Chapter Fifteen: Margaret's Manor

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

Joseph hit the floor in a slow graceful motion. First sinking to his knees then his entire body crumbled to the cold marble: Unmoving and lifeless.

Crystal watched frozen, the bank erupted into life around her. The masked men began retreating. Heaving stuffed sackcloth bags over their shoulders and hurrying for the back entrance. Their guns ready for any last minute attacks. Hostages held for no more then thirty minutes ran for the exit as if they’d been trapped for days, screaming for help as they went.

In the midst of the shouting and running, Crystal tried to get to Joseph, but kept being pushed back. Her head was pounding and her side was on fire from where Sam had kicked her. “Joseph,” she murmured, bleary eyed as she pushed through the slew of people coming in from off the streets.

“Crystal,” Rose sobbed, appearing at her side and latching on to her arm. “Crystal, come on let’s get out of here.”

Crystal shook her head; her eyes pinned on Joseph. “Help him,” she said, but Rose wasn’t listening. She had caught sight of a tall black man shoving his way through the crowd with frantic eyes.

“Ben!” Rose screamed hoarsely, waving him down. The action caused her to clutch at her ribs in pain. “Ben, over here!” She tried to drag Crystal towards him but Crystal pulled in the opposite direction.

One of the robbers reappeared in the bank and ran to Joseph’s side. He flipped Joseph up and pressed his fingers to his neck. Joseph’s chest seeped blood, covering his bare skin where his shirt was torn in half. Crystal ripped her arm from Rose’s grip and darted towards them. Tears caught in her throat and choked her as she tried to breathe.

“Joseph.” His name swirled around in her head, the only thing her mind could get a grip on. “Joseph.”

But before she could reach him a solid mass of dark flesh blocked her way. Ben swept her up into his powerful arms. His voice trying to sooth her as she writhed and fought him.

“No!” She struggled, watching as Joseph was hurriedly dragged away by his companion, leaving a sickening trail of crimson across the shining white floor. “No, let me go!” She beat her fists into Ben’s back, shrieking and sobbing.

“Joseph!”

Ben walked to where Rose stood, barely aware of the attack Crystal was pummeling him with.“I’s all righ’, Miss Crystal,” he murmured. “You hurt, Miss Rose?”

Rose nodded, here breath coming in short gasps. She leaned on Ben heavily.

Sirens wailed from the streets and the police barged into the bank guns drawn, but there was no one left to arrest. Only the blood and death left behind. The thieves disappeared as quietly as they came.

The bank was searched revealing a dead secretary near the vault and more wounded clerks. Ben escorted Crystal and Rose to one of the ambulance carts littering Canal Street. A stern faced nun cleaned and wrapped their wounds while they sat on cots bolted to the wagon floor.

Crystal stared at the overflowing front entrance of the bank, trembling violently. Joseph’s blood soaked body being dragged away played clear in her mind. She saw Papa Marginy’s limp covered body being hauled out on a stretcher by two grim faced officers. Fresh tears flooded her eyes as she thought of Eleanor being told that her husband was dead. Murdered in cold blood. She dropped her head in her hands and wept. She felt like she would drown in her grief and guilt. She was supposed to stop this; she was supposed to save him.

Rose wrapped her arms around Crystal, stroking her hair comfortingly. Crystal could feel tears spilling from her sister’s rosy cheeks onto her hair. Another wave of guilt crashed over her. She thought of how she’d made her sister come with her to the bank. She should have known the scribbled note wasn’t Charles elegant script, he had told her he would be busy all of this week. Why hadn’t she been skeptical of Charles’ sudden change in plans? She had been too distracted by Joseph, that was why. She had been thinking of him and all that had happened at the hotel yesterday. Of course, the bruises she’d received yesterday afternoon were nothing to the pulsating pain in her side and head now. This was what he had been warning her of. That man. That snake. He lured her here because he’d seen her with Joseph. She remembered Snake now from the day at the cathedral, and his cold black eyes staring up at them. She should have listened, she should have stayed away. But then what had her dream meant? What had his words meant? Had she killed him; the only man she could ever love?

