The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

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?”

Lavien paused, but only for a blink of an eye. “I doubt Hamilton remains informed of Duer’s comings and goings. Tell me how the two of you happened to discuss him.”

“How odd. I don’t recollect. But what can you tell me about him?”

“He is the king of the speculators,” Lavien said. “He is both daring and reckless, caring for nothing but his own profits. In my opinion, he is plotting something this very minute.”

“What?”

“I don’t know precisely, but I have seen him consistently shorting six percent government issues-that is, gambling that they will lose value. He is important enough that when he predicts stocks will decline, others presume the same and follow suit.”

“Is that illegal?”

“No,” said Lavien. “Merely interesting.”

A fter another hour of commotion, the frenzy died down. Men settled at their tables. Clerks ceased their writing. Most of the speculators now turned to the business of drinking tea or left the tavern altogether. Duer sat at a table speaking with a pair of speculators Lavien did not know. All appeared easy and jovial.

“You very obviously want a word with him,” Lavien said. “Let me introduce you.”

“Why are you helping me? I thought you and Hamilton wanted me to keep my distance.”

“Merely showing some respect for a brother of the trade,” he answered, his face typically, troublingly, blank.

I did not believe. I think he knew Duer would prove uncooperative and I would learn there was nothing I could accomplish on my own and that attempting to meddle with a government inquiry would prove a waste of time. It is what I would do, were I in his place.

Duer was in the midst of some tale about how he had extricated himself from the decline of value that the Bank of the United States scrip had suffered the previous summer. According to the little I heard, the value reached a low point and would have caused financial disaster throughout the country had Duer not convinced Hamilton to take action. Once Hamilton did so, the value of scrip rebounded. It was, in other words, the precise opposite of the version Hamilton had told me: namely, that he, the Secretary of the Treasury, had refused to be swayed by friendship and had defied Duer for the benefit of the nation.

The story came to a rather abrupt end when Duer noticed us standing within earshot. He coughed rather ostentatiously into his fist and sipped at his coffee. “Mr. Levine is it? Have I not told you I have no more to say to you?”

“It is Lavien, sir, and I am not here to speak to you myself but to introduce this gentleman. Mr. William Duer, may I present Captain Ethan Saunders.”

“Captain Saunders? Where have I heard that name? Nothing good, I think.” He waved his hand, as though I were a fly to be shooed. “Wasn’t there some business about betraying your country? I’ve no time for traitors.”

“And yet here I am, making time for traders. Ironic, don’t you think?”

He did not answer.

“And what of Jacob Pearson?” I asked. “Have you time for him?”

“Is he here? What of it? He has more to fear from his creditors than I have from him.”

“His creditors?” I said.

Duer clucked like a schoolmaster reviewing some unsatisfactory work. “Have you not heard? Pearson is in dangerous straits. He’s been selling off his properties all over the city, though it shan’t be enough, I’ll warrant. A reckless man, and reckless men always stumble.”

“And what is your connection to him?” I asked.

“I know him from about town, of course. He has proposed business with me on more than one occasion, but I cannot work with one such as he, and his current crisis merely proves my earlier suppositions. Now, I’ve given you more time than you deserve. I must go.”

“One moment, Mr. Duer. Are you familiar with a large Irishman?” I asked. “Bald-pated, red-mustached, muscular?”

“You must have mistaken me for a juggler,” he said, “or perhaps a bearded circus performer. I know no one of that description. Good day.”

He began to walk away from us, and I immediately pushed after him. “Hold,” I called.

He quickened his pace. “Reynolds? Your assistance, if you please.”

I started at the name, for it was that of the man who had paid my landlady to cast me out, and it was the name that had so upset Hamilton. From the corner of the tavern came a rugged fellow, rather tough-looking in his stature and homespun clothes, a large wide-brimmed hat draping over deep-set eyes. The hat shaded his face but did not entirely obscure a massive scar that reached from his forehead, over his eye, and descended to his chin-a wide pink swath of old injury.

He stepped between us and Duer and grinned in a most feral manner, showing us rather pointed teeth. Reynolds was large, in need of a shave, and possessed of an evil breath. “Mr. Duer requests the two of you would be so kind as to fuck off.”

