David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“You think so, is it?” Hendry asked, as though he knew something we did not.

“I shall tell you what I think,” I said, stepping forward, “should you care to hear a woman’s opinion. I did visit Mr. Brackenridge, as you say, for I wondered if a man who cheated once might not wish to try to cheat again. I wanted my contract examined very closely, to make certain we did nothing the law did not allow. There is nothing in it that grants Tindall the right to tell us what we must or must not do with our land or with our time.”

“Shut your mouth!” Phineas barked at me.

Dalton lifted his weapon, though he did not yet aim it. “That boy’s lost his mind, Hendry. Get him out of here before something untoward happens.”

I put a hand to my mouth. I did not want bloodshed, and I certainly did not want it in my home. And yet, I did not fear. I believed Mr. Dalton had the control not to lose sight of himself.

Hendry did not flinch. He put a hand on Phineas’s shoulder and spoke gently. “Let’s keep our heads, boy.”

He spoke as though everything were easy, and that made it possible for Phineas to believe it. It seemed that even vile Hendry had things to teach me.

He looked at Andrew and grinned. “You can see my point now, I think. All this business with women and lawyers, it won’t come to any good. It ain’t wise to go against the colonel.”

“I think it’s time for you to run.” Mr. Dalton raised his gun.

Hendry shook his head, as though saddened by the depravity of those whom he tried to help. “I guess you’re gonna make it hard ’pon yourselves, hain’t you? I can’t say I’m surprised. Told Colonel Tindall it would be that way. Harder on you for all that, but it was never going to be otherwise. Let’s take our leave, Phineas.”

The two left and closed the door behind them. The men began at once to speak to one another in excited tones, but I paid no attention. Of course I was interested, but I was distracted by the scene out the window. Directly before our cabin, Hendry was taking a leather strap to Phineas. He’d made the boy lift up his hunting shirt, and he whipped at the exposed buttocks. Phineas faced the window, but his eyes were tightly clenched. Then, at once, he opened them, and saw me watching. I ought to have turned away, but I did not. Phineas met my gaze, bold and unflinching, and, despite Hendry’s lashings, his manhood began to stiffen, and his eyes bored into me with pure malice. I should have looked away, spared him his humiliation and myself the raw nakedness of his fury, but I kept looking all the same. I found it terrifying and terrible, and yet it was the darkest, truest thing I had ever seen.

As we walked to City Tavern, I explained to Leonidas what had happened with Miss Fiddler-that Pearson kept a simpleton as a whore, that the Irishman had been searching for Pearson there and had left him a note, and that the note had been picked up by Lavien, who seemed not only to know what I knew but to be well ahead of me. I should not have been surprised, given that he had been looking into this matter for weeks, but I was nevertheless disheartened by losing what I had imagined to be an advantage. On the other hand, if Lavien knew all I knew, perhaps he knew of this alleged threat against the bank, which meant I would no longer be burdened with keeping the secret.

We walked the distance back to the heart of the city and to Walnut Street, where we stepped under the enormous awning of the three-story City Tavern, the principal location in the city for business. No city in the United States had a genuine stock exchange, and perhaps taking its cue from the British model-where there was, indeed, a proper stock exchange, but all real business was transacted in nearby taverns and inns-the trade in government issues, securities, and bank shares transpired in public houses.

The City Tavern was but the most principal of trading taverns, where the most powerful and reputable speculators plied their trade, but one building was not enough these days to house the mania that had infected the city of late. At virtually any tavern within two or three blocks of the Treasury buildings, men might be found buying and selling securities, stocks, loans, and bank issues. The success of Hamilton ’s bank had created a frenzy for bank stocks of all sorts, and the trade in Bank of New York and Bank of Pennsylvania issues was brisk. Much of this new business sprang from a general sense of possibility and euphoria, but much was merely because the Bank of the United States had millions of dollars to lend and did so at easy rates to help promote the economy. Hamilton believed in making credit widely available and making it cheap. The end result was trade, frenetic trade. Men bought and sold with wild enthusiasm but also created: new businesses, new ventures, and yes, new banks. These sprang up almost monthly, and though most were mere opportunistic adventures, occasions for selling worthless shares to men who hoped to sell again before the bubble burst, the trade appeared unaffected by the common knowledge of worthlessness. Hamilton had hoped to invigorate the economy with his bank and he had done so, but his enemies argued that he had not merely given the markets energy, he had rendered them mad.

I asked Leonidas to wait outside and stepped through the front door. In doing so, I thought I had stepped into the middle of a brawl, for in the front room some two dozen men were upon their feet, shouting most vociferously and waving papers at one another. Each man appeared to have with him a clerk, who sat by his side, frantically scribbling down the devil knew what upon pieces of parchment or in ledger books. Their pens moved with such rapidity that ink sprayed in the air like a black rain.

I stared at the chaos, hardly knowing how to respond. I must have remained there a few moments, transfixed by the lunacy around me. At last I heard a whisper in my ear. “Curious, is it not?”

It was Lavien, and he wore a look of extreme satisfaction. “I wondered how long it would take you to find your way here. Come sit for a moment.”

He led me to a table and called for tea. I called for porter. Our drinks arrived with relative dispatch, and Lavien leaned back, to watch the confusion of the room around me in which men in fine suits acted as though they had been possessed by devils. I could make nothing of it, but my companion watched the proceedings as though it were a race conducted with horses whose skills and particulars he knew well.

“What brings you here?” he asked me.

“Once again, you hope to get information from me yet offer nothing in return,” I answered. “But I will be more generous than you. I look for a William Duer. Do you know if he is in Philadelphia or has been recently?”

He pointed. “The one waving papers in both hands-that is Duer.”

Hamilton, who evidently had not troubled to inform Lavien of his lies, was now exposed, and I looked over at the man the Secretary of the Treasury was so anxious I not meet. The madman in question was not very tall. He had narrow shoulders and delicate, nearly feminine features, though he had a high and balding forehead and hair cut short with a dandyish curl to it. He wore a crushed velvet suit, dark in its blueness, almost purple, and he would have appeared comical had he not conducted himself with the most astonishing seriousness. I found nothing compelling in him myself, but the men in the room appeared to attend to his every sound, his every gesture. A mere shift in the direction of his small eyes was enough to change the course of whatever lunacy took place before me.

“Why are you looking for Duer?” Lavien asked me. His expression betrayed nothing.

“Oh, this and that,” I said. “Any thoughts on why Hamilton would tell me that Duer was not in Philadelphia and had not been for some time?”