Ghost Knights Of New Orleans

by David Althouse

  Placing both hands in either pocket of my long cape, I arose and began my exit, first passing the Yankee officer before stepping through the door. His eyes remained intently upon me and gave me no welcome sign. In fact, they seemed to motion toward the door and away. I then stepped out into the thick fog of St. Charles Avenue.

  ,I stood momentarily, pondering my next steps and hoping my feet would lead me to a safe harbor.

  My earlier thoughts contemplated paying a visit to the Velazquez residence on Prytania Street, but I declined that option for a couple of reasons. The same K.G.C. operatives interested in my whereabouts undoubtedly knew of her involvement in the mint heist and had probably ransacked her home on the same day they pillaged Father’s properties, and those same agents most assuredly watched over her home on a regular basis to see who came and went, just as they unquestionably observed the two Broussard addresses for the same reason. Also, I certainly did not want to jeopardize any of her staff remaining in the home by serving as bait for such a villainous lot. For those same reasons, I could not reside with any friends or family, however distant.

  While sitting inside the Pickwick, I considered the matter painstakingly while observing the set of piercing eyes in the smoke.

  Finally, I chose the only alternative available to me; an unlikely hideout made all the more so if I remained there in disguise—Maggie Thompson’s brothel on Customhouse Street in the red-light district not too many blocks distant if she would have me.

  Father met Maggie some years before and made a life-long friend when he did, but few if any knew of the close association. Not only did he play in her well-known poker room on a regular basis but he also kept her out of trouble with various city fathers and even loaned her money during hard times. I knew her to be an honest, straight shooter and figured she might do me a favor out of respect for Father if for nothing else.

  I reached the address on Customhouse, knocked and soon enjoyed the welcome smile of a young, beautiful, uniformed black lady who motioned me inside. Nothing much had changed within the foyer since my last visit some years before. Paintings, some by renowned artists, adorned the walls. On either side of the ornate oak doorway into the inner rooms hung French mirrors with gilt frames.

  Maggie ran a tight ship, and one followed her protocol while on the premises. Steady clients were brought into a drawing room where they were expected to buy wine for everyone present. Strangers were escorted to a smaller room and interviewed by Maggie, while the two conversed over a glass of wine. If the stranger’s credentials passed muster, then Maggie brought him into a drawing room and presented him by the first name to the assorted ladies of the house. If he found one of the ladies to his liking, he informed Maggie who, in turn, notified the strumpet who quietly slipped away to her boudoir and made ready for her suitor. The going rate for the adventure stood at fifteen dollars in those days. If Maggie made herself available for a particularly distinguished gentleman, the price stood at fifty dollars an hour plus liberal purchases of wine for assorted other guests throughout the night.

  The petite door greeter knew me as a stranger and escorted me to the small drawing room at once. After a few minutes, Maggie walked in, sat down in a chair adjacent mine, poured the wine and then looked into my eyes.

  “And who might I ask do I have the pleasure of meeting this night?”

  “It’s me, Maggie. Drouet Broussard.”

  She examined me thoroughly from top to bottom, but mostly she looked at my now bearded face and squarely into my eyes.

  “I can’t believe it. In my mind’s eye, you are a boy, yet you are your father’s boy, and you are certainly grown up!”

  “I wondered if you would recognize me.”

  “I heard you fought in the war up in the Indian Territory. Your father told me a few stories. I’m sorry he is gone now.”

  “It’s true. I did. And the reason Father told you those stories is because he knew you to be a lady of utmost discretion in all things.”

  Her eyes welled as she thought of Father, and the sight of it made my eyes nearly do the same, for she and Father were the closest and most trusted of friends and he visibly remained in her heart.

  “That’s why I’m here tonight, Maggie. I’m in a trouble of sorts, and I need your help.”

  “I know it isn’t a lady of mine you need. You could have your pick from most any in our entire fair city.”

  “I need shelter and concealment.”

  “My home is your home. Use as you deem best.”

  She stood as if to start for the drawing room. I rose, as well.

  I then pressed close to Maggie from behind, and as she turned toward me, I placed a hand at her waist and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I am indebted to you and your kindness.”

  “You, Broussard, slay me. You know I will give you anything you want.”

  “I will pay you handsomely. There are those who await my return to Father’s home and to his apartment, and they wish me no goodwill should they lay their hands upon me. Your place will provide me a haven in which to hide for a time in disguise while I devise ways to confront my enemies on my own terms.”

  “You can have anything within these walls, Drouet. And I mean anything.”

  “I won’t forget that, but I will pay above and beyond. I come and go at all hours of the day and night, and I will pay for the inconvenience.”

  “I have a room for you, a nice one down the hall from mine.”

  “Do you still entertain at the poker room where Father lost so much money over the years?”

  Maggie laughed.

  “No man showed more grace while losing money. Yes, every Friday and Saturday night and sometimes during the week. Do you play?”

  “I’m afraid I own more than a few of Father’s bad habits.”

  Maggie smiled deviously.

