don't give me that look, Mr. Booth. You will meet plenty of our military men at the Hall. The Hall is where the important folks stay.”

“And you know the important people?” Booth sneered, flaring at the insult to Southern prisoners-of-war.

For his part, Patrick Martin took note of his companion's volatile reaction and immediately wondered at his stability. He held back judgement.

“You asked about the multitudes in the city. The Confederacy is not the only colony on the edge of independence, my friend. As we speak, the Canadians are in conference at Quebec, upriver, and reports say that they have reached consensus on the articles of nationhood. This Canadian movement is a juggernaut, I can attest. A celebration is being prepared for their arrival in Montreal after the conference.”

“Will they keep the Queen as their ruler?”

“Oh, yes,” said Martin amiably. “This will not be our republic nor the haven of states' rights believers.”

“Then I want no part of it. Kingship is to be reviled.”

“Not so harshly, Mr. Booth. Victoria is well loved here. Within memory, the Prince of Wales came here on a Royal progress to open the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence, a mighty feat of engineering. My own sloop is christened the
Marie Victoria
. This is a country on the move.”

“Are
these
men so fervent for a British dependency as their future?” Booth said, indicating the French-Canadians surrounding them.

“Don't be so sure they want independence from the British at this stage of their history. Don't forget, if the damned North wins, they may turn their armies loose on the Canadas and the result for the French will be a greater threat of assimilation.”

“It might be the moment for their own revolution,” Booth riposted.

“Don't talk drivel, Mr. Booth. There are eighteen thousand British regulars stationed in the five colonies.”

“Yes, and they all seem to be staying at the Hall,” Booth replied.

Martin laughed. “That is certain, and they include Sir Fenwick Williams, commander of all Her Majesty's Forces in North America. You'll see him. Look for the bald head; always sports a gold-hilted sword.”

By then Booth was on his third brandy, although Martin had barely sipped his second tot. The cagey blockade-runner looked at the young actor and worried. Still, Southern manners won out.

“I received your letter of introduction from our mutual friends. What can I do for you, sir?”

Booth leaned forward. “You can give me space for my wardrobe trunk on your sloop. I understand that you will soon embark on a long sail to Portsmouth across the Atlantic?”

Martin kept his voice low; their faces were inches apart. “I am indeed leaving in two weeks for England. You want your baggage transhipped? To where, Charleston?”

“First to the Bahamas, then on to Charleston,” Booth said.

“That isn't a problem. The British tolerate our traffic to England. Beyond there, it will be someone else's problem, and there has been little hazard running goods through to Nassau. But I believe you want something else from me, Mr. Booth.”

“I understand that government commissioners are present in Montreal and that their leader, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, is resident at the St. Lawrence Hall. I would like to be introduced.”

Martin shook his head. “You haven't heard, then. There has been an incident, a provocation. Earlier today, a group of expatriate soldiers, Army of Northern Virginia men, carried out a raid across the border into Vermont. They robbed the bank in a town called St. Albans and killed a local citizen, then fled back to Canada. The Union's provost marshal in Vermont has demanded their extradition and has already threatened to send his troopers onto Canadian soil, although what they would do here is unclear to me.”

“And Thompson sponsored this enterprise?”

“Indirectly. The organizer is the second of the commissioners, Mr. Clement Clay, an Alabama man, who tends to be behind most of the schemes these commissioners attempt. He's about the most querulous fellow you will ever meet. But, yes, Thompson is now the focus of investigation by the colonial security people. The commissioners will not have time for you this week.”

“That is disappointing.”

“Why? What can they do for you?”

“I have ideas,” Booth said.

“The commissioners are overflowing with ideas. Corner the gold market. Send Lincoln foodstuffs infected with smallpox. Inflame the Northwest against Lincoln in the election next month.”

Martin tried to estimate how much Booth knew about clandestine efforts against the Union. Most behind-the-lines plots had failed and managed merely to irritate the British. If Booth were to meet the governor general, Lord Monck, he might grasp that the British were not to be provoked into war with Lincoln and Seward. The St. Albans raid would test everyone's patience but Martin knew the crisis would pass like the others. He hoped that Booth understood that this was a time for discretion.

Patrick Martin escorted the slightly drunk John Wilkes Booth back to the hotel. The crowd had moved to the ballroom, which at present did duty as the dining room. Henry Hogan watched from his spy hole as Booth entered.

Over the next seven days, Patrick Martin did his best to entertain Booth, who showed little gratitude or patience, the exception being his suppers with the Martin family in their rooms at a boarding house in Rue Saint François Xavier, where he turned on his charm with Mrs. Martin and played the heartthrob role with their daughter, Margaret. Otherwise, the sailor kept his guest busy with visits to several banks in the Square Mile. The transactions mystified Martin, for the actor proceeded to buy sixty pounds British sterling, using gold coins for the purchase, and then obtained bank drafts against his account balance at the Ontario Bank in a similar amount. Booth appeared to be clearing the decks for action. In the afternoons the actor drank heavily, mostly brandy, and he often grew argumentative, spewing bile at Lincoln in the presence of anyone who would listen. Some days, disgusted, Martin abandoned him at the St. Lawrence Hall bar, pleading family commitments.

The actor settled into a routine that approached idleness. At the hotel, he took to examining the English papers, taking his drink across the foyer to the reading room, which was frowned upon. The
Gazette
, with its pro-South leanings, became his favourite of the dozens of papers published in Canada East, although he also read the pro-Union Toronto
Globe
for its tracking of the war. He learned of General Early's defeat at Cedar Creek, the manoeuvring of Hood and Sherman in Alabama and the declaration by Lincoln of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

Each afternoon, Henry Hogan posted news of the Quebec conference on Confederation and the planned celebrations at the Hall. October 28th had been declared a public holiday. The fancy ball would welcome eight hundred guests. “Tickets: $6 for a gentleman accompanied by two ladies, $4 for a gentleman alone,” the advertisement said. The next day, Hogan pinned the menu to the dining room door frame: “October 29 Gala Dinner: Oyster soup, viands and game, ice cream and fruit. Champagne, claret, lemonade, sherry, and ale.” On the following afternoon, Hogan displayed the itinerary of the Colonial delegates, who were scheduled to arrive in Montreal by boat and train. The governor general, Lord Monck, would review the Canadian Volunteer Force on the Champ de Mars, while the local fire brigade would put on a demonstration.