"Unless we side with Spain against the Yankees, Lewrie. So we gain concessions in Louisiana and Florida to buttress the Dons. Then we also tear them away from France 's embrace," Mr. Pollock dreamily speculated, head cocked to one side. "Didn't think o' that'un, did ye, hey? Ahem."
"My word, I-"
"Cheaper than mounting an expedition from Jamaica, and another all the way downriver from Canada," Pollock wheezed with merriment at the possibility. "My firm with an exclusive franchise from the Crown in these lands for good service… Ah!" Pollock took a long moment to savour that outcome, then suddenly sobered. "Unless," he grumped, "Ellison's been sicced on me to catch me selling arms, acting on suspicions inside the Cabildo… or General Wilkinson's way of eliminating a British firm he suspects. Or, is in competition with commerical cronies backing his secret plans. Either way, avoid Ellison and his men like the plague, Lewrie. You've bigger fish to fry, heh heh! You've our mysterious pirates to smoak out… Lanxade and Balfa need running to earth. For now, those Yankees are an idle distraction. For my part, I shan't sell them more than a few trade muskets… profitable though such a transaction would be. There's too much risk from exposure, and a very public trial for spying. Quickly followed a public garotting," Pollock warned, involuntarily massaging his own neck.
Executions in Spanish lands didn't required a gallows-going for "the high jump," doing the "Tyburn hornpipe." The Dons preferred sitting one down in a stout chair, then slowly strangling the convicted with a garotte… one agonising twist of the ropes at a time.
Such qualms on Pollock's odd features quite made Lewrie feel at his own throat and swallow a few times.
"No sense in arming the competition, sir?" Lewrie asked instead.
"Quite so, Lew- Pardon, Mister Willoughby." Pollock beamed. "I might even aspire to report Ellison to the Dons, do they importune me for a large consignment of arms. Or try to bribe me. And all of it well witnessed by my clerks, heh heh! Commerce, Mister Willoughby, is not quite so dull an enterprise as you'd imagine, ahem. When spryer and younger, and moving pack-trains among the Cherokee and Upper Creek Indians in the Revolution… fiercely in competition with Americans such as McGilliveray Sons out of Charleston, well… it was a war to the knife, and no quarter!" Pollock modestly preened over his past derring-do and skullduggery. "Pan-ton, Leslie gave as good as it got!"
Sure as Hell I won't mention Desmond to him! Lewrie considered.
"Well, I think we're ready to go ashore," Pollock announced. "Whyever are ye not packed, Mister Willoughby?"
"Ashore?" Lewrie gawped back. "First I've heard of it."
"Oh, so sorry," Pollock gaily said, not sounding sorry at all. "Best for your persona, do you take shore lodgings in a modest pension or boarding-house. The cost is middlin', and the local cuisine's most delectable, bein' French, d'ye see? Best get cracking, Willoughby, or it will be completely dark before we get you settled."
"I don't have a shore-going bag," Lewrie complained, springing to his feet. "No one told me I needed one, and-"
"No matter," Pollock objected, "for I'm sure we have a suitable valise aboard… for which I may gladly offer you a handsome discount, seeing as how it will go towards furthering the Crown's interests."
"What if I just lease or rent?" Lewrie dubiously wondered.
"Oh no, that'd never do, Lewrie," Pollock quibbled. "For once we come back aboard, it'll have been used, and I could not in good conscience flog it off on someone else as good as new."
Damn him, I knew he'd find a way t'pry me loose from a guinea or two! Lewrie thought; Tradesmen! Bah!
"We'll allow your Navy lads shore liberty, along with the brig's crew as well." Pollock further blandly announced.
"But I haven't warned 'em yet," Lewrie quickly rejoined, fearing what-all they might blab when in their cups ashore without a stern lecture. Would some of them "run" was another instant worry.
"Then you'd best be at it, shouldn't you," Pollock said, tapping a foot in growing impatience, and eagerness to savour the city's joys. "If you do not mind, I will take part in that, ahem. Your man, Jugg, should be given a roving brief and a freer hand, since he most likely, in my cautious estimation, has been to New Orleans before and knows his way about… and knows the names and faces of those we seek, from his past, ah… employments? I propose that Jugg temporarily report to me, not you. Now 'til next morning, say, 'til Eight Bells and the start of the Forenoon Watch, for your hands' return, so they may carouse ashore?"
