Chapter Twenty-five
Washington, D.C., July 1855
Deacon Presgrove sits at the gaming table in Mrs. Springer’s parlor staring into a handsome face and eyes so cold they make his hands shake. The full lips, red cheeks, soft skin, and curly white-blond hair belong to Henry Clark. Deacon isn’t given to flights of imagination, but when he looks at Clark he can’t help but see bodies piling up in heaps.
Lily comes up behind him smelling of expensive French perfume. Reaching back, Deacon takes her hand in his. Maybe he takes it for courage; maybe he takes it because if Clark pulls a gun, he can heave Lily in front of him. He’s too spooked to figure out which.
“What do you want?” he asks.
Clark smiles. It is a charming smile, but Deacon, who has often used such smiles himself to great advantage, is not deceived. He looks at Clark’s even, white teeth and thinks shark.
“Money,” Clark says.
“Why should I give you money?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
“I am?” Deacon’s cravat feels too tight. He starts to loosen it and then realizes Clark will take the gesture as a sign of weakness.
“We drank together. We whored together.” Clark’s smile broadens. “Remember that little quadroon beauty in Savannah? You kept putting whiskey on her nipples. Then you did something that set her screaming. Remember that? When her pimp came in and saw how you’d damaged his property, he decided to shoot you dead. But I saved your life. Remember?”
“I don’t remember anything. I was drunk.” A lie. Deacon remembers the whole incident all too well.
“I killed him,” Clark says. “Remember?”
“Yes,” Deacon admits, “you did.”
“In a nasty way.”
“Very nasty.” Deacon can feel circles of perspiration forming under his arms. “When I woke up the next day the memory of what you did to him was worse than my hangover.”
“I enjoyed it. I took out my pocket watch and timed his screaming. He set a new record.”
Deacon very much wants this conversation to end. He wishes he had a gun. Shooting Clark would be a public service, but maybe Clark would shoot him first. “How much do you want?”
“Don’t you want to know what I want the money for?”
“To keep quiet about the whore, I imagine.”
“You imagine wrong. When I heard your father speak in Savannah, he said Yankee abolitionists were taking over Kansas. ‘An abomination,’ he said. ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’ That’s when it came to me. That’s when I found my calling.” Clark leans so close, Deacon can smell the whiskey on his breath. “Think of me as Christ in the wilderness; or if you’d rather, the Beast of Revelation.”
“You want money to go to Kansas?”
“Not just me. I want to lead my own band. Like Mangas Coloradas.”
In the last fifteen seconds, Clark has compared himself to the Beast of Revelation, an Apache chief, and Jesus Christ. Clearly he is insane, Deacon thinks. He clears his throat and tries to look as if such a thought never occurred to him.
“So if I sponsor you and your men, you’ll immediately head for the Kansas Territory?” And put a thousand miles between us?
“I’ll come down on those free-soilers like the wolf on the fold.”
When a man with eyes like glass marbles sits across a poker table from you quoting Byron, it’s dangerous to bargain, but Deacon has never handed over money without getting something in return, and his mouth works before his brain has time to warn him of the risk he’s taking.”
“Find my wife.”
“Your wife?”
Deacon immediately regrets having spoken. Carrie threatened to shoot him if he came after her, and damned if she wouldn’t do it. Could he tell Clark to forget about her? No. If he does, Clark will think he’s weak and indecisive. Deacon decides that there is no use imagining what Clark will do to him if he appears vulnerable. Talking to the man is like having a conversation with a panther. You have to look him straight in the eye and act as if he’s the one who should be afraid. It’s a difficult role, but Deacon has played a lot of difficult roles in his time.
He wills his own eyes to turn to marbles. Perhaps they do; perhaps they don’t. He can’t tell without a mirror, but when he speaks, he hears the voice he used when he played Caligula.
“I have reason to believe my wife is in Kansas, but those abolitionist bastards are such a closed-mouth bunch they wouldn’t tell you the time if you showed them a watch. I’ve made numerous inquiries, but so far I haven’t been able to locate her.” He wonders if he should tell Clark about the child and decides against it. The less Clark knows about his personal life, the better. “I’ll give you a list of names she may be using, possible whereabouts, and so forth.”
“You want me to kill her?”
“For God’s sake no! I just want you to tell me where she is, and then I’ll go get her myself. You aren’t to hurt her or threaten her or even let her know you’re there. Just find out if she’s living in the Kansas Territory.”
“I think you should give me something extra for that.” Clark lifts his left hand and brushes his thumb and fingers together. Strong hands that could break a man’s neck so fast that—Deacon pushes the thought out of his mind. For a few seconds, Clark holds his hand in front of Deacon’s face, then swoops down and begins to paw through the pile of jewelry that lies next to the ashtray holding Deacon’s cigar.
“Your stake?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like you’re pressed for ready cash.”
“I’ll win everything back tonight and more.”
Clark picks up a silver bracelet, slips it on his wrist, and admires it. “What happened to that gold cigar case Nettie gave you?”
“It was stolen.”
Clark makes a clicking sound that might possibly be interpreted as sympathy but which is more likely disappointment. “I see two wedding rings here. Have you converted to Mormonism? If you have, I suggest you recant. I’ve always held that it’s easier to cheat on one wife than support two.”
“Both rings belonged to my late stepmother. My father gave her the large gold band. The smaller ring, the one studded with sapphires, came from her previous husband. She was a widow when my father married her.”
“Was, as in no longer with us? Late, as in dead?”
Deacon nods.
“My sympathies.” Clark picks up a gold ring guard and holds it to the light. “Are these real diamonds?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, I thought so. Well, if you don’t object, I think I’ll take all this as a down payment.”
“Help yourself.”
Clark scoops up the jewelry and stuffs it into his pocket. As he straightens up, his coat flares open revealing a fancy nickel-plated revolver with an ivory grip.
“I could use a drink,” he says.
Deacon turns to Lily. “Get us some whiskey,” he orders. Whatever Clark wants, he can have. There will be no more bargaining.