The realization hit her in the gut and she doubled over as if she’d been stabbed, sobs racked her body. She loved him, yet she had hurt him in the worst possible way.

*******

Charles paced his father’s study. His expression was brooding. His hands were knotted into tight fists behind his back as they rang out the sweat from his linen handkerchief. After a moment he again wiped the perspiration from his damp brow. The ticking of the clock over the mantle was distracting, and more than once it tempted Charles to hurl a book at its face. The stupid thing mocked him. It made time move like a snail, or even backwards. He wasn’t sure anymore. It felt like days since his father had left for the bank to have a quick meeting with Medina. Yet it had probably had been only an hour.

He locked himself in the study to avoid his mother’s concerned looks. However, upon entering the familiar room with its old soft leather furniture and heavy wooden desk, he realized it wasn’t the best place to be on this day. Pierre de Marginy de Mandeville was everywhere. The scent of leather and cigar smoke. The ink stained desk and carpet, and books upon books of Egypt, China, Italy, and all the far away places that the man had longed to visit all of his life. Everything was him, and because of that Charles decided that this would be the first place he would renovate after the one year mourning period. He would make the room more like him with some modern furniture and expensive Persian rugs. And no more of these blasted travel books! What was wrong with New Orleans anyway? What was so much better about other countries? Away from his home, away from his son – That’s where his father had always been most happy. Damn him!

But that would all be over after today. Yes, Charles thought as he straightened his overcoat with his sweaty palm. This will all be over and I’ll have everything I ever wanted. Power, statues, a wife, and eventually a family. A family that I won’t leave for youthful adventures across the world.

Sinking into the worn dark green armchair behind the giant oak desk, Charles flipped up the polished cigar box on the table and selected one. He ran it under his nose before nipping off the tip with a pair of small scissors and lit the end. He tried to focus on the taste of the cigar but his eyes kept jumping to the clock. How long did it take to rob a bank? Though he knew he wouldn’t be the first to know when it was over. There would be police, ambulance carts, herds of people wanting to be the first to get the gruesome details. The news of his father’s death would be everywhere before the papers even got a chance to print. Then he and his mother would be bombarded with condolences, and he would have to play the grieved son with perfection. Consoling his mother and writing a touching speech for the funeral. His marriage would probably have to be postponed a year, a month at least. Though he would push for it to continue ‘as my father would have wanted it.’ Leaning back in his chair, he sighed, he couldn’t wait for it all to be over.

There was a sharp loud knock on the front door.

Jumping to his feet, Charles almost ran out the door before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know anything yet. Slowly he sat back down and tried to appear relaxed. His cigar disintegrating between his grinding teeth. It was almost done, then he could move on. All that was left to do was give the Clan their reward. A reward that would bring him glory and put Theodore Riley out of business once and for all.

He could hear the door being opened, a deep voice requesting to speak with the mistress of the house. Eleanor’s light footsteps descending the stairs. Lowered voices. Then the click of the door as it closed. His mother’s feet pounded up the stairs as she raced to her bedroom, the door slammed. Then a heartbroken shriek that rattled the house and made Charles regret, for the first time, the death he’d put in motion.

*******

In the early morning hours in the French Quarter, before the sun had kissed the horizon and the sky was yet a shadow blue that hinted at the day to come, the downtown end of Royal street was deathly quiet. The thoroughfare of brothels, bordellos, and parlor houses closed until evening. Once in a while a rumpled business man could be seen emerging out of a back entrance of one of these three-story mansions. Smoothing down his coat and hastily patting down his hair then running home, watching the skyline, hoping to make it back before his wife awoke with the dawn.

It was at the very end of this street of expensive and luxurious whore houses that a quiet commotion could be heard as a finely suited man with wavy blonde hair rapped on the front door of one such establishment. He was admitted by a bag-eyed brunette who smirked up at him with familiarity, before she was pushed aside by the gentleman.

“Where is Riley?” Charles asked crisply.

“Where he always is,” Maggie responded, firmly shutting and latching the front door.

