The Lincoln Letter

by William Martin

  At the sound, McNealy hesitated a moment, just enough for Halsey to gather his strength and throw McNealy off.

  Then he scrambled to his feet, grabbed McNealy by his coat collar, and smashed him so hard into the south wall that McNealy’s head almost snapped off.

  “Hey, there!” came a voice from above. “Stop this.”

  Now it was Halsey who hesitated, looked up.

  McNealy crawled to his feet, spat teeth and blood at Halsey, and leaped at him

  Halsey sidestepped him and raised his fists.

  “You think you can fight a street fighter?” growled McNealy, and he swung a wild punch that struck Halsey in the throat.

  Halsey staggered at the blow, gasped for air, but managed to grab McNealy by the neck and gasp out, “I fought at Gettysburg, while you were swindlin’ widows and sniffin’ their cunts. I can fight you all night long.” Then he tripped McNealy and drove him down into the water and held him under. “You follow?”

  McNealy could not answer.

  Halsey held and held in that strange light that reflected off the low clouds and made the surface of the canal look like grease.

  He held and wondered why the police had stopped shouting, stopped whistling, stopped looking down. Where were they?

  He did not look up to see. Instead, he held and held while McNealy struggled and thrashed.

  Ten seconds.

  No police.

  McNealy kicked and grabbed at Halsey’s arms.

  Thirty seconds.

  No splash, no nightstick, no gunfire, no whistles.

  Sixty seconds.

  McNealy drove a fist into Halsey’s side. But Halsey held and held. And then …

  McNealy went limp.

  A minute and a half.

  Another murder on Halsey Hutchinson. Seven.

  He stood. He wobbled. He took a few deep breaths. He almost doubled over with the pain in his side and his throat. Then he saw an iron ladder that led from the water to the end of the footbridge. He started to climb and tried to prepare himself for whatever was waiting.

  What he saw as his head rose above the low wall was a policeman’s hat.

  Inside the hat was a head. The policeman lay unconscious. His partner lay nearby.

  And right in front of Halsey’s nose, shining in the dim light, was McNealy’s Colt.

  He snatched it as he climbed out and looked around.

  The runaway Wiggins carriage had disappeared into the night.

  Noah had disappeared, too. And his son.

  Halsey was soaked. He had not stunk like this since the dirty work of night soiling. The canal was worse than the bottom of a privy because it was never cleaned.

  And now, he saw three shadows coming toward him from the direction of Seventh Street. They loped like wary wolves and spread out like a pack, one to his left, one to his right, one directly in front.

  Three Smithsonian Park thugs. They might even have been the three that had menaced Halsey and Constance that first day. Whoever they were, they were bolder at night. For thugs, this was good ground at night.

  One of them staggered a bit; two of them smelled of whiskey.

  The one on the left, the sober one, said, “The niggers who jumped the cops were too fast for us, even the old one.”

  “Nothin’ like a fast-legged nigger with a leather sap,” said one of the others.

  Halsey raised McNealy’s Colt. “I’m armed, and these police will wake up soon.”

  The one on the left said, “Fuck them,” and drove a kick into a policeman’s head.

  The one on the right said, “Good idea, Jed,” and kicked the other one, then kicked again, then raised his arms, did a little dance step, and kicked again.

  The one on the left growled, “Quit it.”

  “Those coppers are out good now, Jed. Out for the night.”

  And the two who smelled of whiskey snickered and giggled.

  Then the one on the left said to Halsey, “We charge a fee for passin’ through our park at night. And we figure, you owe for the rich man’s carriage, the two runnin’ niggers, the cops, the feller in the canal, and yourself. So empty your pockets.”

  Halsey pulled back the hammer. “I told you, I got a gun.” He also had most of the money from his hidden stash in the War Department.

  One of them said, “You got a gun that misfired a minute ago.”

  “Yeah,” said another, “must be this night air. Your gun got the vapors.”

  The two drunks snickered and giggled at that, too.

