Mignon

by James M. Cain

  “I think I get it, yes.”

  “CSA—CSA, they’re one and the same.”

  “We could say, like Black Hawk—Black Hawk.”

  “That’s it! War is war!”

  Then, leaning close: “I ask you right out, Mr. Cresap: Have you bought in on this cotton or haven’t you?”

  “Not actually, Lieutenant Ball.”

  “Then don’t! Save your tin!”

  “I’ll remember what you say. Thanks.”

  He called the woman over, took the name of her son, and said he’d do what he could to get the boy released. Then he leaned back and started in again about the old days of the smugglers, in the time of the Texas Republic, when all of a sudden he stopped, as a man in moleskins, jackboots, and felt hat leaned over toward him. We were seated facing each other, he behind the desk, I beside it, my back to the lobby. He looked up, said: “Mr. Burke, I’m sorry I have no news—we’re taking nobody upriver until the occupation is complete.”

  “But I must get to Shreveport,” said the familiar voice, “before I leave for Springfield, to see to me interests there. I’ve a tremenjous opportunity to buy a parcel of cotton on the Sabine, back of the town—”

  “The Pulaski dump?”

  “Aye, a cache of five thousand bales, no less!”

  “But the Army has boats too. Why not see them?”

  “The Army and I have our differences.”

  “Well with this Army, who wouldn’t have differences—we have a few ourselves. But for two million in cotton, I wouldn’t be too damned proud. Why don’t you hop a wagon? You don’t need a pass for that.”

  “ ’Tis an idea; I’ll think it over.”

  They batted it back and forth, and perhaps to change the subject, Ball suddenly asked: “Did the little lady cross? To visit that grave in Pineville? Her mother’s, I think you said?”

  “She’s—been a bit under the weather.”

  “She still has Powell’s pass?”

  “Aye—she remembers’m in her prayers.”

  “Whenever she’s ready, any cutter’ll take her.”

  “And she’s grateful, have no doubt of it.”

  “Funny, Mr. Burke, I’ve often thought about it: How could they lay out this town so neat, with no place to bury people? No cemeteries here, you know. What’s the idea? Do they figure to live forever?”

  “As they tell it, many of’m do.”

  “Not Powell, unfortunately.”

  “Have you word of the wretch who killed’m?”

  “Not yet. But God help him when we catch up.”

  “To that a brace of amens.”

  They came back to her again, Burke saying how “slimsy” she’d felt today, “especially with the rain.” How long it went on, I don’t know, but more than just a few seconds, as I had my back to the lobby, and Burke couldn’t see who was there—and long enough for stuff to go through my head. I thought: Since when was she “slimsy” today? She hadn’t looked slimsy to me, and in fact was chock full of mean, rotten ginger. Then I thought: If she wasn’t slimsy, why should he say she was? To cover not using her pass, but then I thought: Why hasn’t she used it, for instance? I thought all that without caring too much. But then suddenly it hit me like a sledge: Suppose she’s not going to use it? Suppose it was just a trick to get Powell’s specimen signature, so Burke could forge the receipt the Navy wouldn’t give? And suppose that’s why Powell got killed, so he couldn’t deny his name in court? For one heartbeat, she was guilty as hell to me and one heartbeat again, I felt the same feeling as Booth had had in his eyes. But then, as always, came the excuse I made for her: Suppose, I thought, she knew nothing about the pass? Suppose he’d got it for her so he could forge the receipt, and conveniently forgot to tell her? That would tie in with the way she’d acted with me, bragging about the receipt, and certainly believing he had one. It would also put her, as soon as the Navy caught up—and figured why Powell was shot—right on the gallows step. Because, when they searched Burke’s papers, they’d find the pass in her name, the receipt with identical signature, and nothing to show she hadn’t been in on the trick.

  By the time he looked down and saw me, I was well on my way, I knew, to solving two or three mysteries, all in one fell swoop. “Hello, Burke,” I said.

  “... What are you doing here, Cresap?”

