Mignon

Chapter 5

I was so excited i told myself to forget the ransack job; I had enough already, what with this hundred-dollar bill that Jenkins must have got from Burke and the stationery as soon as I traced it, to put up quite a fight. However, I picked up my keys on the way, and when I went up to 301, which was just a regular hotel room with bureau, chair, table, bed, gaslight, and bath, tried both in the door. They both worked perfectly, the skeleton even better than the other. Then I went on to 346, around an angle in the hall, and knocked. Letting me in was a human gorilla, a swarthy thing with hair growing out of its nostrils, thick brows, and a forehead one inch high. It was squat and bandy-legged, and on the back of one hand was an anchor. It had on a clawhammer suit, with patent paper collar of the kind European servants wear, and called in kind of a croak: “M’sieu Boorke!” Burke came out and shook hands, and called it Pierre. “Me gippo,” he said to me, and then: “Pierre, c’est M’sieu Craysap.” The thing grunted, bowed kind of stiff, and flicked off one ear the salute that sailors give. Then he went out through a side door of the room.

“I didn’t know you spoke French,” I said.

“ ’Tis one of me bonds with Adolphe,” he told me. “Aye, I lived in Paris three years after Nicaragua — until Mexico beckoned, in fact.” He shot me a glance as though to see if Nicaragua meant anything to me, and then when I didn’t react, went on: “I joined the filibuster, and helped organize Accessory Transit — for Walker, early on. He abused me confidence no end, but I managed to sell out to one of Vanderbilt’s men, at a bit iv a profit. That’s when I went to Paris, to take me bearings a bit.”

“Walker was something, wasn’t he?”

“A homunculus, but a genius of his kind.”

“He must have been — to steal a whole country, with just a handful of crazy boys he picked up in San Francisco, and then after he invaded, to start a railroad and make it pay. As Accessory Transit certainly would have, if Vanderbilt hadn’t got in it, starting a feud.”

“Aye. Aye. And Aye.”

Pierre came back, in reefer and sailor hat with a red pompon on it of the kind worn in the French Navy, said something about déjeuner, and went out. Burke said: “The perfect retainer. I picked’m up in Matamoros, when his ship sailed without’m. He washes me clothes, minds the door, acts as me bodyguard, and in all ways is me factotum — or gippo, as we say in Limerick. He’d do anything, anything I tell’m, and it doesn’t displease me he speaks not a word of English. One of us is always here, but you’ll have to write your messages.”

He waved at a desk, a big walnut thing with green baize top, drawers at both sides, and paper, inks, and pens in the middle, then said: “But sit down, me boy, and let’s hear your news.”

I sat, in a room like mine at the St. Charles, except that he’d made it his home, a little. It had the usual sofa, chairs, and footstools, but the big desk was extra, as was a big table with piles of newspapers on it — the New Orleans Times, and others in Spanish and French. The place smelled of tobacco, and he opened a drawer in the desk to take out a green pasteboard box of cigarillos, as he called them, and offered them. I said I didn’t smoke, but noted the drawer was unlocked and full of all sorts of papers. He sat down, lit up, and blew smoke rings, tapping his cheeks. He said: “They’re Cuban, these things, and not bad — I ran into them in Mexico. The wrappers are sweet to the taste — I think they’re steeped in molasses. And the filler’s perique — do you mark the thick, heavy white smoke, so tempting to pop into rings? Ah well, what’s the good word, me boy?”

“Not so good, I’m afraid.”

“But you saw Adolphe?”

“I did, and broached the subject of a plea. He rejected it point-blank. In fact he hit the ceiling.”

“But ’twas to be expected. What then?”

“I reasoned with him, and he agreed to consider it.”

“He’ll open his mind to’t?”

“That’s as far as I could get with him.”

“But he’ll give in, I’m sure. With one of his kind, there must be face-saving preliminaries of a grand, dignified kind. The rest is but a question of time. Did he get the brazier I arranged for’m?”

“He practically glued himself to it.”

“It’ll warm’m. And remind’m the thing can go on.”

“That’s not all, Mr. Burke. I saw Major Jenkins.”

He looked startled, and I said: “To get the thing lined up, what a plea is going to get us. I’m afraid I did badly up there. They’re talking parole violation, and Major Jenkins seemed to resent me.”

“He’s a bit iv a churl, that lad.”

“I left in the middle of it. Actually, I ran.”

“I saw’m meself, earlier.”

“So he said. He spoke most highly of you.”

“He may have had reason, me boy.”

He winked, then told how he’d called on Jenkins, and how Jenkins had scaled the charge down, “from the treason case he was dreaming of” to parole violation — all corresponding to what Jenkins had said and to the hundred-dollar bill in my pocket. I complimented him and, as I’d made a full “report,” got up to go. So far, since I’d given up my original idea of searching this place for evidence, it was strictly shadow-chewing, chatter meaning nothing, except to go through the motions, keeping his suspicions lulled so I could go ahead with the small, exact case that I had. But then as I stood by his desk and he stared out the window, still talking, my eye fell on something that stood me right on my head, so I had to reverse my intention and get in this place somehow, no matter how I did it. Beside the desk, between it and the window, was a wicker wastebasket, and in its bottom a scatter of scraps, torn pieces of paper of the selfsame kind the informer had used for his note, each of them showing pencil marks. They had to be a trial draft or rough draft or spoiled draft or some kind of draft of the new informer note, the one she had talked about, that she was sure would be sent. They would nail my case down tight, and there could be no doubt at all that I had to get them.

He kept on talking and I edged to the door, out of sight of the basket, so my eyes wouldn’t betray me. Then he got up, and we fixed it up I’d repeat tomorrow my visit to Mr. Landry, and then report to him here, “without further talks with Jenkins.” I backed out, pretty respectful. He put his head out the door, asked if I’d changed my mind about payment. I said no, I wasn’t in need of money, and better I put it off until I really had something to show.

I went downstairs, arguing with myself that I should forget this whole idea of burgling a suite in this place to get something to please a girl. I asked myself what Landry had done for me that I had to risk my life, perhaps, doing this for him. I reminded myself of Pierre and that strange remark, “he’d do anything, anything, I tell’m” to do. Coupled with the word bodyguard it meant armed thug, one I dared not disregard. I told myself to wake up and get back to the original problem, which was to raise twenty-five thousand bucks. I told myself all kinds of things and seemed to be making some progress, at least to the extent that I took out her list and began checking stores. At the first one I went to, Wagener’s in Camp Street, just up the street from the City, I hit pay dirt. Yes, said the clerk, he remembered the Irish customer and thought it an odd kind of purchase for a person of such obvious elegance. I took his name, Bob Raney, and went up to the St. Charles, where I had some lunch in the bar. I told myself that did it: there was no need any more, now that I had the proof of who had bought the paper, to take any chance on a search. And yet all the time it gnawed at me that since rooms are done once a day, those scraps would probably stay there until the maid came in next morning, and with Burke dated up for the evening, Pierre was all there was between me and what I needed more than anything. And then, all of a sudden, unexpectedly and by accident, a way suggested itself whereby I could get rid of Pierre. Two men at the next table were having a growling match about a woman named Marie Tremaine for her greedy, grasping habits. One of them said: “All she wants is your money, and that ends it with me. I’ll never go in her house again, from now to the end of my life. Do you hear me, fellow? I’m through.”

It came to me I’d heard of that house before, sitting around this bar. As soon as I’d finished I went out and said to a hacker: “Have you heard of Marie Tremaine’s?”

“Well, Mister, I hope so.”

“Take me there.”