  Halsey aimed at the big one on his left, the sober one, the leader. He prayed that the second chamber was better sealed. He squeezed the trigger and— Click.

  “See now,” said the thug, “the Lord don’t want you to kill nobody on the day when the Jews killed him.” And they started to close in, like a pack.

  “What the Lord wants and what he gets,” said Halsey, “are often two different things.”

  “The Lord’s kind of like people, then, ain’t he?”

  Halsey squeezed the trigger again. Bang! The third chamber went off. The man’s head snapped back and the force of the shot sent him over the parapet wall and into the canal.

  Halsey pointed the gun at the others, but they were already running away, back into the woods from which they had witnessed the whole scene on the bridge.

  Halsey stood in the silent darkness of Smithsonian Park, in the middle of the Mall. He listened for more police whistles. He took a deep breath and willed his heart to stop pounding. It was a trick he had learned before going into battle.

  He lit a match and looked around on the ground for the daybook. But he could not see it. And his pistol? Where was his pistol? Then one of the police groaned.

  So Halsey moved quickly. There was one more thing to do.

  He dropped back down the canal, into the filthy crotch-deep water, grabbed McNealy’s body, and emptied all the pockets. He took everything: coins, watch, a small loading kit for his pistol, a barrel pen and notebook, a pocketknife with which he cut off the shoulder holster, a billfold containing greenbacks, papers, and a thin silver shield that read WAR DEPARTMENT DETECTIVE SERVICE. And perhaps most surprising, a small copper liberty head, like the one that Benjamin Wood had shown him in the Willard so long ago.

  McNealy was a Copperhead. Or was it another ruse?

  Halsey climbed the rusting wrought-iron ladder again.

  When they came to, the police would find two dead men decomposing with the rest of the offal in the Washington Canal. And they would piece the story together: A man in a brown suit, without identification or money, had been waylaid by brazen toughs who had also attacked two police officers. The man had killed one of them, but the toughs had escaped with everything he owned, including his pistol.

  Halsey looked again around the bodies of the police, wondering where the daybook had gone. Had McNealy even had it? Or did Doc Wiggins hold on to it? And that Adams pistol. Halsey could still be traced by that Adams pistol.

  But no time for looking. One of the policemen was moving now. Besides, he had to get to Ford’s Theatre.

  He knew he couldn’t walk into the dress circle soaked with stinking filth, shoes squishing, belly throbbing from the pain of McNealy’s kicks.

  So he hurried through the park toward the lights of his hospital, glimmering three blocks away.

  He came around to the back of the ward, let himself in, and dropped all his wet clothes down the hole of the indoor privy.

  Lights were out. Mrs. Cannon was busy at the front. The wardmaster’s door was closed. A few men glanced up, but most were snoring or lost in their own worlds of pain. By the clock halfway down the ward, Halsey could see that it was quarter to ten.

  He tiptoed to his bed, knelt, and shoved all McNealy’s gear into his sack.

  George Smith looked across the aisle. “Where are your clothes?”

  Halsey brought a finger to his lips. Then he pulled out his soldier’s uniform and put it on. His hair was still wet and stank o
f filthy canal water. He covered it with his kepi.

  George Smith said, “Somebody just come lookin’ for you. A darkie.”

  Halsey stepped across the floor and knelt beside the former Frowner. “Young or old?”

  “What’s wrong with your voice? You’re croakin’ more than usual, like you got a laryngitis or somethin’.”

  Halsey made a dismissive wave of his hand. He tried to clear his throat, bruised from the fight, and said, “The darkie, was he young or old?”

  “Young. He snuck in the back. I said, ‘What you lookin’ for, boy?’ He asked for you, and I told him I was your right friend. So he give me this.” George Smith reached under his pillow. “I didn’t look inside.”

  The daybook. Halsey took it and held it for a moment. Then he opened it to the front. There was the signature: A. Lincoln. A real signature, not the forgery that McNealy had shown him. Then Halsey flipped to the back and saw where the pages had been torn out.

  This was it. This was his freedom.

