The Counting House was closed, its windows dark. Lars tapped gently on the door, and after a few moments a small viewing hatch snapped open. There was a brief pause, followed by the sound of bolts being drawn, and the door opened just enough to let them slip inside.
The tall bald man with the scarred skull greeted Lars like an old friend. He nodded to Justy. “If I’d known you were shipmates with this big damber, I’d maybe have given you them papers for nowt.”
Justy smiled. “Just as well for your boy, then. How come you know each other?”
“You’re rookin’ me, aren’t ye? Every publican in the town knows this cove.”
Lars looked uncomfortable. “Not every publican.”
The barman laughed. “Near as dammit. Come on and have a drink.”
He lit candles at each end of the bar. The scar on his head looked deep and brutal in the light. “What’s it to be?”
“Ale,” said Lars.
“Water,” said Justy.
The man pushed a bottle at Lars and filled a tankard from a barrel behind the bar for Justy. The water was cool and tasted slightly mossy.
“Thanks. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Rafe Durcan. Them’s are my friends call me Dirk.”
He pointed them to the opposite corner of the tavern.
“You can talk over there. There’ll be no one else in tonight.”
“Well, there might be one more,” Lars said. He glanced at Justy. “I sent the lad to ask after Kerry.”
Justy felt a stab of resentment. “Why did you do that?”
“Because she asked. And I can tell by the look on your face that we’re not done for tonight. I figure the more heads we have together on this the better.”
Justy shrugged. They settled in the corner. Lars took a long drink from his bottle.
There was a soft knock at the door. Dirk went to open the hatch and, after a brief conversation, drew the bolts. Kerry slipped past him to where Justy and Lars sat.
She slid onto the bench beside Lars. Her eyes were large and bright in the candlelight. She reached over the table and touched Justy’s hand. “Sandy told me about Carrots. The poor clunch. He was a starchy wee bounce, but no one deserves that.”
Justy’s throat was tight. His tongue felt as though it were made of lead. He nodded and looked down. She pulled her hand away.
“Where’s Sandy now?” Lars asked
“Back at my cousin’s house, being stuffed full of leftovers. One of the cooks took a shine to him. He said he’d be away back to the ship, after.”
Lars nodded. “He’s a good lad.”
Kerry hadn’t taken her eyes off Justy. “It’s been a long night for you. Are you all right?”
He coughed out a dry laugh. “If being caught in a nightmare is all right. I talk to Drummond about my father and he’s killed. Then Cantillon. I find out my father was up to his ears in some filthy swindle before he died, and now it turns out my uncle’s involved as well.”
She frowned. “How do you mean?”
“I dug up some old letters between William Duer and Isaac Whippo, talking about some property they were going to buy on Bedlow Street. So we went up to take a look. And what do we find, but a fancy whorehouse, with a brace of solid-looking charlies out front, being bossed by a big Galwayman with a busted nose. Duffy’s his name. He’s one of the Bull’s bodyguards. So you know what that means. The Bull’s in it up to his neck.”
“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? Some letters from nearly ten years ago? It might not even be the same place.”
Justy felt himself redden. “It’s the same goddamned place. I’m sure of it. It’s too much of a coincidence. The letter said John Colley had already bought the place in September of ’91, and was renovating it. Six months later was the Panic, and we know how hard it was to sell property then, so I don’t think he did sell it. I think he held on to it. And now it’s a whorehouse, run by the Bull, it seems. I don’t know the details, but something ties all of this together.”
There was silence in the room. Kerry and Lars were staring at him. The flames from the candles in the holders on the bar seemed to lengthen in the still air until they almost touched the ceiling.
Lars broke the spell. “Did you say John Colley?”
“Aye. What of it?”
“Black Jack Colley? Pompey Jack?” Lars’ voice was urgent. “Tall, dark-haired mackerel-backed cove, about forty-five years? Wears everything black?”
Justy shrugged. “Sounds like him. But I never heard him called those names.”
“So he’s the other JC, in the letters. John Colley.”
“Aye. A man called Ramage told me.”
Lars sat back on the bench and exhaled in a whistle. “Well, strap me. Black Jack.” He glanced at Kerry. Her face seemed sickly, but whether it was just the candlelight Justy couldn’t tell.
