SCENE TWENTY NINE Isle d' Tresor, Richmond VA
After finding Jim barely conscious, and the girl named Jessy vanished from the de Cervantes' mansion, Artemus held his temper back with both hands and took turns questioning anyone who might know anything about Jessy, and sitting watch untill Jim came around again. That latter event didn't happen for nearly two hours, worrying all of Jim's friends.
And they weren't much comforted by the younger man's waking condition, either. When he awoke Jim was nauseous, badly disoriented, talking without making much sense and hardly aware of his surroundings. All they knew at first was that Jessy had become Jim's regular late night visitor while she stayed in Ani's home. Ani's first quick analysis of the bouillabaisse yielded few answers beyond the fact that it had been chemically altered. And Jim's whole manner and affect made all his doctors wonder if he'd suffered some kind of brain damage. As if he were suffering a high fever, but without any such febrile symptoms, Jim seemed painfully confused most of the time, and sometimes nearly delusional. He was almost maudlin, full of compunction and close to desperation, whenever someone or something challenged his radically altered beliefs.
Only rarely was Jim willing to hear his companions out on various touchy subjects. And for reasons they had yet to establish, those times when he was cooperative began to be few and far between, not less and less. While there were some flashes of his familiar anger at times, more often Jim was rueful, remorseful and quietly despairing. What he wasn't doing was fighting or arguing with or listening to them.
He took on a an air of fatalism, of acceptance that varied greatly with his native resilience and determined spirit. He openly announced he'd decided to accept his fate, along with any and all of the punishments he knew he deserved. His only dispute with his friends was on that question. They wouldn't yield to his patient resignation. They wouldn't acknowledge what he now considered immutable facts, and their inevitable consequences. And Jim wouldn't accept their objections. That came to a head, the next afternoon, when Jim openly, calmly at first, charged the team members, including Miguel and Ani of however compassionately, lying to him for at least a year. He made it crystal clear, finally that he 'knew' Ulysses Grant had died four years ago at James West' hand.
"You need to stop protecting me from the truth, all of you, even if it is the worst truth of my whole, entire life. You need to give up the Big Lie, and let me hear the facts of the case from you, from at least one of you, if not everyone. I'd like it a lot if all of you would get in on that, though, especially since all of you were in on this damned deception." Jim insisted.
"James, I don't know who told you we all lied about this." Artemus began to respond. "And I surely don't know who told you the President …"
"Was assassinated four years ago by me, Artemus, just as Aynsley and Boudin planned?" Jim finished. "I told me. I remembered. It's just that simple, and just that hard to accept. But I have to. I'll go mad as a hatter if I don't do that. And I'd honestly think you'd be glad to let that particular performance close down, by this time."
"Youngster, it's not possible that you've remembered something that never happened." Thomas Macquillan tried his turn at moving his unusually immovable protégé. "The President is alive and well. And all of us have told you that, time and time again. Only now, after being drugged by this little girl for something like a fortnight, you don't believe us. So I'm left to wonder if our poor orphaned Jessy is the one who planted this idea in that thick Black Irish-Welsh head of yours. She put something we haven't quite figured out in the food she brought you, nearly every night while she was in this house, after all. And when Ani figures out what that was, we'll be a lot closer to learning where she got it."
"The President's alive and well? Great, that's great, if you need to go on trying to get me to believe that, Prof. That's great." Jim frowned, belying his own words. "Because, his being alive and well would surely explain why I've heard nothing from him, or why the lot of you have had only a few wires, communiques, dispatches, letters and not any courtmartial papers for me, from Ulysses Simpson Grant! The man wrote all his own dispatches throughout the War, Thomas, I'm sure you remember that. He wrote Julia and the children at least twice or three times a day. He wrote and rewrote and then rewrote a good half of all his speeches in office. And he kept in constant contact with his chief advisors whenever there was a critical matter that needed to get resolved on the double quick.
Now, I'd think a case where the President of the United States was ALMOST assassinated by his Chief Security Advisor would surely call for a whole lot of communication back and forth from Washington to wherever that former CSA, me, and the present one, that's you Mac, I assume, are staying. And I'd think he'd be in touch with Artemus as often or more often now than he was when we had assignments all over the country. And I'd think he'd surely be in touch regularly with the doctors who are trying to help the poor, deluded nutcase who tried to kill him in cold blood!"
"And you know for a fact that M'sieur l' President hasn't done that, how exactly, mon enfant?" Jacques asked, a little more hotly than he'd meant to.
"Oh, no, no, you misunderstood me, just then, mon docteur ami. I'm completely, completely sure that the current President has kept you all hopping while you were trying to keep me out of a Federal penitentiary or away from the nearest firing squad!" Jim shot back.
"But you're not really answering Jacques' question, Jim." Artie tried, taking another turn. "How could you know whether or not anyone, including President Grant has been ignoring us or burying us in just those sorts of communications?"
"That's easy." Jim answered. "If he had, you'd have been running to me all the time with all this proof that the Man I assassinated was still alive. You'd have made all that a central element of your damn-all Big Lie for what is it now, almost four years time? And you haven't. That much I'm sure of. I'll add to that the plain unvarnished fact that whenever I made a point of telling you not to allow the President to come within fifty miles of me, not one of you fine, stubborn fellows even argued!
But now I'm suddenly very tired of this whole, entire discussion. You have no intention of being honest with me about this, do you? None of you want to 'break my heart' by telling me I murdered the Man I respected and revered as much as my own father, do you? None of you want to put a knife in my heart by admitting that I killed Ulysses Grant, do you?
