on Fleetwood that day — deaths and small heroisms, some noticed, some not. Charles had given up his only good friend and regained something that he had lost.
He rubbed Sport down and fed him and stroked his neck. 'We made it through once more, old friend.' The gray gave a small shake of his head; he was as spent as Charles.
Brandy Station made the reputation of the Union cavalry. It tarnished Stuart's. And, belatedly, it showed Charles the sharp accuracy of his fear about the relationship with Gus. Such an attachment was wrong in wartime. Wrong for her, wrong for him.
Charles had been observed in action during the assaults on Fleetwood. He received a commendation in general orders from Hampton and a brevet to major. What he got with no official action was a new direction for himself. He must think first of his duty. He loved Gus; that wouldn't change. But speculations about marriage, a future with her, had no place in a soldier's mind.
They dulled his concentration. Made him more vulnerable, less effective.
Gus would have to know how he felt. That was only fair. Questions of how and when to tell her, he was too tired to confront just now.
83
'Pack,' Stanley said.
Sticky and ill-tempered from the heat of that Monday, June 15, Isabel retorted, 'How dare you burst in on me in the middle of the day and start issuing orders.'
He mopped his face, but the sweat popped out again. 'All right, stay. I'm taking the boys to Lehigh Station via the four o'clock to Baltimore. I paid three times the normal price of the tickets, and I was lucky to be able to do it.'
Uneasy all at once — he never spoke sharply to her — she moderated her tone. 'What's provoked this, Stanley?'
'What the newsboys are shouting on every corner downtown. 'Washington in danger.' I've heard that Lee is in Hagerstown — I've heard he's in Pennsylvania — the rebs might have the town encircled by morning. I decided it's time for a vacation. If you don't care to go, that's your affair.'
There had been rumors of military movement in Virginia, but nothing definite until now. Could she trust his assessment of the situation? She smelled whiskey on him; he had begun to drink heavily of late.
'How did you get permission to leave?'
'I told the secretary my sister was critically ill at home.'
'Didn't he think the timing — well, a bit coincidental?'
'I'm sure he did. But the department's a madhouse. No one is accomplishing anything. And Stanton has good reason to keep me happy. I've carried his instructions to Baker. I know how dirty his hands are.'
'Still, you could damage your career by —'
'Will you stop?' he shouted. 'I'd rather be condemned as a live coward than perish as a patriot. You think I'm the only government official who's leaving? Hundreds have already gone. If you're coming with me, start packing. Otherwise keep still.'
It struck her then that a remarkable, not altogether welcome change had taken place in her husband in recent months. Stanley's survival of the Cameron purge, his increasing eminence among the radicals, and his new- found wealth from Lashbrook's combined to create a confidence he had never possessed before. Occasionally he acted as if he were uncomfortable with it. A few weeks ago, after gulping four rum punches in an hour and a half, he had bent his head, exclaimed that he didn't deserve his success, and wept on her shoulder like a child.
But she mustn't be too harsh. She was the one who had created the new man. And she liked some aspects of that creation — the wealth, the power, the independence from his vile brother. If she meant to control him, she must change her own style, adopt subtler techniques.
He postured in the doorway, glaring. With feigned meekness and a downcast eye, she said, 'I apologize, Stanley. You're wise to suggest we leave. I'll be ready in an hour.'
That evening, after dark, a curtained van swung into Marble Alley. The driver reined the team in front of one of the neat residences lining the narrow thoroughfare between Pennsylvania and Missouri avenues. Despite the heat, all the windows of the house were draped, though they had been left open so that gay voices, male and female, and a harpist playing 'Old Folks at Home' could be heard outside. The establishment, known as Mrs. Devore's Private Residence for Ladies, was doing a fine business despite the panic in the city.
Looking like a moving mound of lard in his white linen suit, Elkanah Bent climbed down from his seat beside the driver with much wheezing and grunting. Two other bureau men jumped out through the van's rear curtains. Bent signaled one into a passage leading to the back door of the house. The other followed him up the stone steps.
The detectives had debated the best way to take their quarry. They decided they couldn't snatch a noted journalist off the street in daylight. His boardinghouse had been considered, but Bent, who was in charge, finally came down in favor of the brothel. The man's presence there could be used to undermine his inevitable righteous protests.
He rang the bell. The shadow of a woman with high-piled hair fell on the frosted glass. 'Good evening, gentlemen,' said the elegant Mrs. Devore. 'Come in, won't you?'
Smiling, Bent and his companion followed the middle-aged woman into a bright gaslit parlor packed with gowned whores and a jolly crowd of army and navy officers and civilians. One of the latter, a satanic sliver of a man, approached Bent. He had mustaches and a goatee in the style of the French emperor.
'Evening, Dayton.'
'Evening, Brandt. Where?'
The man glanced at the ceiling. 'Room 4. He's got two in bed tonight. Assorted colors.'
Bent's heart was racing now, a combination of anxiety and a sensation close to arousal. Mrs. Devore walked over to speak to the harpist, and from there took notice of the bulge on Bent's right hip, something she had overlooked at the front door.
'You handle things down here, Brandt. Nobody leaves till I've got him.' Brandt nodded. 'Come on,' Bent said to the other operative. They headed for the stars.
Alarm brightened Mrs. Devore's eyes. 'Gentlemen, where are you —?'
'Keep quiet,' Bent said, turning over his lapel to show his badge. 'We're from the National Detective Bureau. We want one of your customers. Don't interfere.' The satanic detective produced a pistol to insure compliance.
Lumbering upstairs, Bent threw back his coat and pulled his revolver, a mint-new LeMat .40-caliber, Belgian-made. Used mostly by the rebs, it was a potent gun.
In the upper hall, dim gaslights burned against royal purple wallpaper. Strong perfume could not quite mask the odor of a disinfectant. Bent's boots thumped the carpet as he passed closed doors; behind one, a woman groaned in rhythmic bursts. His groin quivered.
At Room 4, the detectives poised themselves on either side of the door. Bent twisted the knob with his left hand and plunged in. 'Eamon Randolph?'
A middle-aged man with weak features lay naked in the canopied bed, a pretty black girl astride his loins, an older white woman behind his head, her breasts bobbing a few inches from his nose. 'Who in hell are you?' the man exclaimed as the whores scrambled off.
Bent flipped his lapel again. 'National Detective Bureau. I have an order for your detention signed by Colonel Lafayette Baker.'
'Oh-oh,' Randolph said, sitting up with a pugnacious expression. 'Am I to be put away like Dennis Mahoney, then?' Mahoney, a Dubuque journalist who held opinions much like Randolph's, had been entertained in Old Capitol Prison for three months last year.