While we were so charmingly engaged, Duer and his friends hurried away, leaving us alone with his ruffian. I might have pushed the issue-with Lavien present, it would have been safe to do so-but there seemed to me no point. I wanted to speak to William Duer, one of the wealthiest men in the country. He could not simply disappear. If I did not get him today, I would soon enough. In any case, I had business enough here.

“Tell me, fellow,” I said, “why would you have me cast from my home? It was the name of Reynolds that the villain gave when he paid my landlady to put me out.”

“Fuck your landlady,” Reynolds offered, by way of helpful explanation.

“While I appreciate your advice,” I answered, “it does not answer my question.”

“Then you must live with confusion,” he said.

Sensing he meant to give me no more, and that he was the sort to delight in crude resistance, I turned my back on this Reynolds and retrieved my porter. I raised it in salute to the ruffian. Content that his master had made his escape, he glowered at us, meeting my gaze and then Lavien’s, making certain to communicate his fierceness before stepping out the front door.

Certainly Reynolds was possessed of no uncommon name; there might be a dozen such or more in town. And yet I was not satisfied this was coincidence. The man who had run me from my rooms called himself Reynolds, but this man looked nothing like what my landlady had described. That man had worn spectacles and possessed gray hair and a gray beard. This man had brown hair, no beard, and no spectacles. Something curious had happened here, and given Hamilton ’s violent reaction when I mentioned the name to him, I thought it best to find out.

At once I set down my drink. “Hold here,” I said to Lavien, and left the tavern. When I reached the street, I saw the back of Reynolds, who was already half a block distant. Leonidas sat on a bench out front. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“That man there, he’s important. Follow him, find out where he lives, and anything else about him.”

He nodded and hurried off. I turned to reenter the City Tavern. As I did so, I pushed past a man who appeared, in some distant recess of my mind, familiar. When I turned, I saw he was the frog-faced gentleman I’d observed the previous evening in the Crooked Knight. He had been sitting alone the night before, watching me with his froggish eyes. Now he looked at me, smiled in a knowing way I did not like, and touched the brim of his hat. I had not a moment to think of how to respond, and before I could stop or ask him who he was, he was gone. I had not the luxury of time to dwell upon this man, who might be of no importance at all, only a familiar face, so I headed inside the tavern.

Many of the financial men, having concluded the morning’s trades, were gone or leaving, drifting off to their various homes and offices or retiring to different taverns to conduct more particular business. I rejoined Lavien, who sat sipping his tea, looking pleased with himself.

“Duer,” he said, “does not like to make himself available to men who are not of immediate use to him.”

“He is a speculator and Hamilton is Secretary of the Treasury. Good Lord, he even used to work at Treasury. Cannot he be made to cooperate?”

“With you?”

“Well, ideally, but at least with you. He seems to treat you rather contemptuously.”

“ Hamilton ’s powers here are limited,” Lavien said. “If Duer does not wish to speak, Hamilton cannot compel him. Of course, Duer takes certain risks in rebuffing Hamilton, but Duer may believe himself too powerful to care.”

“Then they are no longer friends?”

“Oh, I think they are friendly, and Duer will always seek favors and information from Hamilton, but there is a lack of trust. They are like old friends who find themselves on different sides, not precisely during war but certainly during a time of increasing hostility between two nations. Duer wants the United States to emulate Britain, where men of influence have always had their way before the public good.”

“And what does Hamilton want the United States to be like?”

“He wants it to be like itself,” Lavien said, “and that is an ever more challenging goal.”

Lavien was being surprisingly forthcoming, and I could see no reason to withhold any longer the secret I had uncovered. “I suppose so, particularly in light of the threat to his bank.”

He nodded his approval. “You learned of that quickly.”

“How long have you known?”

“We’ve been aware that there may be a plot against the bank for a week now.”

“What sort of plot?”

He shook his head. “We don’t know. The bank itself is located in Carpenters’ Hall, and it could be a threat against the physical space, though I find that unlikely. A move to take over the bank through acquisition of the shares, perhaps. A move to devalue the shares and cause a run. It could be anything.”