Without a reply Charles hurried up the mahogany staircase and passed the many bedchambers where sleeping prostitutes could be heard snoring while others still entertained customers who had paid for the night. A scream erupted from the room to his right followed by a long moan that sent shivers down his spine. The stench of sweat and whiskey hit Charles nostrils and he hurried on, disgusted by what some considered pleasure. They would all receive a rude awaking shortly.

Pounding his fist on the door at the end of the hall, he waited.

“Who is it?” Came a gruff voice on the other side.

“You know damn well who it is,” Charles snapped. He had been at his wits end all day. The news that Crystal and her sister were at the bank while the robbery went on enraged him. With his fiancée badly beaten the wedding would have to be postponed until she recovered, mentally and physically. Another problem he would have to deal with. And what the hell was his fiancée doing at the bank unattended? He’d bet his life it was that spoiled, stuck up little sister of hers that had brought attention to them. Rose de la Chaise was always silently begging for attention. Though that didn’t explain why Crystal had received the more gruesome beating. He had half a mind to tell Riley what he thought of all that, but he wasn’t so stupid to stir Theodore’s wrath when he was alone in this nest of thieves. He’d get his revenge in a more subtle way.

The door in front of Charles opened a few inches and a scarred face looked up at him suspiciously.

“I have what was promised. Do you want it or not?”

“Let him in, Sam.” Riley’s voice came from inside the room.

Sam stepped back and opened the door wide to reveal the half dozen men sprawled about the room, most too deep in their cups to look up. Others nursed wounds obviously received at the bank. Riley sat behind the giant black walnut desk, eyeing the new arrival with expectancy. Charles momentarily wondered what had happened to all of the money that had been stolen that day, but thae realized Riley wasn’t stupid enough to keep proof like that lying around.

“A delight that you could join us, Mandeville, why don’t you have a seat and celebrate with us.”

Charles glanced at the chair Riley indicated. “I’m afraid I cannot stay long, under the circumstances you can see why. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be seen at a place like this. I’m simply dropping this off.” Charles slipped a folded piece of paper from his inside coat pocket and held it up for Riley to see. “Then I will be taking my leave.” He placed the document on the table and Red slid it in front of Riley who slowly picked it up. He rubbed the paper between thumb and forefinger, as if to check its authenticity. Carefully he unfolded it, his eyes scanning the page. Coming to rest at the bottom were an eagle clutching an olive branch was stamped in red ink. The marking confirming what the document stated. All crimes of the members of the Clan were now pardoned by the state. They now had free reign over the city thanks to William’s connections to the court.

“I assure you, Riley, it’s legitament.”

The corner of Theodore Riley’s mouth curved and he looked up. “Good. Very good, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mandeville.” Riley stood and extended his hand across the table.

Charles took his hand in a firm grip, his expression hard. “The pleasure was all mine.” Riley’s brow raised at the malicious tone, but Charles gave him no time to react. With a solid shake and a short bow he turned from the table and strode toward the door. Then he stopped. “I hope you and your men enjoy the freedom this gives you,” he said glancing back at Riley.

“We plan on it,” Riley said, a suspicious look covering the satisfaction he’d worn before.

“Good,” Charles stepped into the hall and closed the door softly behind him. “Because you won’t have that freedom long,” he muttered as he retraced his steps through the brothel.

He exited the front door, and heard the lock latch behind him. His boots thumped on the banquette as he made his way to the alley where Simon parked the coach out of sight. He climbed in and hammered on the roof, eager to get out of here. It would ruin him if he was caught out only hours after his father’s death, and he didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of a raid. The cops would be flooding Royal Street by midmorning, just as soon as he sent for them.

*******

Michael pushed himself further back into the corner, wishing he could dissolve into the wall and get away from the sight, sounds, and smells that filled the bedchamber. The satin sheets had been stripped from the four-poster bed and ripped into strips. Half of which now laid crimson red in a pile in the corner. The antique velvet-covered couch had been toppled over to make way for the silk comforter to be spread out in front of the fireplace. A roaring fire made the room a furnace in the choking July night, its gold light casting shadows over the three figures in front of the hearth. Two of them hard at work over the withering body that fought against them. Sweat poured from the faces of the man and old woman as they resisted the struggle, dosing amber liquid down his throat again and again. Nothing was subduing the unconscious man.

