The polite, reserved gentleman sharing the table wore the oak leaves and cuff braids of a colonel, though the source of that rank was a mystery to Stanley and many others. He had done some investigation before leaving Washington. In one group of reports, the officer was consistently called Captain Butler, and it was the captain whose appointment as a commissary the Senate had rejected last winter.
Other reports filed in the War Department referred to him as Colonel Butler, though most of these came from his brother. In other words, in the mysterious ways of wartime, when the gentleman got a job on his brother's staff, he underwent a rapid rise in rank. Whether the promotions were brevets or even legal hardly mattered. Nothing mattered but the man's influence and power. He had plenty of each, so Stanley gladly overlooked the irregularities.
Stanley watched his champagne consumption; difficult negotiation lay ahead. While they ate they kept to safe topics: the question of the length of the war; the question of whether McClellan would be replaced and by whom. On the latter, Stanley knew the answers — yes; Burnside — but feigned ignorance.
Butler asked about his journey. "Oh, it was fine. Sea air is salubrious." He hadn't smelled much of it. He had stayed in his bunk for most of the voyage, rising only to vomit into a bucket. But it was important that business adversaries think him competent in every respect — another of Isabel's little lessons.
"Well, sir" — Stanley's guest leaned back — "a fine repast, and I thank you for it. Since your visit is so short, perhaps we'd better get down to it."
"Happily, Colonel. For background, I might tell you that I own the manufacturing firm of Lashbrook's of Lynn, Massachusetts."
"Army footwear," Colonel Andrew Butler said with a nod. A little shiver chased along beneath Stanley's shirt. The man knew all about him.
He raised his napkin to mop perspiration from his lip. He leaned forward into the shadow of a hanging fern basket. "This is a rather public place. Should we —?"
"No, we're perfectly all right here." Butler touched a match to a large Havana. "Similar, ah, arrangements are being concluded at half the tables in this restaurant. Though none is on the scale of what you propose. Please continue."
Stanley got up his nerve and plunged. "I understand there is a desperate need for shoes."
"Desperate," Butler murmured, blowing smoke.
"In the North, cotton is badly needed."
"It's available. One only needs to know cooperative sources and how to get it into the city and onto the docks." Butler smiled.
"You do understand that in every transaction I receive a commission from the purchaser as well as the seller?"
"Yes, yes — it makes no difference, if you can help me ship shoes to the Con — to those who need them and, at the same time, deliver cotton in sufficient quantity to make its resale worth the not inconsiderable risk. There are laws against aiding and trading with the enemy."
"Are there? I've been too busy to notice." He laughed heartily. Stanley joined in because he thought he should.
They went strolling, working out the details. In the mild sunshine of early winter, Stanley suddenly felt marvelous, unable to believe that, in remote places he would never see, men were living in fear and filth, and laying down their lives for slogans.
On his third cigar, Andrew Butler began to philosophize about his brother. "They nicknamed him Beast because he threatened to treat the townswomen as whores if they made disparaging remarks to our boys, and they nicknamed him Spoons because they say he loots private homes. He's guilty of the former and proud of it, but believe me, Stanley, if Ben wanted to steal, he wouldn't traffic in anything so trifling as spoons. After all, his background is Massachusetts politics — and he's a lawyer besides."
Stanley could have mentioned some things he had heard about the general — that, for instance, he had grown wealthy during his short tenure in New Orleans, though no one could say how. The sources of Andrew Butler's burgeoning fortune were, by contrast, widely known.
Moving toward the riverfront where a paddle steamer lay moored, white as a wedding cake in the sunshine, Butler continued, "The people of this town are wrong to condemn my brother. He's a much more fair-minded and efficient administrator than anyone will admit. He cleaned up pestilential conditions he found when he arrived, he brought in food and clothing when it was badly needed, he reopened the port for business. But all you hear is 'Damn the Beast' and 'Damn Spoons.' Fortunately, in our little commercial venture, you and I will deal with gentlemen who put personal profit ahead of public slogan-mongering."
"You're referring to the cotton planters?"
"Yes. Their desire to be practical was enhanced by the experience of a few who initially refused me their cooperation — and their cotton. Those gentlemen found their slaves absent all at once. When they subsequently consented to, ah, share their crop in the general marketplace, the slaves of course reappeared to do the hard labor."
Working under bayonets held by United States soldiers, Stanley thought. The scandalous stories had reached Washington. But he didn't mention it.
"Even in wartime," Butler concluded, "practicality is often a wiser course than patriotism."
"Yes, definitely," Stanley agreed. The champagne and sunshine and success reached him all at once, generating a sense of self-worth unique in all his life. Isabel should be proud of what he had accomplished today. Damned proud. He was.
By the close of November, most officers in the Army of the Gulf knew they would have a new commander by the end of the year. Protests against Butler's style had grown too numerous, accusations of thievery and profiteering too ripe. The coming of a new commandant usually produced a reorganization and many transfers. Elkanah Bent realized he must retrieve the painting at once.
He observed the entrance to Madame Conti's on three randomly chosen evenings. The observation proved that what he had heard was true: the brothel was popular with officers and noncoms alike, though it was against regulations for them to associate, just as it was for them to visit such a place. Both rules were broken by large numbers of men, who went in quietly and came out rowdily — drunk to the eyes. Within one half-hour period he witnessed two fistfights, which further cheered him.
In his disorderly rented room around the corner from the Cotton Exchange, Bent sat down in his undershirt and devised a plan with the aid of his most helpful companion, a fresh bottle of whiskey. He drank as much as a quart a day — and vile stuff it was, too; little better than sutler's slop. But he needed it to clarify his mind and help him cope with his burden of failure.
The woman who ran the bordello would never sell him the portrait. Nor was he willing to risk burglary late at night; he vividly remembered Madame Conti's black helper. He had to steal the painting while others conducted what was known in military parlance as a diversionary demonstration. With the bordello patrons in a volatile state, it should not be hard to provoke one.
It was the best plan he could concoct. He drained the bottle and fell into bed, Wearily reminding himself to secure a knife.
The following Saturday night, in full-dress uniform, Bent ascended the beautiful black iron stair he had climbed once before. He found a large, noisy crowd of soldiers in the parlor and didn't recognize one. A touch of luck there.
He ordered bourbon from the old black man behind the small bar. He sipped and listened. When the men weren't boasting to the whores, they maundered about home or muttered anti-Southern sentiments. Ideal.
He ordered a second drink. His neck prickled suddenly. Someone watching —?