David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

Ishan’t describe each encounter, for I used the same technique four times with the four unmarried agents. I had planned my course in advance so I could move with all deliberate speed from one to the next.

The remaining two agents were married men with children in their homes, and I would not break open their houses and assault them where they lived. To do so would be dangerous and unseemly. Instead, I dealt with each according to his personality.

Mr. Geoffrey Amesbury liked to go by coach each day to his place of work. This day he would take a coach to Duer’s estate, so it was no difficult thing to pay his regular coachman to fall ill and pay a substitute to take him to be robbed. The thieves I hired-a visit to the area of Peck’s Slip was all that was required to find them-would take his money and his clothes and separate him from his coach, but he was not to be harmed.

The final victim, Mr. Thomas Hunt, lived in a large house with his wife, four children, and an elderly mother, so there could be no safe and easy way to detain him at home. Because I could not determine how he intended to get to Mr. Duer’s house, I was forced to deal with him somewhat more creatively.

Mr. Hunt was in the prime of his manhood, tall and well made with thick brown hair and the sort of face that women find pleasing. It is not surprising that a man of his stripe had married a pretty lady, and he was known to be dedicated to his wife, but such was his regard for the gentle sex that his dedication was too large to be contained by a single woman, no matter how worthy. I suspected it must be so, and a little idle coffeehouse gossip confirmed my suspicions.

Thus it was I procured the service of a handsome woman from a local bawdy house. When Mr. Hunt left his home at eight in the morning, he was approached by the lady I had hired. She stopped him on the street and made some polite inquiries of direction, and then, once the conversation had begun, asked if he were not Thomas Hunt, the well-known speculator, who had been pointed out to her so often. She spoke those words as though she regarded stock trading as only slightly less remarkable and heroic than minotaur slaying. She had, she said, a large sum to invest and she knew not what to do with it, and perhaps so great and successful a man as he could advise her on how best to order these troublesome dollars. He told her he would be happy to advise her on the matter and would call upon her tomorrow, or perhaps even later today, but that this moment was for him bespoken. Alas, she answered, she was but in town for the day before she returned to Boston, and required an agent in New York immediately. If he could spare just half an hour she would be eternally grateful. He removed his watch and studied it with great anxiety but, once he had taken the time to calculate his duties and responsibilities, found he did have half an hour to give her, though no more.

I watched from a safe distance as the lady led him to an empty house, one for sale, the use of which she had acquired for the day. Left to his own devices, Mr. Hunt would be occupied well past half an hour, I had no doubt. A man means to dally for but a short time, but when he is with a willing lady the hands of the clock move at a most unreliable pace. A quarter hour becomes two or three. One’s morning appointment is forgotten as noon comes and goes. Should these events come paired with a bottle or two of good claret, then so much the better. Mr. Thomas Hunt would not be available for Duer’s service, and he could blame no one but himself.

Thus it was no great matter to procure a bucket of beer and a tankard and find a comfortable place to sit while watching the door to the house I had rented, to make certain that Mr. Thomas Hunt, hunter of whores and dollars, remained where I intended. Yes, it was cold, and yes, flurries of snow fell upon me and into my beer, but I did not mind. I was a man hardened by the trials of revolution, and a chill in the air meant nothing.

So it was that at fifteen or twenty minutes to nine, still enough time for him to arrive at his destination without much difficulty, the door to the house flew open, and Mr. Thomas Hunt emerged, hurriedly putting his arm through the sleeve of his greatcoat. My good whore, not so much dressed as her man, with her shift falling off her shoulder, tried to hold him back, but Mr. Thomas Hunt brushed her off, and rudely too, more roughly than I like to see women treated. Mr. Thomas Hunt, it was now quite clear to me, was a bad man, and though I had better than half my beer remaining, and leaving it upon the street meant I could forget ever again seeing my deposit, I nevertheless heeded the call of duty and sprang forward.

“Great God, sir!” I called out. “Mr. Hunt, Mr. Thomas Hunt, I say, you are in danger, sir. Go no further, take not another step, Mr. Thomas Hunt, for your life is in the balance!”

He looked up and saw me running toward him, running with concern plastered upon my face, and he must have recognized in me the countenance of a revolutionary hero, for he paused in his tracks long enough for me to catch him.

“Thank Jesus, you’re safe,” I breathed, holding on to his arm. “They are coming, and you must hide.” I began to lead him back up the steps to my rented house.

Now he resisted. “Who are you, sir? Who is after me? Of what do you speak?”

I faced the not inconsiderable problem of having no idea of what I spoke. I struggled within myself for an answer. I don’t know that I took more than a few seconds, if that long, and then I gestured toward the street with my head. “Men you have cheated,” I said.

He was a speculator, and it seemed to me likely that he’d cheated someone. Indeed, he blanched, and without further explanation he moved toward the entrance of the house. Inside, the foyer was stripped of paintings and decorative objects, but the wallpaper and the floor covering, painted like Dutch tiles, were still there, and the house seemed a bit sterile if not precisely empty. Our footsteps echoed, however, as we pushed farther inside.

At the end of the hallway stood the whore, waiting to see what happened next. “I tried to hold him,” she said, sounding bored by her own words, “but he wouldn’t be held.”

I’d no time to signal her to keep her silence, and she’d not read the commands upon my face or even the irritation that came after. As for Mr. Thomas Hunt, he looked between us and in an instant understood that the danger he faced came from me and from no other quarter. He attempted to push past me, shoving hard into me with his shoulder, but I held my ground and held Mr. Thomas Hunt fast, taking his arm in my grip.

“Just keep your peace and be still, and nothing will happen to you,” I said.

“Whoreson,” he answered, only not in a calm and quiet voice, as it might appear on the page. No, it was loud and shrill and full of fight and fire, more like “ Whoreson! ” I suppose, and he-the true whoreson if one of us must be so nominated-made to stick his fingers in my eyes. It was unexpected, vicious, and resourceful. He came at me, his fingers extended like an eagle’s talons. If I had not thrust a knee into his testicles, I would be a blind man today.

Like his companion before him, Mr. Thomas Hunt found himself tied quite handily, his arms behind him. I had no need of his silence, we having the house to ourselves, so I concentrated only upon his hands and feet, and with him so detained, I dragged him into the front sitting room and put him upon a settee, the house being sold with some furnishings intact.

“Keep him here until two P.M.,” I said to the woman. “Then you may let him go.” To the man I said, “When she unties you, lay not a finger upon her in vengeance, or she will come to me and I will make you pay for it.”