  “Was talking to the lieutenant. Am talking to you.”

  “What business have you with me?”

  “You’ll find out. Thanks, Lieutenant Ball.”

  As Ball, kind of puzzled, gave me a wary wave, I led to the DEMOCRAT desk and took my seat behind it, but then saw that Burke hadn’t moved. “Of course,” I called, “IF YOU WANT THE NAVY TO HEAR——”

  He’d heard me bellow before, and came in five quick steps, pulling up a chair so he could sit close. But I kicked it out from under him. I said: “Stand when talking to me.

  “Talking to you? About what?”

  “Couldn’t we say a slight case of murder?”

  “Are you out of your mind? Whose?”

  “Lieutenant Powell’s, perhaps—whose name you got on a pass, so she could cross the river; then used his specimen signature, to forge one on the receipt, the Navy’s receipt for your cotton, as you forged the informer notes last month down in New Orleans; and then you killed him so he couldn’t deny it in court!”

  “Cresap, I think you’re crazy.”

  “I don’t, that’s the difference—and the question is, what do we do about it? I wasn’t here, I didn’t see it, I don’t have to turn you in—it all hinges on the other people involved, the ones named in your written agreements, as to whether they’re guilty too. If not, I can’t turn you in, but I can destroy your papers, to cut you out, and them out, of every dime of the hundred-twenty thousand you thought you’d make from this crime. If they are as guilty as you are, I’m turning you all three in—you, your partner, and her. I don’t care how pretty she is, or whether you love her or not, or whether anyone does, she’s going to swing!” I let that soak in as he stood there licking his lips, then went on: “So that’s what we’re doing now—going into it, to see what’s what, and who gets his neck broke. Come on, we’re paying them a call—now.”

  “ ’Twill suit me very well.”

  “Then fine, let’s go.”

  “But I’ve a suggestion, me boy—when we’ve explained the thing to Adolphe, and to Mignon Fournet, of course, why don’t we all go to my house—after all, me papers are there. ’Tis quite a decent place I took on Second Street in the block below the market, back of Adolphe’s store—we can make ourselves comfortable there, and I’ll prove to you once and for all how mistaken you are.”

  “If they agree, your house sounds fine.”

  “Then ’tis settled, and let’s be off!”

  It was settled—a little too much. Because I’d worked myself out on a limb and was neatly sawing it off. To own the truth, I’d come without my gun, not supposing I’d need it. And how far I was going to get, walking down the street in the company of this man I was sure had killed the lieutenant, I didn’t like to think. With the stored-up venom I’d had, I had let myself go regardless, but now I had the cold sweaty feeling of someone about to fall. However, that venom saved me, as everyone there stopped talking and turned my way, and the clerk, the same stiff-necked one who had rented the houses out, got so concerned, as my vicious whispering kept on, that he strolled to the door, stepped out, and called: “Corporal of the Guard! Corporal of the Provost Guard!”

  In a moment a soldier was there, not a corporal but a private, belted for duty with sidearms, who took things in with one look and came over to Burke and me. “What’s going on here?” he wanted to know. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a nice, sociable brawl that’s nobody’s business but ours.” But then, thinking fast, I added: “But I feel my life in some danger, going home tonight, and if you’d ask your corporal, or whoever’s in command, to provide me with an escort, I�
�d feel myself obliged.”

  “Where do you live, sir?”

  “Schmidt store, block and a half down.”

  “It’s on my post. I’ll take you there myself.”

  “And me,” said Burke. “Me life’s in danger too.”

  That got a laugh, for some reason, and we got a laugh and a hand when the boy formed us up, Burke and me in front, he bringing up the rear, and we marched out the door. Even Ball was laughing, but for once that day I didn’t feel like a dolt.