  “I don’t trust a man without any. I will inform my doormen to let you come and go as you please. You are completely safe here.”

  Over the next several weeks, I became acquainted with the ladies and staff of the house, further cultivated the beard and mustache, and altered to a certain degree my wardrobe. While keeping a long cape in which to conceal my blades, I began wearing a black, planters style hat.

  On Friday and Saturday nights I worked to hone my poker skills in Maggie’s poker room. I hadn’t need of the winnings when they came. I played only to socialize, to meet people and to gather news about town. Naturally, our Yankee friends had discovered Maggie’s place and the rest of the red-light district soon after taking the city in 1862. Many were the blue coats who lost their money at the poker tables and their virginity in the boudoirs within the dimly-lit houses along Customhouse Street in those days.

  There came a night when I enjoyed a long and successful roll at the table. The night started with me taking money from Yankee boys who seemed to inevitably lose whatever card-playing skills they might possess when they were distracted by the never-ending music, laughter, dancing and the clinking of crystal as the spirits flowed freely. As the night progressed and the young boys in blue left defeated, their seats at the table were filled by players with considerably greater skill, but my success continued unabated as I employed the time-honored methods of scores of poker players before me; when faced with equal or greater talent—I cheated.

  Many were the piles of coinage and paper I raked in throughout the night, and I considered playing a few more hands only to give back some of the spoils I had taken from a couple of players who stood at the precipice of poker bankruptcy and embarrassment. I considered this not out of any sense of honor, but as a device to prevent any unfortunate scenes in Maggie’s place.

  By then, a sizable crowd had gathered around the table. I played a few more hands and contemplated retiring for the evening when into the room walked a bearded Yankee officer. I knew him as the same perfecto-smoking blue coat from my last visit at the Pickwick. From the doorway, he cast his gaze immediately upon me while cupping both hands over his pistol g
rips.

  Just then, one of the bluecoats amongst the crowd greeted him.

  “Welcome, Colonel Snider.”

  The man addressed as Colonel Snider acknowledged the greeting with a slight nod of the head, all while holding those grips and keeping both eyes directed straight at me.

  The player opposite me at the table whispered, “That’s Colonel Thomas Snider. Someone said he’s the one who paid that Yankee woman to kill Loreta Velazquez, that lady spy.”

  Others at the table and in the room noticed his continued stare at me, his ready firearms, and a feeling of disconcertedness fell upon the scene. I maintained as best I could a poker face, winning first one hand and losing another.

  Snider seemed to edge closer to my immediate vicinity with each passing hand, and I contemplated my next move in light of the situation. Just as I reached down to touch my own pistol grips and feel the handles of both blades concealed in my cape, Snider removed the cigar from his mouth and bellowed out his orders.

  “I want everyone to clear out of here, now!”

  Members of the crowd and players at the table began departing the scene post haste. I pocketed my winnings, placed my hat topside and made as if to rise. The Colonel issued his last order while continuing his gaze upon yours truly.

  “You stay where you are.”

  Snider and I were then alone in the room, and he closed the door.

  “I have you now, Drouet Broussard.”

  10

  Beginning Life After the War

  The Yankee Colonel stood before me with the barrels of both his sidearms aimed in my direction as the ever-present laughter, music, and revelry echoed throughout the premises. This is funny, I thought, given that I faced a grim current state of affairs.

  “Drouet, how do you tolerate this?”

  “This what, Colonel?”

  “The sights, the sounds, the aroma of indulgence everywhere here.”

  “Quite easily, I can assure you.”

  At that, the Colonel peeled away the mustache, beard and grotesque pork chop sideburns peculiar to Yankee military men, to reveal for the second dramatic time in our friendship, Loreta Velazquez.

  I sat frozen and nearly unable to conceal my astonishment at her most recent deception.

  She quickly smiled and cleared her throat to indicate an upcoming change back to her feminine voice.

  “I, too, rather enjoy the sights, sounds and aroma here, delightful manifestations of decadence, Drouet. I completely understand why you live here.”

  I know I stood silent and somewhat spellbound for longer than I wanted. Loreta had completely hoodwinked me for the second time with her disguises, and I stood in awe of her ability and still do.

  “Another thing, Drouet, please explain your pitiful excuse for a disguise. I’ve watched you for the last week and immediately saw right through the planter’s hat, beard, and mustache. I need to train you in the art of disguise.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Your eyes, Drouet. They give you away, I’m afraid.”

  “My God, Loreta. It’s really you. I truly believed it when I heard you had been killed.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that. But we’re both here, together again. Pray, what mischief lies ahead for us now that you have arrived?”

  “Arrived?”

  “Here. To this place, to this brothel where you belong, achieving the aim which is the highest in your life. I am glad to see you so happy, and I know that there is nothing else that anyone can do for you because you have risen so high in the world.”

  Then, she removed her Yankee Colonel’s hat and made a grand bow.

  “That’s real funny, Loreta. But I’m here for a damned good reason, and you look kind of funny yourself bedecked in your Yankee get up.”

