by Frank Yerby
More immediately, the problem of what to do with today was before him. The morning was hopeless, but in the evening he could go to the theatre. He would have preferred going to the American Theater with its marvelous gas jet illumination, the first of its kind in the city, but Odalie would almost certainly attend the Théâtre D’Orleans if she went at all.
He walked aimlessly, moving generally in the direction of the river. He turned northward and approached the Market. There were dozens of Negro women haggling with the vendors over the prices of foodstuffs they were buying for their mistresses. One of them in particular caught Stephen’s eye. She was light yellow in complexion and decidedly pretty. Stephen recognized her suddenly. This was Zerline, the maid servant of the Arceneaux; Andre had pointed her out to him. One corner of Stephen’s mouth curved upward in a smile. He moved very quietly until he was standing close behind her.
“Name of a name of a peeg!” she was saying to the merchant. “Un escalin for so small a bit of meat? I will not pay it, me. A picayune I will give—no more!”
“All right,” the merchant said wearily, picking up the soup bone in his hairy hands. “Always an argument,” he muttered, “with these Nigra wenches. Ma foi, they try to drive hard bargains!”
Stephen stood there laughing to himself as the girl continued her thrifty buying. A bit of cabbage, a leek, a sprig of parsley, a tiny carrot, an even tinier turnip—all tied in the same package, and all costing only a picayune. Then a cornet of file, a bunch of horse radish roots, and a little sage.
“I got nice grasshoppers,” the merchant said, “all on the string, and well dried. Fine for your mistress’s mocking bird.”
Zerline spread out her fine, expressive hands.
“That one, he dead,” she said. “Two, t’ree days agone he ups and dies, him. Mamzelle Aurore is very sad. Maybe we git nother bird—someday.”
Stephen stretched out his hand and touched her on the shoulder. She whirled angrily. Seeing his white face, she stifled the flood of words that were trembling indignantly upon her lips.
“Your pardon, Zerline,” Stephen said politely. “If you will step across the street with me to Gitano’s shop, I should like to present your mistress with two fine mockers to replace the one that met with so unfortunate a death.”
Zerline drew herself up stiffly.
“You knows well, monsieur, we can’t accept the presents from the strange gentleman. We’re Arceneaux, us!” She flounced away, her tignon held very high.
“Them Nigra gals is spoilt,” the merchant said to Stephen. “And them yellow ones—they is the worst!”
Stephen laughed.
“She was insulted, too,” he said, “so much she is become an Arceneaux! Give me two pralines, friend.”
Walking away, eating the sugary confection, Stephen was busy with his thoughts. Zerline had only clarified the difficulties along that line. There was so much to be done.
He edged carefully around a fat Negro woman, on her hands and knees, busily scrubbing the cypress banquette and the steps of her master’s house with latanier, the root of the palmetto. The steps were already spotless, but Stephen knew that this zeal was occasioned not so much by the lure of sanitation as by a fear that some evil Mamaloi, queen of Voudou, had sprinkled there a grisgris to do the inhabitants harm.
Tonight, he must play again. Poker or vingt-et-un, he decided. No roulette or faro, which depended little upon the skill of the player, and which, in New Orleans, were usually fixed to favor the house. But the hand of a man, no matter how skilled, had its limitations, and few men in New Orleans were sufficiently fast to cheat him. Cold nerve, and consummate skill had made him all but invulnerable. The increasingly popular American game of poker was bringing him a comfortable fortune. This he played only in the Faubourg St. Marie, the new American city which had grown up alongside the Faubourg Orleans and was already threatening its supremacy. Daily, too, he was becoming more skilled at écarté, the national game of the Creoles.
At the Théâtre D’Orleans, the French players were offering Marie Stuart as the evening’s bill. Stephen arrived late in the second act and spent the entire time vainly scanning the boxes, the gallery and the main floor for a glimpse of Odalie. He even peered suspiciously at the Loges Grilles, the enclosed boxes which encircled the elevated parquet, although he knew full well that they were reserved for people in mourning, and pregnant women.
