The Crescent Spy (27 page)

“Come with me,” he said. “Not to be
with
me, you understand. But to be out of harm’s way with the fleet.”

“I won’t lose my nerve now,” she said. “Let Francesca accuse me. Remember what I said. It doesn’t matter if there’s blood. No body, no murder.”

“I don’t believe that, and neither do you. It’s no longer safe for you here.”

“Mr. Lincoln didn’t ask me to be safe. He asked me to do my duty.”

“Yes, but what was it you told him? If there’s an alligator in your path, you should go downstream a stretch. This is your metaphor made true. You should paddle downstream.”

“I’ll paddle downstream when New Orleans falls. Not a moment before.”

Franklin put a hand to her cheek. “My dear,” he whispered.

She caught her breath. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted movement, which proved to be a pair of soldiers strolling along the levee, muskets held sloppily in hand. Before she could decide if this is what had drawn Franklin’s touch, he withdrew his hand and pulled out the pocket watch. It wasn’t for the benefit of the soldiers, but for an elderly gentleman with a cane who followed a few paces behind the two men. The man with the cane didn’t take notice of the watch, or look in their direction at all.

“What time is it?” she asked while he still had the watch open.

“Ten past eight. Your man is late.”

“Studying the surroundings, perhaps. Seeing if we look like a threat.”

“Or scared off by the soldiers,” he said. “Anyone who would smuggle a fugitive wouldn’t put his neck out if he thought he might be caught.”

Another soldier came toward them, this one from the group of men milling near the gangplank that led to the barge. He took out a cigarette, while Josephine and Franklin pretended not to notice, speaking to each other in the low tones of reunited lovers. At last he came over and stood a few feet away, watching.

“I’m fixing to have a smoke,” the soldier interrupted at last. “But I’ll be durned if’n I don’t have a match. I don’t suppose—”

Josephine didn’t believe this. Whether or not he had matches, his companions back at the river surely did, as they were puffing away. The soldier had come to give them a once-over, for whatever reason. Suspicion maybe, or perhaps curiosity about Franklin’s uniform.

But Franklin obligingly fetched a vial of matches from his pocket and lit the man’s cigarette, who then turned to go. Suddenly, something occurred to Josephine.

“What time is it, dear?” she asked Franklin.

Franklin’s eyes widened slightly, and he hurriedly fished out his watch, which he flipped open so the lip with the crescent and star faced the soldier, caught with the reflection of the gaslight. The soldier turned and took a puff. No emotion registered on his face, and her hopes sputtered.

But then the man spoke. “Two downriver? That’s a change. It will cost you.”

“How much?” Franklin asked.

“No,” Josephine said firmly. “One person, not two. Just my husband, not me.”

“Listen carefully,” the man said to Franklin. His folksy accent was gone, replaced by something both cultured and calculating. “Don’t turn, but there’s a warehouse to your right about fifty feet away. Did you see it?”

“Yes,” Franklin said.

“Go inside. There’s a box about the size and shape of a coffin standing in the back left corner. The lid is loose—you can pry it open with your hands and step inside. In about ten minutes, we’ll be loading up the rest of the crates.”

“You can’t drop him at the forts with the rest,” Josephine told him.

“Don’t tell me my business,” the soldier said. “The forts are only the first stop. The rest of the shipment goes to an outpost near Head of Passes.” He turned back to Franklin. “Understand? Good.”

He gave a curt nod and turned away to rejoin his companions.

Josephine cast a lazy glance over toward the warehouse the soldier had mentioned. It was little more than an oversize, ramshackle shed, the kind built from flatboats floated down the Mississippi and broken apart for building material rather than hauled painstakingly back upstream.

“It looks clear,” she said. “As soon as the soldier is back with the others, you should go.”

“Be careful.”

“You, too.”

“When the attack comes, find a safe place and wait until the fighting is over.”

“You know me better than that,” she said. “I’ll be where the story is. Now go.”

