Jackson by Max Byrd

Author:Max Byrd [Byrd, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-54428-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

16

Chthonian. Pertaining to spirits of the underworld. It was a phenomenon of Washington and nowhere else, David Chase thought (not drunk), that because the city had no streetlamps, almost the only lights visible after dark were the oil lanterns flying past on the sides of chthonian carriages.

He stumbled across the black expanse of what he thought was Tenth Street and bumped into a fence. In the distance two small orange lights winked left to right, then disappeared like meteors. An instant later two more appeared, streaking directly toward him six feet over the road.

Chase froze in his tracks (mud) and blinked two hundred times. The lights flew harmlessly past in a thunder of harnesses and wheels. He took a deep breath, sighed, and walked up a row of parked carriages to the door of the French ambassador’s home.

“Cherchez la femme,” he said to the butler who opened the door.

“Sir?”

“Et le sénateur. I’m Ambassador Chase, I’ve forgotten my invitation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“From Chthonia,” Chase said, walking in. It was a second phenomenon of Washington that anyone of note who gave a reception or party listed it in advance in the National Intelligencer each week. He had already looked in at Gadsby’s and the other two respectable restaurants in town; this was the only party or “squeeze,” to use the Washington slang, listed. If Ephraim Sellers, he of the independent fortune and indeterminate politics, was going to turn up anyplace else, it would be here. With Emma.

Who would be chthonically glad to see him, Chase thought, lifting a drink from a passing table and launching himself like a raft into the party.

The French ambassador leased a typical two-story Washington frame house, which smelled of plaster and straw. The windows were shaded with muslin. Its moderate grand salon held no more than thirty or forty guests, mostly men, all talking loudly to make themselves heard over the strains of a chamber orchestra upstairs (in Washington, for chthonic reasons, you often danced on the second floor of a house). Chase was jostled by a congressman in high boots. He drifted past a shelf of books, a painting of the Loire Valley, an engraving of the Eglise St. Sulpice. He held the thought of Paris as a momentary stay against reality. The carpet was of delicate blue and white Savonnerie design, weighted down at the corners by brass spittoons.

He bowed to a distinguished-looking woman, who he decided (from her turban) was Mrs. Bayard Smith. Bowed and smiled to a western senator he had interviewed about Jackson’s boyhood. Put down his glass and retreated into an alcove.

Through a doorway he could see another room, where tables were set up for cards along one wall. Opposite the doorway stood an elegant mahogany bar piled high with bottles and glasses. No women. American prudery decreed that women stay away from open bottles in public places. But men were lined up three deep around the bar, multiplying themselves in the mirror behind it. He listened to the orchestra for a moment,

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