  She laughed.

  “Colonel Snider just made his last appearance, as his was only a temporary engagement, one week long to be exact.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Do you forget that Yankees run this town? Impersonate a Yankee long enough and someone wearing blue will ask for documentation, for your background, for a solid story, and it had better check out when they do.”

  “Yes, I get the general idea.”

  “So, when did you hear about my murder?”

  “Not that very long ago up in Kentucky, and it sounded as if the story had been retold everywhere north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line for quite some time when I heard it. Even a few minutes ago at this very poker table, someone whispered out of your earshot that Colonel Snider—meaning you, the Yankee officer who had just pranced into the room—paid the Yankee woman to kill Loreta Velazquez. Just what the hell actually happened?”

  “I got the rumor started while masquerading as a one Mrs. Williams after hearing my real name mentioned one too many times in association with certain nefarious activities with which I had no actual involvement. It’s bad enough knowing my real guilt in a number of actual shenanigans, but I seek no reputation on the back of crimes not involving me at all. I mentioned the murder of Velazquez to a group of well-placed gentlemen at a poker table one night, and the false story spread like wildfire. For the longest time, Yankee authorities actually bought the story.”

  “But I heard there was a photograph showing a one Loreta Velazquez lying dead on the ground full of bullet holes.”

  “Drouet, surely you know never to believe everything you hear and not even everything you see. I am the one who placed the photograph of that poor unfortunate and unknown woman into circulation.”

  “Loreta, you truly are brilliant…fostering the news of your own demise! I have to hear more of your adventures.”

  “In time I shall recount more. But, tonight let us retire to your quarters here, wherever that is.”

  I took Loreta by the hand, exited the poker room and made for my room downstairs.

  “Follow me to all the comforts of home.”

  As soon as the door to my room shut, I drew her hungrily into my arms.

  The following day, Loreta began telling me of her exploits on behalf of the K.G.C. around the country, narratives that kept me enthralled at every turn. No other woman I had ever known owned her daring, cunning, beauty and charm. I knew at that moment I would never meet her like again and vowed then and there to never let her go.

  Shortly after leaving New Orleans when we had completed the mint heist mission, Loreta flattened her breasts with braces and wire shields, donned a man’s wig, fake mustache, and beard, and successfully began playing the part of Harry T. Buford, Confederate lieutenant. She padded her arms to appear more muscular, smoked cigars and walked with a masculine gait and successfully passed herself off as a bonafide Confederate officer. As Buford, she raised a battalion for the Confederacy out of the state of Arkansas and, at times, found herself in actual battles on numerous occasions.

  Loreta grew tired of regular duty, began lobbying for a position as a Confederate spy and, with the help of her K.G.C. contacts, earned a role sending her back and forth across the country gaining valuable information for Confederate generals and the government in Richmond. Oftentimes, the information she gathered concerned Yankee troop movements.

  During her travels north, Loreta gained the confidence of Yankee officials and eventually secured a role in the Yankees’ National Detective Bureau, a move that made her a double agent, but one always fighting tenaciously and exclusively for the Southern Cause.

  I listened with rapt attention as she recounted the details of her activities in those years after the mint heist, especially those undertakings while in the employ of the National Detective Bureau. Her stories gave me to know how deftly her covert actions would have met the approval of Father, whose words regarding slithering about incognito kept ringing true.

  Through a clandestine, complicated and treacherous web, oftentimes in the midst of enemy players in their own land, Loreta glided as if a bird on the wind. From my own K.G.C. and Confederate contacts, I often heard bits and pie
ces of news related to her work. I knew she had played a pivotal role while in Memphis assisting General Forrest while also helping to lead Yankee General Washburn astray with false intelligence related to troop movements.

  Loreta knew that the goals of the Confederacy had become, for all intents and purposes, the same as those of the K.G.C. and believed that she assisted both organizations by simply making herself available for assignments, however dangerous, during the war. She eventually wrote a book about her many adventures as a double agent working for the Confederacy, but I have it on the highest authority that, within the tome, she intentionally scrambled dates and chronology in order to protect persons throughout the country still living.

  Whatever inaccuracies lie within those pages are by her own design.

  Naturally, I wanted to learn all I could about her missions during those years following our work together in New Orleans.

  “I heard that you possibly helped General Forrest while up in Memphis. How did you get involved in that and how did it play out?”

  “While staying in Mobile, I received a note written in a masculine hand requesting I meet the writer that evening in the nearby square. I met the gentleman who turned out to be Lieutenant Shorter of Arkansas.”

  “How did Shorter know of you?”

  “Probably from officials he worked with. He also knew about my ability to disguise myself when needed. Shorter said he had recently captured a Yankee spy belonging to the command of General Hurlbut. From that spy, Shorter retrieved a paper containing highly accurate accounts of the movements of General Forrest and other Confederates.

  “Shorter changed the paper’s accounts so as to throw the Yankees on the wrong scent. My charge, if I accepted it, was to take the paper to Memphis and deliver it to Yankee General Washburn.”