“No. I’m fine by myself.”
“You don’t like me?”
He took another sip of his whiskey and put the glass down, but behind the woman propositioning him he saw a vision that made him swallow hard. “No, I don’t want you. I want her.”
• • •
Fletcher was an artist who sketched lewd scenes for a well-heeled clientele—scenarios custom ordered by men too private, too concerned with their reputations, to patronize a brothel.
Made to order with exact specifications, Fletcher’s drawings needed compliant models. Maggie gave him access to a private room that he used as his studio. His clients paid well, but he had a weakness for fine liquor and gambling: his money always went back to the house.
Jupiter walked in without knocking. A woman wearing a maid’s uniform caressed the shoulders of a nude woman wearing only a tiara fashioned out of wire, and holding a rolling pin as if it were a scepter.
A half-finished reflection of the two of them appeared on Fletcher’s canvas.
Fletcher looked up at Jupiter. “I’m doing work for a client,” he said. “I’m so sorry, ladies. He’ll be leaving right away.”
“Don’t bother me none,” said the queen. “Neck’s starting to get stiff anyway. Why don’t we just come back tomorrow?”
“That won’t be necessary. He’s leaving right now. And he’s sorry for making you uncomfortable. Isn’t that right, Jupiter?”
“I’m hungry,” said the maid.
“Don’t worry, Fletcher,” the queen said. “We’ll be back to get our money. No need to worry about us skipping out on you. You don’t enjoy our company that much. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
The girl with Jupiter watched the nude queen follow the maid.
“What do you want, Jupiter?” Fletcher asked after the women had left.
“Excuse me, Fletcher, but you don’t seem too happy to see me.”
“Forgive the hostility, but you interrupt my business and you come in here with a girl who doesn’t seemed all too pleased to be in your company. But it’s good to see you’ve given up on your obsession. It’s about time you’ve moved on.”
“Actually, I haven’t,” Jupiter said. “That’s what I’m here about—the sketch. You couldn’t get the eyes right before. These are the eyes.”
Fletcher sighed, “These are the eyes?”
The girl looked scared, but she didn’t say anything. “Don’t worry,” Jupiter said to her. “I said all he’ll do is draw you, and that’s all he’ll do.”
“May I have a word with you, Jupiter?”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said to the girl. “I’ll pay you for your time; just wait right here.”
He followed Fletcher behind a row of covered easels. “Sonya has eyes just like hers. Get those eyes on that sketch so I can make a poster, and maybe find her. But you have got to get those eyes right.”
Jupiter hated the pitiful look Fletcher gave him.
“It’s been years since the war’s over,” said Fletcher. “If you’ve found a woman with her eyes why not just count your blessings. Maybe that’s as close you’ll get. Why can’t you see it as a gift and accept it? She is for hire, I presume?” Jupiter wanted to break Fletcher’s hand for saying that, but Jupiter needed his skill.
“You of all people should know it’s not that simple. Where’s your woman since Louise died?”
Fletcher’s eyes danced. “All right,” he said finally. “Young lady, could you come over here please?” Fletcher leafed through a stack of sketches, all of them incomplete in different ways. Some were missing a mouth, or a nose, or a frame of the face, but then he found one that only missed the eyes. “Sit still,” Fletcher said to the girl. She looked over at Jupiter. “No, no, don’t look at him. Look at me.”
She looked down at her hands.
“Look at me, darling. Lift your head and look at me. Look at me like you’ve just been in the company of a very wealthy man, and he’s promised to take care of you and you’ll never have to see this godforsaken place again.”
She tilted her head and opened her eyes. Jupiter watched as Fletcher drew them and captured—recreated—every bit of their radiant gleam.
3
Jupiter’s cup rattled against the saucer. He sipped his tea and placed it down carefully, briefly remembering his training and the many times he had served this kind of china at Colonel Smith’s plantation.
“Do you like your tea?” Maggie asked.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s strange how you can be a man of so few words, but then at other times . . . not few enough.”
Jupiter’s hand moved slowly from the teacup as he looked up at Maggie. “I’m just a man. I’m sure you’d find those traits in others.”
Maggie dabbed the corners of her mouth with the white linen, then laid it neatly on her lap. “Isn’t it amazing how men can say, ‘I’m just a man’ as a way of dismissing or even excusing their shortcomings, yet they expect all the power, expect so much to be granted to them because of their gender—because they are men. How many problems could I get out of by saying ‘I’m just a woman’?”
“You would never say that,” Jupiter answered.
“No, I would never say that.”
“Well, I’m not making excuses.”
“No, I would never say ‘I’m just a woman’ as an excuse to forget my integrity or as an excuse to lose my hold on reason.”
“It’s just a thing people say,” said Jupiter.
“It’s just a thing that men say. The same men,” said Maggie, “that use their manhood to excuse the weaknesses of their character, those same men are looking to take everything I have left. Everything my husband left me when he died. They’re looking to take it all. You wouldn’t let that happen to me, would you, Jupiter?”
