The Wonderful Scheme of Mr. Christopher Thorne, page 29
He passed countless Negro eating houses in which roistering Ethiopians sat about tables laid on sawdust-covered floors, lighted by hanging kerosene lanterns, the inmates laughing and cackling shrilly and joyously as though there were no tomorrow, the equally black waiters lifting from the show windows facing the street great trays of pink and green frosted pastry bearing signs reading “5 cens apeece,” which sweets vied with huge oysters six inches across, whose price tag announced that they were but twenty cents the dozen, and shrimps that looked more like monstrous insects than sea food. Doors everywhere were wide open—and they opened directly upon the sidewalk with neither step nor stair; music was in the air—and the North King was not of this city!
As he rounded the corner of South Rampart Street, and stepped forth upon Canal Street, wide, almost, as three streets, laid side by side, its architecture square and uncompromising, yet comprising an array of white fronts, lighted by thousands of incandescents until it was almost as bright as noonday, carrying blinking electric and neon signs in every direction, he gave a gasp of joy and began for the first time in many months really to feel warm. He opened up his coat and vest, shifted the obnoxious overcoat to the other arm, and pursued his way to the right along this fascinating thoroughfare which ran neither exactly north, east, west, nor south. A few blocks from the Negro artery in his rear, and stores with strange and artful pastries, shops with chocolates and confections of fantastic shapes and colors, and stores whose broad show windows were resplendent with beautiful gowns and beautiful millinery, months in advance of that of the stores in the North, filled the blocks on either side of him; and now he had to pick his way in and out, for men swinging canes and clad only in light flannels, and women in the flimsiest of garments of silken texture, thronged along, laughing and chatting and looking into the store windows.
“I’ll say,” remarked Pete Cantrell, voicing for the first time a sentiment which, although he did not know it, had been forming itself in his subconscious mind ever since the moment he stepped from the depot, “that this burg wouldn’t be a bad one for a guy to settle down and live in for a while—live—for they live here. Damn the cold!” And had it not been warm and sultry, he would have shivered almost from the force of his memories alone.
So along Canal Street Pete Cantrell strolled, scarcely more than ten dollars in his pocket now, but the joy of living and the love of this venerable old city of the South entering his veins like fire. And when at length near the intersection of Canal Street with St. Charles Avenue, he passed a gaudy, yellow, portable signboard that stood out near the curb in front of a very, very narrow store, inside of which, amidst many electric lights, was a single polished counter and a bored looking clerk, he stopped dead in his tracks and read the message twice. Its black letters proclaimed:
I. BALZIEL
Steamship and Railroad tickets at cut rates
See us if you are going anyplace
See us if you can’t complete your journey
Still a third time he read over the sign, thoughts tumbling over in his mind like wildfire, and then he steered his course off the main channel of the sidewalk, to the curb, where, unharried by the flow of pleasure-seekers, he stood ruminating.
“Now why the hell,” he asked himself petulantly, “should I go down to some nertzy nigger country like Red is in, just to get a straw-boss job of ordering around a bunch of coons toting coffee bags onto a ramshackle river boat? What in hell good will money be down there? I’ll get bullied as usual by big brother—have a pocketful of coin—and not a place to spend it.” His gaze wandered fascinatedly around that part of nocturnal New Orleans which was visible, and drifting across the wide thoroughfare to where the narrow little arteries of the French quarter came forth from mysterious dark regions lying to the northeast of Canal Street, he set down his paperoid suitcase undecidedly. “Yes, why?” he asked himself again. “Here’s a coast city—probably swimming in high class smuggled wines off the French boats—for the price of dago red. And good eats—cooked by Frogs who know how to cook! And pretty girls to eat and drink with—if one wants ’em. A burg that’s full of life—and steam-heat never heard of! Why—say—I’d be plum nertz to go on down to Rio just to sweat and swelter.” And at the thought of it he mopped off his forehead with his handkerchief.
And thus did Pete Cantrell live up perfectly to the definition of humanity who, when they are warm, prefer to be cold, and when cold, prefer to be warm, but who when they are just about comfortable, are glad to call it a day!
Yet although Pete Cantrell, in his knocking about the country and his working at everything from dish washer in a lumber camp to railroad section hand, had more or less lost most of the resiliency inherent in the moral fibers within him—which is to say he believed that the sharpest man always has the right to win out—there was within him just a trace of sentiment expressed by the words “being on the up-and-up with a pal!” Just how this fellow Erskine up in Chicago ranked in the capacity implied by such a word as “pal,” Cantrell couldn’t quite tell himself; but Erskine had obviously been in some sort of trouble—a jam!—and had given him, Cantrell, a valuable piece of transportation merely for the return of having laid for him, Erskine, a trail out of the U.S.A. Whatever could be said, Peter Cantrell felt he owed it to this fellow Erskine—at least if he, Cantrell, was a square shooter—at least to live up to the agreement. Well, suppose—Cantrell asked himself querulously—he sold the ticket, providing he could? True, it was, as Erskine originally pointed out, stamped “non-transferable”—probably some fool ruling passed at some time by a dizzy interstate commerce commission, or else a congress of ship owners—but he, Cantrell, had signed nothing thus far on his journey, and that rendered the ticket no more “non-transferable” in actuality than a flea on a dead dog with a fat live dog passing by! So—suppose he sold the ticket then—would not the buyer proceed to use it, and continue—because of that “non-transferability” tomfoolery—under the name of “Erskine,” on to the ticket’s destination? And would not that fulfill this bird Erskine’s strange requirements? Surely the latter individual wouldn’t particularly care whether he, Cantrell, or someone else, went on to Rio as Phillip Erskine.
