Mignon

Chapter 6

It was a house on Bienville, in the Quarter, with two bay windows; a colored maid let me in. She started for a double door on the left of the hall. When I asked for Miss Tremaine she seemed surprised and opened the door on the right. I went into a red-plush parlor and sat down, first taking off my oilskin, which I folded beside my chair, putting my hat on top of it. I waited, and felt my stomach flutter when the door across the hall opened and a man came out with a girl, who whispered with him before he left. She was trim, neat, and shapely, and wore a red baize apron. What upset me was wondering what I would do if she came in where I was and sat in my lap, as I’d heard was the custom. She didn’t, but went back through the door she had come out of and closed it. I was just drawing a breath of relief when a woman came in, stood in front of me, and looked me over. She was small, with blonde ringlets beside her face, and quite pretty. I took her to be in her thirties, and she had blue eyes and strawberry-and-cream complexion, but all she had on was a robe, a white satin thing that she wore, with a gold fillet on her hair and gold slippers on her feet, but nothing underneath — as she carelessly, maybe not so carelessly, let me see. I said: “Miss Tremaine? Crandall’s my name” — giving the name I’d signed on the register of the City Hotel last night. I went on: “My carte de visite,” and pressed a twenty-dollar bill in her hand.

She blinked, but I kept right on, determined to hit the thing on the nose, no matter how nervous I was. I said: “I’ve come on a matter of business, to ask some help that I need, for which I’m willing to pay.”

“Alors? What help, please?”

She had a small voice, French accent, and cute way of talking. I asked: “Miss Tremaine, could you hire me a girl? For a little job tonight at the City Hotel? I kind of need a decoy, to entice someone out of his room—”

“La-la. La-la.”

“Oh, I assure you there’s nothing wrong. No — larceny, nothing like that. It’s just — that a search has to be made — for something—”

I ran down, knowing nothing more to say, and damning myself for not rehearsing it better, because how could anyone, especially someone like her, who looked plenty smart, possibly fall for such a tale, one so thin I couldn’t even finish it? However, she seemed more curious than annoyed and kept staring at me, as though to figure me out. Then a thought seemed to hit her as a smile crossed her face, which she hid with my sawbuck. Then she shifted her stare to my hat, which seemed to interest her somehow, though why I couldn’t fathom. Then suddenly she said: “This is business indeed. This requires of thought.”

I mumbled something, I guess, and then she said: “I should dress me. Shall we go to my apartment, perhaps?”

I was too rattled to argue, so picked up my gear and followed her out to the hall. She led up the carpeted stairs to the second floor, then down a hall to a door at the rear, which she opened for me. I went in. The room downstairs had been red plush; this one was ivory and gold. It had a white cotton rug on the floor, a white bearskin rug over it, white chairs with gold brocade upholstery, and a white grand piano with gold beading on it. At one end was a white bed with gold canopy, faced by white armoires. She said: “Please give me your things,” and took them to an armoire, where she hung them up. Then she pulled a gold rope, and golden portieres closed after her, also cutting off the bed, on a white pole that ran across. I’d never been in such a place, and strolled around, to memorize what it was like. I had a quick flash at the prints on the wall, French by their style, all in gold frames and some downright saucy. Then I noticed the flower vases, of bright brass as I thought, some of them with the camellias which were just now coming in season. But then it occurred to me: Brass is not often used for vessels meant to hold water because moisture brings up the verdigris. Then I thought it odd that these vases showed no green cast, as all brass does, no matter how brightly shined. And then the truth hit me. I went over, picked up an empty vase, and snapped my finger on it. It clinked with the music made only by solid gold.

It clinked and she popped — out from behind the portieres, a blue flannel dress half on, silken froufrou showing. Her eyes were like blue glass. I said: “You’ve good ears, Miss Tremaine.”

“Alors? Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

I went over, straightened her dress, put my arms around her, and gave her a little kiss, which she took on the cheek. I said: “I wasn’t stealing your vase — just testing it.”

“It is of gold, non?”

“There’s no other such sound on this earth.”

“I have six — from a château at Reze-le-Nantes.”

“I compliment you. You like gold, I imagine?”

“I love gold.”

“Turn around, I’ll button you up.”

She turned and I buttoned her, taking a seat and pulling her down in my lap. Then I dandled her and gave her another kiss. She took it this time on the mouth, and responded a little, but with an odd squint in her eye. She pulled my eyebrows, said: “Doux, as coton.”

“They’re not cotton, they’re hair.”