At the end of the act he left, having made certain that neither of the Arceneaux sisters was present. Marie Stuart might as well not have existed for all the attention he paid it. Outside in the street, he took out his massive gold watch that wound with a key and looked at the time. He groaned aloud. Now there was barely time to reach the Café des Emigres, where Hugo Waguespack awaited him.
God, what a terrible player the huge German planter was! There was no pleasure in playing him—no sense of conflict—and absolutely no risk. Stephen sighed. What must be, must be. He turned his steps toward the café.
The German was waiting. Stephen knew him well enough by now not to waste time with courtesies. He simply sat down, rang for the waiter, and the play began. It went on for two hours, with Stephen winning constantly. He looked across the gaming table at Hugo Waguespack with a grimace that was very like revulsion. Six months of this now—six months of gazing across the tables of little smoky back rooms into stupid faces—fat stupid faces, sly stupid faces, lean, blue-jawed stupid faces—for, whatever else they were, always they were stupid. For a brief moment, he allowed his attention to wander; then he sighed and picked up the cards. However great the pleasure of testing his skill against an opponent of intelligence, discernment and taste might have been, the risks were too great. He had to win. His whole future was at stake. This shooting of tame and tethered ducks must go on for a little while yet. He glanced at Hugo again. The German’s face was florid, flushing to crimson below his flaxen hair.
“Enough for tonight?” Stephen asked, taking a pinch of snuff from the pewter snuff box and applying it to his left nostril.
“No!” Hugo growled. “Seven thousand you have already from me. And from Otto, ten. If I thought . . .”
Stephen looked at him, his eyes cold and blue as Hugo’s own.
“Ye’ve won from me,” he said, “and ye bring your own deck. I’ve told ye I never cheat at cards, but if ye persist in disbelieving me . . .”
Hugo’s little pig eyes wavered, half lost in his enormous face. “All right,” he said. “One more round of seven up.” He half turned away from Stephen. “Waiter!” he called. After a moment’s wait, the fat mulatto appeared, bowing. “A pen and paper, and damned quick about it!” The waiter scurried off. Hugo turned again to Stephen.
“You’ll take my note,” he said, “for my lands upriver, against all I’ve lost to you. A single hand and I’m done with you. Either way I’m done—win or lose.”
Stephen shrugged. “Agreed,” he said. “I’ll take your note, but ye may have a month to raise the money. After that I’ll take the land. I want to be fair.”
“You seem damned sure of winning,” the German growled.
“I am,” Stephen said. “Ye play badly.”
The fat mulatto was back with an inkhorn and quill, and a small box of white sand.
Hugo took the pen and wrote laboriously, then sprinkled the document liberally with the sand. After he had poured it off, turning the stiff paper sideways, letting the inkstained grains run back into the little box, he passed the document to Stephen. It was in order, though full of misspellings and bad French twisted into the pedantic German arrangement of words.
Stephen put it upon the table, and beside it twenty banknotes. The mulatto whistled suddenly. The notes were all one-thousand-dollar bills. Stephen looked up at him.
“Ye’ve never seen such stakes?” he asked.
“Only once, maître. That was when Colonel Deveraux bet an Englishman thirty thousand dollars on a single poker hand. He lost the money and killed the Englishman the next day in a duel
.”
“Be still!” Hugo snapped, lapsing into German. “Hold thy mouth!”
Stephen extended the pewter snuff box, but Hugo waved it aside.
“ ‘Tis a hideous thing,” he said. “I wonder that you keep it.”
“It’s lucky,” Stephen declared, his slim fingers caressing the pearl that once more gleamed softly at his throat. “I exchanged a gold one for it—and I’ve never regretted the swap. Cut for the deal?”
“No. You deal. I trust you that far.”
Stephen dealt the cards, six to Hugo, six to himself, passing them very rapidly, his fingers moving with certainty. The next card he turned face up upon the table. It was the trey of spades.
