Ace Atkins: New Orleans Noir: The Classics

A distant clatter in the rear quickly developed into the swift beat of horses’ hoofs, and Whistling Dick stepped aside into the dew-wet grass to clear the track. Turning his head, he saw approaching a fine team of stylish grays drawing a double surrey. A stout man with a white mustache occupied the front seat, giving all his attention to the rigid lines in his hands. Behind him sat a placid, middle-aged lady and a brilliant-looking girl hardly arrived at young ladyhood. The lap-robe had slipped partly from the knees of the gentleman driving, and Whistling Dick saw two stout canvas bags between his feet — bags such as, while loafing in cities, he had seen warily transferred between express waggons and bank doors. The remaining space in the vehicle was filled with parcels of various sizes and shapes.

As the surrey swept even with the sidetracked tramp, the bright-eyed girl, seized by some merry, madcap impulse, leaned out toward him with a sweet, dazzling smile, and cried, “Mer-ry Christ-mas!” in a shrill, plaintive treble.

Such a thing had not often happened to Whistling Dick, and he felt handicapped in devising the correct response. But lacking time for reflection, he let his instinct decide, and snatching off his battered derby, he rapidly extended it at arm’s length, and drew it back with a continuous motion, and shouted a loud, but ceremonious, “Ah, there!” after the flying surrey.

The sudden movement of the girl had caused one of the parcels to become unwrapped, and something limp and black fell from it into the road. The tramp picked it up, and found it to be a new black silk stocking, long and fine and slender. It crunched crisply, and yet with a luxurious softness, between his fingers.

“Ther bloomin’ little skeezicks!” said Whistling Dick, with a broad grin bisecting his freckled face. “W’ot d’ yer think of dat, now! Mer-ry Chris-mus! Sounded like a cuckoo clock, dat’s what she did. Dem guys is swells too, bet yer life, an’ der old ’un stacks dem sacks of dough down under his trotters like dey was common as dried apples. Been shoppin’ for Chrismus, and de kid’s lost one of her new socks w’ot she was goin’ to hold up Santy wid. De bloomin’ little skeezicks! Wit’ her Mer-ry Chris-mus! W’ot d’ yer t’ink! Same as to say, Hello, Jack, how goes it? and as swell as Fift’ Av’noo, and as easy as a blowout in Cincinnat.”

Whistling Dick folded the stocking carefully, and stuffed it into his pocket.

It was nearly two hours later when he came upon signs of habitation. The buildings of an extensive plantation were brought into view by a turn in the road. He easily selected the planter’s residence in a large square building with two wings, with numerous good-sized, well-lighted windows, and broad verandas running around its full extent. It was set upon a smooth lawn, which was faintly lit by the far-reaching rays of the lamps within. A noble grove surrounded it, and old-fashioned shrubbery grew thickly about the walks and fences. The quarters of the hands and the mill buildings were situated at a distance in the rear.

The road was now enclosed on each side by a fence, and presently, as Whistling Dick drew nearer the house, he suddenly stopped and sniffed the air.

“If dere ain’t a hobo stew cookin’ somewhere in dis immediate precinct,” he said to himself, “me nose has quit tellin’ de trut’.”

Without hesitation he climbed the fence to windward. He found himself in an apparently disused lot, where piles of old bricks were stacked, and rejected, decaying lumber. In a corner he saw the faint glow of a fire that had become little more than a bed of living coals, and he thought he could see some dim human forms sitting or lying about it. He drew nearer, and by the light of a little blaze that suddenly flared up he saw plainly the fat figure of a ragged man in an old brown sweater and cap.

“Dat man,” said Whistling Dick to himself softly, “is a dead ringer for Boston Harry. I’ll try him wit’ de high sign.”