  We were quite a noisy parade, going down the street, the guard’s heels clopping, my stick clicking, my corduroys whining, and Burke’s jackboots whispering like a deck of cards being riffled. When we got to our corner I told Burke to rouse out Mr. Landry and Mrs. Fournet while I got some stuff I’d need, and then, after thanking the guard, I went through the little gate, up the stairs to the platform, and into my flat with my key. I was no sooner in than I scrambled fast to the bedroom, clawed into the bag, and after scattering all kinds of stuff—sandwiches, clothes, and gear—I got my hooks on the gun. I dropped it in my pocket, not bothering with the harness, then went down to the street again. The guard was still on the corner, looking up at the Landry flat, where Burke was on the platform, beating on the door, and calling loudly in French. Not a sound came from inside, and no light showed. “They don’t answer,” he said peevishly.

  “I bet they don’t,” I said, “after you told them not to, in that trick language you speak with them. They’ll answer me, though.”

  “Hey, you!”

  That was the guard, snapping it out as I started up, and stopping me in my tracks. He called Burke down, and gave us both a bawling out, ordering us “to your billets, or you’ll spend the night in the clink.” I told Burke: “You be at my place in the morning, with them, both of them, do you hear—at nine, sharp.” Then I watched him march off in the dark, thanked the guard once again, and went back up to my flat. I bolted the door, lit a half candle that was there in an iron stick, hung up my clothes in the armoire in the bedroom, put on my nightshirt, and went to bed. As I reached for the candle to blow it out, there grinning at me from the night table was one of the china heads. I said: “My friend, for once, the joke is not on me, and you haven’t seen anything yet. Just you wait till tomorrow, and you may really have something to laugh at.”

  Chapter 18

  I HAD SLEPT A LONG TIME, several hours from the way I felt, then awoke all of a sudden with a prickle up my back that told me I wasn’t alone. Whether I heard anything I don’t know, but I could have, as I was so well-slept-out the slightest sound would have reached me. I stared at the dark, wondering how anyone, short of a conjure trick, could have slid those bolts on the door to get in. Then I remembered the window, the one by the cistern, that I’d opened and forgotten about. From the wall, the tongue-and-groove partition between room and hall, came a sound—the faint, trembling rub that a hand would make feeling its way along from the rear of the flat. I groped for where I’d hung the gun in its harness on the bedpost. When I had it I lay there for a moment, but at the sound of another rub began to feel like a sitting duck. I slid out, grabbed one of the pillows and shoved it under the covers in such way that it made a bulge, then took the china head and pressed it down on the other pillow. Suddenly a man was there, sleeping. I crouched down with the gun by the side of the bed, out of sight, waiting.

  The rub was repeated again, still closer to the door. Then the latch clicked and the hinge spoke. The door opened by inches and a dark shadow was there. I wanted to growl “Hands up,” but made myself bite it back, to give this shadow its chance to move farther into the room, so I could jump between it and the door and cut off any retreat. I had no doubt it was Burke; if I could hold him at gun’s point, then I could go ahead without turning him in yet or starting something I couldn’t stop. I could beat on the wall between flats, get Mignon and her father over, and have my showdown at once: find out who was guilty of what. If she had connived at that pass, letting Burke bespeak it for her as a preliminary to murdering Powell, I meant to turn them all in—her no less than the others. If that seems unduly mean, all I can say is that I could still smell her spit, and she’d done nothing the day before to make me forget its aroma. But if she hadn’t known of the pass, if she’d become an unwitting accessory, then I meant to stand pat until somebody brought me the papers. When I’d stuffed them into the stove and made her touch them off with a match, then I’d feel myself hunk and be able to take a new start—hie me back to New Orleans, begin again looking for twenty-five thousand dollars, perhaps take up with Marie, if she was still speaking to me.