“And Duer’s involvement?”

He shrugged. “Likely none that he is aware of. Duer has borrowed a great deal of money from the bank, and he no doubt intends to return to that well again and again. He would not do anything to stop its flow.”

“But you said he owes the bank a great deal of money. Might he not want to see it fail to avoid repayment?”

“That would be like a man setting himself on fire to avoid paying his surgeon’s bill. If the bank were to face some major crisis, all financial instruments would suffer, and that would destroy the market and so destroy Duer. But the fact that he is not involved in a plot does not mean he does not know something. He may know more than he is aware.”

“Again, I must point out that you are being remarkably cooperative.”

“I hope for a trade,” he said.

“Of what sort?”

“Well, I depend upon your honor, for I have already given you what I have to offer-information about Duer and the bank-and now I want something from you, though in giving it to me, you will also be helping yourself.” He took from his pocket a piece of paper and showed it to me. It was written in code, one that looked, on first glance, identical to the simple one I’d cracked the night before.

Lavien whisked it away, before I could even begin to effect a decoding.

“Retrieved from the enterprising Miss Fiddler,” I said.

He nodded. “I could take it to someone at Treasury, but the fewer people who know about it, the more comfortable I will be. It is probable that Jefferson has spies at Treasury. Duer may have men loyal to himself as well. I may not want you involved, but I do trust you.”

I nodded, and he handed me the paper again. Without my asking, while I continued to look it over, he brought me a fresh piece of writing paper, a quill, and ink, but I did not need them. I had worked through the code just the night before, and it was fresh in my mind. It took me but a moment to read the following:

WD. JP suspects efforts with Million B. I took action as discussed. D.

Was WD William Duer? JP Jacob Pearson? Who then was D if not Duer, and, perhaps most important, since it appeared to be the heart of the message, what was Million B?

I posed that question to Lavien.

“The Million Bank,” he said, looking thoughtful. “I have not paid it much mind, but it is an effort to capitalize on the current enthusiasm for banks. It will be launched in New York City within the next week or two, but it is regarded by almost everyone as a foolish venture. I cannot think that either Pearson or Duer would have anything to do with it.”

“And yet, here is this note,” I said.

“This note, written by we know not who and intended, if we are to be honest, for the same. It is easy to imagine it is for Duer, but we have no real evidence.”

It was true enough. “Then Duer will have to answer my question,” I said.

“He has made a point of avoiding me. You think he will be less elusive for you?”

“No,” I said. “But I mean to catch him all the same.”

L ater that evening, I quenched my thirst at the Man Full of Trouble, ate a dinner of cold meats and potatoes, and most likely would have passed the night there had not the barman come to me with a piece of paper.

“Just delivered. It is a message for you.”

I grabbed the paper from his hand. “Very kind,” I murmured. I opened up the note and saw by the dim light of the tavern that it was from Leonidas. He wished to meet me at the corner of Lombard and Seventh. He said it was urgent. I finished my drink and set out.

L eonidas was leaning against redbrick, puffing upon a pipe, sending up thick clouds of smoke against the light of the streetlamp. “You took your time,” he said.

“I was upon important business.”

“So I smell.”

“You can’t expect a man to reform instantly. Now, what are you doing upon this corner?”

“Expanding the boundaries of our inquiry,” he said. “Keep your eye upon that building.” He pointed to a house three doors in from the corner, on the other side of the street.

“What shall I see?”

“Something interesting, I hope. I was afraid you might miss it, but this is the house belonging to the rough man, Reynolds. He lives there with a woman-his wife, according to the neighbors. I’ve not looked upon her, but everyone says the same thing-that she is the most extraordinarily beautiful woman they have ever seen.”

“Do go on.”

“I followed Reynolds here. He left after an hour, and I continued to follow him, but though he did not see me, he seemed to sense there was someone watching him, and I was forced to let him go. He returned later, and now he has another visitor, which is what I wanted you to see.”

“Who is it?”

“There are some things,” said Leonidas, “that a man must see for himself.”

