David Liss - The Coffee Trader

Miguel needed Geertruid. It hardly mattered now what secrets she kept from him-let her have her secrets, just as he had his. He needed her capital, not her honesty. If he could get another thousand guilders from her, it might be enough to save himself. He could pay off Nunes, and he could buy more puts to counter Parido’s calls. With a little luck, he could yet turn the tide on the price of coffee. Then he would use those profits, not to pay off his debts as he had planned, but to restore Geertruid’s original investment. It was not all he had hoped, but with another thousand guilders, or fifteen hundred if he dared hope, he might make everything easy.

Even though there had been some sort of falling out, Miguel thought that the foul Golden Calf might be his best opportunity. Miguel hurried over and found the fat barman, Crispijn, nearly alone in the tavern, sitting on a stool behind the bar, slurping at a bowl of beer soup and washing it down with a redundant tankard of beer.

“Good morning, Crispijn,” Miguel shouted cheerfully, as though they were old friends. “How does the day find you?”

“Who in Christ are you?” Crispijn studied Miguel for a moment and then lost interest, wrapping his large hands once more around the soup bowl.

“We met many weeks earlier,” Miguel explained, attempting to keep his cheer intact. “I was with Geertruid Damhuis.”

Crispijn’s forehead wrinkled. “Were you now?” He spat, inexplicably, into his own soup. “Well, I’ll have no more to do with that devil’s bitch if I can help it.”

“Let’s be civil.” Miguel took a step forward. “I don’t know what has happened between the two of you, but I must contact Madam Damhuis, and I thought you might know how I could do so, or know someone who would.”

“How should I know how to contact that she wolf? I have heard she’s gone south, and while that is not nearly so good as her going to the devil, I’ll take it as good enough.”

“Differences aside”-Miguel pressed on-“you are still family.”

Crispijn laughed hard enough to make his large body undulate. “She’s no kin of mine, nor would I want any such. I have better family than that come out my ass each morning.”

Miguel put his index finger and thumb to his forehead. “You are not her kinsman?”

Another laugh, but not nearly so forceful. Now the barkeep showed something like compassion. “You seem to be confused. I know nothing of either my father or my mother. I haven’t a relative in the world I can call my own, and no cousins neither. Maybe she would be kinder to a man if she were his relative, but I’ve no luck to call her that.”

More than once she had called Crispijn her cousin. Perhaps the term was some new cant she used freely. It hardly mattered, and Miguel lacked the energy to sort out the confusion.

He might again try Hendrick. The Dutchman had made it clear he could reach Geertruid, even if he seemed unwilling to reveal how. “Do you know where I can find her man?” he asked.

“Hendrick? You’ll do better to run from him than seek him,” the barman said. “I don’t understand you, friend. You’re no ruffian to be seeking out someone of Hendrick’s sort, and you don’t seem to understand that you’re plunging into deep water. What want you with such filth?”

“I’ve dealt with Hendrick before. Do you know where I can find him or no?”

Crispijn shrugged his heavy shoulders.

Miguel understood perfectly, though in his mood he would have preferred a simple request. He handed the tavern keeper a half guilder.

Crispijn smiled. “I hear he’s got something planned at the Spaniard’s Lame Horse, a musico on the far end of the Warmoesstraat. He’ll be there tonight, I heard, but not too late. And if I know Hendrick, which I do more than I’d like, he’ll be in and out quickly. You’ll want to be there no later than when the tower strikes seven, I think. Then maybe you’ll be able to catch him, though maybe it were better that you didn’t.”

Miguel muttered his thanks and headed out, wishing it were not already too late to visit the Exchange. He despised the feeling of a day of business entirely lost. Damn the East India Company, he cursed silently. Was there not another ship for them to have rerouted than his? His coffee would be on its way and therefore he would not have struck Joachim.

With no business to conduct, Miguel wanted to avoid being seen, particularly by Joachim. He visited a bookseller and purchased, on credit, a few pamphlets-and, on a whim, a simple book in the most elementary Portuguese on the basics of holy Law. He would give it as a gift to Hannah. She could not read, but perhaps she might learn someday.

After passing the day in taverns, reading his lurid tales of crime, he took Crispijn’s advice and traveled to the Spaniard’s Lame Horse. Miguel generally avoided musicos of this nature, catering to low sorts of fellows. A band of three string musicians played simple tunes while the whores drifted from table to table, seeking business. Miguel suspected there were rooms in the back, and he briefly considered inspecting them with one buxom beauty with dark hair and fetching black eyes, but his business was with Hendrick and he considered it no good bargain to miss his opportunity while gaining the clap.

Within an hour the whores knew they would get nowhere with him, and they kept their distance, ignoring him except to administer the occasional scowl. Miguel drank quickly and ordered repeatedly. He reasoned that he would have to pay for his seat in beer or the owner might toss him out.

After nearly two hours of steady drinking, Hendrick had not yet shown himself. Sleepy with beer, Miguel wondered if he might not be better off abandoning his station; this was no place for a man to fall asleep unless he wanted to awaken stripped of all his goods.

He lifted his tankard and set it down again. A loud conversation a few tables over began to distract him. Something about cargo, ruin, a lost ship called the Bountiful Providence carrying slaves in the Africa trade.

Then something happened. A drunk fellow rose to his feet and turned toward the sailors. “The Bountiful Providence !” Saliva flew from his mouth. “Are you certain?”

“Aye,” one of the sailors said. “She’s been taken by pirates all right. Vicious Spanish pirates, too. Bloodthirsty bastards. The very worst of the lot. My brother was a seaman aboard her and barely escaped with his life. Do you know the ship, friend, or have kin upon her?”

“I know her.” He put his face in his hands. “I owned stock in her. Good God, I’ll be ruined. I have sunk my fortune in a ship now sunk!”

Miguel stared. Even in the murkiness of beer he knew the scene was far too familiar. It reminded him not only of his recent misfortune with the coffee but of something else, from many months before. It was like watching his own life played on stage before him.

“You might not be entirely ruined,” said one of the sailor’s companions in a voice full of hope, such as one might use with a frightened child. “You see, the news has not yet reached the Exchange, and that might work in your favor.”

The stockholder turned to the new speaker. He alone of the party did not look like a sailor. Not exactly a man of substance, he yet had something more to him than his companions.

“What do you say?” the stockholder asked.

“That you may take advantage of the ignorance still to be found upon the Exchange. Or at least someone could. I would be willing to take those shares from you, sir, for fifty percent of their value. That should be far more lucrative than if you lose it all.”

“And sell them at a discount at the Exchange tomorrow?” the stockholder said, rolling the words about on his tongue. “Why should I not do that as well as you?”