He placed the watch on her lap as he rose. Only when he was up and hobbling toward the shed did she remember the ugly bruise on his leg. She hadn’t felt a break, but the way he was walking she wondered if maybe there had been a small fracture. Yet she couldn’t give him the crutches; that would surely draw more attention still. So she sprang to her feet, pocketing the watch as she caught up with him. She put her arm around his waist, grabbed his belt, and lifted with all her strength every time he put his left leg down. This caused him to groan as she pressed into his broken ribs, but it kept him from limping quite so markedly.

“Thank you,” he whispered as he left her and entered the shed.

Josephine turned around, worried that the eyes of the soldiers near the barge would be fixed on them. Instead, they all circled around a man gesturing wildly as he related some anecdote. Moments later, the group of men guffawed and slapped each other on the backs. She had no doubt it was the smuggler telling the story to draw their attention. The man did know his business.

She returned to the log bench to wait. A few minutes later, an officer came down from the barge and shouted at the soldiers to get to work. Those with weapons set theirs down, and the lot of them went to the warehouse and hauled out the boxes. This took a good hour. Toward the end, she spotted a long, coffin-like box being hauled roughly along by four men. They grunted as they passed her, complaining about the weight.

It was ten thirty before a tug came huffing up to pull the cannon-laden barge into the current, together
with its soldiers and crates of goods. By then the celebration was in full swing along the levee, and a boat with fireworks had been towed into place. A few minutes later, the tug and barge disappeared down the inky channel of the Mississippi River and into the night.

Josephine stayed on the levee with the revelers as midnight approached. Bands played martial music, while black, white, immigrant, and native-born joined in singing and dancing and drinking. Fireworks launched from the barge anchored in the river, illuminating the night. In spite of the cheers and lusty voices raising in song, there was an edge to the festivities, worry and anger perhaps making people drink harder than usual, celebrating as if it was their last time before war and the blockade wrecked things forever.

The bells on the cathedral chimed midnight, and a great cheer roared from the crowd. Josephine opened the pocket watch. She thought about Franklin and wondered whether she’d ever see him again. She still held the memory of his hand on her face, her arm around his waist, and her body pressing into his.

The cheers died down within a few minutes, but the party raged on. Josephine closed the watch and made her way down from the levee to go home.

W
ednesday, January 1, Josephine rose early to chase down the morning papers. The city came awake around her with all of the enthusiasm of a team of surly mules. The newsboys were late and irritable, the cabdrivers made as if to run her down when she crossed the street, and two men scooping horse droppings into a cart were snarling at each other until she thought they would come to blows.

Back in her room, Josephine spent the rest of the morning cleaning up stories she’d been working on, then wrote a note for Francesca, using her left hand. It was a trick she’d used in Washington when she wanted to disguise her handwriting. In this case it wasn’t to fool Francesca, but because the very existence of a note would be incriminating. She needed a way to deny it.

Note composed, she set off for the Paris Hotel, arriving at a quarter to noon, where she arranged for a waiter to deliver the note at precisely twelve thirty. Then she climbed the stairs to the mezzanine to discreetly look down at the restaurant. Francesca entered a few minutes before the arranged time and was led to her table. She ordered wine and waited. Above, Josephine checked Franklin’s watch. At precisely twelve thirty, the waiter approached Francesca’s table and slipped her Josephine’s note.

Francesca opened it. She stared at the note for a long time. From Josephine’s vantage, she saw no reaction, but knew her mother’s old friend must be boiling as she read Josephine’s response, blunt in its delivery, occluded in its message so that it would not be an additional tool for blackmailing.

There is no body, so you have no crime to report.

You will get nothing from me now or ever.

Go home to Memphis or you will find your own past exposed, and your husband’s enemies will be told he is in the city.

Without waiting to see what Francesca would do, Josephine descended from the mezzanine and left through the hotel’s front door. She didn’t hail a cab, but walked swiftly down the first side street she reached. The streets and boardwalks were nearly empty, and she relaxed as she came upon Jackson Square. A handful of drunks slept in corners of the square, surrounded by broken bottles, horse droppings, torn papers, confetti, and other refuse from the previous night.