We waited in the darkness. I wished I had taken the time for another drink before leaving, for it would have been pleasing to pass the time in a kind of numbness, though I suppose I achieved something like that anyway, watching the orange glow of Leonidas’s pipe flare and fade.

At last I saw silhouettes pass before the curtains of the front room. Then the door opened, and two men appeared against the dim interior light. Reynolds seemed to be almost a different person, for he bowed before the second man, whom he evidently considered his superior. I could not at first identify him, though he seemed familiar in his shape and stature.

The stranger came out of the house, walking with his shoulders stooped, his gait quick but not sprightly, like a man rushing to get indoors during a storm. He cast his gaze back and forth, as though wishing to make certain no one would see him, and then stepped out into the street. He kept his head down and walked with sharp lashing strides like the jerky thrusts of oars into water. Only briefly did he pass into a splash of lamplight, but in that instant I saw his face, hard and set in anger, or possibly despair. It was Hamilton.

I let out my breath in a long steady stream and waited for him to pass. Then I spoke in a whisper. “ Hamilton tells me he is on the outs with Duer, so why would he personally visit the home of Duer’s lackey?”

“It is about money,” Leonidas said. “ Hamilton handed Reynolds a heavy purse.”

Hamilton giving this man money? I had no idea what it meant, but for the first time since I’d taken on the search for Pearson, I began to feel unequal to the task before me.

I t is only natural to feel anxiety when circumstances are larger than a man’s ability to manage them. I learned this during the war, just as I learned that the only cure for such feelings is action. A man might not always be able to do all he must, but he can do something. There was no action for me to take, not right now, but at least there was always movement, and so, dismissing Leonidas, I walked through the streets of Philadelphia, keeping to the better neighborhoods, avoiding the taverns where I knew I might find drink to help me forget. I did not want to forget, I wanted to understand.

I had stumbled onto a dangerous situation, one I had no business involving myself in except that it concerned Cynthia Pearson, and that meant I had no choice. So what was it that I knew? I knew that Hamilton feared a plot against his brainchild, the Bank of the United States, an institution designed to invigorate the American economy, and which had set off a frenzy of reckless trading. The man in charge of inquiring into that threat, Kyler Lavien, was the same man who inquired into the disappearance of Cynthia’s husband. It would be foolish to imagine that these two things were unconnected. My inquiries into the matter had so far led me to an unknown Irishman and to William Duer, Hamilton ’s former assistant, and to Duer’s own underling, Reynolds, who bore the name of the man who had urged my landlady to cast me out of my rooms. And now, it seems, Reynolds was involved in some kind of secretive dealings with Hamilton himself.

All these things were bound together, but that did not mean they originated from the same point. Another thing I had learned during the war was that unrelated threads become entangled because important men can be important in more than one sphere at a time. Hamilton ’s secretive dealings with Duer’s man might have nothing to do with the threat against the bank or Cynthia’s husband’s disappearance. On the other hand, just because these things might begin as unrelated didn’t mean they stayed that way, and it would be best to assume connections even when there could be no logical reason for them to exist. Mysterious actions and unknown plots are uncovered not by understanding motives but by understanding men.

So I told myself as I returned to my boardinghouse. I walked with my head down, murmuring to myself like a drunkard, though I was perfectly sober. I felt it useful to speak aloud everything that troubled me, to give each difficulty some dimension in speech that I might comprehend it better. I hardly looked where I walked, for all that interested me was inside my mind. I was on the stairs to Mrs. Deisher’s house, lost in thought and strategies, when the fist struck me in the stomach.

My attacker must have been crouched, hiding in the shadows of the stoop, for I had already begun to climb to the door when I saw movement in the darkness, a shifting of dark clothes, a glimmer of reflected light upon a button, a pair of eyes, teeth behind lips pulled back in a grin or perhaps a grimace.

I had no time to react, only to see it coming, this human form uncoil, and when the blow struck, it struck hard. I felt my feet actually lift from the stairs and I fell backward, landing hard upon my arse. I fought not to fall over entirely, but the force of the blow drove my head down. My skull struck with a jarring force-an angry thud that sent pain halfway down my back-but I hit not brick but dirt, the little circle of earth surrounding a tree. The pain ran down in a spiked wave, followed by a sprinkling of silver lights, but I knew at once I had not taken a deadly blow. Even in that moment I felt a foolish relief that the damage was all to a place that would be invisible to others. It would not do to have further wounds upon my face.

