David Liss - The Devil's Company

He was certainly right that I could not stand all day with a sword to his throat, and I would be loath to harm him when he could do so much damage to my friends. I sheathed the blade, helped myself to a glass of wine, and sat across from Cobb, staring at him contemptuously. “Tell me, then.”

“It is a simple matter, Mr. Weaver. I have a great deal of admiration for you and your abilities, and I wish you to work for me. I went to considerable trouble to ensure that you will do so. I hope you will forgive the masquerade I constructed, but I believed it the best way to secure your services and for you to understand that you dealt with no ordinary man.”

“The trouble of making me your debtor, destroying my uncle’s business, and buying Mr. Gordon’s debts was surely more costly and laborious than simply hiring me. Why did you not offer to pay me for my services?”

“I did, but to my regret you declined.” He must have seen my unknowing gaze, for he let out a breathy sort of laugh, took a drink, and began to answer my unstated question. “Not me, personally, you understand, but an associate. Not two weeks ago, a Mr. Westerly called upon you-perhaps you recall-offering quite a bit of money to perform a service, but you would have none of it. When it became evident you could not be hired for our needs, more extreme measures had to be devised.”

I recalled this Mr. Westerly, a short, obscenely fat man who could walk only by swinging his arms with considerable strength to gain the momentum he required. He had been polite enough, deferential, full of encomiums upon my talents. None of that signified, however, for what he asked me to do had not only been impossible but foolish to the extreme, and I had turned him away with apologies. “ Westerly works for you?”

“The precise hierarchy is not, in my opinion, important. Suffice to say, I have already taken your advice and attempted to hire you, and you have said no. As I could not do without you, and you would not sell your time by choice, I was forced to compel you to serve.”

“And if I refuse to do what you ask, you will then ruin my friends and myself?”

“I should hate to do that, but yes.”

“And if I do comply?”

Cobb smiled winsomely. “If you do all I ask, I shall make your debt disappear, and your friends’ difficulties shall likewise vanish.”

“I mislike having my hand forced,” I told him.

“I should be very surprised if you did like it, but I promise all will be made easy. I shall happily pay you thirty pounds for this particular service, which I think you will agree is a very generous fee. And when you have done all that is required, you and your friends shall be under no further obligation to us. All very reasonable, I think you’ll agree.”

I felt anger surge through me. I hated, hated to my core, to allow this man to treat me as his plaything, to serve him whether I would or no-his thirty pounds be damned-but what choice did I have? He had been careful to learn what he could of me, and while I would have allowed myself to be dragged off to debtor’s prison rather than do his bidding, I could not let my friends, who had come to my aid so often in the past, suffer now for my pride.

“I cannot like this,” I told him, “and you must know that when I have fulfilled all obligations, you will have to be careful to avoid crossing my path, for I cannot let this treatment be forgotten.”

“It is perhaps a poor negotiating strategy to discourage me from re-leasing you and your friends from my bonds.”

“Perhaps it is,” I agreed. “But you must understand the devil’s bargain you make.”

“Nevertheless, I feel confident that once we part ways you will come to feel differently about me. You will come to understand that though I have forced your hand, I have treated you with generosity, and you will have nothing ill to speak of me. That is the reason why I shall not let your threats deter me from my generous offer.”

It seemed I had no choice but to act as his pawn for the moment, and the means and method of demonstrating my resentment would have to take shape at a later time. “Perhaps now it would be wise for you to remind me of what it is you wish.”

“Very well,” he said. He suppressed a smile, but I could see he was mightily pleased with himself. I had capitulated. Perhaps he knew I would, but perhaps he had not expected it to be so easy.

I felt a pang of regret. I should have been more intractable, I thought. I should have made him pay for this victory with blood. And then I thought of the brutalized Edgar and comforted myself that his had not been an entirely peaceable victory.

Cobb began at length to explain what it was he wished me to do. He gave no information on why, nor certainly on how, to achieve his goal. There was no mistake, however, that he wished it done, and quickly too. “Had you allowed Mr. Westerly to secure your services, we would have more time to plan, but we haven’t that luxury now. Within the next two or three days, I believe, there is an opportunity that must be seized.”

It was very short time, short time indeed, for me to don the role of housebreaker and force my way into the most heavily guarded estate in the kingdom-a property inhabited by some of the most powerful private men in the world. A scheme of this sort is well planned over the course of months, not days.

“You are mad,” I told him. “How can I hope to break open such a house? They have watchmen and dogs and who knows what matter of protection.”

“It is your task to discover the way,” Cobb said. “Your friends are counting on your ingenuity, are they not?”

“And if you care nothing for your kinsman and associates, the thirty pounds ought to be enough incentive.” It was Hammond. I had not seen him enter, but he now stood at the doorway, sneering at me in his low, pinched way.

I ignored Hammond and turned to Cobb. “Kinsman and associates?” I asked. “Have you pursued men other than my uncle and Mr. Gordon?”

“Ha!” Hammond barked. “The great thieftaker has not yet discovered all. Perhaps, Mr. Cobb, you have overstated his worth.”

“There is another,” Cobb said quietly. “You must understand that our goal is of the greatest importance, and we cannot risk even the possibility of failure, so in addition to the two men you have smoked, we have also meddled with the affairs of-”

“Wait, sir.” Hammond clapped his hands together with a childish glee that upon his ugly face engendered a countenance too grotesque to be imagined. “Perhaps the pull of responsibility might be stronger if you withheld that information. Let him worry whose foot might next step into the trap. That’s the very thing. Have you read Longinus on the sublime? He observes that darkness holds far greater terrors than any monstrosity, no matter how terrible, revealed in the light.”

“I hardly think we needs must leave the gentleman on the rack in that regard,” Cobb said easily. “Nor must we apply poetical theory to human affairs. I beg you, nephew, not to mistake cruelty for strategy. Though we force his hand at the first, we want Mr. Weaver as our friend when all is settled.” He turned to me. “The third man we have so set upon is a Mr. Moses Franco, a neighbor of yours, I am told, and a particular friend.”

I felt my color rising. The outrage of having my closest relation and dearest friend put under this burden was terrible enough, but to bear the responsibility for a man to whom I had so slight a connection was even worse. My uncle and Elias knew and trusted me and would have faith that I would do all I could in their service, but to see a man, hardly more than an acquaintance, dangle by the thread of my compliance drove me to distraction.

“Franco?” I spat. “The man is nothing to me. Why draw him into this madness?”