He whistled one or two bars of a rag-time melody, and the air was immediately taken up, and then quickly ended with a peculiar run. The first whistler walked confidently up to the fire. The fat man looked up, and spake in a loud, asthmatic wheeze:

“Gents, the unexpected but welcome addition to our circle is Mr. Whistling Dick, an old friend of mine for whom I fully vouches. The waiter will lay another cover at once. Mr. W.D. will join us at supper, during which function he will enlighten us in regard to the circumstances that gave us the pleasure of his company.”

“Chewin’ de stuffin’ out ’n de dictionary, as usual, Boston,” said Whistling Dick. “But t’anks all de same for de invitashun. I guess I finds meself here about de same way as yous guys. A cop gimme de tip dis mornin’. Yous workin’ on dis farm?”

“A guest,” said Boston, sternly, “shouldn’t never insult his entertainers until he’s filled up wit’ grub. ’Tain’t good business sense. Workin’! — but I will restrain myself. We five — me, Deaf Pete, Blinky, Goggles, and Indiana Tom — got put on to this scheme of Noo Orleans to work visiting gentlemen upon her dirty streets, and we hit the road last evening just as the tender hues of twilight had flopped down upon the daisies and things. Blinky, pass the empty oyster-can at your left to the empty gentleman at your right.”

For the next ten minutes the gang of roadsters paid their undivided attention to the supper. In an old five-gallon kerosene can they had cooked a stew of potatoes, meat, and onions, which they partook of from smaller cans they had found scattered about the vacant lot.

Whistling Dick had known Boston Harry of old, and knew him to be one of the shrewdest and most successful of his brotherhood. He looked like a prosperous stock-drover or solid merchant from some country village. He was stout and hale, with a ruddy, always smoothly shaven face. His clothes were strong and neat, and he gave special attention to his decent-appearing shoes. During the past ten years he had acquired a reputation for working a larger number of successfully managed confidence games than any of his acquaintances, and he had not a day’s work to be counted against him. It was rumored among his associates that he had saved a considerable amount of money. The four other men were fair specimens of the slinking, ill-clad, noisome genus who carried their labels of “suspicious” in plain view.

After the bottom of the large can had been scraped, and pipes lit at the coals, two of the men called Boston aside and spake with him lowly and mysteriously. He nodded decisively, and then said aloud to Whistling Dick:

“Listen, sonny, to some plain talky-talk. We five are on a lay. I’ve guaranteed you to be square, and you’re to come in on the profits equal with the boys, and you’ve got to help. Two hundred hands on this plantation are expecting to be paid a week’s wages to-morrow morning. To-morrow’s Christmas, and they want to lay off. Says the boss: Work from five to nine in the morning to get a train load of sugar off, and I’ll pay every man cash down for the week and a day extra. They say: Hooray for the boss! It goes. He drives to Noo Orleans to-day, and fetches back the cold dollars. Two thousand and seventy-four fifty is the amount. I got the figures from a man who talks too much, who got ’em from the bookkeeper. The boss of this plantation thinks he’s going to pay this wealth to the hands. He’s got it down wrong; he’s going to pay it to us. It’s going to stay in the leisure class, where it belongs. Now, half of this haul goes to me, and the other half the rest of you may divide. Why the difference? I represent the brains. It’s my scheme. Here’s the way we’re going to get it. There’s some company at supper in the house, but they’ll leave about nine. They’ve just happened in for an hour or so. If they don’t go pretty soon, we’ll work the scheme anyhow. We want all night to get away good with the dollars. They’re heavy. About nine o’clock Deaf Pete and Blinky’ll go down the road about a quarter beyond the house, and set fire to a big cane-field there that the cutters haven’t touched yet. The wind’s just right to have it roaring in two minutes. The alarm’ll be given, and every man Jack about the place will be down there in ten minutes, fighting fire. That’ll leave the money sacks and the women alone in the house for us to handle. You’ve heard cane burn? Well, there’s mighty few women can screech loud enough to be heard above its crackling. The thing’s dead safe. The only danger is in being caught before we can get far enough away with the money. Now, if you—”