Lorenzo and the Turncoat (3 page)

“Don't blame Lorenzo,” Eugenie said. “It was my decision to stop working for you. I told you Cuba would be my last trip.”

“I know. And you will be sorely missed.”

Colonel Gálvez's extensive spy network was scattered throughout Louisiana and West Florida. Each spy worked independently and did not know the identity of others in the network. Eugenie had been part of it for the last three years.

Lorenzo often worried that the British would arrest her. A spy's fate was to hang on the gallows.

Colonel Gálvez thrust out his elbow. “Shall we?”

Arm in arm, Eugenie and the colonel headed toward the back gate.

The possibility of a British attack on New Orleans disturbed Lorenzo. If the Spanish lost the city, the British would control the entire Mississippi River.

Lorenzo had devoted the last three years to fighting the British, but had resigned his commission in the Continental Army, satisfied that he had done his part to help free the American colonies. He thought he had left the war behind. Now it had come to him.

A gate swung open in Hawthorne's path, forcing him to stop in his tracks.

A Spanish colonel stepped into the street with a woman on his arm. He closed the gate and tested it to make sure it had latched properly. He looked at Hawthorne and nodded a swift greeting.

Was this Colonel Gálvez? It had to be. How many thirty-year-old colonels could there be in New Orleans?

Who was the gorgeous redhead with him? Hawthorne doubted that the colonel would flaunt a lover on the streets. It was one thing to have a wife in England and a mistress an ocean away in the colonies. Hawthorne never had to worry about the two of them running into each other. But New Orleans was a small town. News of indiscretions by the colonel would leak back to his wife.

Arm in arm, the couple strolled off at a leisurely pace.

Hawthorne trailed behind them, maintaining a reasonable distance.

They chatted together happily in French, completely oblivious to the fact that they were being followed. People on the street greeted them with genuine affection. Men doffed their hats. Women curtsied. A Spanish soldier saluted and the colonel returned the greeting.

Gálvez stopped at a flower vendor and bought a bouquet of daisies. With a courtly flourish, he handed it to the red-haired woman.

She accepted with a gracious smile.

According to reliable sources, the colonel had married the most beautiful woman in New Orleans, a French creole named Felicité De Saint Maxent, a widow with a young daughter. Based on the reaction of people they met, Hawthorne concluded that this woman must be Madame De Gálvez. Everything fit.

He trailed after them. They made only one stop, at a jewelry store. They lingered inside for ten to fifteen minutes. Hawthorne was beginning to wonder if they had slipped out a back way when they finally emerged.

Gálvez and his wife crossed a plaza to St. Louis Church, a long, narrow brick building that faced the Mississippi River. Topped with a cupola, it had an arched front door with a round window above it. The colonel and his wife went inside.

Hawthorne let out a long sigh. What to do … what to do. He had never entered a Catholic church and didn't relish doing so now.

People flitted past, some speaking Spanish, most French. It amazed him how many were Negro or mulatto. Easily one-third of them.

A strong wind blew in from the southeast and made a fleet of ships and smaller vessels bob in the harbor. It looked like Colonel Gálvez had gathered every seaworthy vessel he could get his hands on. The British and the Spanish had lived side-by-side for several years in a delicate peace that could break at any time. Peter Chester, governor of West Florida, had complained to Gálvez about giving aid to American rebels and harboring them in New Orleans. Gálvez made a show of arresting American smugglers, only to turn them loose shortly thereafter. Hawthorne suspected Spain feigned neutrality but was, in reality, a major supplier of arms to the American rebels.

Soldiers shuffled into the main square. Hawthorne watched in amusement as a sergeant attempted to form
them into rows of four and march them around the square. Out of step, they looked like a drunken centipede with legs going in every direction. What a sloppy lot they were! An English sergeant would whip them into shape in no time.

Hawthorne forced his mind back to the problem at hand: what to do about Gálvez.

Spanish soldiers loitered everywhere. Obviously, kidnapping the colonel here would be impossible.

Hawthorne studied the ships in the harbor. He looked back at the soldiers all about. To a trained military eye, it looked like Gálvez was preparing for war.

A little black boy with a tin bucket in one hand and a cane pole in the other headed to the river. He sat down on the levee, reached into the bucket, pulled out a night crawler, and baited his hook. He dropped his line into the water.

A Spanish officer rushed from a government building and dashed into the church. A minute later, he came out with Gálvez. He talked with his hands, explaining something that made the colonel scowl.

Hawthorne looked at the little fisherman. He looked back at St. Louis Church. Madame De Gálvez was still inside.

The words “bait and wait” flashed into his mind.

If he couldn't get the colonel directly, he could make the colonel come to him.

Charles Peel started counting his steps the second he left the boardinghouse. Fifty paces took him to the northwest corner of the main plaza. Another seventy-five found him in front of Chartres Street facing the wharf. By the time he reached three hundred thirty-three steps, he stood before a one-story house with a red-and-white-striped pole attached to the front. A sign swaying in the wind read Dr. Louis Dunoyer, Surgery, and Dr. Lorenzo Bannister, Medicine.
Lorenzo
had seven letters in the first name. That was a lucky number and a good omen. There were nine in
Bannister
. Nine was three squared, another very lucky number. Charles's landlady had recommended he visit Dr. Bannister because he was the only doctor in New Orleans who spoke English. Maybe the old sawbones could figure out why his head hurt.

Charles slowly climbed the steps to the doctor's house and paused on the porch. He didn't like physicians and avoided them whenever possible. Usually, their answer to every medical problem was “Bleed the patient.”