  That, some kind of way but fairly clearly, I think, is what went through my mind as I crouched there holding my breath. But then, in one blazing second, it all got out of hand, and the smoke that filled the room could not be stuffed back in the shells. The shadow darted. It was suddenly close to the bed. Then the room filled with light and there came a crash—the ear-splitting crash a gun makes when it’s fired indoors. And then self-preservation, which seems to be stronger somehow than any plan you can make—for getting hunk or otherwise—got into it. While china still clattered around from the shot smashing the head, I fired by reflex action, not knowing I would. Then I fired again, on purpose. You can’t sight a gun in the dark, but your hand will do it for you, and the thud on the floor told me I’d found my mark. I circled the bed, felt around with my bare toe, touched a gun. I picked it up, shook what was lying there to see if it still lived. It didn’t move, so I knew I had to—and move by the book, quick. I made my way to the sitting room, threw up the window, and called: “Corporal of the Guard, help!” I did it three times, each time banging a shot in the night, in the prescribed military way. Then I got a military answer: “Corporal of the Guard—yo! We hear you! Who are you who call? Locate yourself and we’ll come!”

  “Schmidt store, second floor, Front Street!”

  “On our way, coming up!”

  I ducked for the bedroom again, but in the hall came a whisper from the dark: “Willie! Are you all right?”

  “Mignon! For God’s sake, where are you?”

  “Here! Can’t you see?”

  Something touched my head, and when I grabbed it it was her hand, reaching down from the skylight. For a moment, one tremendous moment, her fingers locked with mine, and then she repeated, “Willie! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but will you go? I’ve had to kill a man, Burke, I think. The Provost Guard’s on its way—and they must not find you here!”

  “I almost died when I heard those shots!”

  “Heard them? Where the hell have you been?”

  “Home! Where do you think?”

  “Then why didn’t you answer Burke’s knock?”

  “With Father not home? I wouldn’t answer anyone’s knock! It’s the one protection I have, and—”

  “You answered my knock, though.”

  “Well? I knew it was you. ... As for Frank—”

  “Never mind about him. He’s dead.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you: I don’t care.”

  I shook her hand, as a mother shakes a child, to make it listen. I said: “Mignon, you have to care, or everything’s in the soup! Things have been going on that I can’t take time to explain—terrible things that you can’t know about, or you wouldn’t be talking this way! Things that can land you on the gallows, and not only you but your father! We have to cover up! I do, you do, your father does, especially about those papers in Burke’s house! So if you hear me talking funny, don’t you undercut me, don’t you get in it, giving your two cents’ worth! I’ll have my reasons, and your life is at stake! Mignon, do you hear what I say?”

  “My, but you sound funny.”

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Willie, but are you all right?”

  “I am! Now, will you go?”

  “You don’t even sound like yourself.”

  “Mignon, here comes the Provost Guard!”

  At
last, she pulled back her head and lowered the frame as footsteps sounded outside. My heart raced as I went to the door, and my head was spinning around because, of course, from her failure to answer Burke and the way she acted with me, she’d never lived up with him and had had no part of his scheme—at least any scheme leading to Powell’s murder. It put a different light on everything.

  I opened to the corporal, who was carrying a bull’s-eye lantern, and two of his men, then led at once to the bedroom. But when he threw his beam I got my first jolt. The thing on the floor wasn’t Burke, but Pierre Legrand, the gippo. The corporal took both guns, which by then I had in one hand, sniffed them, and put them on the night table. Then he opened Pierre’s reefer and felt around in his pockets, perhaps for some identification. He didn’t seem to find any, which suddenly tipped me off that he wasn’t known to soldiers just recently here, and mightn’t be, at least right away, if I played my cards right. So when I was asked, I told everything just as it happened, except that I used the word prowler and gave no clue that could be followed up. In other words, I told the truth, but not quite all of the truth. The corporal shook his head, said “This damned place is so full of jayhawkers, bushwhackers, and swine of all different kinds, they’d steal our goddam boats if they wasn’t tied fast to the bank.” He posted a man to stand guard, said he’d get the captain, told me dress if I wanted to, but there was really no need, “as give us a half hour, and we ought to be off your neck, with him outen the way too.”

  He was all ready to leave when suddenly, at the door, he turned to his other man, asked: “You see what I see, soldier?”