He turned. Sure enough, through the press he saw a large, solid woman approaching. She was well into her sixties, and her mass of white hair was as stunningly arranged as it had been the previous time. She wore a robe of emerald silk embroidered with bridges, pagodas, and Oriental figures.
"Good evening, Colonel. I thought I recognized an old customer."
He started to sweat; insincerity lurked behind his smile. "You have a good memory, Madame Conti."
"I just recall your face, not your name." Shrewdly, she didn't bring up their quarrel over the cost of certain special services obtained from the slut he had bedded.
"Bent." On the first visit he had actually called himself Benton, wanting to protect his real name because he believed he could still have a career in the army. At that time, he had yet to learn that the generals never recognized talent, only influence.
And you don't command any. You know who's responsible: your father, who betrayed you in death. The Mains and the Hazards, the General Billy Shermans, and a host of unknown enemies who have whispered and conspired and —
"Colonel? Are you ill?"
A bulging vein in his forehead flattened out of sight. His breathing slowed. "Just a brief dizziness. Nothing alarming."
She relaxed, musing. "Colonel Bent. Certainly, that was it." He missed the flash of doubt in her eyes. He swallowed whiskey and listened to the din in the place. Excellent.
"I recall you had a Negro working for you — a huge, ferocious fellow." Willing to kill on order. "I haven't seen him tonight. Is he still here?"
Bitterness: "No. Pomp wanted to join your army. He was a freedman, and I couldn't dissuade him. To business, Colonel. In what may we interest you this evening? You know our range of specialties, as I recall."
He wanted one of her young boys, but in this military crowd dared not ask. "A white girl, I think. One with flesh on her bones."
"Come and meet Marthe. She's German, though she's learning English. One caution: Marthe's younger brother is serving in a Louisiana regiment. I advise Marthe and all the other girls that we run a nonpartisan establishment" — damn lie, that; the madam had several times criticized Butler publicly — "but you can assure yourself of congeniality by avoiding direct reference to the war."
"Certainly, certainly." Anxiety quickened the reply. Could he go through with it? He must.
Madame Conti's hypocrisy helped stiffen his resolve. He ordered a magnum of French champagne for some further stiffening, then waddled along to be presented to the whore.
"Very lovely, dear," Marthe said twenty minutes later. "Very satisfying." She had an accent thick as a sausage and china-blue eyes, which she had kept focused on the ceiling throughout. Plump and slightly pink from her brief exertion, she lay touching and fluffing the corkscrew curls over her ears.
Back turned, Bent struggled into his trousers. Now, he said to himself. Now. He picked up the bottle and drained the last inch of flat champagne.
The plump whore rose and reached for her blue silk kimono. Madame Conti's passion for things Asian was evident throughout the house. "It's time to pay, darling. The chap at the bar downstairs will take your mon —"
Bent pivoted. She saw his fist rising, but astonishment prevented an outcry for a moment. He hit her hard. Her head snapped back. She fell on the bed, shrieking in anger and pain.
Turning away to conceal his next action, he raked his nails down his left cheek till he felt the blood. Then he snatched his coat and lurched for the door.
The whore was on him then, pounding with her fists, bellowing German curses. Bent kicked back twice and hurt her enough to stop the hitting. He plunged into the dim hall. Doors opened along it, blurred faces becoming visible. What was the commotion?
He remembered his saber, left behind. Let it go. You can buy another. There's only one painting.
Down the stairs he went, staggering, blood dripping from his chin. "Damn rebel slut attacked me. She attacked me!"
He bolted through the arch to the parlor, where his outcry had already generated angry looks among the lounging soldiers. "Look what the whore did to me!" Bent pointed to his bloody cheek. "She called General Butler a pissing street dog — spat on my uniform — then she did this. I won't pay a penny in this nest of traitors."
"Right with you there, Colonel," said a dark-bearded captain. Several men stood up. Marthe bounded down the stairs, heightening the effect of Bent's story by howling her German damnations. Through heavy smoke tinted by the red glass mantles, he saw the barman's hand drop beneath the counter. Madame Conti rushed from a doorway behind him: the office — exactly where he remembered it.
"All of you be quiet, please. I permit no such —"
"Here's what we do to people who insult the United States Army." Bent seized the nearest chair and brought it down on the marble bar, splintering it.
"Stop that, stop it," Madame Conti cried with a note of despair. Several girls fled squealing; others crouched on the floor. The barman produced a pepper-pot pistol. Two noncoms jumped him, one throwing the gun into a spittoon while the other locked hands behind the man's neck and dragged his face down to the marble, swiftly and hard. Bent heard a nose crack.
He picked up another chair and flung it sideways. It struck a decorative mirror; a waterfall of fragments flowed.
The soldiers, half of them drunk, joined the attack like gleeful boys. Tables flew. Chairs crunched. Madame Conti ineffectually pulled at the arms of those wrecking her parlor, gave up and dashed away as demolition commenced in other rooms. An officer caught her, lifted her, and carried her out of sight on his shoulder.
Panting with excitement and fear, Bent ran to the office. There was the red-flocked wallpaper, the array of paintings, including the great Bingham — and there was the quadroon's portrait in its remembered place, among several canvases behind the madam's desk. Bent produced a clasp knife and began to poke and saw the canvas around the inner edge of the frame. In a minute and a half, he nearly had the portrait loose.
"What are you doing?"
Cut, rip — the picture was his. He began to roll it. "You've ruined that," Madame Conti cried, rushing at him. Bent dropped the painting, balled his fist, and hit her on the side of the head. She would have fallen, but she caught herself on the edge of the desk.
Her splendid hair do undone, she stared at him through straggling gray strands. "Your name wasn't Bent the first time; it was —"
He struck her again. The blow drove her four feet backward and hurled her to the floor. She floundered on her spine and made whimpering noises as he picked up the rolled painting, rushed through the parlor and down the iron stairs, leaving his army comrades to finish their work. From the hurrahs and the sounds of breakage that diminished as he hurried into the dark, they were enjoying the duty.
It had been a good night for everyone.
60
Burnside brought the Army of the Potomac to the Rappahannock in mid-November. The engineers hutted in a huge camp at Falmouth and waited. Seldom had Billy heard such complaining.
"We are delaying so long they will have their best ready to go against us."
"Bad terrain, Fredericksburg. What are we to do, march up the heights like the redcoats at Breed's Hill and be mowed down the same way?"
"The general is a shit-ass, fit for nothing but combing his whiskers. There isn't an officer in the country capable of leading this army to a victory."
Despite Lije Farmer's urgings that he have faith and ignore the malcontents, it was the malcontents Billy was starting to believe. Confidence in Burnside was not enhanced when a story got around that he was asking his personal cook for advice on strategy.