The Accountant turned the chart around. On the back, in fresh paint: SEAT 1: CAPTAIN BO LAGRANGE. REWARD: ONE WORKING SHOWBOAT, NO LIENS.
Panic whispered through the crowd. But curiosity is a stronger drug than fear. By twilight, everyone had taken their new seats.
And the seating chart, as the river rats whispered, was a death warrant. seating chart for general jackson showboat
It began when Captain Beauregard “Bo” LaGrange, the showboat’s dandy impresario, unveiled the new saloon seating for the grand reopening. He’d painted a massive, gilded chart on a mahogany board: ninety-two seats arranged in a horseshoe around the stage. Each seat was assigned to a specific passenger for the voyage from Natchez to New Orleans.
Judge Woolcott, now in Seat 44 (the chandelier spot), laughed too loudly. “A game of musical corpses!” he brayed. Half an hour later, the chandelier’s crystal chain snapped. It fell like a guillotine’s blade. The judge was crushed—but not before someone had carved the number “44” into his palm with a shard of glass. The Accountant turned the chart around
At breakfast, a deckhand found Silk Thornton slumped over Seat 17, a playing card—the ace of spades—pressed to his forehead. No wound, no blood, just a faint blue pallor and the smell of bitter almonds. Cyanide in his julep.
And that, children, is why you never sit down before you read the fine print. Panic whispered through the crowd
And Seat 2—the captain’s own table, dead center—was for a man known only as “the Accountant.” No one knew his real name, but his specialty was settling scores with a thin wire and a smile.