Well, fine, then! Keep it up as long as you want, fellows! Just don't bring any more of this conspiracy to protect a confessed Presidential assassin anywhere near me! I did it, okay! I killed him! Liesly wasn't lying to me! Liesly was the one telling me the truth! And apparently, she was the last and only person anywhere around me who would do that!" Jim shouted, sounding more like himself in a way, but not in any way his friends welcomed. Then he whirled on his heels and strode out of the upstairs study the team had taken over for work sessions.
'torry," Miguel started to say as the younger man slammed the door to his own room, down the hall. 'torry, this is going backwards, not getting better. Ani, ma plus cher genie, my dearest genius, have you found an answer, and better still an antidote, to this destructive substance our friend was given?"
"Oui, mon cher, mes amis, it is a dangerous alkaloid, called mescaline, derived from lophophora williamsii." Ani told them.
"From a kind of cactus?" Artie asked. "And just how would that be found anywhere near Richmond?"
'the top of the cactus, the crown which appears above ground, is made up of disc shaped buttons that are cut off and dried. Then it can be either ground into an easily transported powder, or the 'buttons' can be chewed or soaked in water to provide a potable, or injectable substance. It has its name from the Mescalero Apaches who amongst other tribes in the region, use the compound in their religious rituals."
"Apaches." Artie muttered and then looked up. "Oh, sorry, Ani, please go on with what you were telling us."
"Bien sur, mon ami. When mon mari described it as destructive, he was entirely correct, gentilhommes. Just in general terms this alkaloid and others like it cause anxiety, a racing heartbeat, which of course concerns me greatly, irrationality of the thought processes, perception impairment, sensation impairment, disorganization of thought, loss of a sense of time, a feeling of dying or annihilation, dizziness, nausea, headaches, false euphoria, or the fear of losing normal mental function, and persistent hallucinations."
"And it was introduced only into the food this young woman brought to Jim?" Jacques asked next. "No one else in the house was 'privileged' to receive this dosing?"
"No one." Miguel answered, as his wife sat down beside him, evidently exhausted. "And as I now understand the type of substance, I can tell you that as with most alkaloids, unless they are constantly administered or ingested, all these untoward effects should disperse within a relatively short time."
"Can you pin that time frame down at all, Miguel?" Artie asked the doctor. "I'd like to know how long Jim has to put up with this poison working in his system."
'the most noticeable effects have to some extent already faded, Artemus. Torry isn't dizzy or nauseated, he isn't suffering from that increased heart rate Antoinette mentioned as a source of real concern. And he seems to be quite well aware of his surroundings." Miguel answered.
"But…" the former actor probed. "What else do we need to watch out for, Doctor?"
"What we have been watching for in Torry every time the question of his last meeting with the President arose. Depression, melancholia, and as Ani said, recurring hallucinations, especially those he now believes to be ironclad facts. But without knowing more about who wound up and aimed that child at Torry, we cannot be sure there is not more to their heinous plotting." Miguel replied, frowning.
"Well, that's easy enough. We just have to find one eighteen year old mulatto woman somewhere in Richmond, if she was foolish enough to stay here." Artie grumbled. "And if the people you're referring to haven't … permanently silenced the poor kid. No wonder she was scared half out of her wits when she thought she couldn't work here! Whoever sent her … why am I saying whoever? We know who it has to be! This scheme has Boudin's filthy, rotten fingerprints all over it. We just don't know who his current batch of thugs and go-betweens are."
"Well then, let's get to looking for them, shall we, old friend?" Mac asked, glad for something to do and for the team to work on.
"I'm with you on that one, old friend." Artie nodded. "I'm way ahead of you, in fact, because I think we might know, or Ani might know where to start that search for Boudin's accomplices."
'mais, who would I know, who would I even deal with, mon ami of such a vicious nature?" Ani asked.
'ma cher reine, I'm not thinking of anyone you think of as a friend." Artie answered. "I'm thinking more particularly of some of the local society ladies you don't feel that close to, and who might just return the favor."
'rowena Fairholm, then, her sister in law Zara, and her cousins, Eleora Burnham and Tavia Dunstan." Ani nodded. 'those ladies I would suggest as distinct possibilities. They are, comment t'on dit? Old style Southern snobs of the first order."
"And that puts them right up Boudin's dark alley!" Mac agreed. "Jacques, you want to go out with Artie and me. But I need you to stay with that trouble-making, trouble-finding, trouble-falling-over Youngster, right now. I'll trade you places, later on."
"I'll have your word on that, Thomas." Jacques frowned.
"You've got it." Mac and Artie chorused and laughed as they headed for the cloak room to start this new search for new and old enemies, right here in Richmond.
WWWWWWWWWWWW
Their search went on all week, with all the team members duly taking turns to comb through whatever information they could get on Rowena Fairholm's social circle. Ori Hoynes 'Second String' came down to help, when other cases let them. So did Frank Harper and James Richmond as the time came closer to the mid February date set for Ani's ball. It was still President Grant's firm intention to attend that event and once more meet with his protégé, Jim West there. And only Jim, so far as the team knew, was not aware of that particular 'plot'.
Jim gave every sign of wanting to withdraw from just about everything his friends were doing lately. But with this most recent scare, that was the last thing his friends would allow. They sat and read or talked to Jim. They played chess or played music. They brought in newspapers and books in Braille, and all the Washington, Richmond and Norfolk gossip they could find to pique his interest. And finally Ani tried discussing whether or not Jim would wear a costume suitable to the Duke of Buckingham to her Grande Balle Royale.