"That'd do, I expect," Lewrie begrudgingly said, "Uh, what'll I need ashore, how much should I pack, then? "
"Oh, no more than a change or two of clothing," Pollock guessed. "Your current 'sporting' togs and a fresh shirt and stockings will do. Take those shipboard things you wore on the way upriver, the hunting shirt and such… as if that's all you own at present. A full purse, it goes without saying… and all your, um… weapons. One cannot tell what sort of footpads one may come across."
"You're so reassuring," Lewrie said with a faint sneer as he opened the cabin door to go forward to his own small accommodations.
Not one hour later he was ashore and cozily ensconced in one of Pollock's "open and airy" appartements (as the Frogs termed them) in a pension at the corner of Bourbon Street and Rue Ste. Anne. His rooms were two storeys above the ground floor, up narrow, rickety stairs, and any felons who wished to scrag him couldn't help making the most hellish racket on their way up to get at him, he cautiously reasoned. It actually was a promisingly pleasant place, a tad spare when it came to elegant furnishings, but it was clean and (relatively) bug-free, with bed linens, towels, and drapes still redolent of boiling water and soap, fresh washed. The "airy" part came from three complete sets of glazed doors that served for gigantic windows, all of which led out to a wraparound upper balcony fronted with intricate wrought-iron railings, and even the stench from the bricked streets with too-narrow sidewalks and no drains or gutters by the kerbs wasn't that bad, for all the detritus seemed to end up in the sunken centres of the cobbled streets, where, Lewrie suspected, it stayed till the next rainstorm flushed it asea… or down the street, where another neighbourhood could enjoy it!
Not a true set of rooms, really; he'd gotten one large, open, high-ceilinged chamber as a parlour, fitted out with a mismatched set of chairs and a settee, corner tables, end tables, a faded carpet, and some cast-off horrors for framed paintings and such, aligned along Rue Bourbon. A wide, stub-walled archway at the Ste. Anne end delineated the bedchamber, further separated from the parlour by a pair of sham Chinee folding screens.
He'd packed in a hurry, though taking time enough to place his pair of twin-barreled Manton pistols deep in his new valise, a pair of pocket pistols in his clothes, his hanger on his hip, new sword-cane in his hand, and a wavy-bladed and razor-keen Mindanao krees knife up his left sleeve, a "remembrance" he'd picked up off a piratical Lanun Rover in the Far East.
Lewrie had had time, too, to warn his men about the parts they were to play-adventurers signed on as Mr. Pollock's muscles-and that they should not get so drunk that their time in the Royal Navy got blabbed as present-day status. Poor Furfy had the hardest time understanding.
"Desmond, a private word," Lewrie had bade the happy-go-lucky Irish rogue. "You've a sensible head on your shoulders, though I fear your mate Furfy's not the quickest wit was ever dropped."
"An' that he is, sorry t'say, sor," Desmond commiserated. "A grand feller Furfy is, a fast friend, but… nary th' sort o' man t'even sham clever."
"You'll look out for him special, Desmond," Lewrie charged him. "Furfy is a good sailor, aye, and I'd hate to lose him or let him get in trouble if liquor frees his tongue, or ties it."
"Oi'll see to it, sor, swear it," Desmond soberly vowed, though how "sober" he'd be himself within the hour was doubtful. Let sailors get at drink, and they'd be senseless, roaring drunk in a turn-about of your head! Faster than you could say "Luff"!
"I knew I could count on you, Desmond," Lewrie had replied, not quite relieved,
but close. "You might keep the lads together, keep an eye and ear cocked to their doin's, too, and not a word about Proteus or our mission. "Just enjoy the first day, and we'll probe, later."
"Ye kin count on me, sor," Desmond had assured him, though all but dancing in place from one foot to t'other to be away and ashore in search of pleasures and deviltry.
Now, Lewrie was on his own. Pollock had quickly steered him to this pension, a place he'd obviously stayed before, for he was on good terms with the proprietor and his wife, then had nearly jog-trotted to his own lodgings-a much nicer place, Pollock smugly and thoughtlessly informed him, located in the middle of Rue Royale, 'twixt Ste. Anne and Rue Dumaine. Pollock said that they should breakfast together next morning at eight, that Lewrie (Willoughby, rather!) should not spread himself too widely on his own spree among the Creoles, and should keep a clear head. A caution (more than one!) to not go off half-cocked should he encounter Lanxade or Balfa straightaway; merely on their descriptions, he just might end up accosting the wrong man, do one of them in too publicly, even should he slit the throat of the right'un, and end up arrested; at which juncture, there'd be nothing Pollock or Panton, Leslie Company could do for him but deny they'd ever heard of him, and wasn't it such a shame for a new-minted American who'd come aboard their ship to go Lunatick and kill somebody, the damned rank stranger!