“Pourtant jolis, as you are.”

“If I’m pretty, so is a cigar-store Indian.”

“Et sweet. Et naïf.”

“What’s naive about me?”

To tell the truth, I’d lost some of my fear, so I didn’t feel so rattled, and was beginning to be a bit chesty — as though I was now experienced in matters of this kind and could almost act like myself. She kept on pulling my brows, and said: “Oh — you give me twenty dollars — you take kisses as lagniappe — is not this naïf? You think me madam — yet you remove the hat — is not this naïf indeed? Don’t you know, petit, that with madam you keep the hat on? That this is the insulte ancienne a man pays to her who befriends?”

“... If you’re not a madam, what are you?”

“I am joueuse, of course.”

To me it sounded like Jewess, and I snapped back, pretty quick: “Well, I’m Episcopalian myself, but know only good of the Jews, especially Jewish women—”

“Joueuse!” she yelped. “I play! I operate gambling house! This is not such house as you think!”

“This? Is a gambling house? And you—?”

“Am joueuse, I have said! I am not madam!”

“Good God.”

I dumped her off my lap, jumped up, and dived for my things, all at one jerk. I said: “I’m sorry — I apologize — I’ve been making a sap of myself and I-don’t-know-what out of you, and I’m on my way, quick.”

But she was right beside me, her hand on the armoire door, so I couldn’t open it. She said: “Have I acted désagréablement? Have I expressed anger, perhaps? Have I desired that you go?” She yanked me away from the armoire, pushed me back into the chair, and camped in my lap again. She said: “Is joueuse, for example, contaminée? Might she not wish to help? Might she not have girls, aussi? Who deal stud, vingt-et-un, et faro? Cannot this matter be discussed?”

“Miss Tremaine, my ears are too hot for talk.”

“They are red, very droll, mais oui. But the offense is not too extreme. After all, you hear of my place—”

“In a goddam bar is where.”

“And you make some small mistake.”

“Can I hide my face just a minute?”

She took a handkerchief from her sleeve, held it in front of my eyes, then wiped my nose and said: “Now! Enough! Even the girl may be possible, if I satisfy me she shall not be endangered, surtout with the law. This is of great importance, so please let us talk. You care for champagne, M’sieu Crandall?”

“If you do, I do.”

By the door was a white china knob which she yanked, and a bell tinkled below. When the maid came, she ordered champagne in French. Having had a few seconds to think, I determined to spill what I was up to, at least enough to convince her I wasn’t a thief. I gave no names, but spoke of a friend about to be railroaded by a rat turned informer “who lives at the City Hotel.” I told of seeing the scraps, and showed her my skeleton key. I wound up: “I know he’s going out tonight, but the trouble is his valet, who’ll be on deck as a guard. If he can be lured out, I can slip in there quick, get those scraps, put other scraps in their place, and be out in five minutes — even the valet won’t know I was there.”

“Now I am convinced.”

“But the girl should speak French—”

“She will. All my girls do.”

The maid came, carrying the wine in a bucket of ice, followed by a child carrying a tray with two glasses and a silver dish with a slip of paper on it. When bucket, tray, and glasses had been set on a low table, the maid picked up the dish and offered me the slip. “Non!” screeched Miss Tremaine, and rattled off some French. The maid backed off, but I stepped over and took the slip. It was a billhead that said: “Champagne... $8.” I fished up a ten-dollar bill, but Miss Tremaine snatched it from me and tucked it in my pocket. Then she tore up the billhead, blasted maid and child from the room with a volley of French, and stood there, her face twisting in fury. She turned and twirled the bottle around in the ice. Then she twisted off the wire, worked the cork out, and let it pop. She poured a mouthful and tasted. Then she filled both glasses, handed me mine, raised hers, and said “Santé.”

“To your very good health, Miss Tremaine.”

“Et succès, M’sieu Crandall-Quichotte.”

She pushed me back into my chair, but didn’t sit in my lap this time. Instead, she half-knelt on the floor, her elbows on my knees, her glass held under her nose. She said: “If I screamed, I ask pardon, please. The bill is indeed usual; the girl committed no fault. And I love gold, as you said. But you, petit, make me feel as grande dame, which I love too, and which does not occur every day.” And then, sad, sipping: “La joueuse is vraiment demimondaine, half dame, half, hélas, madam. But, with you, I forget the one et become the other. So, ci après, if you please, attempt not to pay.”

“Miss Tremaine, all I see is a lady.”

“Merci. But to you may I be Marie?”