  And on the back endpaper, in pencil, in a childish script, was this: Picked up with gun kep gun four pertekshun hope this helps m. Lincoln N & J

  N for Noah. J for Jacob.

  Halsey said, “Do you have that letter I gave you?”

  George Smith took it from under his pillow and put it into Halsey’s hands.

  III.

  Ten minutes later, a carriage pulled up in front of Ford’s Theatre. Halsey paid the driver with folding money and climbed down.

  He had McNealy’s Colt in his pocket. He had changed the percussion caps. He hoped that would help, but he had not had time to reload the three used cylinders. He did not want to start shooting in the theater, anyway, not with the president there. But he had to save Samantha. If these men had killed Harriet, they would certainly kill Samantha, too, if it served their purpose.

  The big gas lamps lit the whole street and cast their light upward onto the high-fronted façade. Halsey felt the excitement just standing there, knowing that on the other side of that wall, there were fourteen hundred people, including the president, enjoying the play. And waiting for Halsey was the pardon he dreamed of. A few soldiers glanced up from their craps game, glanced at Halsey uniform, as if to ask, What unit? Why out on the street? Halsey reached for his hospital pass, but they went back to their game, as if the rules could be relaxed now that the war was over.

  Halsey could not relax. After all he had been through, he did not think he had any more nerves left, but his heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry.

  He had lost his ticket in the fight. Unlike his folding money, which did not run, the ticket had been soaked through and ruined. He peered in at the center entrance, where the ticket taker was still seated. How would he get in?

  Just then, a familiar figure stepped out of the Star Saloon next door and stalked up the street: John Wilkes Booth.

  He stopped a few feet from Halsey and made a bit of idle conversation with two people from the theater. Then a member of the Washington Cavalry Police came up, greeted Booth, and invited him for a drink in the Star.

  Booth popped open his watch and said, “I’m afraid not. Keene will be onstage in a few minutes, and I promised to take a look at her.”

  Then Booth glanced over his shoulder and his eyes met Halsey’s. His brow furrowed, as if he recognized this soldier from somewhere. Then, with that studied grace, Booth turned, leaped the step, and went into the main entrance.

  Halsey decided to follow him.

  The ticket taker held out his hand, and Booth pulled back in a show of melodramatic surprise, saying, “You would not want a ticket of me, would you?” And both of them burst into laughter.

  Then Booth stepped into the narrow lobby, stopped for a moment by the door to the orchestra and cocked his head, as if listening to a bit of dialogue.

  Halsey was thinking that if he told Booth why he was there, to save that fine young woman from Boston, who had greeted him and charmed him so well three years before, the actor might be willing to help him find her and protect her. At the moment, with his final expiation so close, he would turn to anyone for help.

  But the ticket taker held out his arm.

  Halsey stopped and said, in a graveled half-whisper, “I’m afraid I don’t have a ticket, either.”

  “Then you can’t—”

  “I’m a great admirer of Laura Keene, and I’ve been away a long time.”

  Booth glanced at Halsey again, then turned for the staircase at the left.

  Halsey said, “I’m a friend of Mr. Booth’s, too—you could go and ask him. But since you insist, let me pay.”

  The ticket taker looked at the uniform, then waved him into the theater. “Find a place to stand. She should be onstage soon.”

  Halsey stepped into the narrow lobby. Doors to the right and left, leading to the orchestra, were closed. After the darkness that had enveloped him for most of the night, it was a shock and a strange pleasure to stand in this brilliantly lit space, with its yellow walls, cream-colored woodwork, and red carpet.

  Inside, the audience was laughing at some silly line.

  He listened for a moment, then started up the stairs on the left, which turned gracefully on their way to the dress circle.

  At the top, he found Booth standing there, surveying the theater. The stairs came in audience left, so this was a good spot from which to peer across into the presidential box, audience right. The houselights were dim, but the stage lights filled the audience and lit the side of Booth’s face.

  Halsey whispered, “Wilkes.”

