The National was not quite as impressive a hotel as Willard's, or as crowded, but still it was imposing. The air in the lobby was somewhat more subdued and genteel, and when Jerry entered he heard Southern accents on every side.
The desk clerk made no difficulty about giving out the room number of John Wilkes Booth, and said that yes, the actor happened to be in. Jerry walked upstairs to find him.
When he stood before the door of the room, he could hear low voices inside, but was unable to distinguish words. When he tapped on the door they quieted immediately.
Then the door was opened six or eight inches by a man perhaps two or three years older than Jerry, who was immediately reminded of Pilgrim. Not by face, but by attitude. The well-dressed man in the doorway had something of an actor's presence, immediately perceptible. He was not large, except perhaps for his hands. Only an inch or two taller than Jerry, but erect and handsome, with black hair and a black luxurious mustache that contrasted with his pale skin.
"Mr. Booth?"
"Yes sir?" The voice was an actor's too, as suave and practiced as Pilgrim's, and soft if not exactly Southern. His manner was at once arrogant and courtly.
Jerry said: "My name is Jeremiah Flint. I wonder if I might trouble you for an autograph. If now is not a convenient time, I can certainly come back later. The truth is, I'm a visitor in Washington, and my sister rather firmly laid the duty on me of not leaving the city until I had at least tried…"
Booth was smiling tolerantly at him now. The door swung halfway open. Now Jerry caught a glimpse of a second occupant of the room, a large, dark-haired, strong-looking youth seated at a table, on which he drummed his fingers as if waiting impatiently for the interruption to be over.
The actor in the doorway said to Jerry: "We must make every effort not to disappoint the ladies—have you something you wish me to sign?"
"Yes I do, Mr. Booth, thank you. A playbill, if you don't mind." Jerry had picked it up before leaving Ford's, and produced it from his pocket now. "It would give Martha a great deal of pleasure. I know she has seen you on stage several times."
"Then we must do our best not to disappoint her. Step in, please."
Jerry entered the room, and followed Booth across to a small writing table, where the actor picked up a steel-nibbed pen and neatly opened a bottle of ink. Meanwhile the other man remained silently in his chair; when Booth glanced at him he immediately stopped drumming with his fingers.
Jerry watched the signing carefully. Booth's pale, well-manicured hands were large and strong, as if they had been meant for a man with a bigger body. A detail caught Jerry's eye; there were the tattooed initials, JWB, near the branching of the thumb and forefinger on the right hand. A strange decoration for an actor to wear, he thought.
Less than a minute after he had entered the room, Jerry was out in the corridor again, the autographed playbill in hand, and Booth's door closed behind him. Jerry moved a step closer to the door, listening intently for a moment, but heard nothing. He retreated down the corridor.
In the lobby, he hesitated briefly at the door leading to the street, and then turned back. Buying a newspaper, he settled himself to read, in a chair from which he would be able to keep an eye on the main stairway. He was also close enough to the desk to have a good chance of hearing any name callers might ask for.
Jerry didn't think the other man in Booth's room was an autograph hound, and he certainly hadn't looked like an actor, at least not compared to Booth himself; too sloppy and somehow unkempt, though he had been well dressed. That, in Jerry's mind, left a great many possibilities open, including one in which the powerful-looking youth might be a co-conspirator. There might be other conspirators; damn it, he hadn't had the chance to go into any of that with Pilgrim. The two men up there now might be planning the assassination at this moment.
Jerry decided to hang around, on the chance that he might be able to learn something that would be of help. The fact was that he could think of nothing else to do just now that gave even the slightest promise of being useful.
Jerry lurked with his paper in the lobby for almost an hour before the tall, powerfully built man who had been with Booth appeared, coming downstairs alone. As Jerry had noted earlier, he was clad in respectable clothing, fairly new, but worn with a lack of attention to such things as fastenings and minor stains. Tall and muscular, moving with an unconscious catlike grace, Booth's companion looked neither to right nor left as he passed through the lobby, seeming totally unaware of Jerry watching him as he went straight out the door.