The sound of a band coming down the street, as in the way of all crises in life, crystallized in Cantrell the determination which had been growing within him by leaps and bounds. It was a brass band and its members were gorgeously clad, and all were seated in a great ornate vehicle which, had Cantrell known it, was a discarded parade float from an old Mardi Gras of the 90’s. Stretching from pine supports projecting from either end of the bandwagon was a huge white cheesecloth strip on which was painted in bright red letters the proclamation:
BIG DOUBLE FIGHT FEATURE
TOMORROW NIGHT!
PAL MORENO AGAINST CLUB-ARM KELSEY
No Limit. To the Knockout whether 6 rounds—or 6o!
Preliminary:
Big free-for-all—20 Niggers
Nothing Barred—$500 to the black winner!
CRESCENT CITY STADIUM
Ringside $2.
“Jesus—H.—Christ!” said Pete Cantrell, to whom any phase of the art of fisticuffs was like the smell of a fox’s tail in the nostril of a hunting dog. “They know how to hold real fights in this town! They—” He peered after the slowly passing bandwagon. “No-limit fights? Jesus—no fight is a fight—till after Round 10.” He put his hand across his eyes, and read more of the receding sign. “And 20 coons—in a black free-for-all?—nothing barred? Whoops! This is a real town—so help me!—’at’s a real town—and here Pete Cantrell is gonna stay.”
He picked up his paperoid suitcase, and crossing the sidewalk went directly within the confines of the ticket scalper’s office. A young fellow of undoubted Israelite extraction, his curly black hair contrasting with his spotless white shirt-sleeves linked together with diamond cufflinks, rose with alacrity from his stool back of the polished counter. Cantrell put down his paperoid suitcase and, shifting his overcoat, spoke.
“I’ve got a ticket for Rio on the Amazonian Queen—sailing tomorrow noon—booked through Chicago on the I.C. I might change my plans for a while if I can make a sale of it. How are things in that line?”
“You got a berth on that Amazonian Queen—going out tomorrow?” said the Israelite. He appeared interested. “Let’s see your ticket.”
Cantrell produced the long green strip of much-punched paper, carrying the name of its rightful owner written in by hand at the original booking office. The scalper looked it critically over, not omitting, of course, the name. “You’re Mr. Erskine?” he inquired.
“Right!” said Cantrell unblushingly.
“Yes. Well—what do you want for it, Mr. Erskine?” the clerk inquired with the most extreme casualness.
“Well, it cost something around 262 bucks back in Chicago,” was Cantrell’s response. “Knock off about thirty-seven dollars to cover the railway fare and Pullman used up from Chicago to New Orleans—and that leaves the rest of it worth not less than $225. What will you pay?”
Mr. I. Balziel thought a moment. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Erskine. Let me ring a party here.” And he raised the receiver of the phone on his desk. Unprotected by any elaborate telephone booth, his conversation—part of it, anyway—was audible to his prospective seller. He called for a number which seemed to be familiar to him, for he did not look it up, and when he got it he asked: “Monteleone Hotel? Let me speak to Mr. Fardel in room 305.”
A moment later he was talking to a man.
“This is Balziel on Canal Street. Yes, Balziel. Say, Mr. Fardel, I couldn’t get you no ticket to Porta de Jalla, Uruguay, but I can fix you up on Rio, and from there you can easy pick up a coastwise steamer—lots of ’em plyin’ along—that will take you on down the coast.”
A pause. “Yes, tomorrow—the Amazonian Queen. The same one what’s full up now.”
A further pause. “All right—the price minus the mileage we talked about? I’ll call you back later.” He hung up. He turned to Cantrell.
“Well, Mr. Erskine,” he pronounced, “I can turn this over to a customer. The non-transferability part don’t mean nothing just so long’s the customer—as this one is—don’t mind what name he eats—or gets sea-sick under! It would be worth $100 to me.”
“$100?” sneered Cantrell. “Waddya think I am? I can take it back to the steamship company if I don’t sail—and they’ve got to give me my money back. That’s law! I don’t have to sell out for that.”
Balziel looked a bit taken aback. “Well, perhaps you can. But it takes about three weeks to get in a check on a canceled passage. What I take it is that you want money now.” His eyes roamed up and down the other’s garments with unblinking brazenness. “Well—what’s your price?”
“$225,” said Cantrell, who proved to be some adept at bargaining.
Balziel flung the ticket across the counter. “Couldn’t do it. Me—I got to make something out of it for myself.”