  Booth’s head snapped round and there was another moment of—what?—recognition, shock, embarrassment, aggression. Halsey could not tell.

  He smelled whiskey, but there was only sobriety on Booth’s face, pure concentration. He said, “Can you help me, Wilkes? Can you—?”

  “Help you?” whispered Booth. “No. I’m busy.” Then he moved away, along the back wall, toward the other side of the dress circle.

  A foolish idea anyway, thought Halsey.

  On the stage, the farce creaked along. Our American Cousin followed the misadventures of American bumpkin Asa Trenchard in England. Mrs. Mountchessington and her daughter had determined that he was a rich man, well worth a marriage for money. Complications, of course, had been ensuing since the start.

  Halsey glanced over toward the presidential box. He could not see Lincoln, who was seated well back, but he could see Lincoln’s long left hand on the arm of his rocker, and the white flounce of Mrs. Lincoln’s dress, too. And a younger couple were sitting in the box in full view.

  Halsey remembered that Lincoln had been a great admirer of Shakespeare. He wondered what the president thought of this tripe.

  Mrs. Mountchessington was saying, “Yes, my children, while Mr. De Boots and Mr. Trenchard are both here, you must ask yourself seriously, as to the state of your affections. Remember, your happiness for life will depend on the choice you make.”

  “What would you advise, Mama?”

  Halsey scanned the dress circle for the powder blue hat and dress. He knew that she was here somewhere.

  And the man sent to kill her … Was he sitting beside her? Behind her? Did she know of her fate, or was she blissfully unaware, still thinking that the only concern for the night was to get close to the president.

  Halsey squinted in the half light and tried, systematically, to look at every seat, starting with the far side.

  Was she sitting over there, beside those two army officers?

  He noticed them because Booth had moved around the back of the theater, in and out of the little pools of dim light cast by the gas sconces, and had stopped right there and leaned against the wall, as if to watch the play—or the officers—for a moment.

  Strange.

  Halsey turned his gaze back to the audience and started to follow the rows again and, yes, there. Samantha was sitting in the front row, three seats in. An elderly lady and gentleman were sitting to her left. To her right was one o
f the six-inch iron columns that ran up through the building and supported the family circle above them.

  Halsey stepped down the side aisle, so that he could look directly along the first row to get her attention. There were only seven rows of seats in the dress circle, so he did not have far to travel.

  As he did, he glanced across again at Booth, who was showing a card to the man near the door of the presidential box, a civilian, a small man. Where was Lincoln’s bodyguard? Halsey glanced into the box. He could not see the president, but Mrs. Lincoln had leaned into view. She was turned to her husband, and she was smiling and whispering like a giddy girl.

  Onstage, Mrs. Mountchessington was babbling away to her daughter as they came to the realization that Asa Trenchard didn’t have any money.

  From the corner of his eye, Halsey saw Booth, pushing his knee against the door of the presidential box, then stepping inside.

  Then Halsey made eye contact with Samantha. She raised her hands and smiled, as if to ask, Do you have it?

  Halsey nodded and made a small gesture with his head. Step out. Excuse yourself and step out.

  She pointed to the old lady on her left as if to say, She took your seat.

  That meant the menace would come from her right or behind.

  Halsey’s mind was racing on three tracks at once. How to get Samantha out of her seat? Who around her was threatening her? And … Booth? Watching a play with the president? The Son of Kentucky and the great actor. King Lincoln and Richard III?

  Halsey looked again at the president’s box. All seemed as before, except that Booth had disappeared.

  So Halsey studied the men seated around Samantha. And … one of them, behind her, was looking down at something in his hand. A carte de visite. The carte de visite? Halsey, in chin strap and uniform? Yes. The man raised his head again.

  He was round-headed and burly. He filled the chair and spilled onto the ladies on either side and was likely a bit slow because of it. He studied Halsey, perhaps puzzled by the clean-shaven face, then he turned toward the back of the theater, as if searching for Jeffords. But Jeffords might still be lying on the footbridge, pockets picked, shoes stolen, head smashed.