He took a long pause, maybe too long. “No, Maggie. I wouldn’t.”
“No, you wouldn’t, but that wouldn’t stop plenty of men from trying. Who knows what sort of scoundrel I would have married—if my association with you hadn’t made me a pariah.”
Jupiter squinted. “Pariah?”
“Pariah . . . it means outcast . . . misfit.”
“I know the word, just don’t like the sound of it.”
“Of course you know the word. You know many things. You know many words.”
“I see you’ve been talking to Clement,” he said.
“Jupiter, there are men out there who want to take everything I have. Everything I’m building. All that we are doing, all of our successes, have to be gained without attracting attention. My way of doing things has been designed not to attract attention. That’s why I have you, Jupiter, because they don’t see you coming. You and I are invisible. No one sees us coming. That’s the problem with us, I guess. People like you and I, we want to be seen—it’s part of our nature. But sometimes, quite often in fact, our natures do not operate in our best interests. You have to remain invisible. They don’t see you out there. You are a shadow, and before they see you, who you really are, before they see what has cast a silhouette, by then it is far too late. You must remain the shadow. Funny thing about shadows, the thing common to all of them is that they do not speak. They do not give an explanation as to why they cast their darkness on other things. They are silent. They require no explanation. You have a keen mind, Jupiter, but you . . .”
“But you need me because I’m good with my hands,” he finished for her.
“Yes, you are indeed good with your hands.” Her face reddened. “You find me hideous, don’t you?”
“I don’t think you’re hideous, Maggie. You think you’re hideous. You’re the one who called yourself a pariah.”
She cleared her throat. “I think I’m finished with the matter. Let’s change the subject, shall we. Any news about your family?” she asked.
Jupiter gl
ared at her. She wanted to hurt him, invoke the personal hell he carried within him. He thought about his visit to Fletcher and the word family and everything it meant.
“No,” he said. “No word.”
Maggie reached slowly for Jupiter’s face. He did not move. She came close to his cheek but closed her fingers and withdrew her hand.
“My, you are so exquisite, Jupiter. I see so much in you. So much of the kind of strength and character my late husband possessed. I see it in you, even though I’m not supposed to. Do you think there ever would have been a war if more white people could have looked across the cotton fields, plantations, and servants’ quarters, just looked over and seen themselves in you, in your people, do you think the war still would have been fought?”
“Plenty of white folks saw themselves in us. Can’t say that would have stopped it—it most likely caused it.”
“No, I don’t like this subject either.” She checked the state of her hair in the mirror behind Jupiter. “I need you to stop talking so much during the course of business from now on. If these men, once they get back to shore, spread the word to keep an eye out for a colored crimper it would not only hurt my business, it would damage the thin barrier that keeps the races from killing each other.”
• • •
Maggie lit the lamp, then snuffed out the match. “What do you think, Clement?”
“I think he’s developing a conscience.”
“Bad time, wrong cause.”
“If he’s putting you at risk . . . You know I would do whatever it takes to protect you. He’s my problem. I brought him to you. If you want me to take care of him, I will.”
“And just like that our problem would be solved,” said Maggie.
“I understand your connection to him. I pass no judgment.”
Maggie turned away. “No, it’s not that. He helped me once, through a very difficult period.” Her mind drifted to that night when she was shivering and clammy, fighting off the withdrawals from opium . . .
• • •
“Here,” said Jupiter as he handed her a cup of some foul-smelling liquid. She brought it to her nose and vomited.
“How dare you come into my room,” she said, puke still on her lips. “This time of night . . . if anyone saw you . . .”
“You need help. It’s obvious. No one’ll think twice about a Negro coming to the aid of a white person in need of his services.”
“It’s the kind of services offered that might be troublesome.” She managed a putrid smile.
“Drink what’s left in that cup. Hold your nose if you have to. It’ll get you through the night. The early ones are hardest, but this will make it easier. During the war, it worked for plenty of men in my regiment.”
She sipped it, then spit it out.
“You don’t sip it. You swallow it all at once.”
She braced herself, tilted back her head, and emptied the cup. She felt better almost immediately. “Don’t judge me.”
“Oh, I promise you I won’t. You ladies of privilege and means get bored and develop a taste for the exotic, for adventure. You try things. Occasionally you go too far.”
She laughed. “I can assure you I did not go too far.” She undid the first three buttons of her top.
Jupiter looked away. There was the jagged scar where her breasts used to be. “The cancer went too far. Morphine was the least the doctor could do after they took my flesh away. They failed to tell me how I’d depend upon it long after the wound had healed.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll be back tomorrow night with another batch.”
She nodded.
“Evening, Clement,” she heard him say outside her room.
• • •
“What do you want me to do?” asked Clement as she returned from the memory.
“Watch him closely, for now. Don’t do anything rash. I’ll be giving you my word soon.”
4
Archer sat up and shielded his eyes. It felt as though the sun blared from behind his lids.
