Lorenzo and the Turncoat Read Free Page B

daughter. Based on the reaction of people they met, Hawthorne concluded that this woman must be Madame De Gálvez. Everything fit.
    He trailed after them. They made only one stop, at a jewelry store. They lingered inside for ten to fifteen minutes. Hawthorne was beginning to wonder if they had slipped out a back way when they finally emerged.
    Gálvez and his wife crossed a plaza to St. Louis Church, a long, narrow brick building that faced the Mississippi River. Topped with a cupola, it had an arched front door with a round window above it. The colonel and his wife went inside.
    Hawthorne let out a long sigh. What to do … what to do. He had never entered a Catholic church and didn’t relish doing so now.
    People flitted past, some speaking Spanish, most French. It amazed him how many were Negro or mulatto. Easily one-third of them.
    A strong wind blew in from the southeast and made a fleet of ships and smaller vessels bob in the harbor. It looked like Colonel Gálvez had gathered every seaworthy vessel he could get his hands on. The British and the Spanish had lived side-by-side for several years in a delicate peace that could break at any time. Peter Chester, governor of West Florida, had complained to Gálvez about giving aid to American rebels and harboring them in New Orleans. Gálvez made a show of arresting American smugglers, only to turn them loose shortly thereafter. Hawthorne suspected Spain feigned neutrality but was, in reality, a major supplier of arms to the American rebels.
    Soldiers shuffled into the main square. Hawthorne watched in amusement as a sergeant attempted to formthem into rows of four and march them around the square. Out of step, they looked like a drunken centipede with legs going in every direction. What a sloppy lot they were! An English sergeant would whip them into shape in no time.
    Hawthorne forced his mind back to the problem at hand: what to do about Gálvez.
    Spanish soldiers loitered everywhere. Obviously, kidnapping the colonel here would be impossible.
    Hawthorne studied the ships in the harbor. He looked back at the soldiers all about. To a trained military eye, it looked like Gálvez was preparing for war.
    A little black boy with a tin bucket in one hand and a cane pole in the other headed to the river. He sat down on the levee, reached into the bucket, pulled out a night crawler, and baited his hook. He dropped his line into the water.
    A Spanish officer rushed from a government building and dashed into the church. A minute later, he came out with Gálvez. He talked with his hands, explaining something that made the colonel scowl.
    Hawthorne looked at the little fisherman. He looked back at St. Louis Church. Madame De Gálvez was still inside.
    The words “bait and wait” flashed into his mind.
    If he couldn’t get the colonel directly, he could make the colonel come to him.

Chapter Five
    Charles Peel started counting his steps the second he left the boardinghouse. Fifty paces took him to the northwest corner of the main plaza. Another seventy-five found him in front of Chartres Street facing the wharf. By the time he reached three hundred thirty-three steps, he stood before a one-story house with a red-and-white-striped pole attached to the front. A sign swaying in the wind read Dr. Louis Dunoyer, Surgery, and Dr. Lorenzo Bannister, Medicine.
Lorenzo
had seven letters in the first name. That was a lucky number and a good omen. There were nine in
Bannister
. Nine was three squared, another very lucky number. Charles’s landlady had recommended he visit Dr. Bannister because he was the only doctor in New Orleans who spoke English. Maybe the old sawbones could figure out why his head hurt.
    Charles slowly climbed the steps to the doctor’s house and paused on the porch. He didn’t like physicians and avoided them whenever possible. Usually, their answer to every medical problem was “Bleed the patient.”
    A young man