A young man dressed in black came to the door and spoke in Spanish.

“Do you speak English?” Charles asked hopefully.

The young man smiled. “Yes, I do. May I help you?”

“I have an appointment with Dr. Bannister.”

The young man's smile expanded. “Come inside. I'll see if I can find him.”

Reluctantly, Charles followed him into a hallway that stretched the length of the house.

“Where are you from?” the young man asked. “You sound like a Pennsylvanian.”

“Nice guess. I'm from Philadelphia.” Inwardly, Charles cringed. He had let his guard down and given more information than he intended, but English was a welcome change. For three weeks, he had lived in New Orleans where people spoke French and Spanish. “Where did you learn English?” Charles asked.

The young man, a dark-haired, black-eyed, Spanish-looking fellow, slid back a pocket door. “From my father. He was a Virginian.” He motioned Charles into a room off the main hallway. It was about ten feet by ten feet with a coat of white paint. A five-shelf bookcase held big, impressive-looking leather-bound books. In front of the room's only window stretched a table filled with an herb garden and several empty pots. A locked cabinet with glass doors held neatly labeled vials, jars, and crocks.

“Mr. Peel, I presume?” the young man asked, sliding the door shut behind him.

Charles nodded, his gaze locking on a jar of leeches. Some swam about freely and looked like black ribbons. Others clung to the glass sides. He counted them. His blood chilled. There were thirteen, a very unlucky number.

“Please take a seat.” The young man gestured toward a wooden stool.

Charles sat down.

The young man bent over a ledger and marked off a name. He pulled a second ledger from a shelf and opened it.

Charles watched him write the date and his name in an elegant hand.

The young man took a seat opposite him. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Where's Dr. Bannister?”

“You're looking at him.”

“How old are you? Eighteen?”

“Good guess. I turned eighteen last month.”

“Maybe I should come back later.”

“When I've turned nineteen?” The young man gave him a self-confident smile and waved toward two framed documents hanging on the wall. “My credentials.”

Charles studied both carefully. One was a diploma signed by two doctors in the Continental Army certifying Lorenzo Bannister as a physician. The other was a license issued by the City of New Orleans allowing him to practice medicine.

“Satisfied?” the young man asked.

“Could I see Dr. Dunoyer?”

“Certainly. He doesn't speak English, but if that's what you want …” He moved toward the door.

“No, never mind,” Charles said, remembering the word “surgery” behind Dr. Dunoyer's name. A surgeon's answer to every malady was to bleed the patient before he cut something off.

Dr. Bannister returned to his seat. “What's bothering you, Mr. Peel? Other than my advanced age.”

“I've had a headache ever since I got to New Orleans. I can't seem to get rid of it.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Three weeks.”

“How old are you, Mr. Peel?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Occupation?”

“I'm between positions.”

The doctor made notations in the ledger. “What is your regular occupation?”

Charles didn't answer.

The doctor looked up at him sharply.

“I didn't expect all these personal questions.”

Dr. Bannister put the quill down and leaned forward, his face deadly serious. “Anything you tell me will not go beyond these four walls. You have my word of honor as a gentleman. My job is to cure you, not judge you. But the more I know, the better I can diagnose the cause of your headache.”

The man seemed sincere, and Charles believed him.

“Can you read and write?”

“Yes,” Charles said, wondering what that had to do with his headache.

“Show me.” The doctor handed him a piece of paper. “Write ‘Dr. Bannister can cure headaches.' Or whatever suits your fancy.”

Charles dipped a quill in ink and wrote with swift, sure strokes. He glanced up to find the doctor's easy smile had returned.

“Congratulations. You spelled Bannister correctly. Most people leave out the second n.”

“I saw it on your door.”

“You're an honest man, Mr. Peel.”

“Call me Charles.” He liked this indecently cheerful fellow but wasn't sure why.

“Take off your shirt, please.”

Charles obeyed.

A frown flitted across the doctor's face.

“Bullet wounds,” Charles said to explain the scars on his chest, arm, and stomach.

“Yes, I know.”

“I got them in the war.” Charles felt he needed to let the doctor know he wasn't a highwayman.

The doctor smiled sadly. “I have a couple of war wounds myself.” He moved his fingers deftly over Charles's ears, eyes, throat, and neck with a skill that inspired confidence.

The doctor pulled down Charles's lower eyelids and grunted. He did the same with the upper ones, then paused to make notations in the ledger.

“Do you know what's causing my headaches?”

The doctor tapped Charles's chest and back with his fingers. “Sometimes when we move to a new area, it takes a while for the humors to adjust themselves.”

“In other words, you have no clue.”

The young man looked amused by the remark. “I have a couple of ideas.”

“Do they involve bleeding?”

“No. I trained under my father. He was a physician who never put much stock in that, and I tend to agree with him. Are you eating some new kind of food? Something that wasn't available where you lived before?”

Charles thought about that. “I'm eating more seafood.”

“What kind?”

“Mainly oysters and shrimp.”

“For the next week, let's avoid seafood, unless it has scales and fins. That may clear up the headaches.” The doctor again bent over his ledger and made notes.

While he waited, Charles studied the plants growing on the windowsill, each marked in a neat hand. The window looked out on the main plaza. Charles could see a number of people in the square, on the street, by the wharf. One man in particular grabbed his attention.

All the blood rushed from Charles's head. That certainly looked like Colonel Hawthorne, but it couldn't be. He was in Philadelphia. What would he be doing here? He had no business in New Orleans, unless … unless he had been sent to bring him back. Charles choked on the thought. No, it couldn't be Hawthorne, only someone who looked like him.