SCENE SEVENTEEN A warehouse across the street from Baltimore State Asylum

"You're certain all is in readiness for the proper moment?" Gideon Boudin demanded. "You're absolutely certain?"

"Well, since you needed it done on the sly, it took me an' Saul most of th' night, but yeah, we got it done. It'll be a done deal, just as soon as you give th' word." Ezra Smith nodded.

"And not one moment beforehand, I trust." Boudin asked, turning to his other aide, but it wasn't a question.

"Not so much as a split second b"fore you say so." Saul Lawson agreed, frowning as the Georgian repeated his questions for the fifth or sixth time this morning.

"And the new guards and others on staff, they remain uninformed? They have no grounds to suspect anything untoward will happen once I give the signal? You issued no warnings? You started no rumors amongst them?" Boudin demanded to know.

"We're still fightin' th' DamnYankees here, ain't we?" Lawson insisted, scowling at his employer. "We gotta take some causalities to get the thing done right, don't we? We already got rid of the worst troublemakers for you, includin' ol' Percy, dint we? Well, then what d' you think? Why'd you even ask us that? Are you gonna turn round at this late date, now an' say me" an' Ezra have gone against th' Work or th' One for a second?"

"Most certainly not. You have my entire confidence, at this "eleventh hour", as always." Boudin replied. "You've never given me the first reason to think otherwise, unlike so many others. Indeed, if I could only have relied to the same extent on a great many others who were called to support, to carry the Great Work forward, we might have reached this Glorious Day long since! Treachery, gentlemen, betrayal, treason, and disloyalty have barred our way for too long. Humanity's greatest, most ancient frailty has always been its failure to keep faith! Well, we will have no more of those bearing that ineffectual strain of so called human nature amongst us!"

"Nosirree, we sure won't!" Smith nodded, with a feral grin on his sun-weathered features. "Only, I did have some curiosity on that one point, ifn you don't mind it."

"That will depend entirely on what you wish to ask, my good man. However, I reserve the right, as any prudent officer of the court would do, to decline to answer your questions." Boudin said.

"Yeah, surely. Well, it's just this, just this one thing. I kinda had th' idea you were all set on usin'th' frailty of some of those fella's human natures against "em t'get this whole shebang up an' runnin'. An' now you're not takin' things that way." Smith went on, glaring at Boudin.

"Ezra, figure you'd best shut it now an' forget all about that." Lawson warned angrily, looking worriedly from one of his cohort to the other.

"No, by all means, let him continue, Mr. Lawson." Boudin insisted, his voice all ice and silk. "Do, please go on, Mr. Smith."

"See, Saully, he wants me t' go on." Smith chuckled. "An' that's just what I mean t' do! So, here's the thing of it: Did you just finally figure out ol' Saul an' me could get all this done better an' quicker an' more secret-like for you? Or if it ain't that, why ain't those fellas all lined up on our side o" things like they were supposed t' be?" Smith asked, grinning again. At this "eleventh hour" he'd been drinking heavily, for one thing. And he was sure he could plague the Georgian with impunity about the way Boudin's plans and plots had changed in just the past fortnight.

Boudin had turned his gaze back to the wide, high window behind him, which overlooked the street and the asylum complex. Now he turned back to face Smith, his color rising, his eyes burning cold. "Is it possible?" The Georgian asked very quietly. "Is it even remotely possible at this juncture that you are mocking me, sir? Is it possible you are showing me this level of contempt now, after all the benefits you have had from our long association? Do you truly esteem the Great Work, our Society and the One so poorly as to make this unmannerly, uncivil display?"

"He's crazy drunk, that's all! It's just his damn Irish whiskey talkin', not him! " Lawson called out, striding between Boudin and Smith. "Ezra, how many times have I told you, how many times since we met, right after Pittsburg Landing, to keep off the sauce whilst there was still work to get done, boy?"

"A couple thousand times, I'd have to figure, Saully." Smith nodded morosely. "Only, when things get real close to th' edge, when things get real tight an' I cain't hardly breathe for all the damn fancy manners an' rules an' regs an' damn all changes t' plans, I cain't hardly do nothin' but reach for a jug! Never did take much t' changin' plans, Saul, an' even leSs t' havin' "em changed on me! But here we are, ain't we? Here we are getting ready t' ram through another of his damn all changes of plans! An' 'm not sure I much like this one. In fact, it pretty much reeks! In fact, it's pretty much th' worst he's come up with so far!"

"But here we are an' we're pretty much stuck with it, ain't we? We ain't got too much choice, do we, Saul, not knowin' him, now, do we? So now, whilst he rides back down to his fancy ol' house outside 'lanta, all safe an' sound an' happy-like, we're gonna be doin' just about th' worst thing we done since th' Conflict got over! So I reached me a jug or two down from th' shelf in th' tavern down on th' next corner, an' I drunk "em! Shoulda called you on over, Saully-boy, yeah, shoulda done that. 'm sorry. Yeah, 'm real sorry."

"But 'm here an' I can handle anything he's got left in his bag of tricks, now, cain't I? He cain't hardly do for me th' way he done for all them others, now can he? He cain't cause he don't own that hell hole over "cross th' street any more, now does he? They went an' sold it off for their damn Yankee taxes, just t'other day, dint they? An', an' he cain't do for me, anyhow, Sauly, cause you purely wouldn't let him do for me, now would you, Saul-boy?"

"Didn't I always say if anyone was ever gonna do for you, Ezra, it'd be your own self doin' for you? And now you come too damn all close to doin' just that!" Lawson growled.