Jerry made himself wait for a count of three. Then he stood up and folded his paper, and, trying not to hurry, followed the other out of the lobby into the street. There was the tall form moving away from him.
Jerry followed. The effort might well, he supposed, be a complete and total waste of time, but still he was determined to give it a try, even though, for all he knew, he was tailing the president of the John Wilkes Booth fan club. Or perhaps a theatrical agent.
The quarry led Jerry up Pennsylvania to Seventh, then north for almost half a mile to H, then quickly around a corner.
Jerry followed without changing his pace, but now he was thinking furiously. Had the tall man realized he was being tailed; was this a ploy to shake his pursuer off, or draw him into a trap? He must have eyes in the back of his head if so, for he had never looked behind him.
Jerry in turn rounded the corner warily, just in time to see his quarry halfway up a long ascent of wooden stairs, about to enter the high first floor of a house of dingy brick. A young woman, a servant of some kind probably, was shaking a dustcloth out of a window on the ground floor of the house.
What now? Jerry could think of no reasonable excuse for stopping, so he kept on walking. He noted as he passed the house that the tall man had gone right in; and he noted the address also: 541 H Street. ROOMS TO LET, said a faded sign in another of the lower windows.
What now? Jerry didn't know. He made his way by a winding route back to his hotel, stopping in a couple of stores on the way to purchase a couple of new collars and shirts. How about a new suit? He could easily afford it. But he swore to himself that he was not going to be in this century long enough to need one.
Re-entering his hotel room after lunch, he half expected to find Pilgrim lounging there, waiting for him. But there was no one. Jerry stood at the window looking out upon an alien world. Well, Pilgrim had said that communication between time-frames wasn't easy.
Presently Jerry went out again. He spent most of the afternoon walking restlessly through this peculiar world and thinking about it, trying to familiarize himself more thoroughly with the way of life of its inhabitants. Within a few blocks of the house where Lincoln lived he noted some former slave-auction facilities, still identified as such by painted signs, but deserted now. Thank God, no one was still doing that kind of business in the capital. Ignoring a threat of rain, he wandered around the large perimeter of the White House grounds, until he was brought to a halt by the foul-smelling canal along their southern boundary. In the twentieth-century, this area, Jerry seemed to remember, was occupied by a grassy mall.
He stood for a while beside the canal, marveling at the dismal stench of it, and how everyone around him put up with it so stoically. In summer it must be truly remarkable.
Presently he walked along the canal until he could cross it on a footbridge, and went to stand by the unfinished Washington Monument, observing that a kind of stockyard and open air slaughterhouse had been established at its base. Turning east, past grazing sheep, he looked at the red-roofed construction of the Smithsonian Institution, still confined here to one building, like some kind of vast elfin castle. He tried yet again to think of what else he might do to ready himself for Friday evening's confrontation, and he could think of nothing.
For variety, he dined away from Willard's. But shortly after dinner he was back in his room and sound asleep.
THIRTEEN
The next morning, Jerry awoke from
a dreamless sleep thinking this is Thursday, April thirteenth. There will be no Friday the thirteenth this month.
Only then did he react to the sound that had awakened him, a rough knocking on the door of his room.
It was broad daylight, time he was up anyway. He sat on the edge of his bed, reaching for his pants. "Who is it?" he shouted.
"Porter." The answering voice was muffled.
"Just a second." For a moment he had dared to entertain a foolish hope that it was Pilgrim, come to take him home or at least to bring him lifesaving information. Half-dressed, Jerry shuffled to the door and pulled it open.
As soon as the latch released, a force from outside pushed the door open wide, and sent Jerry staggering back. Two large men in civvies burst into the room. Each of them had Jerry by an arm before he could start to react.
"You're under arrest."
"What for?"