"No, sorry, Ani. I've done my last costume drill." Jim responded, with a tiny weary smile. "It's not my strong suit… oh, sorry, didn't mean … anyway, it's not anything I've ever been much good at. Kinda hard to say these days what I might have ever been good at, I'm afraid. Wow, what a gloomy gus I'm turning into."
"Non, non, mon cher. You're still a bit tired from this last bout of fever. I suppose I should have discouraged you from taking a walk out in the rain the other day, but…" Ani shrugged and chuckled.
'randolphs don't get sick from walking out in the rain, Ani." Jim told her. "We get sick from staying holed up indoors for months at a time. I've been sick less since we came here than I was in the two or three years before that. You know that. And I thought I'd told you how much momma, Jimmy and I and Grandma Jean always loved to walk out in a cool, misting rain coming down out of the hills, running down to the Chesapeake. There's really nothing better."
"You're homesick, Torry. You should go down to Norfolk in the spring." Antoinette offered.
"Nope. Nope, I can't. I'm persona non grata down there. Jimmy's … not one bit happy with me. Neither is Joanna, or Queen Bea, and neither are my cousins. And … I'm not that happy with myself, as things stand right now.' Jim shook his head and sighed. "And I guess even my brothers don't have much truck with me, just lately, after the way poor little Jessy duped me. I'm not mad at her, though. I don't even want to think what kind of pressure was used against her! She was … she was crying, so much of the time. She was terrified of someone, Antoinette, and terrified to talk about it. And how well I know that feeling."
'the Companies have been unusually quiet lately, oui." Ani agreed. "But perhaps they are just taking a late winter's nap."
"I … I don't really know." Jim answered, shocking his friend more than she wanted him to realize. 'they're … very quiet. I guess I … let them down, again. I guess they're confabing now to decide if they can go ahead … and do without me, after all."
'torry, mon cher ami, c'est impossible, vraiment." Antoinette insisted, swallowing her first impulse to cry out. "You're only down hearted at the moment. Perhaps I should share my good news with you now, and see if it will cheer you, also? Besides, that would allow me to ask you a rather significant favor."
"Good news is always welcome, ma plus cher reine." Jim agreed with a weary nod.
"Bien sur. Well, mon tres cher Duc, there is to be another heir to the throne of L' Isle d' Tresor, or if you will, of La Belle France. And I greatly hope you will be the child's g-dfather. S'il tu plait mon bon ami, will you not agree to do that?"
"Ani!" Jim started to get up and give her a celebratory hug. But then he set Antoinette back on her chair with infinite care and frowned. "Ani, that's the best news I've heard in … I'm not even sure how long, now. But, 'm sorry to .. 'm truly sorry, I can't… I can't take that on.
I hate refusing you, of all people. You've done so much. You've given up so much, your home at Los Miraboles, your life out there… that beautiful countryside and the ocean… not to mention two years with Miguel that you can't get back, no matter what. But… I can't. I'm … terminally single, and I'm … blind… And, what really matters in a case like this, is… some days again, just lately, I'm not so sure I'm … in my right mind. And I'd really appreciate if you didn't bother mentioning that to my thundering hoardes of doctors. Alright?"
'she won't, Torry." Miguel answered, chuckling as he walked into Ani's sewing room and kissed his wife. "I have my own sources."
"Yeah, all doctors are talented eavesdroppers by avocation." Jim retorted.
'this from a professional agent provocateur?" Miguel laughed. "No, my friend. All doctors learn to listen closely whenever their most stubborn, reclusive and terminally taciturn patients think they're not, not listening, that is. So, what is this about you being less than sure about your state of mind? And what school do you have your degree in 'alienation' from exactly, Torry?"
"Alienation?" Jim repeated. "I'm sorry Miguel, you just lost me on that one."
"It's simply a clinical term being applied, mostly in Europe, to the quasi-science of the human mind and its processes, but in particular its emotional reactions." Miguel answered. "Now, I've answered your question. Be good enough to answer mine."
" …well that's pretty simple, really. I know I killed the President and everyone else seems to know I didn't. Just how do you reconcile those two opposing positions with my less than solid grip on sanity these days, Doctor, as long as we're being clinical and all that." Jim answered, frowning.
"As long as we're being clinical, sanity is not a medical term or concept whatsoever, Major." Miguel replied. "It is in fact a legal construct invented and solely supported as having anything to do with authentic human function, by trial attorneys and prosecutors."
'so, if I understand this correctly, Miguel, " Jim offered. 'some years back when you were … shall we say, more creative in your scientific and socio-political endeavors, you would not have accepted a defense at trial … You would not agree that at that time you were likely insane?"
"No, not by any definition he would ever accept, James m'boy." Artemus answered from the doorway, recalling as he saw Miguel was, their own conversation on the subject.
"I thought you were among the group that isn't talking to me, this week, Artie." Jim protested half-heartedly at best.
"No, no, this week that group only takes in the Congress, the Cabinet and two thirds of the standing Army." Artie jibed. 'so, why are we talking about Miguel's sanity here? Or are we?"
"We were." Jim argued, but he was smiling just a bit. 'then you came busting in the door, partner. So maybe we should be talking about this problem you seem to have, just lately, this tendency to be impulsive, hasty, impetuous, and otherwise foolhardy."
'reckless, devil-may-care, rash and generally heedless of all good, common sense, is that what you're implying, James?" Artie chuckled.
