David Liss - The Whiskey Rebel

“I was not meant to,” answered Turner, “but I was cleverer than he thought. He believed me nothing but a blunderer, and I suppose I was, but even so, I was no fool. And he was always too impressed with himself. Still is, I suppose, but vicious too. I have no doubt he would kill me if he were to see me, for though it would be but my word against his, and the war is long over, he would not like it if I were to tell the world what I know.”

I tried to speak, but my breath caught. I tried again. “What is his name?” I did not need to ask. I already knew.

“His name is Pearson, Jacob Pearson.”

Iwas on my feet and halfway out the door when I felt Lavien’s hand around my arm, pulling me back to my table. He must have weighed a third less than I did, yet his strength was great, his weight perfectly proportioned. I do not know that I could have broken free of his grip.

“Wait.” His voice was quiet but undeniably commanding.

“Do not tell me to wait,” I answered, though I had stopped without meaning to. “You cannot preach caution to me. He destroyed my life, and now he destroys hers. He destroys his own children, for the love of God! How can you bid me wait?”

“You misunderstand me,” said Lavien. “I do not ask you for restraint. Do you forget to whom you speak? I only ask you to wait.”

“For what am I to wait?” I asked, my teeth nearly clenched.

“You are not thinking clearly,” he said. “You have allowed your reason to be clouded by rage. You do not see what I see.”

“And what do you see?” I demanded.

He looked over at Turner. “He’s not telling us everything.”

I glanced over at the old man, nervously twisting a ring around his finger. I had not visited any anger upon him. No, not so much as a single harsh word had I offered him, for I heard his original plea, and though I could not love a traitor, I could not condemn a man who loves his own country, even when it is in the wrong. I had said as much, and he had believed me, he had seen it in me. And yet he nervously twisted that ring about his finger. I looked at him, and he looked away. I now turned to Lavien.

“He’s not telling us everything,” I said.

Isat down. Lavien sat down. Leonidas had never arisen, yet he seemed to understand our mood at once. “There’s more,” he said.

I nodded. To Turner I said, “There’s more.”

Turner continued to twist his ring. His skin turned red. “I have told you all-all you can care about. Of course there are more secrets. I was a spy, and it was war. But I have nothing else to say that would concern you.”

“There’s more,” I said. “Where shall we take him, your house, Lavien?”

“I cannot bring violence under the roof where my wife and children live,” he said. “I am a different man at home. It must be that way.”

“I live in a boardinghouse,” I said. “We cannot question a man there.”

“Rent a room here,” said Leonidas. “It is a loud tavern. Nothing will be heard.”

“Clever man,” I answered.

“One moment,” said Turner, whose expression had changed from terror to confusion and back again. “Mr. Lavien, you told me there would be a reward for my information, and no consequences so long as I told you the truth. I have told you nothing but the truth.”

“I told you that you must tell us the entire truth,” Lavien answered. “Captain Saunders believes you are lying. I believe you are lying. Leonidas believes you are lying. You may tell us everything now, or you may tell us everything in private.”

“I have nothing more to say,” answered Turner.

Lavien tossed a coin to Leonidas. “Be so good as to get us a room. As far away as possible from the main room.”

Leonidas left to tend to his task.

Turner continued to glance about the room nervously. “You cannot force me to go against my will. I shall simply cry out.”

“If you do that,” I said, “we shall be forced to tell the crowd that you were a British spy during the war and that you participated in a conspiracy against patriots. We would not be able to save you from the mob even if we wanted to. If you want to live, you will try your luck with us.”

“I choose not to.” He stood but then sat down at once. I saw that Lavien had placed his sharp knife to Turner’s back, at his kidney.

In a moment, Leonidas signaled to us that he had secured the room. Lavien said to Turner, “If you do not come with us quietly and easily, you will die. Do you believe it?”

He nodded.

“Good. If you come with us, if you cooperate, you will live. It cannot be any simpler.”

The three of us rose and walked toward Leonidas, me first, then Turner, then Lavien. We went up a set of stairs and then another, and Leonidas led us to a room in the back. The doors to three of the other five rooms were closed, and we could hear the creaking of floors, the shuffling of furniture, the low moans of passion. The rooms here were used by whores, which was good. Customers would be used to the occasional strange noise.

The room itself was just fifteen feet by ten, but it would do. Once we were inside, Lavien locked the door. I gazed around at a small dirty mattress, a pair of chairs, a small table for drinks or food. Lavien pushed Turner into one of the chairs. He shut the window, and the room grew dark.

“I have not known Mr. Lavien long,” I said to Turner, “but my impression, from my limited experience, is that you ought to be very afraid.”

“If I tell you all,” said Turner, “you will kill me.”

“It is a possibility,” said Lavien, “but not a certainty. It depends, of course, on what you have to say and how hard you make us work for it. But if you don’t tell us, we will try everything to make you speak, and if you still remain quiet we will certainly kill you. You have all but admitted that there is more, so we have no reason not to pursue it.”

Lavien used his knife to cut a strip of cloth from the stained cotton mattress cover.

“We’ll not have the deposit on the room returned,” said Leonidas.

“What are you doing?” Turner asked.

“A little trick I learned in Surinam,” Lavien answered. “You cut off part of a man’s own body, place it in his mouth, and then gag him. Let him sit with his own bloody flesh in his mouth for a time-it works best in the hot sun, but here will do-and he usually becomes cooperative. The men I learned from loved to use the penis. It is symbolic, but I find it too devastating. A man without a penis will often drift into despair. I like to use an ear.”

Turner started to rise. “No, you won’t-”

“Sit down!” Lavien cried. His voice was so hard, so commanding, it would have taken a man with a godlike will to resist. Turner sat down.

“Leonidas, hold his arms behind his back. Keep them still. I don’t want him to move while I do this.”

It was at this point that I began to consider precisely what was happening here. If Turner had information about events from all those years ago, I would need to have it, of course. I would not walk out of that room without it. On the other hand, I had seen with my own eyes not only Lavien’s resolve but his ruthlessness. The night we met he would have mutilated Dorland had I not intervened. I could not object now to his frightening Turner or even striking him a bit. Slicing off the man’s ear and placing it in his mouth, however, was of an entirely different order.

“Hold, Leonidas,” I said. I turned to Lavien. “A word.”

“No,” he answered. “I do this my way.”

“It is my past,” I said.

“And it is my sense of justice. Am I to spare this man because you do not like what it takes to find the truth?”