“I beg,” Hugo grunted.
“Give ye one to let it stand,” Stephen said.
“Agreed. Seven or ten points to the game this round?”
“Ten. I don’t want to beat ye too quickly.”
The play went on, first one player turning a trick then the other. Then, when they had exhausted their hands, Hugo said:
“All right, score it up.”
“For me, the Ace—that’s four,” Stephen said, “and being high card, it gives me one more, making five.”
“I have the Queen,” Hugo said, “two points.”
“The King,” Stephen smiled, “three points, making eight.”
“The deuce,” Hugo grunted, “two points, and one for low, making five. And the next is my trick—the Jack, one point, and one more because it is Jack of trumps, making seven. And your Jack of Hearts taken by my five of Spades makes eight, and the point you gave me makes nine.”
“So,” Stephen chuckled. “Two for me on the last trick, your Queen of Clubs taken by my trey of Spades—which, my good Hugo, were trumps.”
Hugo stood up, slamming the cards across the table.
“You’re clairvoyant,” he said, “or else a rogue. I haven’t decided which.”
“And when ye do,” Stephen said softly, “I shall have to decide whether to kill ye or let ye live. Adieu, Monsieur Waguespack.”
“You weren’t quarreling?”
The two of them turned. Andre was standing in the doorway of the little backroom of the café.
“No, monsieur,” Hugo said. “We weren’t quarreling. I don’t quarrel, ‘tis a sport for children. Goodday, Monsieur Le Blanc and Monsieur Reynard. Your servant!”
“The name,” Stephen said, “is Fox.”
Hugo shrugged his massive shoulders and walked past them out the small room.
“I don’t like that man,” Andre said.
“Nor I,” Stephen agreed. “ ‘Tis the last time. Tomorrow I’m quitting this for good. Some business, perhaps. A few transactions at Maspero’s and then . . .”
“Mademoiselle Arceneaux? You haven’t changed your mind about that, Stephen?”
“No. I saw her again yesterday in Chartres Street with that sister of hers. Ye know, Andre, she almost nodded. Another quarter of an inch and it would have been a full-fledged nod. The sister, however, returned my salutation like an old friend. Too bad it isn’t the other way around.”
“If you’ll condescend to leave this hole,” Andre said, “I have a surprise for you, perhaps.”
“Odalie? Ye’re going to present me?”
“Not so fast, Stephen. It’s not that. I’m afraid you’ll have to content yourself with a substitute. A trifle older and not nearly so attractive, but still an Arceneaux. He’s waiting for us now, at La Bourse de Maspero.”
“He?” Stephen demanded.
“Vicomte Henri Marie Louis Pierre d’Arceneaux,” Andre declaimed mischievously. “You’re being honored, Stephen!”
“The father?” Stephen’s eye was suddenly cold, intent on far distances. “Yes—that would be the way. A friendship with the old one. An introduction warmed by paternal sanction. Yes—ye’re a wise one, Andre—and a very good friend.”
“Then why do I not see more of you? Last evening I had two charming and agreeable—very agreeable—demoiselles on my hands. They quarrelled and quarrelled—neither of them desiring to leave the other in my rooms. Se we sat up most of the night until I hailed a cabriolet and sent them both home.”
Stephen rocked with laughter.
“Would ye have given me my choice?” he chuckled.
“Assuredly. There was little difference between them anyway. They were both agreeable and pretty and good bedfellows. But the company you’ve been keeping for the past six months— Germans from Law’s German Coast, English travelers, merchants, ship captains . . .”
“Ye’ve put spies upon me,” Stephen said.
“No. You’re becoming quite a figure in New Orleans. Lagoaster raves over your taste in attire. He says you’re the best turned out gentleman in the city.”
“He’s remarkably intelligent,” Stephen said, “for a quadroon. Certainly he is the best tailor I’ve ever seen—even in London.”