"Rest assured, Mister Willoughby," Mr. Pollock confided, close to him and "chummy" enough for the passersby to witness, smiling wide as anything. But his cautions were muttered from the side of his mouth (and an unattractive sight that was for "Mr. Willoughby," in truth!) so no passersby could actually eavesdrop. "I shall begin my own probes in the morning. Subtle, casual… nought that draws attention," he said, as if despairing that Lewrie/Willoughby could do the same.
" New Orleans can be a delightful port of call," Pollock said, practically dancing, like Liam Desmond, to be on his way. "There's a cabaret not too far off, the Pigeon Coop? Many locals are regulars there. You may casually pick up an earful. Just don't gamble with 'em! The games are all 'crook.' See you in the morning, ta!"
And with that, Lewrie was abandoned on his own. He re-entered his pension and clumped up the stairs to unpack. Once there, utterly alone, he wandered about the confines of his set of rooms, intently studied the wallpaper for a few minutes, and took a refreshing sundown, river-wind turn on his wrought-iron upper balcony. Oil or candle lanthorns were being lit in front of the many residences, even as those outside shops were being extinguished. Folk were strolling below him, softly speaking and chuckling at their ease in a gather pure Parisian French or in a mangled local patois that he suspected was Acadian. There now and then was even a snatch of lispy, high-born Castilian Spanish, along with another garbled version spoken by the poorer-dressed. Pollock had told him that the bulk of the Spanish in New Orleans were humbler peasant-raised Catalans. Some Portuguese, some German small-hold farmers from above New Orleans on the Cote des Allemands, even some Spanish Canary Islanders had settled in Louisiana, undoubtedly very desperate for land or a new beginning; or perhaps the Spanish authorities were desperate for settlers of any kind!
Dammit, I'm stuck in this dump.1 Lewrie groused to himself as he leaned on the railings, which gave out an ominous creaking. I'm famished, I'm badly in need o' wine, and Pollock just up and leaves me t'rot, the hideous "ahemmin" bastard! What self-respectin' spy'd leave me free t'blunder about without a minder or something? A bear-leader!1
Looking back on his previous fumbling attempts at masquerading civilian and innocent, Lewrie ruefully realised that he'd been the sort who needed minding. Why, one could almost imagine that Pollock trusted him to acquit himself well on his own! Aye, did one have an optimistic bent and a very creative imagination! Perhaps it wasn't neglect at all, but grudging respect that he'd survived those previous missions and had implicit faith that Lewrie could be circumspect enough to survive 'til morning! Had Mr. James Peel had a private word with Mr. Pollock and "buffed up" Lewrie's dubious credentials to convince him to take him along?
Or, Lewrie glumly suspected, Pollock was simply too eager for a rencontre with his '"shore wife"! The Captain and First Mate, on their passage to New Orleans, had discretely hinted that, no matter how prim and upright Mr. Pollock publicly presented himself, he was a mere mortal after all and had found himself a luscious "Bright" Free Black to warm his bed when in New Orleans; kept her in some style year-round at his permanent lodgings. Mr. Caldecott had even winked and alluded that Pollock might've succumbed to blind lust for an Octoroon female slave and had bought her for thousands, his usual parsimony bedamned!
Damme, am I scared t'go out on my own? Lewrie asked the new-lit stars above the streets; Mine arse on a band-box if I am! After all, I'm better armed than most Press gangs!
A succulent meal, even a Froggish "kickshaw," a "made" dish in savoury, but suspect, foreign sauces, a bottle of wine or three, even an idle hour or two at the cabaret both Pollock and Ellison had named… then, as Benjamin Franklin had advised, "Early to bed, early to rise." Hah!