She was passing in front of the cathedral before she remembered the second of Francesca’s conditions. Josephine was to hand over $6,000 and then go to the square to meet the Colonel outside the Cabildo.

She stopped short and darted her gaze toward the Cabildo. There he was, waiting beneath the very sycamore tree where she’d lingered before leaving her telegram. He had his hat off, and twisted the brim in his hands. He was staring up a side street, where the carts and cabs entered the square, or he would have spotted her already.

Josephine expected anger at seeing him again, but as she studied his tired, worried expression, she could only feel pity. She was suddenly sure that he knew nothing of this blackmail business; that must be Francesca’s doing. If not, why would he be waiting for her, as if expecting a reconciliation? She made a sudden decision.

He looked up as she approached. The worry dissolved on his face, replaced by a hopeful smile.

“You came. I thought you’d changed your mind.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t think of any other way. I knew you wouldn’t listen to me, but I thought you might listen to Francesca. I hope she didn’t press too hard. She can be powerful determined.”

“You have no idea what she asked me, do you?”

“I don’t follow. How do you mean?”

She glanced across the square. At any moment, Francesca might be arriving from the hotel, furious and set upon revenge. Josephine gave the Colonel a gesture to follow and started up toward the levee. He followed.

“Your wife is trying to blackmail me,” she said when they’d crossed the street and left the square behind.

“Over what?” he asked, sounding bewildered. “Over the contents of the box? How would that be? Anyway, I told her that wasn’t your fault. Of course you didn’t realize the value of those gemstones, as young as you were. Francesca seems to think that you did, that you sold them for thousands of dollars. That you still have most of that money and should give it back. That’s not true, is it?”

Josephine sighed. When she got to the levee, she came to a stop. “What do you want, Colonel? Money?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I want to be what I should have been all along. I want to be . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked out to the river, where another barge with a cannon lay anchored, waiting to be hauled down to the forts.

“A what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You can’t even say the word. You want to be my
father
?”

He rubbed his hands together and nodded.

“As if you even understand what that word means,” Josephine said. “What’s more, did you even have a claim in the first place? I look like my mother, not like you or any other man my mama knew.”

“You’re right.” He tried to take her hands, but she pulled away. “But I used to watch you while you were reading your books, your face all puckered up in concentration, and thought that I could have been. I wanted to be.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she cried. Her throat was tight, and she struggled to get the words out. “All you had to do was stay. That’s the only thing we ever asked of you.”

“I don’t know. Something restless in my feet, that’s all I can say. They wanted to keep moving, wanted to take me to new places. Always new places.”

“We were on a blasted riverboat, you idiot. That’s all it did, go place to place.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me, for God’s sake.”

“It’s not too late. We can start over. I’ll be your father if you let me.” He tried to take her hands again, but she pushed him away.

“Don’t touch me. It
is
too late. My mother is dead, and I have no father. I never did. And I won’t pretend otherwise, not now, not ever.”

“Josie.”

“Don’t call me that!”

He stared at her for a long time. “So that’s it?”

“Yes. Go away. Don’t bother me again.”

“Then why did you come?”

“I already told you, your wife is trying to blackmail me. And yes, she does have something over me. Not the box, something dangerous. If you care at all, if you ever did, you will convince her to leave me alone.”

“I’ll try. She is a strong-willed woman.”

“So was my mother, remember? And I am more strong-willed than either of them. If you push me, I will fight back until I have destroyed you and your wife both. Do you understand me?”

He didn’t answer, but looked at her with that sad expression, full of pain and longing.

Josephine turned and left. It was all she could do to keep herself upright. She’d thought herself beyond his ability to hurt her, but hearing from his own mouth that he wanted to be her father left her shattered. She knew he was incapable, that if she let him into her life again, he would only disappear again. A week, a month, a year. Soon enough, he’d be gone. He’d left Mama to drown, for God’s sake.