"Shut up." His arms were forced behind his back, and the handcuffs went on his wrists, painfully tight. Miranda rights were a long way in the future.
"At least you could let me get dressed."
They grudgingly agreed with that. One man watched him, glowering, while the other closed the door of the room, and searched. Bedclothes, the garments Jerry hadn't put on yet, the stuff in his closet, all went flying. It was a violent effort but it didn't look all that efficient.
At least, he thought, I've already managed to lose my pistol. But that was a foolish consolation. In this world carrying a firearm was no crime, and the mere presence of one probably wouldn't make anyone suspicious.
He was patted down for weapons, then the cuffs were removed and he was allowed to get dressed before being handcuffed again. As he tucked his watch into its pocket in his vest, he said: "You've got the wrong man." No we ain't.
"What's this all about?"
The older man, who had a graying mustache, was doing the talking for the pair. "Just walk out with us quietly, it'll be easier that way."
"Sure. But where're we going? I still don't know what this is all about."
He wasn't going to find out now. As soon as he was dressed they pulled him out into the hall and started down the stairs. One of the men locked Jerry's room behind him, and brought the key along.
On the stairs a couple of passers-by looked at him and his escort curiously. As the three of them were passing swiftly through a corner of the lobby, on the way out a side door, a distraction at the other end of the lobby, near the front desk, turned all eyes in that direction. A wave of talk passed through the lobby.
"It's Grant!"
"General Grant is here!"
So much for the sophistication of the capital, that more or less took the presence of President Lincoln in stride; Jerry got the impression that Grant, the conquering hero, had rarely been seen in town before. What was he doing here now, away from his army? But why not, now that the war was virtually over. And was it possible that the General's presence in the city was going to have any effect on what happened at Ford's tomorrow night?
The only immediate effect on Jerry was that his departure from the hotel was probably noticed by no one at all.
Waiting just outside Willard's side entrance was a dark police wagon, with small windows of heavy steel mesh. Jerry was hustled immediately into it. A moment later the horses were being cursed and beaten into motion, and they were off. He could feel the wagon turn in the general direction of the Capitol.
The younger and larger of the prisoner's two escorts rode with him inside the wagon, and stared at him with heavy suspicion through the entire journey, saying nothing. Jerry responded by looking out the window, wondering how long the sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach was going to last, how long it would take him to absorb his new reality. Maybe in a month, or even sooner, with the war officially at an end, Stanton—or whoever was having him arrested—would let him out of jail. He could set up selling petroleum, like Win Johnson back in Illinois. He—
Enough of that. He had an appointment he meant to keep at Ford's, tomorrow evening.
Pilgrim might be able to help. Might. Jerry had been warned against counting on any help at all from that direction. It was Pilgrim's fault that he was in this mess, and…
At this point it didn't really matter whose fault it was.
Jerry was seated on a wooden bench, and there was not much to see through the high windows of the wagon, except for some springtime treetops and the fronts of buildings. The ride took only a few minutes, and when Jerry was hustled out of the conveyance again at the end of it, he was able to catch a quick glimpse of the Capitol dome, quite near at hand.
The wagon had stopped very close beside one of city's many large stone buildings; this one, by its heavily barred windows, was obviously a prison or police station. He noticed that here too, for some reason, his escort preferred to use the side entrance, off the busy street.
Once inside the gloomy fortress, the prisoner was conducted through one locked door after another. He was searched again, by the same men who had arrested him, and everything taken out of his pockets, including of course his money and his watch. His hat, coat, tie, and boots were also confiscated.
Ignoring his protests, the two men silently thrust Jerry into a small solitary cell. The door slammed shut.
Their footsteps in the corridor outside died away. Otherwise there was quiet.
His cell was lighted by one small window, more like a ventilator, too small for a man to squeeze through even if it had not been barred and positioned just below the eight-foot ceiling. For furniture there was a built-in wooden bench, and under the bench an empty bucket that smelled like what it was, an unsanitized latrine.
