Slick Philly smiled to himself. He remembered that night in Charleston with Miss Fontaine well. He wasn't there just to see Mr. DeMornay's much-talked about performance. Slick's Daddy was in the 125th Pennsylvania at Cold Harbor back in '64. Daddy was dragging his wounded friends from the field when a damned Reb came out of the woods, aimed, and shot him dead. Slick Philly's teeth ground as he thought of it...

His uncle Joe was there, and saw his Daddy get gunned down. "I'll always remember his face--the man that killed your Daddy, Matt. But what I remember more was that big gold medallion around his neck, like a huge Maltese cross, it was." Slick hadn't forgotten his uncle's words. He did finally, after a few years of searching, hear tell of a man who had a medallion as such...a man named Fontaine....

Imagine Slick's surprise when he found that Fontaine had a pretty young daughter, who was wont to wear the said medallion upon occasion...and when she fainted in his arms at the Skakespeare performance, well.....she lost more than her consciousness....Slick's uncle Joe had taught him the slight of hand trick when he was just a small lad...he hadn't forgotten them either...

So now, as the Albert Hansell slipped into the mighty Mississippi, he though of Baton Rouge, and smiled and evil smile at the final vengeance that would be his...

--Slick Philly Matt