“Do you know him?” Lars asked Kerry.
She shrugged. “Everyone’s heard of Black Jack.”
“Jesus, the two of you! Who the hell is he?” Justy’s voice was tight.
Lars tipped his bottle back and placed it carefully on the table. “The story goes Black Jack was born in Pompey. Portsmouth, in England.”
“I know where Pompey is, Lars.”
“Course you do. Right. Anyway, he was hired on to a ship there when he was sixteen, came on board as a topsail monkey. The ship was loaded to the gunwales with an expensive cargo. French wine. They was off the Canaries when a privateer came alongside and boarded them. The captain was killed, but in the melee Jack somehow gets across into the privateer and sets a fuse in its powder room. Then he gets back on his own ship and relieves his recently departed skipper of a pair of barking irons. The privateer goes up like a plum pudding at Christmas, then goes under, faster than shit through a goose. Jack then pots two of the privateers’ boarding party, and the crew follows his lead and takes back the ship.”
“Impressive.” Justy imagined a young Colley, coolly aiming and firing his pistols.
“That’s not the half of it. He ties one of the privateers to the mast and goes to work on him with a marlinspike. The fella tells him the whole thing was a swindle. The first mate had arranged the rendezvous. The mate denies the whole thing, of course. He goes for his sword, but Jack’s too quick. He stabs the mate to death with the spike, right through the eye, then takes command of the ship. Sixteen years old! Anyway, he sails it all the way to New York, and hands it over to its owner, contents untouched, save one barrel of Bojeley to keep the lads happy. The owners gave him a fat reward, and he was made. Went into business on his own. Baccy, rum, sugar, furs.”
“Slaves?” Justy asked.
“Aye, that too. Like most of ’em. I was never on any of his crews, but I heard he runs a tight ship. Bristol fashion.”
“That’s a poor joke.” Bristol had been the main slave port in England before slavery was outlawed on the British Isles. The city’s slavers had been famous for making their ships as efficient as possible, cramming as many men, women and children into their holds as they could, but not so tight as to increase the death rate beyond an acceptable percentage.
Lars made a face. “I’m not joking. Once he was in business, he got a reputation for being a hard bastard, the kind you don’t cross if you value your puff. Nothing proven, like, but now and again you’d hear about folk just disappearing.”
Justy sipped his water and thought about John Colley. A ship’s boy, a trader and now a topping man on Wall Street. It wasn’t so unusual. One of the reasons so many came to America was to become wealthy. A few did it overnight, thanks to a combination of luck and good timing. And there was a direct road from the docks to the Tontine. Commodities like coffee and sugar were traded in the same coffee houses as securities like shares and bonds. It wouldn’t take much for a trader as sharp as Colley to make the leap. And why shouldn’t he? There was nothing wrong with becoming rich.
But if John Colley was one thing, Black Jack was another. A ruthless man. A slaver. Justy remembered the look Colley had given him in the lobby of the Tontine as he defended the trade in human flesh, his cold eyes the color of the sea in winter.
Kerry was leaning back on the bench, her feet up on a chair, her face in shadow. “So, what’s next?”
Justy shook his head. “I need to speak to Colley, that’s all. He’s the last person alive who was in on that deal, which means if anyone knows what happened to my father, he does.”
“What are you going to say to him?” Her voice was cautious.
“I’ll show him the letters. I’ll tell him what Cantillon told me, about the fraud that Colley and a bunch of Wall Street coves are cooking. About some secret business they’ve got going. I’ll tell him that if he doesn’t stop lying to me about what happened to my father, I’ll go to his investors and bring this whole thing down. And him with it.”
* * *
They agreed to meet at the Norwegian tavern at five o’clock the next day. Lars went back down to the ship, and Kerry and Justy walked together up to the boardinghouse. Nothing stirred in the city, no carriages or carts, and the Broad Way looked vast in the moonlight as they walked north along the middle of the street.
The wind gusted hard off the East River, carrying a yeasty smell up the hill from the Coulthard brewery. Without looking at Kerry, Justy reached out his hand. It was like taking hold of a bird. His skin bumped as she slid her long, slim fingers across his palm. He felt the pulse in her wrist.
