The Pinkerton Files Five-Book Bundle (24 page)

Slaves were in pens waiting for the curse of the rest of their lives to
begin. Some arrived days before. Others were the product of many generations of
breeding. In time, each shuffled to the quad where a live auction took place
every day.

The sunlit quad could be seen from the pens. It promised relief from
the ghastly conditions inside. It also promised a life bent under a whip. The
shrill sound of men haggling over the price of other men pricked my ears. I
walked to a registrar's desk and presented my counterfeit papers.

“You received my telegram,” I said.

The registrar took my documents. They did not match current templates
but looked legitimate. He thumbed through a stack of papers. After finding
Ray's record, he flashed me a toothy smile.

By pure reflex, he moved a stack of papers into a space on his desk
between him and me. He was on the defensive. His mouth froze in that twisted
smile. The rest of his face was blank. These were markers. Everything he was
about to tell me would be a lie.

“Your slave was auctioned by accident.”

“Where is he?” I pressed.

“I am not sure where he was taken after the sale.”

I weighed the options. The thought of throwing the man's desk over and
throttling him came to mind. He interrupted that happy image with the next part
of his lie.

“To compensate, we are glad to offer you a slave of even greater
value.”

A black man clomped down the stairs. He was not one of the new
arrivals. This slave was resigned to his plight.

“What do you expect me to do with this one?” I said.

“Whatever you planned to do with the other. Set him free if you
wish.”

That was a telling response. Somewhere, William Hunt was laughing at
me.

The slave became agitated. In pens upstairs, they did not dream of
leaving the quad as free men. The idea was too radical. It was like thinking
that falling off a cliff might teach a person to fly.

I looked at the brute. In truth, he deserved to be free as much as
anyone. This was the doubt that Hunt wanted me to face. This was his way of
calling me a hypocrite. I would go to such lengths for one slave but not
another. The point was made. I could live with what it said about me. This was
a personal choice, not a principled one.

Ray was my partner. That was all.

I pulled the slave away. His eyes were wide with the possibility of a
free life. I shattered that hope. No doubt, it was the lowest moment in his
bleak life. Rather than leave the brokerage, I thrust him straight onto the
auction block.

The buyers were a callous bunch. They jeered the slave's dismay. A few
bargain hunters opened the bidding. The more serious traders made sport of the
man's panic. Once this fun ran its course, the real auction began.

The slave was strong and young. Bargain hunters were forced out as the
process advanced. Within a minute or two, he was sold.

The buyer, a runt with a soft leather cap hanging over his brow, paid
me in cash.

 Fresh bills in hand, I confronted the registrar again. I put the money
on top of the papers on his desk. It was a generous bribe.

“Tell me where he is.”

The registrar shifted the pile to one side. He did not touch the money.

“They took him to the yards. They mean to ship him out with the rest.”

“Ship him where?”

“Up to Carolina. Wilmington, I think.” He picked up the money.

I reached into my pocket and found the bills you sent to me, Robert. It
was more than the slave fetched at auction.

“Tell me the rest.”

“The rest of what?”

“The rest!”

His body relaxed. The toothy smile disappeared.

“This is the rest: they wanted me to tell you about the yard. They
expect you to come after him.”

He took the money. I tossed his desk over for good measure.

You have no idea how much trouble Kate is in. Your father should not
have sent her here. 

The Shreveport boat yard is surrounded by dredging equipment. Those
drills, explosives and cranes, help break up driftwood jams that clog waterways
in these parts. Dredging is the only way to keep Shreveport connected to the
canal networks spreading across America. Without the canals, Shreveport would
be cut off from trade corridors on the Red River and Mississippi beyond. It
would be cut off from the whole word.

Once the dredging project was complete, that original equipment depot
fell into disrepair. Shreveport businessmen have never really benefited from
the canals. They missed the boom and came on board just in time for the bust.
They let most of the machines rust back into the mud.

The canal system stretches from Florida all the way up to New York. It
even penetrates the western frontier in some spots. Those channels might have
been a spine to hold America together. Instead, they have become a throughway
for smugglers sending illicit goods all over the country. Towns that bet their
future on the canals eventually went bankrupt. Shreveport is one such place.

I mounted the scaffold of a derelict crane. It was one of many
abandoned skeletons from the dredging project. The scaffold gave me a clear
view of the yard.

The first thing that caught my eye was a woman. She was in charge.

Crews winched long containers into canal barges. It was dirty work.
Insects swarmed the yard. Workers wore heavy coveralls and masks. Each barge
was packed with slaves.

The woman supervised this slow progress. No one sassed her. She had the
kind of authority that makes people down here show respect.

I recognized one of the men from Heritage Estate. It was the one who
bought my slave at auction. The same soft leather cap sat askew on his head. He
dragged the slave I sold over to the woman in charge.

Without a word of warning, she pulled the slave's head back and forced
a wooden pole into his throat. She pushed the rod down until the slave's
gagging became mortally urgent. Just when it seemed she would plunge her
forearm into his chest cavity, she twisted the staff and gave a yank.

From inside the man's torso, she retrieved a vial on the end of the
wooden rod. Whatever was inside that vial, it was intended for me. If I had
taken the slave in trade, he would have coughed it up one night while I was
sleeping.

I would be dead. Or worse.

The slave collapsed at her feet in agony. He was dragged to a barge.
Ray was the one who pushed him inside. If not for the lashes on his face, I
would not have recognized him. Ray was like a moving statue. He was hard and
emotionless. When the other slaves were stored, Ray followed. He was the last
to be locked inside.

That is what you sent Kate Warne to find in Wilmington. A caravan of
slaves is passing through that port. They are being shipped by a hoodoo witch
who knows the Pinkertons are on her trail.

Cripes!

