the spit out of his flute. “I have five cents on Davis. . . .”
“Oh, I’m still covering Davis,” said the fiddler. “I’ve got my money down for ten-thirty, five minutes either way. Incantobelli’s Belaggio’s former partner.”
“Two cents on nine-thirty,” chipped in Cochon Gardinier, an enormously fat man who was probably the best fiddler, after Hannibal, in New Orleans.
“It’s nearly quarter-past now.” Hannibal glanced at the intensely ormolued case-clock that dominated the far end of the parlor. “And Belaggio hasn’t even arrived yet. Incantobelli will have to be standing on the front porch for a challenge at nine-thirty. . . .”
“Considering Incantobelli wasn’t invited,” said January grimly, “that’s probably exactly where he’ll be.” Not far from the leafy screen that half hid these negotiations from their employer, John Davis was gesticulating angrily and saying something to Vincent Marsan. Marsan, resplendent in pale jade-green down to his gloves and the emeralds in his breast-pins, nodded sympathetically and stroked his golden mustache. But the sky-blue eyes never left the doorway to the hall. January heard
“La Muette de
Portici”
and “—accuses me of hiring men . . .”
“On the other hand,” he said, and brought out the music to the first quadrille of the evening, “I’ll lay you that Davis gets in with a challenge first.”
“Never!” Cochon whipped a Mexican reale from his pocket and slapped it down on the corner of the piano. “I’m for this Italian.”
“For shame, sir!” Hannibal drew himself up like a demented Irish elf. “A fip on Davis before him.”
“Done, sir!”
“And I,” added Bichet.
“Covered.” January counted out eighteen pennies from his pocket, the rough equivalent in the various currencies available in New Orleans to cover the various bets.
“Gentlemen!” Uncle Bichet finished touching up the tuning-keys of his cello and regarded the other members of the little orchestra with a stern eye. “Didn’t your mamas raise you right? It ain’t polite to lay wagers on white men at their own parties.” He spoke the gombo French, the “mo kiri mo vini” French of the cane-brakes and the slave-quarters—which most of the musicians would have sworn, in white company, that they didn’t rightly understand. Behind his spectacles the old man’s eyes sparkled, disconcerting amid a graceful criss-cross of tribal scars. “ ’Sides, you all ought to know better than to bet on anythin’ a
blankitte
’s gonna do. Now, let’s shake these folks up a little. Ben . . .”
January grinned, and danced his fingers over the first bars of “La Bonne Amazone.” As if by magic the crowd that jammed the room shifted, transforming from a wall of backs into an open aisle of non-dancers crowding aside between the pillars and around the buffet, and dancers forming up three sets—
—as cleanly divided along French and American lines as if on a battlefield. Anne Trulove, a biscuit-blonde in rigidly tasteful gray, took her husband by the arm and firmly steered him into the American set farthest from the one graced by Oona Flaherty and her lumbering cicisbeo. Henri Viellard, after an unsuccessful attempt at concealment behind one of the buffet table’s silver epergnes, gracelessly led his middlemost sister into the French set. Vincent Marsan’s wife, a colorless woman with the face of one who has neither laughed nor wept in years, made a move toward the French set, then flushed as her husband did not respond, and retreated hastily to the wall again.
Nowhere did January see anyone who might have been Incantobelli.
“At least we should have a lively evening,” remarked Hannibal, and the orchestra whirled into the music like a thousand colored ribbons released at once into the wind.
Later that evening, crouched in the darkness with the stink of blood filling his nostrils, January remembered Hannibal’s remark with rage, and bitterness, and
“Oh, I’m still covering Davis,” said the fiddler. “I’ve got my money down for ten-thirty, five minutes either way. Incantobelli’s Belaggio’s former partner.”
“Two cents on nine-thirty,” chipped in Cochon Gardinier, an enormously fat man who was probably the best fiddler, after Hannibal, in New Orleans.
“It’s nearly quarter-past now.” Hannibal glanced at the intensely ormolued case-clock that dominated the far end of the parlor. “And Belaggio hasn’t even arrived yet. Incantobelli will have to be standing on the front porch for a challenge at nine-thirty. . . .”
“Considering Incantobelli wasn’t invited,” said January grimly, “that’s probably exactly where he’ll be.” Not far from the leafy screen that half hid these negotiations from their employer, John Davis was gesticulating angrily and saying something to Vincent Marsan. Marsan, resplendent in pale jade-green down to his gloves and the emeralds in his breast-pins, nodded sympathetically and stroked his golden mustache. But the sky-blue eyes never left the doorway to the hall. January heard
“La Muette de
Portici”
and “—accuses me of hiring men . . .”
“On the other hand,” he said, and brought out the music to the first quadrille of the evening, “I’ll lay you that Davis gets in with a challenge first.”
“Never!” Cochon whipped a Mexican reale from his pocket and slapped it down on the corner of the piano. “I’m for this Italian.”
“For shame, sir!” Hannibal drew himself up like a demented Irish elf. “A fip on Davis before him.”
“Done, sir!”
“And I,” added Bichet.
“Covered.” January counted out eighteen pennies from his pocket, the rough equivalent in the various currencies available in New Orleans to cover the various bets.
“Gentlemen!” Uncle Bichet finished touching up the tuning-keys of his cello and regarded the other members of the little orchestra with a stern eye. “Didn’t your mamas raise you right? It ain’t polite to lay wagers on white men at their own parties.” He spoke the gombo French, the “mo kiri mo vini” French of the cane-brakes and the slave-quarters—which most of the musicians would have sworn, in white company, that they didn’t rightly understand. Behind his spectacles the old man’s eyes sparkled, disconcerting amid a graceful criss-cross of tribal scars. “ ’Sides, you all ought to know better than to bet on anythin’ a
blankitte
’s gonna do. Now, let’s shake these folks up a little. Ben . . .”
January grinned, and danced his fingers over the first bars of “La Bonne Amazone.” As if by magic the crowd that jammed the room shifted, transforming from a wall of backs into an open aisle of non-dancers crowding aside between the pillars and around the buffet, and dancers forming up three sets—
—as cleanly divided along French and American lines as if on a battlefield. Anne Trulove, a biscuit-blonde in rigidly tasteful gray, took her husband by the arm and firmly steered him into the American set farthest from the one graced by Oona Flaherty and her lumbering cicisbeo. Henri Viellard, after an unsuccessful attempt at concealment behind one of the buffet table’s silver epergnes, gracelessly led his middlemost sister into the French set. Vincent Marsan’s wife, a colorless woman with the face of one who has neither laughed nor wept in years, made a move toward the French set, then flushed as her husband did not respond, and retreated hastily to the wall again.
Nowhere did January see anyone who might have been Incantobelli.
“At least we should have a lively evening,” remarked Hannibal, and the orchestra whirled into the music like a thousand colored ribbons released at once into the wind.
Later that evening, crouched in the darkness with the stink of blood filling his nostrils, January remembered Hannibal’s remark with rage, and bitterness, and
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