“Mike, get your ass over here and help me!” Jeremy shouted, as he pressed his weight firmly on top of Joseph’s shoulder, locking Joseph’s arms behind his head. But the injured man’s legs still flailed.

“I– I can’t, Jeremy, it’s– he’s–” Michael dropped his head in his hands. He couldn’t bear to look at his brother. His tanned skin now pale and covered in a thin sticky layer of blood from his waist up. On top of that, sweat was slick over his body, his hair completely black as the wet strands clung to his face and neck. Mike could see Joseph’s eyes rolling around in their sockets under his closed lids. Moans of agony erupted from his bloodless lips, the cries almost forming words even in his delirious state.

Michael had been shocked Joseph was still alive after they had made it back to Margaret’s Manor a few hours ago. He had lost so much blood. The bails of cotton that they had hidden in while leaving the bank had been soaked with it. Though some of it had been Sam’s. Jeremy hadn’t really explained how that had happened. Only that the plan to take the woman Joseph had been seeing for ransom had failed. And Joseph had been furious when he found out about it.Michael had never known his brother to get attached to women before, so the strange way he was protecting her was confusing. Why had his brother gone through such lengths to convince him that the girl was just a slut back at the cathedral? Now Joseph was shot and no one seemed to have seen who did it. So Riley and the rest of the Clan were celebrating their success in the room down the hall while Michael had been dragged in here by Jeremy to watch his brother die. He was so sick of watching people die.

“Dammit, Mike, do you want your brother to die?” Jeremy shouted sharply, reflecting Michael’s thoughts.

Jeremy heaved his weight on top of Joseph to keep him from moving. An old thin and wrinkled woman pressed thick ointments around and in Joseph’s wound. She then brushed her long fingers back into her brittle black hair, to keep the damp strands from obscuring her view.

Reluctantly, Michael stood and made his way across the bedroom to kneel near his brother’s legs. He averted his gaze away from Joey’s chest; dried and fresh blood covered his body. The woman was now covering the bullet wound, that was just below his breast plate, with sheets. She pressed them down firmly with her leathery hands. “To draw out any infection,” she murmured in heavily accented French. The mid-wife of the brothel, Maria, was housed at Maragaret’s because of her knowledge of abortion. Though it was commonly known that half of her patients bled to death. Yet she was all that was available when sending for a doctor ran the risk of capture for a dozen men.

Gripping Joseph’s ankles, Michael restrained him with one knee over both of his brother’s legs, leaving him completely immobile. Maria lifted back Joseph’s head and dosed him, for what Michael knew was the fifth time, with laudanum. The liquid had done little to stop the pain and by it’s light amber color he guessed the medicine was greatly deluded. The mid-wife picked up a long pair of pincers and sharp scissors that were slightly rusted on the ends. Michael clamped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, waiting as if she was about to use the tools on him. He could almost imagine the pain himself as his brother’s scream shot through the room and pierced the quiet brothel. Joseph’s body jerked more fiercely than ever and Michael and Jeremy fought to hold him down. Mike was unable to stop his gaze from flickering to the grotesque wound. It looked all the more gruesome because of the cuts Maria made to better insert her tweezers. The long tongs made horrible, nauseating, squelching noises as she dug for the bullet that had embedded itself deep in Joseph’s chest.

As if in a trance, Michael and Jeremy stared as the woman continued her search. Joey’s screams now only hoarse moans as he weakly jerked against them. Finally she pulled the tweezers from his mangled flesh. The pincers gripped a tiny bit of metal. She quickly stuffed the wound with gauze and Michael hoped the stuffing would save Joseph the rest of his blood. Half of it was already soaked in the sheets and the blanket beneath them. By now Joseph was no longer moving, unconsciousness took him over. Either that or the sweet release of the world beyond theirs; wherever that was. The mid-wife snatched the bundle of clean stripes of linen from beside her and began wrapping them tightly around the wound. Nevertheless after only a moment the satin was beginning to stain with scarlet.