“I’d be honored to call you that.”

“And how shall I call you?”

“My name is William.”

But she laughed and told me: “This I cannot say.” She tried to say it, and it came out a cross between veal and bouillon. She said: “I shall call you Guillaume.”

“That’ll please me no end.”

She rested her glass on one of my knees, dropped her head on the other, and let some time go by without talking. The ice in the bucket looked clean, and I crunched a piece in my teeth. I said: “That’s fine ice, Marie. Where’s it from, if you know?”

“Minnesota. For two years it came from Canada, by sea, and was full of small creatures. But, depuis Vicksburg, the river boats can come down, and we get the lake ice once more.”

“Where I come from the ice is no good.”

“And where is this, Guillaume?”

By then, sweet as she was, and gallant, giving help when she didn’t have to, I couldn’t have lied any more, and in fact already hated I’d had to give her a false name. I said: “Maryland — it’s tidewater, and whenever we cut ourselves ice, it’s always brackish with salt.”

“May I be femme curieuse and ask what you do?”

“Marie, I’m an engineer.”

“Of railroads, oui?”

“No, hydraulic. My specialty is piles.”

“Ah, les pieux!”

Now someone who drives piles kind of gets used to a smile when he says what his business is, and more or less smiles himself. But the way she took it, you’d have thought I sang in grand opera. She set her glass on the table, put her arms around me, and asked, very breathless: “You are associé with M’sieu Eads? You have been sent here by him?”

“... Now how do you know about him?”

“Oh I know — I am femme d’affaires in New Orleans, and we of affaires know. He revives the de Pauget plan.”

“The... what?”

“The plan of Adrien de Pauget, our great engineer, who wished long ago, perhaps one hundred years, to drive of pieux in the river, and compel it to cut its canal through the barrière to the Gulf. It should make of New Orleans a capitale, by opening her to big ships! It should open also Vicksburg, Memphis, et St. Louis — we shall have pays cosmopolitain! M’sieu Eads, so we hear, revives it, this de Pauget plan. You are of him, Guillaume?”

“Marie, I have to confess I don’t know him — my father does, but I don’t. And I never heard of de Pauget. But the channel is what brought me here, when Mr. Eads gets around to it. If I can get my business started, here on the spot in New Orleans, I hope to bid on the work — to be part of something big.”

“Ah, oui. I could feel you were poète.”

“Marie, I wouldn’t deceive you — I’m just a lad with a slide rule, a partner — kind of dumb but he does know tugboats — plenty of nerve, and one thing lacking.”

“Money?”

“How did you guess it?”

“It may not be difficile!”

She kissed me once more, then jumped up and started checking over what we’d do with the girl. I got out the City Hotel key, the one to 301, gave it to her and said: “That room’s in my name, but she can come right up, and I’ll take another, in her name, and keep the key myself.” We agreed on Eloise Brisson as a good name for the girl, and I wrote it down on paper I found in my pocket. I said: “If she’ll come around seven, we can get the thing over quick, and she’ll have the rest of the night to herself.” Small details, we decided, could be settled with the girl. That seemed to be all, and Marie got my oilskin and hat, saying she’d see me out. In the lower hall, she stopped by the door across from the room I’d been in, opened it, and beckoned. My heart dropped into my shoes; I could see blue in there, on Union officers, and had a horrible fear one of them might know me and call me by name — by then I’d met quite a few. But the faces were strange and I circulated with her, admiring the various layouts. The girl I had seen was dealing blackjack, or vingt-et-un as it’s also called, her little apron hugging her belly as it pressed against the table. Other girls dealt other games, and one ran the dice pit, but a man ran the roulette wheel, and another sat on the high lookout’s stool, a long black cane that surely had a sword inside it in his hand. She spoke to them all and to quite a few customers, some by name. In the hall she kissed me, saying: “The girl shall be there.”

Outside, I was astonished to see my cab; I’d forgotten all about it. I drove to the City Hotel, registered Eloise Brisson, paid for her room, and took her key. The clerk winked as he handed it over, and I saw it was for 303, the room next to mine. I drove to Wagener’s and did what I’d neglected to do previously: bought a tablet of the same cheap kind Burke had bought for his note. I got in the cab again, told the driver Lavadeau’s. I was all excited to tell Mignon my latest news, the scraps I’d found in the basket, and how I meant to get them. Suddenly I thought: What do I say about Pierre? And then I thought: What do I say about Marie?

“Never mind Lavadeau’s. The St. Charles,” I said.