“A premonition told me I had Baker completely fooled. However, there was one man—a man who others around only addressed as Mr. Winslow—who worried me.”
“Why is that?”
“Whenever he looked at me, I fathomed that he must know my every secret. He made me feel as if he could disclose everything about me at a moment’s notice.”
“How did you manage to remain collected in his presence?”
“I plowed through those occasions, telling myself each time that my mind only played tricks.”
“I admire your staying power, my dear. Not too many could confidently carry out their duties around one such as that, and all while working in the lion’s den that is Washington City. You were surrounded everywhere by those who would easily kill you had they known of your transgressions.”
I knew Loreta had divulged more to me at that point and time than she would have to any other person on the planet, so I told her to save any other details for later, perhaps over a glass of Sazerac at the Pickwick.
“Now, Drouet, maybe you will enlighten me as to your adventures since we departed after the mint heist so long ago.”
“Well, I cannot say that I possess the same skills as you in carrying out the charges of the K.G.C. and, by extension, for the late Confederacy. You have perfected your abilities to disguise and to deceive into an art—just more reasons that I adore you. But I, as you know from the great mint heist we carried out right here in this very city, prefer more direct approaches.
“If there is treasure in a mint building, rob it. If there are valuables in a Yankee wagon train, loot it. If there are goods needed by the Confederacy on a Yankee steamboat, raid it. And if there is gold and currency within a safe on a Yankee railroad car charging down the tracks from Cincinnati, first derail it, and then take the booty at gunpoint.”
“Oh, Drouet, I do love you, and I’m glad we’re back together, and in New Orleans!”
“That’s good, because we have work to do, and it involves getting rid of thugs belonging to the same secret organization employing our own talents for these many years. Have you been by your home since you returned?”
“Yes, and it had been ransacked, probably by those who somehow know about our work in the mint building. They were looking for loot or at least for clues as to its whereabouts.”
“I agree. Both of Father’s properties, now mine, were also gone through, and I’m sure by the same people, which is why I have been living here disguised in this brothel. While I am not necessarily averse to the company here, I don’t like hiding out, and I am ready to put an end to it. Plus, I don’t want to take much more advantage of Maggie’s good nature and hospitality.”
“How do you propose to do it?”
“In direct fashion. If certain parties possess an interest in finding us, then I say let’s allow them to do it when we are ready. I have a plan regarding that—but in due course.”
11
New K.G.C. Assignments
I strode into the Pickwick for a much-needed Sazerac. I hadn’t imbibed a fourth of the glass before a staff member of the Pickwick—a friend of mine since childhood who knew my identity despite the disguise because of the handwritten note I gave him—presented me with a sealed package roughly six inches thick. I knew the contents outlined upcoming assigned duties for yours truly on behalf of the illustrious K.G.C.
I held the heavy package and pondered the contents. What lay in store for me if I chose to follow the dictates as outlined within the ponderous tome?
The Circle had been on my mind a lot during those days. With the Confederacy having lost its bid for independence, the clandestine society had lost its reason for existence in my opinion. Further, Loreta had received word from several within her vast network of contacts that many of the society’s founding members had departed the country never to return. We learned of said exoduses very soon after the war, but we only learned of the details surrounding the escapes and departures sometime later.
Using several aliases and outfitting himself in the adornments of, firstly, a French traveler, and, secondly, a humble farmer, Judah Benjamin escaped through Florida. After a perilous journey through that state, evading detection by nearby prowling Yankees more than once, he managed to reach Sarasota Bay where he boarded a friendly ship bound for the Bimini Islands. The journey across the waters proved equally dangerous for the former Confederate Secretary of State when the Union Navy detained the vessel on two different occasions. By that time, however, Benjamin had thrown away his farmer’s disguise and had adorned himself in the attire of a ship’s cook, replete with a stained apron and grease-smeared face.
Benjamin made his way to England where he went to work for a London newspaper while studying English Law on the side, a pursuit that led to his eventual service as Counsel to the Queen.
John Slidell, who found himself in Paris, France at the time of Lee’s surrender, decided to stay there. There, one daughter married a French nobleman, Comte de St. Roman, and another married Baron Frederick Emile Erlanger, a prominent banker who had previously backed a loan to the Confederacy in the amount of $15 million.
Even though top Yankee intelligence officials suspected General Pike complicit in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the K.G.C. mastermind disappeared from Indian Territory and Arkansas altogether after the war. Pike made a beeline straight to Canada where he hid for a short time before eventually entering the cat’s lair in Washington City. There, he won a pardon from fellow Mason and, according to many in Loreta’s network, K.G.C. member, President Andrew Johnson. Our sources confirmed that President Johnson pardoned Pike one day and then met with him in the White House on the next. Upon first hearing of Johnson’s K.G.C. sympathies, I stood in some disbelief, but later information convinced me that the seventeenth president of the United States had, in fact, performed certain monumental tasks in the service of The Circle.
Trust that I will elaborate on these details later in the narrative.