Jeremy looked at Maria, who was calmly packing her tools away, wiping each clean on a piece of sheet before tucking it into her small leather bag. “Why hasn’t the bleeding stopped?” he demanded, his gaze flickering to his friend and back again nervously.

Maria didn’t glance at Jeremy, still putting away her instruments. “There is nothing else I can do. He may die, he may not. It is no longer in my hands.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jeremy spat, flattening his palm over the injury and pressing down with his full weight, trying to staunch the flow. “You said you could help him.”

The mid-wife raised indifferent eyes to meet Jeremy’s panicked ones. “I am no surgeon, monsieur. As I explained when you sent for me. I did what I could do and that was all you asked. I hope you plan on keeping your end of the bargain.”

“Damn you,” Jeremy seethed, digging in his jacket with one hand he pulled out a small sack and tossed it at the old woman. “Take it and get out.”

With a cool glance at both of them, the mid-wife exited the room. Michael watched the door close behind her and turned to Jeremy, who lowered his ear to Joseph’s mouth, and looked up with a nod. He was still breathing, but who knew for how long. Mike saw the dread in Jeremy’s lined face. He had never realized how much this man cared about his brother. When had that happened? Staring down at Joseph’s limp body, Michael wondered what the world would be like without his brother. The only friend that he had had when their mother had died eleven years before. Though they had grown miles apart in those years, because of the Clan, because of Riley. Unbidden, the thought of rising in the Clan came to his mind. Surely Joseph’s death would make that happen? No. Mike, shook the thought’s away, disgusted with himself. Sure he had always wanted to be Riley’s right-hand-man, but he had never wanted to get that through his own brother’s death. No matter how much he disliked Joseph at times, he had always loved him. They were brothers after all, and blood was thicker than whiskey, as Joey had said once.

“We have to do something,” Michael said quietly. His gaze imploring as he turned it on Jeremy once more. “He can’t die like this.”

“What can we do?” Jeremy said fiercely, all hope gone from his eyes. “Send for a doctor so he can call the cops to arrest him after he gets up? Go find another down in the gutter mid-wife who can stab him some more? What the hell are we supposed to do, Mike?”

Michael searched his mind in desperation. Where could they go? Who could save him? He gazed around the room as if something in it would give him an answer. Nothing came. Minutes passed and they heard the pound of boots as footsteps made their way down the hall and down the stairs. The air in the room was thick and heavy with the stench of sweat and blood. Joseph’s breathing becoming more shallow every moment. The bandages slowly turning completely red even with the pressure of Jeremy’s hands pushing on the bullet hole.

“The girl,” Michael muttered, remembering.

“What?”

“The girl that Joey was protecting. She’ll help him.”

“I think you’re losing it, Mike.” Jeremy said, shaking damp hair from his eyes. He was sweating profusely now, drips running down his face and falling off the tip of his nose and splattering on Joseph’s stomach. “Do you think she’ll be happy to see the men that just killed her father-in-law?”

“What other option is there? He’ll die here.”

“He’ll die if we move him.”

“If we don’t get someone to help him, he’ll die anyway.”

“Riley isn’t gonna let you leave right now. You know how he gets after a job. Thinks everyone is going to the police.”

Michael nodded in agreement. Glancing at the door as if Riley was standing just beyond it, he then glanced back at Joseph. “We’ll tell him he’s dead.”

Jeremy looked at Mike skeptically. “Then what?”

“We tell him we’re going to bury him.”

After a long moment Jeremy nodded. “Best we can do I guess.”

Michael stood and pulled off his belt, then handed it to Jeremy. “Wrap this around him. Maybe it’ll help stop the bleeding.”

Jeremy did as he suggested, strapping the belt tightly around the make-shift bandages, and then looked up. “So, who’s gonna tell him?”

Michael glanced in the direction that Riley’s room was in. He thought of the look that the boss always gave him when he talked to him, as if he was silently mocking him, laughing at him. No, Theodore Riley never took Michael Cross seriously.

“I think you better do it, Jeremy.”

*******

"Chapter Sixteen:Thunder Storm"