Jerry settled himself on the bench, stared at the door that was solid wood except for a small peephole, and waited for what might happen next. He was already convinced that it would be a waste of breath to send screams down the empty corridor outside.
He leaned his head back against the wall, realized it felt damp and slimy, and sat erect again. Presently he closed his eyes. Maybe when he opened them, Pilgrim would be sitting beside him on the bench, ready to give him another pep talk. Pilgrim gave the worst pep talks Jerry had ever heard, but he felt that he could use another one about now. But when Jerry opened his eyes again, he was still alone.
He wondered if the thugs who had arrested him were estimating the value of his watch, maybe arguing over who would get to keep it. Or did they plan to sell it and split the proceeds? Well, there was nothing that Jerry could do about it if they were. Nothing he could do about anything, not until someone opened the door to his cell. Which surely ought to happen soon.
The hours passed slowly in prison. The light from the window changed slightly, gradually, in its quality as the sun, somewhere on the other side of the building, made its unhurried way across the sky. He had until tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. Jerry warned himself to keep his nerve. Stanton—or whoever—couldn't possibly just leave him sitting here until then. Could he?
At a time Jerry judged to be somewhere around mid-afternoon, a jailer at last appeared, carrying a jug of water and two pieces of bread on a tin plate. The man was sullenly unresponsive to all questions, and disappeared again as soon as he had accomplished his delivery. Jerry drank gratefully, then chewed meditatively on the bread, thankful for his good, strong, heavily fluoridated twentieth-century teeth. As if drawn by the scent of food, a couple of mice now appeared in a far corner of the little cell, wriggling their noses. Maybe, their cellmate thought hopefully, the presence of mice was a sign that there would not be rats.
Maybe he was being too quiet, too stoic. When he had finished as much as he could chew of the bread, he went to the door with its half-open peep-hole and yelled at full volume down the hallway outside. From somewhere out there another series of maniacal yells echoed and mocked his own; evidently he was not, after all, the only prisoner in the building. But there was no other result.
He alternately paced his cell and sat down on the bench to rest. The hours passe
d. Nothing happened.
—and then Jerry, fallen asleep sitting on the wooden bench, awoke with a start in the darkness when a key rattled loudly in the lock of his cell's door. A moment later, the same two men who had arrested him came in, the younger of the two carrying a lantern.
Without a word of explanation Jerry was jerked to his feet, then hustled out of his cell and down the darkened corridor. The doors of other cells, whether occupied or empty, were all closed. The lantern made a moving, bobbing patch of light.
They took him down another dark stairway. Or maybe it was the same one by which he had been brought in, Jerry could not be sure.
When they had reached what Jerry thought was the ground floor, the two jailers brought him into an office, or at least a room containing some desks and chairs and filing cabinets. There was a notable absence of paperwork for a real office, and the place had a disused air about it. No one else was in the room. The lantern was put down on a desk which had an empty chair behind it, and Jerry was made to stand facing the desk.
On the wide, scarred wooden surface of the desk the things that had been taken from him had been laid out, except for the money, being notable only by its absence. There were Jim Lockwood's hat, and coat, and boots. There was Pilgrim's watch. When Jerry held his breath he was able to hear the timepiece ticking. There was the room key for his hotel, and there were his two theater tickets for tomorrow night.
When he stretched his neck just a little, he could see that the hands of the watch indicated a little after seven. The metal faceplate, though not the glass, had been swung open, as if someone had wondered whether something might be concealed inside.
For almost a minute after their arrival there was no sound in the room except for an occasional belch from one of the jailers, and the soft but substantial ticking of the watch. Presently a door behind the desk opened, and a man stepped through carrying a lighted lamp. He was hatless, dressed in dark, nondescript civilian clothes. In his late thirties, Jerry estimated. Sandy hair and beard. Only a little taller than Jerry but more powerfully built.
AFTER THE FACT Page 13