David Liss - The Coffee Trader

“I know what you are going to say”-Miguel held up a hand-“and do you think I would come seek you out like this if I had no intention of paying you? I promise you the money will be there in two days. Three at the latest.”

Nunes sighed. “You did not seek me out. I came to you. And you’ve made promises before.”

“I expect any moment to receive the money I need,” he lied. “All will be made easy. You’ve not a thing to worry about.”

It was Miguel who had not a thing to worry about. The business had been contracted with the East India Company, and it could not be canceled. Nunes would simply have to float the five hundred guilders for a little while. He had the money; it was no hardship for him.

Miguel decided it was time to set the next phase of his plan in motion. He visited a broker, with whom he had done business before, and bought coffee puts to be due in ten weeks’ time, thereby guaranteeing himself the right to sell at the current high price. Miguel wanted to buy a thousand guilders’ worth of puts, but the broker seemed reluctant to advance Miguel so large a loan. Having no other choice, he used his brother’s name as security. There could be no harm in doing so; Miguel would profit from his puts and pay the broker without Daniel ever learning what his brother had done.

“I’ll need to send a letter to your brother confirming his agreement,” the broker said.

“Of course. My brother, however, has a tendency to let his correspondence sit for days. Mark the outside of the note, if you would, with a circle, and I will see he addresses your concerns immediately.” Miguel would have Annetje keep an eye out for the note. It should be easy to keep it from attracting Daniel’s notice.

Once the transaction had been completed, Miguel fought off the queasy remorse. Certainly it was tricky, putting his brother’s money at risk, but everything was in hand. He would not have been so desperate if his brother hadn’t demanded payment on the loan at so rotten a time. It would be one thing if Miguel had been struggling, but never before had he known the market so well as he did now. And with coffee he would be creating and shaping the market, not merely responding to it. The price of coffee would go down because he would make it go down. Daniel’s money could not be safer.

He expected the news of his puts to travel fast, but he did not expect it to travel quite so quickly as it did. One hour later, as Miguel shuffled out of the Exchange and onto the Dam, Solomon Parido appeared by his side. He smiled politely, with no signs of resentment over what had happened before the council.

“I hope I have not violated any rules today,” Miguel said. “Appearing on the Exchange without properly greeting you, perhaps. I expect I’ll receive another summons before long.”

“I expect the same.” Parido laughed softly, as though making light with a friend. “You must not think there was anything of a personal nature in what transpired in that room with the Ma’amad. I merely acted in accordance with what I believed to be right and proper.”

“Of course,” Miguel agreed flatly.

“However, your likening the Ma’amad to the Inquisition-that will make you no friends. There are too many in this city who have lost loved ones to the Inquisition.”

“You forget that the Inquisition took my father; I know what it is, and so does my brother. If he ever sees things as I do, he may not be so quick to follow you blindly.”

“You judge him too harshly. He only wishes to do what is best for his family, and that family includes you. I suspect he will be very proud of you when he learns of your brilliant scheme in the East Indies trade.”

“My scheme?” Miguel studied his face for some sign of what might be coming.

“Yes. I had no idea how clever you were, but now I see in its fullness your plan. Wait until the price of coffee rises because of the growth of demand, and then gamble a large sum of money you do not have on the price falling. Yes, very clever indeed.”

Miguel smiled back. Parido knew nothing but what Miguel had intended the world to learn, though he had learned it with disturbing speed. “I’m glad you approve.”

“I hope nothing happens to make the price rise again in ten weeks’ time.”

“I hope so too,” Miguel told him. He would not appear too clever or too confident. Let Parido believe he knew Miguel’s plan, rather than look for more. “You think the price will rise, but I’ve heard that since I wagered, others have followed suit and more will follow. We’ll see what sort of momentum has begun.”

“I suppose we will,” Parido agreed, clearly thinking about something else already.

There was another note from Joachim when he returned home. Another note in that uneven, drunken hand.

If you speak to my wife again, I will kill you, it said. I will creep up behind you so you won’t know I’m there and slit your throat. I’ll do it if you again approach Clara. There were two lines that had been crossed out, and then underneath he wrote, In fact, I may just kill you anyway for the pleasure of revenge.

The note had a kind of manic sincerity. Had Miguel’s silly banter with Clara (how could she have been so stupid as to tell him about it?) pushed her husband over the edge? He cursed Joachim and he cursed himself. It would be a long time before he would again feel at ease.

In the deceptive shadows of twilight, a figure crept up behind him but slipped back into the dusk before Miguel could spin around to face it. An indeterminate shape lurked behind a tree just out of his vision. Something splashed into the canal a few paces behind his hurried steps. Each street brought Miguel closer to some deadly confrontation with Joachim. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a madman’s foul grin, the glimmer of a knife blade, a pair of lunging hands.

Miguel was no stranger to death. In Lisbon he had lived in terror of the arbitrary power of the Inquisition and of the bands of bloodthirsty villains that had roamed the streets almost with impunity. In recent years, Amsterdam had been subject to horrible visitations of plague: men and women turned purplish-black in the face, developed rashes, and died within days. Thanks to the Holy One, blessed be He, people now smoked so much tobacco, for it alone prevented the spread of that disease. Still, death lurked everywhere. Miguel knew as well as anyone how to live with its random assaults on the living; he did not know how to live while being hunted.

And so Joachim began to win his war upon his enemy’s quiet. Miguel found his concentration wandering, even upon the Exchange. He watched helplessly as Parido made his way through the crowds of merchants, buying coffee futures, betting that the price would continue to rise.

If something should happen to make Miguel unable to control the price of the coffee, he would lose money on his puts, and then Daniel would learn that Miguel had abused his name and his funds. What if Nunes refused to deliver the goods until Miguel paid his debts? It all struck him as futile, when he might be dead at any moment of an assassin’s blade.

Miguel knew he could not live with that possibility. Even if Joachim never intended to draw blood, he had already done great harm. No one could doubt Miguel’s need to put an end to it. He needed to live his life without fear of some madman stalking him.

It took him a few more days to determine how to proceed, but once he had his idea firmly in mind it seemed to him both sordid and clever. It would involve some unpleasantness, but he could not expect to deal with a person like Joachim without confronting the unsavory. Certainly that had been his problem all along. He had tried to engage with Joachim as though he were a sound man, as though he might be convinced by reason, but time and time again Joachim had shown himself unable or unwilling to act as a man of sense. He recalled a tale of Charming Pieter in which a ruffian sought revenge against the trickster. Outmatched by an enemy’s physical prowess, Pieter had hired an even more dangerous ruffian to protect himself.