And then she made a fist and pulled her hand away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just cold.” She thrust her hands deep into her pockets and walked on, swaying away from him, her head down, her eyes on the ground.
“I’m sorry, Justy.” Her voice was small.
“Sorry for what?”
“For everything.”
“You mean Carrots?”
Her eyes were luminous, wet with unshed tears. She sighed. “Aye. For Carrots.”
Justy frowned. “I didn’t know him so well. It’s just that he was set to tell me something about this business with my father.”
“Right.” She looked away. “So what did he say?”
“Not much. He was a mess. Scared stiff of something. Or someone. The woman who lived next door told me a man was watching the house last night. A big hackum, dressed all in black. When I asked him about it, he got angry. He said my father was tangled up in some scheme, and that it was happening all over again. He didn’t give me any details. And I knew he wasn’t telling me the whole story. I knew he felt guilty about something, too. So I pressed him. Maybe too hard.”
Kerry said nothing.
Justy turned on her, anxiety like a hot coal in his chest. “I know, I botched it. Jesus! Have you never made a mistake?”
“Oh, I’ve made mistakes all right. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
The weight of her voice stopped him. “What happened, Kerry?”
“Nothing you want to hear about.”
He had to hurry to catch up to her. He grabbed her elbow. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, her hands in fists by her sides. She shuddered once, and he wrapped her in his arms. They stood in the middle of the Broad Way, her forehead pressed into his shoulder, her body shuddering with the sobs.
After a moment, she sniffed hard and pushed him away. She tried a laugh. “Now it’s my turn to snot all over you.”
He held her by the shoulders. “Will you tell me, Kerry? I want to help.”
She shrugged free, then wiped her face with her sleeve. “You’re a good man, Justy. But you’re too late for that.”
He felt the breath go out of him, as surely as if she had punched him in the guts. She squeezed his arm. “I’m not blaming you, a chara. It’s my life, and my mistakes. Not yours.”
“I don’t understand. Are you talking about … what you do?”
“What, you mean thieving?” She stepped back, spread her arms wide and turned in a full circle in the center of the street. “Dressing up like this?”
“I suppose.”
She laughed. “Jesus no, boy. This is freedom!”
He frowned.
“You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” Her laugh was caustic. “That’s because you’re a man. All your lot sit around and blather about freedom, and how you won it from the bloody English in the war, and how it’s enshrined in your Constitution and all of that shit. Well, let me tell you, all of that trumpery might sound great, but it means nothing to a woman, and even less than nothing to a woman whose skin isn’t lily-white. We’re not free, Justy. We can’t do what we want or say what we want, like you can. All the world’s a stage, right? Except we’re not players. All we are is the fucking furniture.”
Justy said nothing. He had heard Kerry curse before, but her anger was so white-hot, it was like being slapped in the face.
Kerry plucked at the lapel of her coat. “That’s why I dress up like this. So I can be a player, at least for a few hours a day. So I don’t have to sit in some dank libben, waiting for my fat madge of a father to come home for his tea.” She thumped a fist into her chest. “These clothes give me freedom. The gelt I knap from rich folk gives me a life. Can you twig that?”
She stood in the middle of the street, the moon behind her, her eyes bright in the shadow of her face. Her head was up, her chin out; her hands were on her hips. He felt a surge of warmth that made his face flush.
“I can,” he said.
She scoffed. “You’re stuffed with it.”
“I am not. Be a whore or be a servant, you said your choices were. This is better than either; I see that. I wish it was different, but I understand.”
She was very still. A rustling sound came from the gutter behind him. Litter being blown in the light breeze pushing up from the docks. Or a rat.
She shrugged. “Well, then.”
“But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”
She said nothing.
He took a step towards her. “Please, Kerry. Whatever it is. Will you let me help?”
She hesitated. And then she swayed backwards slightly, as though something scared her. “I will not. It’s in the past and none of your fucking business anyway.”
He felt as if the ground had suddenly opened up like a chasm between them. She gave him a fierce look. “Don’t go sticking your nose in, Justy. Not unless you want it cut off.”
And then she was gone, quick across the way and into the darkness. He stood in the road, the moonlit cobbles like a dangerous sea around him, the ache in his chest making him feel as though she had cut out his heart and taken it with her.