“I shall tell him. He’s quite a good fellow. But people are noticing you, Stephen. Many ladies of high birth have dropped discreet hints in my presence for information about your background, your ancestry, and the source of your obviously large income . . .”
“Including Odalie Arceneaux?”
“No. Odalie would never condescend to admit whatever curiosity she might have. But tonight we’re making the first step.”
They passed down the narrow streets under the oil lanterns swinging on heavy chains set diagonally across the streets from the corner of one house to the corner of the next. Just as they reached Maspero’s, a cannon boomed, far away and faint in the distance.
“Nine o’clock,” Andre said. “All soldiers, sailors and blacks must now run like mad for home. But since we are neither—enter my friend.”
“The old man,” Stephen said as they entered, “I understand he does not fancy Americans.”
“But you, my good Stephen, were educated in Paris. You studied the small sword under Raoul Robert. You’re a gentleman. All of which you must sustain tonight by exhibiting your most polished Parisian, spoken as fast and as carelessly as you can, well larded with the idioms of Paris, which our friend won’t understand, not having left Louisiana in the past forty years. But no English, I beg of you. You’re a financier—lately of an old Philadelphia banking and brokerage establishment, now operating independently on your own.”
Stephen bowed.
“As a liar,” he said gravely, “I thought I had no peers; but tonight I salute ye!”
They went through the door into the café. The floor was sanded and a number of Creole and American gentlemen sat at the small tables talking and laughing in the friendliest possible manner.
“Yes,” Andre said, seeing Stephen’s raised eyebrow. “The barriers are going. We are both learning it is better to get along. Only the very old still persist in their ways. Why, only last week one of the Prudhomme girls married a Mister Wilson!”
“Good,” Stephen said. “But where is my esteemed father-in-law-to-be?”
Andre inclined his head. The old man sat alone at a table, pulling at a long-stemmed pipe of white clay. His tall beaver sat firmly on his head. His face was as brown as an Indian’s, and his hair gleamed silver. Heavy white brows jutted imperiously over a nose like the blade of an ax. He wore a stock of the purest white silk, gleaming even above the snowy ruffle of his shirtfront, and his coat was of maroon, richly brocaded. The waistcoat, Stephen saw, was pearl-gray, and its studs were all diamonds. Andre stopped before him and bowed a little.
“Monsieur le Vicomte,” he said in French, “have I your permission to present my good friend, Etienne Reynard?”
The old man nodded a bit, his black eyes boring into Stephen’s. “I am called Fox, monsieur,” Stephen said deliberately, “not Reynard, and my first name is Stephen. Your servant, Monsieur le Vicomte!”
The thin lips twisted into a grim smile.
“You have right,” he said in old French. “Make no apologies for your name. It is a good one. Andre thinks I’m an ol
d ogre. That is why he translated it.”
“And are ye an old ogre?” Stephen asked smiling.
“Upon occasion. You speak French well, young man. Andre tells me you learned it in Paris. What were you doing there?”
“What does one usually do in Paris, monsieur? Gambling, wenching, anything to amuse oneself. . .”
Pierre Arceneaux threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“Moi,” he chuckled, “I have done the same thing when I was young. My father gave me the Grand Tour. For my education, you understand. I educated myself with every well-turned ankle on the continent. I’ve heard it said that you’re a gambler, Monsieur Fox.”
“Ye heard rightly,” Stephen said, and Andre’s eyes opened wide. “ ‘Tis a profession not without honor. But I am leaving it for good.”
“Why?” the old man demanded. “I couldn’t think of a more fascinating life.”
“One grows older,” Stephen said quietly. “And the blood cools. There are things a man wants: a home, a wife, children. Perhaps I aim much too high, but the sort of girl I’d take to wife would not ordinarily marry a gambler. Ye’re a horseman, sir? Then ye demand good blood in a filly, do ye not?”
“I see,” Pierre Arceneaux said slowly. “Then what are your plans?”