Yet even though she knew that she had given up nothing, lost nothing, she ached to her bones as if she had.

J
osephine didn’t return to the offices of the
Crescent
until January 9, a week and a half after Fein had supposedly sent her down to the Gulf. All eyes in the newsroom turned her way, and a number of them came over to pump her for information. Rumors had been flying as to her whereabouts. Some thought she’d gone up to Baton Rouge or even St. Louis, while Keller said he’d heard President Davis had summoned her to Richmond and sent her along to Washington to spy.

She scoffed at this. “All the way to Washington and back in nine days?”

As Keller sputtered an answer, Fein came rushing from the back room. Ink smudged his glasses, and he was carrying a roll of paper, which he handed off the instant he saw her.

“You!” Fein said. “Where the devil have you been?”

Josephine reached into her satchel and pulled out a fat sheaf of papers, which she waved in his face. Heads craned trying to get a look.

“Give me that,” Fein said.

“Not here.”

He dragged her into his office and shut the door, where he demanded to see the result of all of his money and her time. She had written six stories, some even legitimate, but first she handed over the big one. The big lie. He sat down to read at his desk while she stood above him.

UNION PLOT EXPOSED
!

POOK’S TURTLES TO ATTACK NEW ORLEANS
!

FIENDISH ATTACK ON THE LEVEE!

Fein looked initially excited, but his expression turned grim as he read. The article described a massive Union force forming in southern Illinois, led by eleven ironclad gunboats to clear the Mississippi, and eighty thousand federal troops to occupy forts seized during their sweep downriver. They would begin at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River in February, control the river to the state of Mississippi by March, and finally take Vicksburg before dropping into Louisiana to control the river all the way to the Gulf by late spring. If New Orleans resisted, the enemy would blast holes in the levee, which would flood the city just as the river was cresting with spring runoff. To divert Confederate naval forces, the Union navy would shortly attack coastal fortifications from the Carolinas to the state of Mississippi.

She thought it was a good outline of a legitimate campaign, as sketched by a layperson with an excellent understanding of the river and its navigable tributaries, and a solid, but less thorough knowledge of military matters. She guessed that the Confederate land and river forces would have something to say about how casually she had the Union seizing all those forts, but she thought her story sounded plausible enough that it would make Richmond sweat and turn its attention from the river below New Orleans.

The niggling worry was that she had outlined an actual Union campaign through sheer luck. In which case she might be endangering Northern forces. Not if they’d listened to her obviously superior idea about coming up the river from the Gulf to rush Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson before attacking New Orleans from the south. But could she count on that? She had only Franklin’s word on the matter.

“This is . . .” Fein stopped, and let out a low whistle. “Yes, this was worth it. You have more?”

In Josephine’s second story, even more fanciful than the first, she described a clandestine meeting with a loose-lipped Union officer. He told of flagging Northern morale, of worries that Britain would shortly recognize the Confederacy due to the still simmering Union diplomatic blunder of the so-called Trent Affair
.
The Union officer was not optimistic about the planned assault from the north. He thought that fifty thousand Confederate troops on the upper river and reinforced fortifications would turn back any attack. And after the debacle at Head of Passes, the Union had ruled out any attack from the Gulf.

When he’d finished reading, Fein took off his glasses and polished them with a far-off expression. When he put them back on and looked up at her, he’d only succeeded in further smearing the lenses with ink.

“You know what Ludd will say in the
Picayune
, don’t you?” he asked.

“He’ll make nasty insinuations about how I got the enemy officer to talk.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it bothers me. But it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve faced. I’d suffer that and more for the cause.”

“Ah yes, the cause.” He pointed to the other chair in the room and told her to sit down. “Let’s talk about that.”

She obeyed. “Yes?”

“Did you read the story in the
True Delta
last week about protecting the city? No, I don’t suppose you could have, being in the Gulf. Maginnis suggested making New Orleans a free city, separate from both the Union and the Confederacy. We could trade with both sides, avoid fighting either.”

“Sounds like treason.”