"Implying? No, I'm saying it flat out, Artemus. You're becoming imprudent, incautious, shortsighted, irresponsible and probably misguided." Jim insisted. "Well, no, no, wait; I guess I'm going to have to keep that shortsighted problem for myself."
"If that's … the way you want it, partner."Artie agreed, but he wasn't laughing any longer. "Jim, you know I was out all day today and most of yesterday, looking into this possible lead we have about Ani's acquaintances, right?"
"And you're still looking for Jessy, right, Partner?" the younger man demanded, and waited a moment before pressing the issue. "Artemus, you are still looking for Jessy, knowing just how much trouble she must have been in, and how much more trouble she's likely to be in right now?"
"No, no, I'm not." Artie shook his head and sighed. "I'm not looking for Jessy, Partner."
"Well, then Mac has Ori and Jacques, Jere maybe and half the second string out looking for that scared little girl, right Artemus?" Jim asked, squaring his shoulders and jutting his chin out, ready for a blow.
"No, James. He doesn't. No one is looking for…" Artie admitted.
"Well, then stop stringing me along, damn it! You found Jessy. You found her and she told you what Boudin threatened her with to make her … come and break that bad news to me. Am I right? Am I?" Jim harshly interrupted the older man.
"You could… you could put it that way, Jim. Yes." Artemus agreed, sadly. "Ori and I found Jessy, this morning. And we found a letter she got a friend to write. She got a friend to write you a letter, partner, in Braille. But we didn't find her…"
"No." Jim shook his head, his face getting hot with anger his friends could readily see. "No, don't tell me that! Don't say that to me. I don't believe you. I don't believe that, not for a minute! You found the wrong girl. You're wrong about this. You've got it wrong. You have to have this wrong, Artemus. Because after what happened with little Jessy, I know you're not going to start up lying to me, not again!"
'the letter's addressed to you, James." Artie responded, a little stiffly now, putting a double folded, long sheet of paper covered with Braille symbols in Jim's hand. "You tell me if I'm wrong. Tell me if I'm lying. Go ahead. Read it."
"NO!" Jim shouted, letting the paper fall to the carpet, feeling like a bad mannered, scared little boy. "No, it's another pack of lies. You're lying again, despite all the trouble we're having about all y'all lying to me lately. I don't believe you. D'you hear me? I don't believe you for a second! You didn't want the girl in this house. Well, now she's gone and now you have no interest in finding her, knowing all the while, like I just said, who will be going after her!
Gideon Boudin is after Jessy, Partner! And he will kill her, Artemus. He will send his thugs or his fancy dressed surrogates and beat her to death or poison her or … hurt her and then take her life! And if he's following HIS usual pattern, Artemus, which has nothing to do with patterning and everything to do with his cowardly, sadistic nature, Boudin will have her murder made to look a suicide. Or are you trying to tell me that's what he's already done to that terrified little girl?"
'that's exactly what he's already done, Jim." the older agent told him, very quietly, picking up the letter. "We found Jessy, far too late to do anything but find Christian burial for her, and for her family. They're all dead, now. And they were Boudin's leverage with the girl. That's what her friend, who wrote that letter for Jessy, was brave enough to tell Sean Oriel and me.
We found her a safe place to hide out until we've run the thugs who did Boudin's killing for him this time, to ground. And I wish to Heaven we'd been able to do that for Jessy, too. Believe me or not, that's entirely up to you, now. Just like reading Jessy's letter is, all up to you, James."
Squeezing his eyes shut as if they pained him, Jim reached for and took the letter when Artie held it out near his right he moved as stiffly as a wooden soldier to one of the small tables in the sewing room and laid the sheet of Braille out flat.
'mon cher, mon si brave Duc." Ani whispered forlornly, handing Jim a ruler to aid his reading down the page.
'merci, ma plus cher, et tres gentil, tres belle reine." Jim answered hoarsely, and turned back to the letter Artie brought.
'mister Jim." he read aloud. 'mister Jim, you was real good and kind to me. And so was Missus Ani, and all your friends, after I first got there. So I thank you all very kindly, the way my momma taught me to. And I'm sorry for any hurt I put on you, terrible sorry. I shoulda known, I known it was wicked, what was told me to do. I known cause I could see it in your face, your good, kind face, what I done told you … what it done to you, deep inside.
Now, I'm lost. And now I can only tell you I wisht I'd known better things to tell you. I wisht there had been something good and fine to tell you, Mister Jim. I wisht I'd been strong enough to tell you how my boys were bein' held to scare me. Well, they're all angels now. My Man, My Miller, what got named for his ol' master, my brothers David and Adam, what got named by our momma from the Good Book, and my boys, my own Jesse-baby, Samuel and Isaac, they're all gone to Heaven, they've all just run on ahead of me.
If you'll only think kindly of me onct in a while, that would be so fine. That would be more than you should rightly do for me. But if you'll see my boys proper buried in th' little churchyard in the District, at the Freedman's little Chapel… That'd be the greatest kindness. They was always good boys. They never done anything wicked, less it was to eat taffy or dance on the Sabbath, onct in a great while.
I wisht sometimes I never seen you, Mister Jim. And I wisht I'd known you a good long while. Don't make no sense at all, but it's so. You made yourself my friend, when you had no call to. You never did me any harm at all. But me, I was a coward, tip to tailbone, and did what those ladies what used to hold My Miller and me, and my brothers, back in the day, what they told me. They said that tellin' you that truth would end up bein' a kindness, Mister Jim. But I ain't rightly sure. They said you purely needed to know the truth of the thing, and I don't know that I truly understand that, either.