Once in Washington City, and after his pardon, General Pike engaged himself wholeheartedly in the minutiae of Freemasonry and did not push his luck any further with involvement in the K.G.C. as far as anyone in our network could ascertain.
While enough of the K.G.C. apparatus lived on to relay dispatches to me at the Pickwick Club, I sensed that the abandonment of the society by such prominent former leaders allowed for an immense lack of control and direction within the association, a void on which I deliberated greatly.
I finished my glass of Sazerac, ordered another, and then proceeded upstairs to a private room where I could examine the package’s contents without interruption.
Once placed upon the table, the stack of paper immediately indicated an enormity of work ahead for me. I beheld a stack of checks from the Bank of Montreal in Canada, multiple smaller sealed packages intended for delivery to agents in the field without opening beforehand. I viewed page after page detailing such items as aliases used by said agents and where to find them. Their locations stretched all across the country, from Arkansas and Indian Territory to New Mexico and Colorado. The Circle tasked me with traveling to these locations when the time came to deliver these packages and checks; with visiting some of these gentlemen more than once over a period of years, paying them in increments so as to keep them quiet for as long as possible. This method allowed recollections of old events to wither away with the mild and melting influence of time; and with obtaining from these agents where they might relocate between visits.
I liked none of it.
Yours truly had traveled enough in service to the K.G.C., an organization that, with each passing day, seemed to grow more obsolete with its stated goals of forming a circle of slave-holding states, territories and countries—a truly grandiose target before the war and certainly a dubious one after it.
Now, it seemed to me, the remaining K.G.C. members who owned even half a brain were involved in a game one might call “every man for himself.” With their cause lost, agents wanted payment f
or banks robbed, trains looted and assassinations carried out, and their overlords wanted them paid in full so as to keep their mouths shut. My job as a K.G.C. agent, and now as courier, involved making all of the above happen without incident. I also had to avoid falling into the hands of any lower level thugs aware that I alone knew the whereabouts of the mint booty. To clean up that remaining mess required baiting the hook for the fish, with me as bait, a scenario to which I did not look forward.
Without determining my next major move, I gathered the assorted ephemera, placed it back inside the larger package, enjoyed another glass of Sazerac, and made my way using a roundabout route to my room at Maggie’s.
While walking through the Vieux Carre en route to Maggie’s, I happened upon a lively scene on St. Ann Street. Voudou queen Marie Laveau, Father’s old friend, and friend to many in New Orleans sat next to her daughter watching a large group of her followers, which included a number of recently freed slaves, dancing in the street. The animated scene of merriment attracted a large audience, myself included.
Some called Laveau a she-devil and trembled at the mention of her name, but many in New Orleans welcomed her into their homes for her abilities not only to dress hair but to tell fortunes, to craft charms, to cast spells, and to heal.
Both Father and I knew that Laveau’s Voudou consisted of African traditions, Haitian Voudou, European magic, and folk Catholicism. I had visited her home on St. Ann Street in my youth and remember an altar there covered with a statue of St. Anthony and various images on paper of other saints. Laveau called on St. Anthony of Padua to help find lost articles and even to retrieve stray lovers. She sometimes called on St. Peter to open the door to the spirit world, to remove obstacles to success, to invite patrons into one’s place of business and to help guard the home against trespassers.
At the back of her home, she delved into what many considered the darker elements of her faith. She had an altar for “bad work,” which included such functions as preparing charms to kill, to break up love affairs and to foster chaos. That back-room altar took up the width of the room and featured candles, paper flowers and plaster statues of bears, lions, and tigers, totems of the energies she needed and sought.
Each year, on the night of June 23, two days after the summer solstice, when the human world and the spirit world connect as one, Laveau and her Voudou followers celebrated St. John’s Eve on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain. The celebration had been introduced to New Orleans by both French and Spanish colonists many, many years before. Somewhere along the way, people of African descent adopted the date on which to perform their particular observances, rituals that comprised singing, dancing, sacrifices, bathing, dining, and, according to some, other less restrained pleasures. I can certainly attest that as many whites as Africans attended the yearly festivities on June 23 as well as the other Voudou functions throughout the year.
Laveau had aged to a woman of elder years, and her eyesight had deteriorated to a state of near blindness by war’s end, so I stood shocked at what happened when I ambled by in disguise near the gala on St. Ann Street that day. Even as an old woman, she reigned as a statuesque beauty with her alluring eyes, with her hair dark as night, and with her buttery gold skin – all featured aristocratically underneath a colorful seven-knotted tignon masterfully tied atop her crown. It had been some years since I had last seen her, so I couldn’t help but glance her way as I strode by.
Two feet near her, with the sound of happiness and amusement all around, she stood at once, arranged herself in front of me, gazed deeply into my eyes, and spoke piercingly and decisively.
“I know things about you!”
Her daughter rose and gently took hold of Marie’s arm.
“Mother, you have never seen this man.”
“Is this not Broussard’s son?”
“Mother, this is not him. This man does not look like Drouet at all.”
