Good Man Friday (10 page)

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‘I think he was one of those people who really doesn't see if a person is white or black or a man or a woman,' Ganymede went on as January flipped the fragile pages. ‘Like I was a nun behind a curtain in a convent, and he couldn't see who or what I was at all. So he'd forget I wasn't free to do the things he did, or he sort of assumed everybody in the world understood arithmetic or liked cauliflower. To tell the truth, I felt a bit sorry for him. What's the good being a free man, if you have no friends and no family? I'd never have said so to him,' he added quickly.

‘Then when he came to the house the second time, he came early, and Mrs Bray was out. I brought him in some tea, and we talked a little more. He was all wound up, pacing like a dog in a windstorm. I asked him, was something wrong, and he said someone was trying to kill him; that someone had broke in and searched his rooms the night before.'

‘He have any idea who it might have been?'

The young servant shook his head. ‘But he was scared, sir. He said he woke in the night and someone was there, moving around in the dark. He cried out and the intruder shoved him over and fled; he said in the morning he found a knife on the floor that wasn't his.'

Mede was silent. Beneath the bridge, the creek purled over its stones.

‘That's why I'm giving this notebook to you, sir,' he said after a time. ‘It was starting up to rain again when he left, and I walked him with an umbrella to where Jem had brought his chaise. When we got to the chaise he put this book into my hand and said, “Keep this for me. I'll send you word where to send it, but don't let anyone – not a living soul – know you've got it.” Then he got in the chaise and drove off fast.'

Daylight was fading already: January had reached the Paper Mill Bridge just before four, but the young valet had not arrived for nearly forty minutes. ‘Did he speak of anyone else he knew in Washington?'

‘He did, sir. That first time, he said he should call on Dr Woolmer at the Potomac School, so I guess he hadn't yet. And he spoke of Mr Adams – the gentleman that used to be President – and of Mrs Bray's friend Mr Oldmixton that works at the British Ministry. But I thought—' He ducked his head, unwilling for a moment to admit what he'd thought, and it went through January's mind:

He was afraid they were in on it
.

Or would talk to someone connected with the intruder
.

‘When we were in the chaise that first time, sir,' Mede went on after a moment, ‘Mr Singletary also spoke of Mr and Mrs Viellard in New Orleans, who he said were his friends. Lodie – Mrs Bray's maid, sir – said Saturday that Mr and Mrs Viellard was here, looking for Mr Singletary, and that you were with them and looking, too.'

‘Lodie listens at doors, does she?'

Mede let a little silence lie between them without answering, then said, ‘You – nor Mr and Mrs Viellard – weren't here in Washington when Mr Singletary disappeared, sir. And if they came all the way here to look for him, they can be trusted. I hope so, sir, because before God I don't know what else I can do.'

‘Did you look in it?'

‘I did, sir, yes, that night, after I'd got Marse Luke settled. I could make nothing of it.'

The light was nearly gone. Ganymede looked over his shoulder again, and January guessed that the valet had stolen away from his master's house. He wondered if ‘Marse Luke' beat his valet, brother or no brother.

What was it, he wondered, about those tiny, regular figures that caught his attention …?

‘I told him,' Mede went on, ‘it could be just a robber. Thieves break in hotels all over town, looking for a gold watch or a silver pen—'

A pen
.

‘He had a pen.' January looked up from the notebook's pages. ‘One of those new reservoir pens—'

‘Yes, sir. He showed it to me on that first ride to the Capitol, told me how it worked. I couldn't make heads or tails of it.'

The ink lines don't change shape as a quill's do
…

That's why all those tiny numbers look different
.

A friend had showed him one in Paris some years ago. It had bled ink like a stuck pig.

‘Silver?'

‘Yes, sir. I'd never seen one before. Marse Luke takes steel-nib pens from the Navy, for his office upstairs, and Mrs Bray has a gold one downstairs, for doing the books.'

‘And had he a gold watch?'