Now all at once I saw what I should have seen before. The lamp outside Mrs. Deisher’s house was out. The lamps by the neighbors’ houses were out. Were I not so out of practice I would have sensed the ambush, but I could not undo what had been done. I could only move forward.

The dark figure-a big man, stocky, probably muscular, wearing a wide-brimmed hat; I could see no more-stood over me on the stairs, perhaps savoring his moment of advantage. He reached into his belt for something and held it up. In the dim light of cloud-covered moon and dim stars and distant lamplight I could see the faint twinkle of polished steel. It was a blade, and rather a long one. From where I lay, even with the wind blowing between us, I could smell him: the rank sourness of unwashed clothes, old sweat, and the peculiar acrid scent of wet, moldy tobacco.

I knew several things now. This man, whoever he was, had not come to kill me. Had his first blow to my stomach been made with that knife, I would now be dead or dying. The blade was to frighten me or to hurt me without killing me. Even so, I knew if I was not careful I might yet end up dead.

My head ached, and I felt a dull, painful heaviness in my gut, but I ignored it. The man loomed closer, only three or four steps away. I was on my back, propped up on my hands. He would think me helpless and at his mercy, but it wasn’t quite so.

Any encounter such as this one is like a game of chess. He had his moves to make and I had mine. We could go only certain ways. Each move creates a new series of possible countermoves. Most important, perhaps, victory goes not to the player who is stronger or more ready to attack but to the player who can see and anticipate the farthest into the future, who can map out the multiplying strands of possibility. This is what I told myself.

He had made his first move, and now it was time for mine. Under the circumstances, I needed to buy time and distract him. Asking him who he was or what he wanted, begging for mercy, telling him I could pay him well to leave me be-none of these things would do. Not because they had no chance of working, but because they were all too predictable. I chose to speak nonsense, but nonsense that would make him stop to think.

“I began to think you would never make your attempt,” I said.

In the dark, I saw the outline of his head shift in birdlike curiosity, as though he took a moment to consider. He took a step toward me, and I believe I as much as saw his mouth open, though I know not that he would have spoken.

He never had the chance because at that moment Mrs. Deisher slammed open her front door and stood there, a dark and billowing figure in her dressing gown, a candle burning behind her, holding something long with a comically flaring end. It took me a moment to identify it as an ancient blunderbuss.

The weapon must have been a hundred years old at least and, from the look of it, would best serve as nothing more than a decorative wall hanging for a hunting lodge, but the stout German lady wielded it like it was Excalibur. My assailant was prepared to take no chances, and he immediately leaped from the stoop and began to run down the street. To my surprise, Mrs. Deisher jumped after him. She launched herself into the air, and her gown ballooned out. Her feet spread wide, she landed upon the cobbled walkway with a crack as wooden shoes struck brick. Taking not even a moment to think of her own safety-or, I might add, to aim-she raised her antique weapon and fired. It exploded like a cannon and belched out a great foul cloud of black smoke. She had fired high, for I heard only the cracking of brittle winter tree branches, the echo of the report, and, finally, the distant slap of feet as my assailant vanished into the night.

Mrs. Deisher tossed her smoking weapon to the ground, put a hand on my forearm, and pulled me to my feet. “I wrong you once,” she said to me, “but not twice. You friend of government, and so friend of me. I save you for America.”

“And America thanks you,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. I pressed a hand to the back of my head, and it came away dry, which was a rare bit of good news. I gave Mrs. Deisher a little pat upon her hand and then looked down the street at the empty darkness, expecting to see nothing and finding all my expectations, for once, fulfilled.

I could not criticize her for having saved me, though I thought that if the encounter had lasted even a few moments longer I might have learned something of my attacker. As things stood, I had not seen his face or heard his voice. And yet there was something familiar about the man. I had no idea who he was, but I believed this was not the first time I had been close to him.