“It is! I feel him nearby.”
I placed my arms around the shoulders of both Laveau women and motioned them away from earshot of the crowd.
“Yes, it is me, Drouet. I am in disguise as I do not wish to be discovered by certain people right now.”
The face of Marie’s daughter showed amazement and disbelief, perhaps at my disguise, perhaps at her mother’s ability to discern my nearness, but probably at both.
“I see more than people think I can see without good eyes, and I knew you were nearby. I knew it, I felt it. I always could feel when your father was near, too. You have grown to a man since I last saw you, but I can tell by your eyes that you are a lot like him.”
“I know that you and Father were friends, and I remember visiting your home a long time ago. And, yes, I am a lot like Father was, the good with the bad, I’m afraid.”
“You’re honest like your father was. He came around often to the orgies years ago. Until he met Marguerite. I introduced him to her, you know. Your father loved the quadroon and octaroon ladies, preferred them over any other, and he attended many of my parties where he had all he wanted.”
“I know this. Like you say, until he met Marguerite. She became his queen.”
“Yes. You know, my daughter here holds the parties now, and you are welcome always. But that is not why I wanted to talk with you.”
“I am always at your service, as was Father.”
“You see the shadow people, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do all the time. How do you know this?”
“I know many things. But, you just see the shadow people. I talk with the shadow people.”
“What do they say?”
“They tell me a lot of things. They tell me death is searching for you.”
“How so?”
“It is upon you with the people who seek to control you. They have death in their eyes, and you must kill them before they kill you. Deep down, you already know this.”
“Yes, this is true.”
“I want you to wait here.”
Laveau then went inside her home and remained for perhaps thirty minutes. When she returned, she carried with her a long strip of leather holding a small leather pouch which she presented to me.
“This is your gris-gris. I give this to you for protection. Never mind what is inside the bag. Just wear it at all times. Do this for yourself, and for me.”
“I will wear the gris-gris, always, and I will get to work as you say. When I am done, I will call on you again.”
“It will be a happy day.”
I stayed with the Laveau ladies for a while longer, enjoying the dancing and the merriment all around as we discussed Father and the wild days of old. Then, I made my way at once to Maggie’s.
I figured the men I had to face were of the alleyway ilk as before—throat slashers and backstabbers, gut robbers and women killers, low-level hoodlums too simple to understand the growing insignificance of The Circle. Fine with me, I thought. I cut my teeth on just that kind of play. I told Laveau I planned on getting to work at once, and this I determined to do.
Once back at my room at Maggie’s, I removed my disguise, never to use it again, and waited for Loreta who had worked hard keeping her presence unknown for the most part while back in New Orleans. We had spent most every waking hour together at Maggie’s, either in my room or in the poker room honing our skills as card cheats, sending one of the girls out when we needed something instead of venturing out and attracting attention.
Loreta returned in due course, looking every bit the devious Spanish aristocrat who had won my heart with her poised and well-proportioned beauty and alluring dark charms.
“Loreta, it’s time we ended this damned charade.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, my dear, that I’ve tarried for too long in confronting the reasons keeping us confined to this house of melodious moans and late-night gaiety, and I’m ashamed of myself for not addressing said matters sooner.”
“I know where you are heading with this. When do we start?”
“We s
tart tonight, first at our place in the Quarter, then at Father’s old place, and finally at your home.”
“I see you are out of that silly disguise.”
“Yes, and for good. From now on, you and I remain arm-in-arm, and we show ourselves as often as possible all over town. Anyone on the prowl for us should soon fathom we are here for the taking, but we will stand at the ready when they attempt to make that happen.”
“I love being with you, Drouet.”
“You could choose far superior company, I’m sure. Please explain this hold I have on such a stately beauty as the great Loreta Janeta Velazquez.”
“Well, you are rarely boring, and never for long at that.”
“That’s a compliment?”
She answered with a sly laugh.
“Darling, I hope you’re carrying your little pocket cannon.”
Loreta stood, walked to within arms-length of me, extended her right leg forward and began rolling up the Crepe of the Rococo dress to reveal not only the shapely curves underneath but also the .44-caliber Henry derringer tucked snuggly within the high lace garter.
Incidentally, it struck me as interesting at the time that she carried the exact same derringer used by Booth to assassinate Lincoln, but I thought nothing further of it as she slid her dress back down to conceal the firearm once again. I fully knew that Loreta continued to live by her own devices within a vast network of spies, informants, cutthroats and gullible suitors with whom she kept constant contact and that she possessed immense knowledge concerning the K.G.C. and of the late war far beyond anything I might imagine.
But, none of this bothered me a whit. I found her interesting and enjoyed her company immensely over any other lady I knew.
“Loreta, I never tire of handling difficult matters with you. Now, do prepare yourself for a night of rather dark business. I shall return directly, and we will commence when the sun sets. I have business at the Pickwick.
I met my K.G.C. contact at the Pickwick and began setting matters straight at once.
Ghost Knights Of New Orleans Page 9