How much trouble could I get into in that short o 'time? Lewrie asked himself as he went back inside for his hat, coat, and cane.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Le Pigeonnier held another whole new set of scents that would've entranced Toulon and Chalky for a day or more. The acrid smell of hot tobacco leaf and the head-high pall of smoke from it; the wet reek of chewing tobacco and ejecta in the metal spit-kids along the long bar and spaced conveniently round the club's stygian interior. More hot smells from candles with badly trimmed wicks, beeswax, cheap tallow, or frontier rush dips. There was the faint aroma of bad breath and wine-breath combined, of elegant clothing too long unwashed, bodies that suffered from the same benign neglect, the slightest tinge from a hastily rejected supper spewed up somewhere in the cabaret and slovenly swabbed at; the reek that arose from the back of the club and wafted through the opened rear doors from the outdoor toilets. Hungary Water and cologne, mostly sweet and flowery, tried to mask human stink, but they could only do so much.
And there was the enticing odour of drink: the musk-sweetness of wine, the sweet tang of rum, the even more noticeable but mellower scent of aged brandy, or corn whisky down from the hinterlands. The ice-pinchy smell of juniper berry gin, the yeasty sourness of a variety of beers or ales… though it was a long way from English porters, stouts, and malts, and Lewrie had never heard a good word said for Spanish or French brews.
Here and there, in pools of somewhat honest light, dice rattled in leather cups and clattered on tabletops. In others, men, even a few bawdily gowned women, hunched over cards. "Van John" to the English, or Vingt-et- Un to the Frogs, was being played. Some jostled and perspired round a Pharoah table or a numbered wheel Lewrie supposed was a roulette game. He caught a few words here and there, enough to inform him that most cardplayers played Piquet, a popular local game called Boure, or an American game of incomprehensible nature; it sounded like it was called Poke Her.
"M'sieur?" a bartender asked from the other side of a long oak counter.
"Ah… let me have a whisky," Lewrie decided, having grown more than fond of the American decoction. "The aged corn whisky, not that watery-lookin' poison." He'd been warned off that last year!
"L'Americain," the servitor said with a faint sneer as he got up a stone gallon crock, removed the stopper, and poured a small glass half full, stating its price as twenty pesetas, in a tone that accused Lewrie of having no palate, no class, and no business in a real Creole establishment. Even tossing the man a silver British crown made no impression on the publican's hauteur.
The custom of the house was to elbow up along the counter, rest a foot on a wood rail, and drink standing up. Were one sitting, then one was mostly gambling; Lewrie only saw a few seated patrons risking the house cuisine. At some tables, mostly far in back, Lewrie could espy people hunched over their glasses and muttering conspiratorily with each other. To his mind it looked as if they were conspiring… greasy leers, rubbed
"money" fingers, Gallic shrugs, and stony glares.
Christ, they all look like well-paid pirates! Lewrie goggled.
At some tables, though, it was men and women draped upon each other in the dim candlelight. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, Lewrie took note of scantily clad young women in morning gowns and sheer dressing robes traipsing up the stairs to the upper storey on the arms of jaunty, eager men, whilst others clumped downwards almost alone, trailed by jaded and spent patrons who barely held hands with them, the women's hard eyes already prowling for the next client.
It took Lewrie a long minute or so to unmoor his gaze from the whores; it had been rather a long while since he'd had a free moment for "doing the needful," and some of them were more than handsome. He all but shook himself from the idea; there was work to do! He scanned the vast, dim room's expanse, recalling his crewmen's-and Mr. Pollock's-descriptions of Lanxade or Balfa. But after ten minutes he had to admit to himself that those cut-throats weren't present. He looked the room over again to see if there was a single soul he knew. But none of his hands were in the Pigeon Coop, nor could he spot sailors off Pollock's ship; obviously, this cabaret was too high-toned for the common tars.
He did think he saw one of the Azucena del Oeste's mates trotting up the stairs past the music gallery on a whore's arm, but he wasn't so sure he'd wager on it.
A fetchin' whore, he has, Lewrie decided to himself, noting that his glass was empty, of a sudden, and turning belly-first to the bar to whistle up the serving man for a refill. In the private screen of his coat-tails, he felt a tightening in his groin, a pinching from the fork of his tight trousers' crutch as his lubricious nature awakened.
Glass topped up, Lewrie turned back to face the room just as a nigh nakedly "dressed" Mulatto demimonde came slithering by, her arm brushing men's fundaments or thighs, "all quite by accident." He gawped, gulped, looking at the size and springy rounded shape of her "poonts," exchanged a brief, red-faced smile… before a patron down the counter looped an arm round her waist, drew her to him, and gnawed at her bare neck like a long-lost lover. Off they went up the stairs.
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