He pushes his hair off his forehead. “What would you have me say?”
“The truth.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and gives her a pleading look.
“How did you do it?”
Still, he says nothing.
“I want to know.”
He sighs, then looks her straight in the eye. “I pushed and shoved, like everybody else.”
JACK
Jack and Anderson have goneover Caulfield’s statement with him more times than they care to count when they point him in the direction of theEnquirer’s offices.
“You’ll do splendidly,” Anderson shouts after him from the tavern’s front porch.
“You really think he will?” Jack asks once Caulfield is out of earshot.
Anderson sighs. “It’s anybody’s guess.”
After Caulfield is gone, they head to the taproom with West to make a quick meal of some roast chicken and peanut soup. It’s the first food Jack’s eaten since before yesterday’s curtain call, and it goes down so fast he barely tastes it.
They’re soon joined by Twaits and Young and a few of the other actors, who are riding high off their success with the slave patrol. “You wouldn’t have believed it,” says Twaits. “All we had to do was say the word ‘Negro’ and they were on their horses, kicking up dirt.”
West doesn’t seem particularly impressed.
“Who did you talk to?” Anderson asks.
“Young and I went to see that cock of the company. What’s his name?”
Anderson looks at Twaits blankly, but Jack knows precisely who he’s talking about.
“Was just made captain of the first class of the patrol,” says Twaits. “Why can’t I think of it?”
“Cameron Kemp,” Jack offers, and Twaits smacks his forehead.
“That’s it,” says Twaits, giving an involuntary shudder. “He’s a hideous creature. But his face lit up like a papist’s church when we told him about the slave revolt.”
“Really?” Anderson says.
“The whole thing’s perfect,” says Twaits as he grabs a chicken bone off Anderson’s plate, breaks it in half, and begins to suck out the marrow.
“Hey!” says Anderson. “That was mine.”
Twaits points the bone at Anderson. “Everyone on the patrol was already so agitated that all we had to do was mention the slave revolt. Worked them right up into a proper lather.”
West warns them all to keep their voices down, but the men are giddy with the promise of being let off the hook.
Jack can’t understand their enthusiasm. “What makes you so confident Placide’s plan will work?” he asks as he begins to stack their plates in the middle of the table.
“Placide’s plans always work,” says Anderson.
“Always?” says Jack.
Anderson laughs. “He’s a genius.”