“Lazarus has risen.” She was angry but still poised, still beautiful.
Archer reached for her. “Forgive me, my love, but I had—”
“—another one of your episodes?”
“That’s right. This one was especially painful—like electric eels fighting inside my skull.”
She came over to him, ran her fingers through his hair, still damp from night sweats. He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against her stomach.
“Were you in Chinatown?”
He looked up at her; those eyes were inquisitive yet trusting. “Yes, but you know I only use it for the pain.”
The little boy walked in. “Mother, may I go and play with the other children?”
“Did you finish your lesson?”
“No, but I promise I’ll finish it later.”
“You may not play until you have finished your lesson.”
Archer rubbed his temples. “Oh, go on and let the boy play. I wish I had played more as a child, but I was surrounded by serious adults—serious men who wanted me to be a serious boy. Now look at me. Am I one to be taken seriously?”
The boy smiled. “See, Mother, Mr. Smith says I should play more.”
“You’ve heard my answer, now run along.”
“You should be easier on the boy,” Archer said, once the child left the room.
“Mr. Smith, I would appreciate it greatly if you did not tell me how to raise my son.”
Archer squinted. “So, it’s ‘Mr. Smith’ now, is it? If I remember correctly, not two nights ago, it was Archer—both whispered and screamed.”
Her face reddened but she did not turn away. “Don’t be crass.”
He thought of his mother, her humorlessness and impatience with men and the games they played with a woman’s dignity and loyalty. “My apologies,” he whispered, remembering how he met the woman and the boy.
• • •
Archer’s train reached San Francisco. He ached for opium. He had been sick most of the journey west. Shivering, cold sweats brought on by the opium drought. His first thought was to find lodgings but somehow he found himself, with clothes bag in hand, wandering into the more debauched section of town where the green dragon could be found in its dark dwellings.
Amongst the dim light and strangers, he nestled into his muse. Everyone was half-lidded and languid. The only sound was the occasional moan. Archer’s mind went swirling. A nocturne that sent him coasting over the battlefields on a flying horse. And jousting with the Colonel, now a surprisingly agile bearded skeleton. The Colonel’s lance brushed Archer’s temple and his Pegasus screeched and flew away.
When he awoke, he had no idea how long he had slept: his watch was gone. So was his clothes bag. He would have been distraught had he not remembered to tuck his money into a hidden compartment of his vest. It made sense to do this while traveling, and he had merely forgotten to take it out.
He wandered out of the opium den onto the busy streets, stumbling past the comers and goers who paid him no mind or looked at him in disgust when they saw from whence he came.
Just across the way, he saw a church and a young woman handing out pamphlets and preaching a sermon not quite gospel but close to it.
“Greed and sin and fornication and prostitution and the Chinaman’s drug will keep you farther away from Jesus.”
He didn’t realize he was walking to her. The little boy by her side handed Archer one of the pamphlets. “Will you come to Jesus?” he asked Archer.
Archer looked at the boy, thinking back on a time when he too was full of innocence. He looked at the woman, whose beauty could not be hidden, despite her struggle to appear plain. For some reason he thought of his mother, even though he had long since forgotten what his mother looked like. But the new memory, the replacement memory
of his mother’s face, very much resembled this woman. “Yes,” Archer said, looking at the woman. “I would like to come to Jesus.”
The woman took in boarders, but only on an evangelical basis. They had to agree to give their souls to Christ. There were other men around doing household chores and whatnot. Archer regarded them as virtual eunuchs. It was easy for Archer to tolerate them. He liked looking at the woman. She fed him, and he pretended to read the Bible and go to Christ, all while lusting after her. Until one day, he realized the ache for opium had gone. It had gone and been filled by a genuine love for Christ . . . and for this woman. She must have seen it too, for on that night, she allowed Archer into her bed.
The next morning Archer looked at the latest edition of the newspaper, lamenting the decay of the city in bold ink. He looked at the date under the masthead: he had been in San Francisco for three weeks.
• • •
She left his embrace and went to the window. There was a parade of some sort on the street below. “Have you heard anything about the man you are looking for?”
His temples throbbed. “I have. Does that disappoint you?”
She did not answer right away. Two men carried a large slab of meat, practically an entire carcass. One of the men struggled with his end and it fell into the mud. Another man came to their aid and they managed to load it onto a wagon nearby. “I thought you would have given up on all of that.”
“The man killed my father, Elizabeth. That isn’t something one easily forgives.”
Why should a man have to explain such things? He thought back to that insolent Pinkerton who irritated him so, failing to see the importance of his mission . . .
Atlanta. August 1865.
Archer needed laudanum badly. He was already plagued with frequent tremors. But he was meeting the Pinkerton at noon, so he managed some restraint. Not that he had much choice; laudanum, let alone whiskey or a good brandy, was hard to come by in these parts now. But he would need something soon, before the sickness would overwhelm him.
The Abduction of Smith and Smith Page 2