I only know it cut you deep. And for that, I'm always gonna be real, real sorry. I only know the dried up powder stuff they told me was medicine for you, real bad muddled your head. And for that I'm always gonna be a whole lot regretful. And I only know you's as brave as any one I ever seen and a whole lot more than most, includin' little Jessy. And for knowin' you, Mister Jim, I'm always gonna be a whole lot glad, expect I got no right, but I'm gonna. Jessy-that is, Jessamyn-Talitha Miller, even if my Miller an' me we could never get our rites, I'm his Woman, his wife forever, as G-d surely knows…. As G-d surely knows." Jim repeated in a whisper, his bright blind eyes brightening even more with tears that did not fall.
"Jim," Artie said, putting one hand out to tap his friend's shoulder, only to have Jim pull away as if burned.
"Not now, Artie. Don't do this now." Jim insisted. "Or do you think I don't know what you're ready and … and practically eager to say, even after you heard her … heard Jessy's letter? I know you, Artie, I know you pretty damn well by this time, I'd say. So, don't start second guessing, start patronizing and most of all, don't start pushing me where I'm not about to go!
In fact, don't come to me with any more of your damn fool ideas about this girl who's dead now, murdered along with all her family! Because I won't hear it, Artemus. I won't listen to one single, solitary word. For one thing, I was taught never to speak ill of the dead, and especially, especially when they are barely in the ground. And for another, there is nothing in that letter that contradicts the plain, hard facts of this case, no matter how badly you want to interpret it that way.
So, I'm gonna say this one more time and it will be the last thing you will hear me say about Jessamyn Talitha Fairholm Miller for the rest of my natural life. She was coerced to come here. She was coerced to give me that drug. She was coerced to tell me what she told me, while I was as good as hypnotized, so that I wouldn't reject it out of hand. But there is nothing in that letter, nothing, not one word to support your notion that she didn't tell me the truth of what I did, four years ago in the Maryland House Hotel. That's all there is to it. You don't like it? You don't want to believe it? Well, my G-d, Artemus! Do you think I do?" Jim asked and shook his head.
"I'm going for a walk out in the garden, now. Jessy liked it back there. Well, she liked it a lot, after that first day. Take it easy, Ani. And don't let this big guy off the hook as easy as you let me. Okay?" the younger agent asked and strode out the door, brushing past Mac and Ori Hoynes on his way without a word.
"It's raining, Jim." Artie said, knowing the younger man didn't mind that sort of weather. Then Artie turned to the rest of his friends."Well, that was a genuine disaster. What the devil do we do now?"
"If you are directing that question to me, Artemus, 'miguel answered. 'then I will say that we must bring the President here to see Torry, or take Torry to meet with Mr. Grant, even sooner than we planned. All due respect to your talent, Artemus, I would not want to risk a performance, under these dire circumstances. Torry must become absolutely convinced the President is alive and well."
"You're right about that." Artie agreed, surprising Mac and Ori. "I've considered 'bringing' the President to see Jim more than once, lately. And each time it's occurred to me that all I'd need is one misstep, to bring the whole thing crashing down around our heads. I've impersonated President Grant on occasions that called for him to be seen in a carriage, on a dias, or from the back of the train, nothing more. Clearly I took that kind of chance with impersonating Stephen West. But just as clearly, my target audience knew almost right away what was really going on. I won't take that sort of risk as things stand now."
"Well, we can train up to Washington with the Youngster, sometime in the next week, I'd think." Mac Macquillan offered.
" I have no doubt the President will make time to see his favorite 'firebrand'.
"But, Thomas, how will you explain making that sort of trip to Jim?" Ori asked. 'right now he's solidly convinced he killed the Man himself and that he should be in prison … or worse for doing just that."
"Well, I can't exactly tell Jimmy the mansion is on fire, so we have to evacuate, again." Mac answered, with a tired grin.
"What have you got in mind, Antoinette?" The Bostonian asked when he glanced her way.
'the First Lady is very much in favor of parties and balls, non, mes amis?" Ani asked in turn.
"Yes, she enjoys them about a hundred times more than the President does, or ever will." Artie agreed. 'so what's your idea, Ani? Don't keep us in suspense."
"I would only suggest that either we invite Mrs. Grant down here, to help with the planning for our Balle, or that we take our party to her beautiful home. Either way, I'd think the chances would greatly increase of a seemingly inadvertent meeting between M'sieur Grant and our perplexed young friend." Ani told the group. "Que pensez vous, mes chers?"
"Ani, I think you're the real genius in your family." Artie announced, with a sidelong glance at Miguel. 'that's a wonderfully clandestine Idea."
'she is la vrai genie here, Artemus." Miguel agreed, chuckling. "I learned everything I know about stealth from ma plus cher femme."
"Well, that explains all those last minute getaways, I …" Mac started to say, when a series of increasingly loud crashes reached them from the back of the house. "Jimmy!" the Bostonian exclaimed and headed towards the kitchen door.
"Ori, how many of your team are in the house today or out on the grounds?" Artie asked, while hot on Macquillan's heels.
"About half the boys are here with me. Why, Artie? Do you think Jim is back there bouncing them off the gardener's shed?"Ori asked, following his friend and mentor.
"I don't think Jim's in much shape to knock anyone around. But, I also think Jim's in no mood to ask for introductions
first and practice the right hook I taught him, second." Artie answered. "And don't look at me that way. I grew up in the Tenderloin, my friend. We learned to fight out there almost before we learned to walk, in those days. C'mon, let's go find
out what the damages are, this time."
