"Get rid of him."
Baker stroked his beard, shrugged. "Easy enough."
"And the witnesses."
"Not so easy."
"Why not? One's in custody —"
"The white prostitute," Wood said. "She's with the other women."
"Get the nigger's name from Mrs. Devore," Stanley ordered Baker. "Find her and get both women out of Washington. Threaten them, bribe them, but I want them five hundred or a thousand miles from here. Tell them to use assumed names if they value their skins." Baker started to raise some objection, but Stanley blustered, "Do it, Colonel, or you'll no longer command the First District of Columbia Cavalry, or any other organization."
With an unintelligible mutter, Baker turned away. Wood scratched his chin. "There's still Randolph to be reckoned with. Nobody cut his tongue out, y'know."
Stanley's glance lashed the warden for joking at such a time. "Randolph is Mr. Stanton's responsibility. The secretary is calling on Senator Wade right now, and it's expected that some well-respected congressmen will soon counsel with Randolph's publishers. The message will be quite simple. It will be to their advantage to keep quiet but infinitely troublesome for them if they don't. I suspect they'll choose the former. Then, if Randolph talks, who'll corroborate his wild statements? Not his paper. Certainly no one here —" Baleful, he eyed the warden and the chief of the Detective Bureau.
"The women won't," he continued. "They'll be gone. Dayton, too. Many unsubstantiated tales of government excess are circulating these days. One more will hardly cause a ripple."
"I'll speak to Dayton tomorrow," Baker promised.
"Tonight," Stanley said and went down and out to the square, where Union officers, evidently rounded up for disciplinary reasons, stumbled from a newly arrived van while raffish men and women leaned from the prison windows, crying, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!"
"I regret this," Lafayette Baker said to a still-sleepy Elkanah Bent. It was half past eleven. Bent had been wakened and dragged to the office by Detective O'Dell, who professed to know nothing about the reason for the urgent summons.
Baker cleared his throat. "But facts are facts, Dayton. You injured Randolph by repeatedly hitting him."
Bent clutched the arms of his chair, straining forward. "He resisted arrest!"
"Even so, it's evident that you employed more force than was necessary."
Bent struck the desk. "And what do you and Wood employ when you question someone? I've been at the prison. I've heard the screams —"
"That's enough," Baker said, his tone ominous.
"You want a scapegoat —"
"I don't want a thing, Dayton. You're an able agent, and if I could keep you, I would, believe me." Bent spat an oath. Baker colored but kept his voice level. "I am under orders from the War Department. The secretary himself. Some satisfaction must be offered for what happened to Randolph, and I regret —"
"That I'm the bone to be tossed to the wolves," Bent cried, very nearly shrieking. Someone tapped on the door, asked a question.
"Everything's fine, Fatty," Baker called back. Then, more quietly, "I understand your feelings. But it will be to your advantage to take this in good grace."
"The hell I will. I refuse to be thrown on the trash heap by you, by Stanton, or by any other —"
"Shut your mouth!" Baker was on his feet, pointing at the other man. "You have twenty-four hours to remove yourself from Washington. There is no appeal."
Like a sounding whale, Bent came up from his chair. "Is this how the government treats loyal employees? How it repays faithful service —?"
Abruptly, Baker sat again. His hands began to move through dossier folders like busy white spiders. Without raising his eyes, he said, "Twenty-four hours, Mr. Dayton. Or you will be placed under arrest."
"At whose instigation? By whose order?"
Livid, Baker said, "Lower your voice. Eamon Randolph was severely beaten. Much worse will happen to you if you make trouble. You'll disappear into Old Capitol, and you'll be a gray-beard before you see daylight again. Now get out of here and out of Washington by this time tomorrow. O'Dell!"
The door flew open. The detective shot in, right hand under his left lapel.
"Show him out. Lock the door after he leaves."
Blinking, panting, Bent was in an instant reduced to helplessness. His shoulders sagged, then his body. He uttered a single, faint, "But —"
"Dayton," Fatty O'Dell said, and stepped aside, leaving the doorway unblocked. Bent lumbered out.
A few hours earlier, an elegant gig open to the night air clipped along the perimeter road of Hollywood Cemetery, west of Richmond. Lights gleamed in distant houses. Shadows of leafy branches flitted over the faces of James Huntoon and the gig's driver, Lamar Powell.
"I can't believe what you've told me, Powell."
"That's precisely why I called for you and brought you out here," Powell replied. "I'd like to recruit you for our group, but I couldn't risk issuing the invitation where we might be overheard."
Huntoon pulled out his pocket kerchief to remove a sudden film of steam from his spectacles. "I certainly understand."
Powell shook the reins to pick up the pace on the straight stretch of road. Monuments, obelisks, great crosses, and anguished stone angels glided by, half seen in the foliage to their right. "I know we didn't begin our, ah, business relationship on the best footing, Huntoon. But, ultimately, Water Witch earned you a fine profit."
"That's true. Unfortunately, to obtain it, my wife deceived me.
"I'm sorry about that. Your wife strikes me as a charming person, but I know little about her, so it would be rash as well as rude if I commented on your domestic situation."
He kept his eyes fixed on the starlit road beyond the ears of the horse. He felt Huntoon's suspicious stare for a moment. Then a whistling sigh told him the lawyer's thoughts had jumped back to the plan Powell had described. He probed for a reaction.
"Are you appalled by what I told you a few minutes ago?"
"Yes." More firmly: "Yes — why not? Assassination is — well — not only a crime; it's an act of desperation."
"For some. Not my group. We are taking a carefully planned and absolutely necessary step to reach a desirable end — establishment of the new Confederacy of the Southwest. Properly organized, properly controlled — free and independent of the bungling that has doomed this one. There will be a government, of course. You could play a role. A significant one. You most certainly have the talent. I've inquired about your work at the Treasury Department."
Like a pleased boy, Huntoon said, "Have you really?"
"Do you think I'd be speaking now if I hadn't? You're one of a number of highly competent men King Jeff has misused — wasted in menial posts. It's deliberate, naturally. He downgrades those of us from the cotton states in order to please the damned Virginians. For you, I could envision an important post in our Treasury Department, if that appeals to you. If it doesn't, we can certainly satisfy you with some other high office. Very likely at cabinet level."
Under the wind-rustled branches, Huntoon wondered if he could believe what he was hearing. It was the call of opportunity — the kind of opportunity to which he had aspired in the early days, but which Davis had denied him.
Cabinet level. Wouldn't Ashton be pleased? She might not consider him so inadequate, publicly or — his tongue moved over his damp lip — privately.
But it was dangerous. And Powell spoke of murder so lightly. Hesitating, he said, "Before I decide, I would need more details."
"Details without a commitment on your part? I'm afraid that's impossible, James."
"Some time to consider, then. The risks —"