‘He did, sir. He looked at it as I was driving him.'

‘Could you describe it? Initials? Design?' And, when Ganymede shook his head: ‘Anything else of value that you remember? Fobs? Fob chain? Pin?'

‘He had a pin, sir. He wore an old-fashioned stock, like Marse Luke's grandpa.' The young man grinned a little, at some memory of that old man back in Kentucky. ‘What Grandma Bray calls a baroque pearl. Not round, but lumpy. It looked just like a tiny fist clenched up. He had a fob seal, but I never saw what it was. The top of it was shaped like a little chess-piece, when they don't want to make a whole little soldier for a pawn, but just a ball on the top. More than that I don't remember, sir—'

‘That's enough.' January thrust the notebook into his pocket. ‘And thank you, Mede, more than I can say, for coming out here to meet me like this.' He clasped the young man's hand. ‘Now head on back, before you get into trouble with Mrs Bray.'

‘Will what I told you help you find him?' The valet's expression told January more than words could have, about the old man's friendliness and concern for someone he didn't have to pay attention to at all.

‘After all this time I may not be able to find him,' January said. ‘But if one of those items turns up in a pawn shop, I may be able to find the man who took them off him.'

Not even the twinkle of lamplight shone in the formless distance as January quickened his step across the bridge. He followed the curve of the road up the uneven banks of the creek, aware of how isolated this spot was. The moon had not risen and no light penetrated the shadows beneath the trees. He hoped the creak and rustle away to his left was a fox, or one of the capital's ubiquitous pigs. He strained his eyes, seeking the movement—

A fragment of breeze brought him the mingled stink of tobacco spit and dirty clothes.

It was gone an instant later, but his heart froze in his breast.

The breeze had come from his right.

To his left, another rustle, which stopped the instant after his own footfalls did. Harness jingled somewhere as a horse tossed its head.

Oh, Jesus
…

He turned back toward the bridge and saw a shadow for a moment on the pale trace of the road.

It disappeared into the trees, but he knew it for a man.

The wagon in the black mists of K Street. The glint of lantern light on the barrel of a gun
.

He reached down and slipped from his boot the knife that he would have been arrested for carrying. What good it would do him, he didn't know: there were at least three of them, possibly a fourth somewhere in the dark woods.

He'd stood too long. Feet crunched the leaves to his right. He wondered if leaving the road and striking out cross-country would save him. He could at least get up a tree, if he could locate one suitably large in the dark. Against the blackness of the woods he saw movement, closing in on him …

‘
Ben
!' shouted a voice, and a lantern flashed on the road ahead of him.

January swung around, startled at the sound of his name—

‘Ben, goddamit, when I sent you to take those books to Mr Smith's this afternoon I told you not to be all goddam day about it!'

The man striding up the road toward him, lantern held high, was Mrs Trigg's white boarder.

January immediately gave the guiltiest flinch he could manage and scurried toward his benefactor – kidnappers would carry off any free black they could find, but a white master would make serious trouble to recover a piece of property worth fifteen hundred dollars. ‘Marse Poe –' he was astonished he remembered the man's name – ‘I swear I wasn't just foolin' away the time! Marse Smith wanted me to move some bookshelves for him—'

‘Marse' Poe caught January by the arm – he was a good eight inches shorter, slender and elegant despite the shabbiness of his black greatcoat – and shook him. ‘Don't you give me your excuses!' In the light of the upraised lantern their eyes met, Poe's warning:
Play along
…

January nodded very slightly, and Poe thrust him roughly back in the direction of Washington.

‘I swear …' he began again.

‘And I swear I'll wear you out with the buggy whip next time you go off on your own,' retorted ‘Marse' Poe, and he stalked away up the road, January scurrying meekly at his heels.

Behind them, the woods were silent.

They'd gone about fifty yards before Poe breathed, ‘They still back there?'

‘They're not following us.'