Ori's long legs got him first to the kitchen garden and the now dormant rose garden just behind it,next to Miguel's clinic. Artemus was a close second, although slightly out of breath. And Ani, Mac, Jacques and Miguel brought up the rear guard, consisting of Terry Hawks, Chris McIntire, Tommy Harper, Thad and Micah Kuenle, Travis Madsen and Mairtin Macquillan, the first and last of those seven agents looking something like elongated bookends, holding their five comrades in place. Ori was mildy relieved to see that none of his 'boys' were in a melee with Jim West, whose training as a field agent was still pretty well intact. But Ori and all the others were shocked to see that Jim was struggling to subdue a trio of scrawny men in worn blue uniforms. And the apparent soldiers were getting the worst of it, although Jim's left eye was already swelling shut and getting purple.
"Attention!" Artemus ordered sharply, in his best parade ground Inspector General style. It worked. All four combatants stopped in their tracks and stood as if at a Grand Review. Artie wordlessly signalled for Ori and his cohort to take the men dressed as soldiers into custody and that was accomplished with no trouble now. They look to be drunk out of their minds. But at least they know when they're thoroughly outnumbered. Artie considered. And that doesn't tell us why they'd attack an unarmed blind man walking in a private garden.Deferring to the senior agent present, Artie turned to Mac and shrugged.
"Alright, Youngster, maybe you can tell us what happened out here." Macquillan asked Jim. "Cause these three idiots look to be a few sheets to the wind, to say the least."
'don' ask him, Mister! He won' tell you, but we surely will! We came at him cause we just lately heered tell what he done and nigh onta got clean away with!" One of the blue-clad trio, a tall, whip thin red head sneered, at which charge Jim stiffened even more.
"We heerd, all right! And we figured nobody had done nothin' about what that there bastard done, cause he's got him so many high an' mighty friends, even after what he done!" The second 'soldier', a wiry fellow with a thatch of greying light brown hair called out.
"You weren't asked that question, soldier." Terry Hawks told the second man, holding him back away from Jim. "You weren't asked anything at all, not yet, that is."
"Naw, you folks don' wanta hear our answers, do you?" The third attacker, a burly, balding man insisted. "You folks already know all them answers, don't you? Only you all set out to bury 'em, right alongside the best Genrl' any Army ever had! That fella there, the crazed lookin' one you want to hear answers from, he went and shot down ol' Sam Grant, nigh onta four years ago now! That's what he done! That's how his eyes got burnt up. He's no better than that Wilkes Booth that shot down Ol' Honest Abe!"
"An' from what we heerd that crazed fellow there he's been off his nut for so long now he probly couldn't tell you!" The first man shouted. "We heered he got his head turned around six ways from Sunday whilst the War was still goin! Why, it come to us that this here West woulda gone t' one yer Federal pens, or gone straight onta face a firin' squad back then, but it got all covered over how he nigh onta kilt th' Genrl back then! It was told us that West got in it up to his neck with folks that just hungered to do away with Genrl Grant and a lot more big brass b'sides, sometime in th' last two years of th' War. But it got buried, that's what we was told! An' you don' want that put about now as th' plain fact of the matter, do you? No, you don' want no more scandal an' troubles doggin' you and the rest of the damn fools up in Washington's City, do you?"
"Well, what about it, Genrl?" the first man in the rough hewn trio shouted. "Ain't y' gonna make no answer to them charges? Ain't y' gonna say yes or no? Ain't y' gonna sing out thet you be inn'cent er guilty? Confessin' Genrl', if you ain't heered is s'posed t' be right good fer a fella's soul, I heered. An' then onct y' go on an' give it up what y' done, all y' gotta do is finish off the problem. C'mon y' gotta know what I mean by that! C'mon even y' damn all higher ups gotta know bout what happened t' fellas like this blind ol' Genrl here?
Ain't y' even heered what happened t' them boys from the 18th North Carolina? You surely know what they done, right? You surely know them boys shot ol' Stonewall Jackson plumb off his horse, right after that fight at Chancellorsville, don't ya? Well, them boys in that ol' 18th they figured a hex got put on them that made 'em do that. They figured they done th' Cause its mortal woundin' that time. And some of us Yankee boys, we figure maybe they did just that. And so most of them 18th North Carolina boys they picked themselves off, one after another after another as time went on… till there's practically none of 'em breathin'!
So me an' my boys here we heered you was still walkin' the earth and still free an' clear, no jail time, no trial, no trouble about what you done t' our Genrl Grant! An' we come by t' ask this here question: Genrl, why ain't you already done fer yourself when it's been four long years since y' put Sam Grant in the ground? What's been keepin' you, huh, Genrl? Why ain't you in th' ground somewheres, too? Why ain't you down in th' deepest part of Perdition by now, is what we don't get?
Why ain't you offed yourself, Genrl? You warn't too yella to kill ol' Grant, but now you're too damn yella t' kill your own self?"
Jim still stood wordlessly silent. But now he went pale as damask and shuddered, his blind gaze fixed on a memory-nightmare scene he'd just regained. He stood shaking with a bout of malaria, leaning heavily on a crutch, in the middle of some kind of crowded office, something like a doctor's office, only it was lined with men half in and half out of uniform, and men in suits from years ago. He stood chanting something he couldn't hear, reciting it desperately as if he could only forestall disaster that way. And when did I ever manage to talk my way out of trouble? That's Artie's gift, not mine! Then, for an instant, Jim could hear his own voice in this vision, this image of some private patch of hell. And he was shaking even harder now, because standing next to him was a group of sixteen boys, not one of them older than fourteen, the youngest of them looking no more like eight years old!
