a brownish liquor from a barrel on the floor beside him into a tin funnel, refilling the bottles of his stock. Past him two doors sported tattered curtains. A couple of men leaned on the bar itself, hard-bitten roughnecks of the sort who reluctantly ended up joining the crack-brained military adventures launched from New Orleans from time to time against the Spanish or the French. It was one of them who looked up as January's shadow darkened the door.
"Don't you know better than to come in here, boy?" He shoved himself away from the bar and crossed to January, rapidly, to block his way.
"Is there something you're after, my friend?" The card-player rose from the table with no appearance of, hurry, but he was between them with surprising quickness nevertheless.
January recognized him as the fair-haired Irishman who'd searched through the ward of the Charity Hospital the night Mademoiselle Vitrac had come to ask his help for her girls.
"I'm looking for the man in charge of St. Gertrude's Clinic." It was an effort to keep his voice steady, let alone affect the soft-spoken subservience white men expected of those darker than themselves. January had no clear idea of what he was going to say, or how he would phrase it. His one desire was to drive his fist into the jaw of the man who slouched on the bench, sucking his bottle when men wept and pleaded for water next door.
"Furness," the gambler called out gently. And, to the mercenary beside him, "That'll do, Hog-Nose, thank'ee." The black-coated man took another pull on his whisky, and sulkily came to the door, bottle still in hand. "This bhoy has a word for you."
"What you want, boy?" Close up, Dr. Furness's face was unshaven, mouth embedded in a brown smear of tobacco stains, nose and eyes alike red veined. His breath was a lifetime of alcohol and uncleanness.
"I just wanted to let you know you've got about seven dead in your clinic, sir, and water coming in through the roof so they're lying in puddles on the floor."
The doctor stared at him open-mouthed. "Who the hell you think you are, boy, coming here telling me how to run my business? You get the hell outa here! Goddamn uppity..."
January inclined his head and stepped back, trembling with rage. Everything he would have said to the man had he been in France How dare you set yourself up as a healer, you incompetent drunkard? Who put you in charge of a clinic, even in times such as these? died in his mouth, with the knowledge that to speak-even to raise his eyes-would only earn him a beating from the military filibusters and maybe the gambler as well. But he was so angry that all he could see were the toes of his own boots, and the tips of Dr. Furness's, mud-soaked and dripping on the dirty boards of the floor.
Thus he didn't even see the blow Furness aimed at him, until the gambler moved and caught the drunken man's arm. January looked up and saw the cane in the doctor's hand.
"Leave it," warned the gambler softly. Furness made an effort to jerk his arm free for another strike. The cane was teak with a head of brass, and by the way Furness handled it, he'd used it as a weapon before.
"Boy got no goddamn business telling me how to run my hospital!" he screamed, angry-drunk. He wrenched his arm again but the gambler's grip was strong.
"The bhoy has a point, Gerald." The mellow voice was as mild as that of a governess. But in the tanned face the blue eyes were pale steel. " 'Tis true ye've no business bein' away from the place, and anyone walkin' in off the street. I think it best ye'd be gettin' back."
"I'm not going back because no buck nigger comes here all high and mighty and tells me-"
"You're not. You're goin' because Liam Roarke's tellin' You." Furness's jaw jutted so far he seemed in danger of dislocating it, but his bloodshot gaze couldn't endure the cold pale blue. He yanked his arm a third time, and this time the gambler released him, making him stagger.
"I'll have Trudi send one of the girls over with your breakfast."
Cursing, the doctor pushed through the door, jostling January as he passed, so heavily that January was thrown up against the framing. January watched him stomp through the mud, pausing to finish his bottle with another long pull, then send it spinning away