‘Well, thank God for small favors, anyway.' His soft voice had the accent of Virginia. ‘I apologize if I spoke insultingly, sir. Had I leaped to your defense shouting, “You shall not drag this poor nigger into slavery!” they'd probably have shot me.'

‘It was damn quick thinking, sir. Thank you. But I fear I've disrupted your evening's plans – you were on your way to Georgetown, I think?'

‘No great matter. One of those gatherings at which one barely knows one's hostess but tries to insinuate oneself into an introduction to another of the guests. A disgusting practice, but apparently how things are managed in these degenerate days, and beggars can't be choosers. Outwitting slave stealers in the woods has infinitely more appeal than convincing some Western Congressman of what a good postmaster I'd make.'

‘I'm grateful,' said January simply. ‘And a little amazed you recognized me at that distance in the dusk. I don't think I'd have stopped if you hadn't called my name.'

‘Well, at your height you are difficult to miss.' They were coming clear of the trees. The first lights of the Washington houses had begun to twinkle, far off to their right. Behind them January heard the clop of hooves, the creak of harness, and stepped quickly aside. A wagon came past in the gloom: four men, dark against the paler sky. Dark horses, white feet.

Whether the men looked down at him and his ‘master' as they passed, he couldn't tell.

‘You think they've caught some other poor devil?' whispered Poe.

‘They may just have given up for the night. It isn't a frequented road.'

But the thought of how close he'd come to lying bound in that coffin-like space, listening to the sounds of Washington's streets around him and knowing what he was going to, made him shiver. He said again, ‘Thank you, sir. You didn't have to do what you did.'

Poe shook his head. ‘I'm no abolitionist, but I'll not stand by and watch someone who's legally gained his freedom have it taken away from him – certainly not by the likes of some of the scum one sees lollygagging about this town.' They turned down one of those long, pointless avenues that stretched from nowhere to nowhere in Washington, surrounded on all sides by empty fields and thin woods. ‘And your playing has given me a great deal of pleasure.'

‘I think that might be a case of “turnabout is fair play”.' Poe glanced back at him, and January nodded toward the ink-stains on the man's frayed cuff, where the lantern's light showed them up. ‘You wouldn't be Mr
Edgar
Poe, who writes for the
Richmond Intelligencer
, would you?'

‘The same.' He looked both a little shy and tremendously pleased.

‘My wife and I both are great admirers of your reviews. And your poetry is some of the most astonishing I've read. And I'm not saying that,' he added with a wry grin, ‘just because you rescued me back there. Whenever we can get the
Intelligencer
in New Orleans, we look for your work.'

‘You're most kind, sir. It's always gratifying to hear that one's work is appreciated – particularly that far afield. I had hoped – indeed, it has always been the aim of my life – to be the first American to make his living solely by his pen, as Pope and Johnson did, though of late it's been borne upon me that this might not be possible. America is less than – kind – toward those from whose work money cannot be gleaned. Hence this evening's quest for an introduction to the Right Honorable Representative Thumbtwiddle of Ohio, or whatever the man's name is.' A note of grimness edged his voice. ‘Still, one lives in hope.'

They reached the Western Market, lanterns moving about its brick arches like fireflies where a final few vendors packed up their goods. To the south, among the larger houses, more lights glimmered, and carriages proliferated as the business of the government went forward at dinners, receptions, balls. The wealthy bankers, landowners, planters who dwelled in Washington spread feasts of Virginia ham and plum tarts for Senators wearied of boarding house fare, and ambassadors whose ancestors had ridden with Richard the Lionheart bowed respectfully to the dapper little son of a New York tavern-keeper in the White House. Men in shabby greatcoats and beaver hats a few years out of fashion attended gatherings put on by would-be political hostesses, in the hopes of insinuating introductions to someone who could recommend them for a paying job.

Other men, dressed more shabbily still, drew rein in the alleys behind the slave pens down near the Capitol and unloaded mutely-struggling cargoes from beneath false wagon-beds, or half-carried stupefied men into brick cells by the light of shaded lanterns.