"I can't. I can't. I' can't." Jim heard himself whispering hoarsely, as if he'd been saying this for hours. "I tried… I tried… I did. But I can't… so I … yes, yes, I know I've failed you. And … you've … you've been so patient, really. Only… I am… I was an officer… I am… I was a soldier… And there are … Codes of … of Military Justice …But… but, you know I am … I'm … ready to do … to follow your… your orders… And so… I know, I know that you… don't want these … these children… harmed… Because I …I'm prepared, now. I'm prepared and I have to do what you want… I can only do what … you want! So you can't… you don't… you don't …"
'torry!" Antoinette called out now, seeing how Jim froze in place and stared at nothing she could see.
"James!" Artie shouted. "Jim! Come out of it, Partner, come on, c'mon, wake up now."
"What the?" Jim answered, shaking his head as if he'd just come up out of a river. "What'd I do? Oh… I guess I … went out for a minute there. What's wrong now, Artie?"
"Well a whole lot of things, James. But for right now I wanted to point out that these men are crazy drunk. We all can hear that. We all can …smell that on them." Artie insisted, stepping closer to his friend. 'they won't know what they did or said in the morning. You, on the other hand are going to have a really nice shiner on your left eye. Let's go and put a cold compress…"
"No." Jim shook his head. "No. I want them to tell you every word they started to tell me, before they decided they wanted to throw some punches at a man they thought had no way to fight back. Thomas, I have the right to hear my accusers, don't I? I at least have that much, as of now, right?"
"Yes, you do. But this is neither a court of Law, or a courtsmartial panel, Youngster. So I'm not sure any of us should ask these drunken fools any more questions at all. It could prejudice our case against them." Macquillan answered somberly.
"What case against them, Prof? They were told I murdered the best man any of us will likely ever know. Can you honestly stand there and tell me you would never … you have never wanted to knock the people responsible for that murder flat on their well tailored, well protected backsides? Can you, Mac?"
"I cannot. But none of the people responsible for that attempted assassination of the President are…" Macquillan started to say,when Jim shook his head and put up his right hand in a sharp, cutting gesture.
'thomas, you are the fairest man I know, the fairest man still in the living world." Jim said, very quietly, so that everyone had to listen closely. "And these men here say they don't believe you want the truth of this matter put about. These men say you don't want the facts of this case to be known. But I don't believe that. I only believe you'd still really, really like to protect the son of an old friend who's not here to do that now.
And I don't want you to protect me any longer. And I don't believe my Dad would want you to protect me, not if it meant perpetrating a useless, pointless lie. You've never been a dishonest man, Thomas. You've always been completely, completely fair and truthful, even when you'd rather not. Please, be the man I know. Please be a real friend to my Dad.
Please let me be a grown man again and accountable for what I've done, taking what I have coming to me. There's nothing else I can ask you for. Nothing else I want."
"Jimmy, you just said your father wouldn't wish me to perpetrate a lie. You're right. Stephen would never want you to be shielded by a wall of lies. But, what these men say they were told, what that sad little girl was told and passed on to you, that's the lie here." Mac insisted tautly. "And if you really believe I would lie to you about something this crucial, then I don't know what to say at all."
"I don't know what to believe." Jim admitted sadly. "I only know what I've remembered doing. So I'm not going to pursue any charges against these three soldiers. And I don't want anyone else to, either. I used to be a soldier, once myself. So I know we come to love the men we follow, as much or more than our own fathers. Now, I need some time, folks. Please. I just need some time to myself right now. Can you give me some time to figure something out here, to at least try to?"
"Alright, Jimmy." Mac answered.
'surely, mon cher." Ani said.
"Go ahead, James." Artie agreed, albeit reluctantly.
"Well, thanks for that." Jim nodded and walked back into the rose garden, around the corner and into the clinic's small building. Miguel was only seeing a handful of regular patients this winter, and with tomorrow being the Sabbath, he'd closed his doors early on.
Artie frowned and turned his attention back to the three drunken 'soldiers for a minute, before looking over at Mac. 'thomas, old friend, I tend to think these gentlemen could still tell us something we might find useful, such as where they got this … damnable story and who gave them the money to get drunk on this early in the day."
"Artemus, old friend. I think you have a fine, well deliberated point there." Mac agreed, with a fierce grin. 'let's find out the source of their information and their income, shall we? I can't help wondering myself if they aren't one and the same."
"You fellows don't happen to know someone named Lanier, or some other people, mostly ladies, named Fairholm, Dunstan or Burnham, do you?" Ori asked, poking each soldier in the ribs as he asked. "And sure as shooting you don't by any chance know someone by the name of Boudin?"
"We don' know any body like that at all!" the third soldier shouted, while Mairtin held him back. "We only got leave th' other day and come on down from …"
"Will you shut your damn all face for once?" The second man said, struggling in Terry's strong grasp to reach his companion.
"Why should he, boy?" The first attacker demanded. "We've had it now! We'll at th' least go on report, fer drunk and disorderly1 An' even if that blind fellow don't bring charges, we're in a heap of trouble without him." The red head turned to Mac and sighed, shoulders slumping. 'mister, we just got inta Richmond at th' tail end of last night. We're s'posed to back at City Point for reveille, Monday mornin'. Well, we went t' a couple a taverns we heerd about. An' one of 'em was chock full of fancy ladies and … some of those fancy ladies had some rich lookin' fellows on the string, or so it seemed."