“Oh yeah? Well, you don’t have to get all the gravy in that ticket,” expostulated Cantrell. “Now you say this ship’s full up? All right. Then the ducat’s worth more than its face value. It’s even worth a premium. For you know—and I know—that there’s plenty of gazabos that wouldn’t stick their foot inside a plane—going over the Gulf of Mexico in February—and all them God-forsaken jungles of Brazil. Am I right—or am I right?”
“Sure, sure—they’s plenty of peoples who are still afraid to try to go it by air. Sure! But they can wait for another boat always—can’t they?”
“Sure,” admitted Cantrell, “only it ain’t always handy to do that.” He paused. “Now see here,” he declared pointedly, “you talked to a fellow named Fardel living in room 305 in the—the—Monteleone Hotel. I heard you myself! I can look him up on my own hook, you know—and dicker with him myself.”
Balziel shrugged his shoulders. “If you want to do business without taking in no cash, go ahead. This feller Fardel ain’t well-heeled—he’s a credit customer here on tickets. Traveling man what covers South American territory. I bet it he couldn’t advance you $50 on your ticket right now. Good as gold, my friend, but not heeled—that’s all. If you need money—”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Cantrell. “As I said once before, with this ship full up, the ticket’s worth the actual cost—and more. But give me 200 bucks for it and I’ll sell it.”
“Couldn’t do it,” protested Mr. Balziel, in his excitement losing his command of English. “Already I give you a bigger offer what I might maybe be able to give do I got to go down on the docks and work up a customer. Already—”
“All right,” said Cantrell, a certain stubborn Irish strain within him rising to the fore, “I’ll find some other scalper,” and he commenced to walk out. Had the Israelite failed to raise the offer, he would have come back to prolong the negotiations before even reaching the door, but, when he was nearly to the portal, the Jew called him back instead.
“Hey. Come back.” He pulled open a cash drawer and commenced counting out tens. “I’ll close with you. But so help me—I make nothing on the deal.”
“Yes,” sneered Cantrell, “nothing—but 25 beans! And then maybe a bonus besides, for all I know. If you make 25 beans every night, my friend, you’ll be doing well.” And pocketing the twenty tens which he received, he went forth into the attractive luminosity and surging gaiety of New Orleans’ main street.
CHAPTER XXI
Mr. Cantrell Makes a Discovery
Pete Cantrell found a room that night over on North Rampart Street, an extension of that ebon-populated thoroughfare which he had traversed on his exit from the depot. It was an old run-down street, but whites at least moved upon it. His room consisted of a little dried-up cubbyhole with rickety wash-stand, matting on the floor, and dirty lace curtains in the window, and he had to pay, for his first week’s occupancy of it, $3. Three dollars a week for a place to sleep was rank prodigality in the light of his expenditures of past months, but with $200 in his pocket he felt like a rich man—it was more money than he had ever had at one time within the past six years. And he went to bed that night determined to enjoy life.
The following two days alone he managed to use up $50 of his capital in such things as mere living, discovering, among several things, that a smuggled pint of dry French champagne did indeed cost very much more than a bottle of American tax-paid claret; though, to be sure, the main trouble with his budget was that Mr. Cantrell, when drinking at the bar, preferred bonded American aged-in-wood whisky as against the cheaper blends; and besides all of which, he located a gambling house running almost wide open on Tchoupitoulos Street! At any rate, he dined as man had never dined before, ordering everything to be found on the bills-of-fare of some of the most fashionable Royal Street restaurants. Including Antoine’s! That he could enter such establishments was made possible by the gracefully fitting suit of clothes which he bought for $40, and a general rehabilitation of himself in lesser ways sartorial; and more than one girl, flitting along, smiled back at the rather handsome ne’er-do-well that was depicted in Cantrell’s careless face.
It was Mardi Gras week—which is to say that preparations were being made for the famous and big day of that celebration: that, of course, was the coming Tuesday, as was evidenced by many red-lettered calendars in store and shop windows. Great grandstands of pine wood were being rapidly erected along Canal Street, and painting and measuring for bunting were being done by scores of workers. Banners were being strung from post to post of that main thoroughfare, and in stores, more or less dull no doubt for eleven months of the year, marvelous masque suits ranging from simple Pierrot and Pierrette costumes, to expensive things simulating barnyard fowls and strange Martian men, were beginning to make their appearance.
It was the third day—at nine in the morning—after Pete Cantrell had reached New Orleans, when the incident occurred which was to make him directly a participator in the masked activities of the Tuesday to come—but in a strange and sinister way!
He was standing on St. Charles Avenue across from the St. Charles Hotel itself, smoking a mellow twenty-five cent cigar, and enjoying life hugely, when, amidst the crowds of heads and shoulders bobbing in and out of the hostelry, he spotted a man with red hair, mopping off his brow, who immediately put his panama hat back on his head, and started up the steps into the hotel. He was clad in the white clothing of the tropics, and Pete Cantrell, cigar in hand, stared after the retreating figure.
“Red—by all the gods!” he ejaculated. “Brother Red—so help me. It must be Red. Haven’t seen him for ten years—sure—but that white suit—that red hair. Well, I’ll be—”
