Read Online The Crescent Spy by Michael Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

mother’s stage name, which always appeared in big letters on the bills that they glued to barns and drink houses in the river towns, was Claire de Layerre, and Josephine thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The way men looked at her, it was obvious that the rest of the world thought the same thing.
    Claire had already dressed in her glittering dance gown but had not yet put on her lipstick, her rouge, or the big sparkly costume jewelry that Josephine liked to try on so she could admire herself in the mirror. Claire faced a man in black trousers, a black broadcloth coat, a white shirt, and black tie. The shirt was frilled, and he wore an outrageous vest fixed with pearl buttons. A big gold watch poked out of a vest pocket, together with a long gold chain. He had dark, curly hair and a mustache with drooping tips. The girl had seen him before but couldn’t remember where.
    “Two weeks,” the man said. “Then I promise I’ll meet you in New Orleans and return you double.”
    Claire snorted. “Two weeks will turn into two years.”
    “Not this time, I promise.”
    Josephine was still trying to puzzle out where she’d seen this man before when the two adults took note of her.
    “Well, bless my sweet-gum tree!” the man said, his big, handsome eyes lighting up. “Six months gone and you’ve grown like a willow.”
    “Eighteen months,” Claire said dryly.
    “That long? Surely not.” He beckoned to Josephine, who remained rooted in place. “Come on, then, Josie, I’ve got a treat for you.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and fished out a small golden-colored drop wrapped in waxed paper.
    This brought her forward, though she couldn’t figure out how this man knew her name. She glanced at her scowling mother for permission to take the candy. It didn’t come, but that didn’t stop Josephine from taking it and popping it in her mouth.
    “Eighteen months,” Claire repeated. “It was after that riverboat blew up at Vicksburg, so I remember the date just fine. You were marking cards with that one-eyed Yankee from Albany.”
    Now it was the man’s turn to scowl, and he glanced behind him to the open door. “Now, you hush. I wasn’t marking cards, you hear. I had a run of good luck.”
    “And now your luck has run out. So you come sniffing around like a coonhound. How’d you find us, anyhow?”
    “Studying the bills. They’ve got your name all over ’em.”
    “Who are you?” Josephine said around the honey drop in her cheek that filled her mouth with a delicious sweetness.
    “You don’t remember?” He blinked. “Why, I’m the Colonel.”
    “Oh, the Colonel!”
    That explained it. Her mother was always talking about the Colonel this and the Colonel that. Sometimes he was a “no-gooder,” other times “that fine gentleman.” Right now, the way her mother was talking to him, he seemed to be a “confounded thieving coon,” which Claire used to describe everyone from bloodthirsty river pirates to the men who sold coffee they’d cut with chicory.
    The Colonel sat at Claire’s dressing table, and the mirror behind him showed the back of his neck and his starched collar. He used another honey drop to coax Josephine over, then hefted her up onto his knee.
    “Your mother knows I’ve sent her a good sum of money over the years.”
    “So have a bushelful of other fellows of dubious character,” Claire said. “It don’t mean nothing.”
    He ignored her and continued to speak to the girl. “Books for you, and clothes as befitting a young lady.” Here he looked over her knee-length skirt and her bare, dirty legs and feet below that. “You don’t seem to be wearing them.”
    “That’s ’cause you don’t bother sending anything her size,” Claire said. “Anyway, she tears ’em up scrambling up and down the rail, jumping in the water fully dressed, and other nonsense.”
    “All I’m asking is forty dollars until I can get myself to New Orleans.”
    “But you’re