Webster, you are a hideous sight. You smell even worse than I expected.
A promise is a gruesome thing. You have been listening, Webster. The ears of a
good detective are always open. So tell me; should I walk into an obvious trap
at Wilmington?

Yes. I know that Ray is in the barges.

Am I afraid?

Be careful, Webster. It would be easier to put you back in the ground
than it was to dig you up.

Maybe I am afraid. What of it? I have reason to be. Believe me. I have
my own scars to prove it. When those people get their potions into your body
and it makes you crazy. After they mark you, it's better to stay out of the
way.

Don't give me that look.

Ray is my partner, damn you! If I thought I could save him, I would.

You cannot imagine what it is like to be at their mercy. They break
your mind. You think crazy things. The acts you perform under their spell are
not natural.

Dammit, Webster! You tell me what I am supposed to be if not afraid.

Ha. You have a dry wit, Webster. I suppose you're right. Wilmington
would be a nice place to be buried. I did promise you a proper burial.

Alright, if you come with me then I agree. We can collect the gauntlet
I hid out here then make our way to the coast. It will be one last case before
you find your rest.

You get your wish, Robert.

I hardly believe my own voice. Webster and I will find your Kate Warne,
or whatever became of her, out in Wilmington.

*   *   *

Repository Note:

What am I supposed to do with this? A man arguing with a corpse he
buried then dug back up hardly counts as scholarly. It's just repulsive. The
Library of Congress isn't a pulp press. We don't gain anything by being
sensational. I ought to bury Stark's entry. It's only going to make things
worse.

People are angry enough without seeing Timothy Webster's name turn up
in these records again. I am still convinced it is a coincidence. It must be.
Pinkerton's murdered detective could not actually be the same man who history
remembers as the war's most notorious turncoat. Just the same, journalists had
a field day the last time his name appeared in these files. It is going to be
the same this time.

I can't suppress the Stark entry. All of the material I brought back
from New Carthage is part of the public record now. Things are going to get
ugly. Uglier, I should say. We've already received a bomb threat at the
Library. It was addressed to me. Imagine. What a bunch on nonsense.

Police have assigned an officer to watch out for me. Hirsch. I don't
know his first name. He follows me everywhere. He sleeps in a car outside my
home. Poor man. I feel bad. He is wasting his time. Who would go to the trouble
of blowing me up?

- Diane Larimer, Chief Archivist, United States Library of Congress

*   *   *

Kate Warne, Detective
November, 1861

I am not often afraid. Bitter experience has taught me that I alone set
the threshold. What length will I go to protect myself? I would kill and die.
The next man who thinks he will drag me to a back room or leave me drugged on a
bed that is not my own will learn fast enough. Both his life and my own are the
prices I have set. Once a person accepts killing and dying, fear loosens its
hold.

This case is teaching me something, though. I am beginning to
understand how that level of control can be weakened. In tiny increments, with
each painful minute of lost sleep and every strange occurrence that cannot be
explained, the threshold creeps closer again. Fear approaches until it is right
on top of you.

I am certain now that someone broke into my apartment. What does it
mean? I haven't the slightest idea. One more fact among so many that lead
absolutely nowhere in this case. A voice was captured on the audio device.

Sango. Sango. Ogu Bodagris.

It is gibberish. Possibly, one of the sick ones who did not flee
Wilmington with everyone else became deranged and desperate. They might have
broken in, hoping to find some kind of respite. That could be.

The police report from the Gordon murder cites cases of Yellow Fever
breaking out in the town before the exodus. That explains the sickness and rot
I see everywhere, even on my client. No wonder people ran from this place.

Yellow Fever, however, tends to emerge in places where slaves are sold
or goods arrive from Caribbean islands. It does not normally touch places such
as Wilmington. There is no slave clearinghouse. Blockade runners come mostly
from Europe.

If the intruder was one of the sick ones, how did they get in and out
without my knowing and without leaving so much as a footprint? The afflicted
ones stagger through the mud, covered in their own black blood, stinking and
reeling in agony. They are not good at sneaking about.

Here again, an oddity of the case leads me to questions with no
answers. I feel more and more confused. A deep frustration is setting in. I am
losing control and the fear I have kept at bay for so long is getting closer.

It is harder than ever to think. I have no energy. Exhaustion plays tricks
on the mind. My judgment is becoming less reliable with each sleepless night.

I crippled a man yesterday. I cannot say it was justified. It happened
at the crime scene. I stopped at the Gordon Bank to survey the site before
visiting the Drysdale home.

The site is a strange place. The thief, likely this man Nate Drysdale,
set it on fire after murdering George Gordon. Melted candle wax is speckled
everywhere for some reason. A thick pole stands in the wreckage like a tree
trunk made of coal. Artifacts of the crime are still scattered about, as though
police had returned them to their original positions after conducting a
pathetic investigation. 

George's father, Herbert Gordon, along with his business partner, Louis
Bannan, blame squatters for the disarray. That makes no sense. There are no
squatters in Wilmington. There are almost no people at all.

I stood in the main entrance, looking in, and was so preoccupied with
these details that I failed to notice a man approach from the street outside. I
was startled.

He was one of the sick ones. His skin was cracked and yellow. Black
vomit stained the front of his shirt. He smelled so bad that I gagged. The man
shuffled forward. He was a slave.

Two white men followed at a distance. They all came from the direction
of the harbor. The slave and his masters likely emerged from the lumber mill.
It might have been the foundry or perhaps the docks. Those facilities run day
and night. I see smoke from smelters and furnaces at all hours.

The town is empty. Flies swarm the filthy streets. Still, Wilmington's
harbor is busy. The mills run. Boats land. No goods come to shore yet the boats
continue to arrive. The contrast between the silent town and its active harbor
is striking.