Miss Canary knew better than to be overly critical of the source of her security. She dropped the subject of drinking, substituting a familiar and, to Stanley, annoying complaint.
"I do so wish you'd let me attend Mr. Lincoln's inaugural with, you."
"I've told you before, it's impossible." Isabel was returning from a long stay in Newport for the event. She had spent lavishly to convert Fairlawn into a year-round residence and had moved in without asking permission of anyone else in the family. The three brothers shared ownership of the property, but that fact was ignored when Isabel took it over last fall, just after she placed their incorrigible sons in a small Massachusetts boarding school. The school earned huge fees for catering to parents who wanted their offspring out of sight and mind. Aping their father, neither of the twins had any desire to don a uniform; resort to the school was unavoidable.
Stanley and Miss Canary had argued several times about the inaugural, which was scheduled for the first Saturday in March. To compensate for his refusal to take her, Stanley had given her the pendant — paste, but she didn't know the difference. Out of gratitude, she had an hour ago performed a certain act whose mere mention would have rendered Isabel catatonic.
Now, however, he found the girl back on the subject again, whining.
"But I have such a longing to see the President up close. I haven't, ever."
"You've missed nothing, believe me."
"You talk to him often, don't you?" Stanley nodded and drank more whiskey. He liked to maintain a slight blurring of his vision, a slight dulling of his senses, through all of the waking hours. "Is it true he doesn't bathe?"
"The statement's highly exaggerated."
Miss Canary reached down to scratch herself. "But they say women avoid him because he smells."
"Some women avoid him because he tells an occasional off-color story. It's the Western taste in humor. Farmerish," he said with a disdainful shrug. "But the chief reason he's avoided is his wife. Mary Lincoln is a jealous harpy. It prostrates her if her husband is alone with another woman for so much as five seconds."
"You don't mean alone the way we're alone?" Miss Canary giggled.
What a pathetic mind she has, he thought. Her last name suits her. "No, my dear." He slipped out of the velvet gown and began to dress. "I was referring to speaking with women at presidential levees. Public functions."
"Oh, that reminds me. Last night at the theater, I heard a terrible thing about the President. I heard that some actors are planning to kidnap or kill him. They're all supposed to be Southern sympathizers, but I didn't hear any names."
Buttoning his shirt, Stanley belched softly. "My sweet, if I had a penny for every such story circulating in this town, we'd soon amass enough money for a sea voyage to Egypt."
Miss Canary sat up, the diamond bobbling in her cleavage. "Are you thinking of taking me to Egypt?"
Stanley quickly raised a hand. "Merely an example." The poor child really taxed his patience sometimes. But he always forgave her when she demonstrated her sexual precocity.
"Must you go, loves?"
"I must. I'm receiving a guest at half past nine."
"Speaking of receiving — the draft for this month's rent hasn't arrived."
"No? I'll slap the wrist of my bookkeeper. You shall have it tomorrow, first thing."
She gave him a long, deep taste of her tongue to show her appreciation. After one more stiff drink of whiskey, he donned his overcoat and slipped out the door, his last impression a vivid picture of her on her knees on the bed, left hand caressing the diamond, right-hand fingers flexing in a tiny, childlike wave.
His waiting carriage bore him through rainy streets to the large house on I Street. With Isabel gone, he spent little time there. Sometimes, alone in the emptiness, he even missed the twins. He never let that foolish sentiment best him for long, though.
Servants had the gas burning and had set out refreshments. But the guest didn't arrive until quarter to eleven.
Ben Wade flung off his wet cape. The butler retrieved it from the floor. Stanley gestured sharply. The man left, closing the door.
Wade paced to the hearth to warm himself. "Sorry I'm late. I waited until the River Queen returned." He rubbed his hands, clearly pleased. "Mr. Seward and our beloved leader received the Confederate commissioners at Hampton Roads, all right. However, I was told there will be no armistice."
"Still the same sticking place —?"
Wade nodded. "The question of two nations or one. The President continues to insist on unconditional acceptance of the latter. Davis continues to refuse. That means you'll have a few more months to sell footwear to the army," he concluded with a sly smile. He left the hearth, took a plate and fork, and plucked a slice of turkey breast from the silver tray. "I have one more item of news."
"I hope it's the news I've been waiting to hear."
"Not quite. I can't get you the appointment as chief of the Freedmen's Relief Bureau."
"You mean Congress won't establish the agency?"
"Oh, no. That will be done this month — next month at the latest." The bureau had been under discussion since last year, when it became clear that the Confederacy would ultimately fall. The bureau's proposed mission was the regulation of all matters affecting the millions of newly freed Negroes in the South. Everything from land distribution to resettlement. It was an avenue to immense power, but if Stanley correctly read Wade's behavior — the senator seemed more interested in food than conversation — not only was the avenue closed, but the subject as well.
This was to Stanley what the inaugural was to Miss Canary. "Ben, I've given the party a hell of a lot of money. Thousands last fall alone, just to defeat the incumbent — until it became evident that we couldn't do it. I think my contributions should at least entitle me to the answer to one question. Why can't I have the job?"
"They — ah —" Wade seemed mesmerized by a morsel of turkey on his fork.
"A straight answer, Ben."
Wade whacked the fork down on the plate. A pinhead-sized speck of Isabel's precious gilt vanished from the edge. Wade jolted Stanley with the impact of his stare. "All right. They want a man with more administrative experience. They're considering a general. Oliver Howard's high on the list."
Stanley knew what the senator was really telling him. The radical cadre, which decided every important matter these days — the men who privately bragged that they needed no assassin to render the President powerless because they had already done it — had decided he was incompetent.
Of course the word they was inappropriate, and both men knew it. Wade belonged to the cadre. He had cast a vote. No matter how much black ink filled the profit columns of Lashbrook's, no matter how frantically Stanley diverted himself with variety-hall dancers or how much whiskey he consumed, he could never escape the truth of what he was. It hurt. He poured another glass of sour-mash medicine.
"General Jake Cox is also in the running," Wade said. "God help the rebs if he gets it. You've heard what he and Sam Stout propose, haven't you?"
"I don't think so," Stanley said in a dead voice.
Trying to jolly him out of his disappointment, Wade went on. "They propose we create a sort of American Liberia from the entire state of South Carolina. This new principality, or whatever the hell you want to call it, would be colonized and ruled by the niggers — whom we, of course, would diligently encourage to move there. Something in it, I'd say," he finished, adding a chuckle, to which Stanley didn't respond.
Wade tried a more direct approach, crossing to his wealthy host and laying a companionable arm across his shoulders. "Look, Stanley. It was never guaranteed that I could obtain the post for you. I can and I will make certain you're named one of the senior assistants, if you wish. The true power will reside on that level anyway — with the men who write the policy documents and operate the bureau on a daily basis. A Christian namby-pamby like Howard will be a mere figurehead. For that reason, I'm banking on him to get the job. When he does, those of us behind the scenes will be the ones who really make the colored people dance a Republican tune on Election Day. We'll have the whole country dancing before we're through. In a year, we can change our status from minority party to the only party — if we give the niggers the franchise but maintain control of it."