Read Online Good Man Friday by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online

mansions and commercial row-houses of ‘downtown’ were more reminiscent of a modest river-port – Baton Rouge or Natchez – than of the national grandeur frequently claimed in political speeches. As they passed the President’s House and entered the more populous zones traffic was thick, noisy, and bogged in the mud of the unpaved streets; where the thoroughfares were firm, draymen black and white seemed unable to resist the urge to lash their horses like Roman chariot teams at a dead gallop, scattering pedestrians right and left.
    As they sprang clear of one such speeding Jehu, January inquired, ‘If a stranger were run down by one of those lunatics, where would they take him? Is there a public hospital?’
    â€˜Up on Crow Hill,’ said Preston. ‘That’s a couple of miles north of here.’
    â€˜Is
everything
in this town a couple of miles apart?’ Thèrése lifted her petticoats to pointedly examine her too-tight shoe.
    â€˜What about the police department?’ asked January. ‘If he were shot in a tavern—’
    â€˜You don’t want to get anywhere near the constables.’ Preston lowered his voice and glanced back at Charmian and Musette, stopped now to gaze in wonder at a stuffed owl in a shop window. ‘Nor the jail. There’s only one constable to each ward here, and their job is purely and solely to keep black men from “illegally assembling”. There’s a dealer named Fowler who pays the constables to let him into the jails “looking for runaways”. And any likely-looking man who finds himself jailed for having abolitionist newspapers in his possession, or failing to step out of the way of a white man on the street, is going to be “recognized” as a runaway and taken into Fowler’s slave jail.’
    Preston’s mouth hardened. ‘Dealers like Neal at the Central Market, and Bill Williams, have their own slave-jails – the smaller dealers pay off the constables to keep their slaves in the public jails. If your friend was a black man—’
    â€˜A white man, English. He disappeared here in October.’
    â€˜I should go to the Ministry, then. If he was killed in a tavern, the owner would pay off the constables and not report it. But if he were in a street accident, the Minister might have heard.’
    Since Chloë Viellard had written to the British Minister as soon as she guessed Singletary was missing, January only nodded, and they passed on to other topics. They were now in the center of town, and the street was lined with boarding houses and hotels, oyster parlors and barber shops, harness makers, livery stables, tobacconists and stationers. At the far end of the street, above a scrim of straggly poplar-trees, the flattish copper dome of the Capitol rose above its shallow hill, like a countryman’s hat.
    â€˜Last year was a short session,’ Preston explained. ‘They rose in March. The long sessions, they’ll sit through May or sometimes June, if they’ve a great deal of business. After the short sessions, the Congressmen all go home – many of the foreign ministers as well.
    â€˜Most Congressmen come here without their families.’ Preston waved at the façade of a grubby clapboard structure grandly named
The Virginia House
. ‘Senators sometimes bring them, and gentlemen like Mr Henry Clay, or Mr Daniel Webster, are wealthy enough to rent houses for their terms. But most Congressmen live in rooms and eat around a common table like students at a college. The biggest houses belong to folk like Mr Corcoran the banker, and Mr Peabody who owns buildings all over town. They’re the ones that the Congressmen go “calling” on to leave their cards … Those, and the foreign ministries.’
    â€˜Benjamin, look!’ Minou caught his arm. ‘Oh, the darling thing … That lady across the street, just look at her bonnet … Is