"And some of those ladies or fellows had this particular story to share with a tavern full of strangers, including men from … what Regiment or what Brigade are you?" Artie probed.
"7th Infantry, West Virginia." The third man volunteered. "We was 3rd Brigade, 2cnd Division, 2cnd Corps, that last year of the War, Mister. An' b'fore that, 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, an'… mostly always in th' First Brigade … till Iike I said, around March of '64."
"Your fellows were pretty busy throughout, I've heard." Terry Hawks offered. 'sorry if I roughed you up."
"We seen a lot of parts of that ol' Elephant, certain sure." redhead nodded. "Anyway, Mister. Them fancy dudes and their fancy women they surely did have a lot more cash in hand than we've seen lately. An' they swore up and down and back and forth they was givin' out a story that got all hushed up… An' since we'd never heerd it, the boys and me we kinda figured that story must be so."
"You kinda figured the President must have been assassinated because you hadn't heard about it?" Artie couldn't help scoffing. "Just when was it you heard the Man had died? That is, don't you think that would have made the papers?"
"Well, it surely might've, Mister. Thing is, the boys an' me, we don't … read much." The balding man admitted glumly.
"Well, thing is, we don't read a bit."
'so you only heard that President Grant had died, and that he was assassinated, last night at this tavern?" Artie asked, rolling his eyes. "And what tavern is that, exactly? Oh, and could you please explain how you found out where to find our friend?"
"We only heered about it then, yes, sir, Mister." The thatch haired soldier agreed. " And it was …well, it was one of them older tavern places out on … out near th' … Burnt District, I reckon. Yeah, figure it was up on Cary and Gov'nor Streets, Mister, weren't it Todd?"
"Well, great! That's just great, Davey! Now you went an' told 'em my name! Next up, you'll be rattin' out poor ol' Sonny, right over here!" the redhead groaned and then rolled his eyes, plainly realizing what he'd said too late.
"Alright, Todd." Mac grinned. 'there's still one question hanging fire here. And that's the one that worries me the most about what you did today. Do you know what you actually could be charged with, if our friend should happen to change his mind, not to mention if our host and hostess here should choose to file a report of your breaking and entering here with the Richmond constables?"
'that other fellow, that one who's stone blind, Mister, he ain't chargin' us with nothin!" The man called Sonny complained.
"But he's been known to take his friend's advise, from time to time." Artie chuckled. "And if he did that now, you'd be charged with assaulting a Federal agent, with intent to do grievous bodily harm. And you'd be charged with defamation of character of that same Federal agent. Oh, by the way, that reminds me, I was in the White House just three days ago, Sonny, old friend, old pal. And President Grant is perfectly healthy these days, thanks for asking.
So who was it, my friends who told you where to find James West? Because that's the man you attacked out here. And that's the man you charged with a killing that never happened. And anyone in this city, very likely knows that. And anyone up and down the eastern seaboard, most likely, all the way out west, at least as far as Galena, Illinois, knows that President Grant is alive and well.
But whoever it was who sent you gentlemen over here wants our friend James to believe the story they filled your heads with. They want that because they tried and failed to make James break all his oaths and trample his deepest loyalty, which is to this country and immediately after that, to Ulysses Simpson Grant. So now these genuine traitors, these cold hearted, cowards and bastards want our friend to believe a lie that could destroy him once and for all. Now, I'll ask you again. Then we'll let, Mairtin, Terence and Sean Oriel here get the answer some other way. Who sent you to this house this morning? Who sent you to lie to Jim West? What is that bastard's name?"
"What happens to us, Mister, should we rat her out?" the soldier called Davey by his friends demanded to know.
Artie raised one eyebrow and glanced at Mac who only cocked his head shrugged. "What happens is you put yourselves on report for being drunk and disorderly while on leave from City Point. After that, what happens is up to your C.O."
"Okay. Okay then." the redhead nodded. 'she wasn't in th' tavern, exactly, Mister. Figure she was some kinda real rich lady, and had herself took over th' whole, entire upper floor there, t'other night. An' you should know we ain't th only boys who she had her little confabs with. Only most of them other boys, they come back down and they took off, lookin' kinda sick and scared.
An we come t' hear she was givin' out whole chunks of cash. An' she was! But she only give out that money if a fellow said he'd … come on over and knock some sense into this… this other fellow… this West. An' we warn't s'posed to get her name
at first, y'know? But figure she thot we was already too drunk to pay that part much heed. So after a time she got all snooty an' said to Sonny, me an' Davey-boy, that we'd best not try comin' back t' find her for more of that cash. She said 'You're Yankee trash right outa th' gutters and jails of half the dying towns and villages of th' Old World. So don't you ever try bringin' this back on me! Cause I'm Rowena Victoria Rebecca Edmonson Fairholm, an' nobody dares defy me!"
Ani rolled her eyes and swallowed a curse. She'd allowed this same wealthy viper into her home and nearly seen her friends destroyed. She'd allowed Fairholm and her poisonous hatreds in her door. And now a young family had been murdered, Ani
did not doubt at this person's command, or the command of Gideon Boudin. And soon, when her Balle was held, Ani knew she must admit Fairholm once more to Isle d' Tresor. But this time the master-trap laid would be of Antoinette Elise Marais de Cervantes' making. This time she would catch a 'King Spider' better known as Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin, and his malevolent current surrogate, Rowena Fairholm.
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