"Did I, Saul? 'm real sorry… real sorry." Smith muttered, and collapsed at his long time partner's feet, dead drunk.

Only now Lawson turned back to face Boudin. "He's drunk. He's crazy drunk, and he don't know what he's sayin'. So, I'll take it real kind if you let th' boy sleep off his drunk and just forget about his damn crazed talk. He don't mean a thing by it. Just sometimes all th' killin' he done in th' Conflict, it comes and weighs th' boy down somethin' awful, just somethin' fierce, and he goes for his whiskey. Maybe you ain't seen ol' Ez like this b"fore, I have. When he comes round he won't even know he saw you today, much leSswhatever he said. So, it don't come to nothing. You can see that, surely."

"Your faithfulness is truly commendable, Mr. Lawson." Boudin answered, still frowning, but now only to hide his enjoyment at the desperate way this embittered, case-hardened former Cavalry officer was pleading his friend's case. "And I will accept your plea on his behalf, this once. Do we understand one another entirely? I will not spare him the rightful consequences of another such outburst against the Great Work or the One. That cannot, and will not be done. Well, have you clearly understood me?"

"I understand, Sir. I understand you very clearly." Saul Lawson replied, seeing his friend's doom, and likely his own in the Georgian's icy, grey gaze.

"Very well, then. You will now remove your friend from my sight and go on with your assigned duties. I shall expect a report on your entire success in that regard to reach me at The Cadmea, through the designated channels only, as soon as you know it to be accomplished. Your remuneration will then, and only then be dispatched to you. Good day to you." Boudin said and strode back to the window.

"Good day, Sir." Lawson answered, and grunted as he lifted Smith back to his feet and dragged him out of the room. Boudin had always been devilishly dangerous, moody as a proddy mare and jumpy as a cat. But now Lawson was considering that his hard drinking friend Ezra was right. The closer Boudin got to his "Glorious Day", the trickier dealing with him became for anyone who tried it; for anyone who came near him, more like.

Well, I'm not gonna cross that crazy bastard, not to his face. But I'm not gonna get close enough again, for him to go after me! An' Ezra's right about something else too. I'm not gonna let that madman do for the one friend I've got left from the Conflict! Lawson decided. More n' likely Boudin bought himself right out of ol' Jeff Davis' damn Draft, most likely he got some dumb as a hoe handle Mick or Wop or some poor idjit farm boy to go to the shootin' war for him!

So how can he figure what those times meant to th' boys who DID their own fightin'? How can he go all judge n jury on fellows like Ezra who can't forget what they saw, what they heard or what they did back then? He can't! And he don't give a flyin' damn about that kind of trouble… unleSs he can play tricks inside a fella's head with those kind of damn all memories! Yeah, him and that Professor! They made quite the pair! Well, that Professor did for himself, is what I hear. He got the only one left his whole family, that crazy little girl, that Liesl, dead tryin' for ol' Sam Grant, and then took the easy way out! Now if only somebody could get Boudin to go out that way! Naw, he's too much the damn all coward! A fella has to have some guts, after all to take himself out, don't he?

Turning down one street and then up another, Lawson carried his friend back to Smith's favorite tavern, at the corner of Carey and 12th in the Burnt District. Ezra had a "girl' there who'd keep him well out of sight and out of harm, while he slept off his drunk. Lawson paid her and the tavern owner a good amount, just to make sure no one would find out where his long time friend was. Then the former Cavalry officer from Baton Rouge took a different route back to the street the Baltimore State Asylum and half a dozen other old warehouses occupied.

Boudin would be watching from his safe vantage the rest of the afternoon for the first signs that Lawson's "assigned duties' had been carried out. Saul Lawson knew everyone in Boudin's employ these days, from the so called doctors in the asylum to the heavy-set mutes the Georgian brought in as additional guards. Lawson knew who could be trusted to take his orders, who could be bribed to do the same, and who he had to avoid at all costs now And he had his own plans now, mostly intended to ensure his own survival. What happened to the inmates of the asylum, he hardly cared. They were all just useless crazies, or drunkards or street scum.

What happened to the guards he'd hired and then rehired himself, that was another matter. What happened to Ezra Smith, and what happened to Lawson himself when 'the Great Work" as Boudin called it, all fell to pieces if its own weight, was paramount in his thinking. And all it had taken to finally change Lawson's mind on this whole matter was the sight and sound of Gideon Boudin's insane rage aimed directly at Ezra Smith, leSsthan an hour ago. Ezra's own drunken qualms came into the equation, but not as forcefully as the wild rage in Boudin's freezing cold eyes.

You were wrong to question my 'loyalty, an hour ago, old man. You were way off base, and off kilter just at that moment. Lawson thought as he strode past the guards at the side entry to the asylum. Cause now you've crossed a line you shoulda never even thought about crossin'. And maybe you couldn't even tell it was there. That don't matter now. I'm not goin' your way, not anymore. I'm not goin' down just to get you what you want. What I done, all right, I done and I'll face up to it, when and as I've got to. But what you have in mind now, old man, no, I won't go there.

For that , you'll have to settle for the kind of scum you pretend to look down on from some kinda high claSs pedestal or somethin'! You'll have to drag the dregs from now on for the kinda low life who'll do whatever they have to for a gold dollar or some hype or a skinful! And from what I heard from that ol' Professor, you grew up with just that sort, down in your stinkin' ol' Haiti! But you don't get Saul Lawson takin' your orders, or doin' your dirty Work, any more. That's done, now! That's over!

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW