City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  “Lot forty-seven. Three more chests of tea.” The auctioneer stood on a makeshift block, a line of empty kegs overlaid with boards at the far end of the warehouse where no daylight could reach, lit by half a dozen huge torches tipped with flaming pitch. “Straight from Canton despite the almighty British navy, blast them all to Hades. Take a good look at this delicious and wholesome treasure, ladies and gents. You’re not about to see more anytime soon.” He kept talking while the chests were manhandled into place by the porters. They wore nothing but homespun shirts and leather breeches, and still dripped sweat. Every other man in the place sweltered in his woolen cutaway coat. The city’s she-merchants, females who had moved from ordinary shopkeeping to owning large storehouses and dealing only in wholesale, were not the sort to adopt the latest French fashions and give up their corsets and petticoats; they were swaddled in heavy taffeta and brocade. The place reeked of overheated flesh and sweat-soaked cloth. And something else—the indescribable musk of a lust for goods and profits. That hunger had been building since the day before, when Canton Star sailed into harbor. Now it was a frenzied storm of desire driving prices almost beyond reason.

  The auctioneer used his long pointer to indicate the chop on the tea chest nearest him. “They tells me this mark here means black tea from a place they calls Yunnan. And you clever folks wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that’s the finest tea in China. So what am I bid, ladies and gents? Who’ll start me off at forty dollars each chest? You there in the front, madam, I see you. Do I have forty-five? Indeed. Fifty then. Sixty? Yes sir. Against the she-merchant with the premises on William Street. Surely you’re not all done?”

  “Eighty,” a voice bellowed from the rear. Another yelled that he’d pay a hundred. Moments later the hammer came down on a bid of one hundred and ninety-five dollars each chest for the lot of three. Sold to the man known to provision Archibald Gracie’s private stores.

  “Gracie does himself well, doesn’t he?” a voice said in Joyful’s ear.

  “Why not? President of the Tontine, takes the lion’s share of the trades. How have you been, Barnaby?”

  Joyful had been ignoring Barnaby Carter for months, since he came home with one hand rather than two, but he’d known there would be no avoiding him today. Not once the broadsides that went up all over town announced the venue for Blakeman’s auction as Carter’s premises. Not as unexpected as it might be, considering the amount of business the two men did together in the ordinary way of things. Blakeman’s coaching routes to Philadelphia and Boston were the most lucrative in the nation, but they traveled along rough and rutted highways from hell. His rolling stock required constant renewal; Gornt Blakeman and Barnaby Carter each needed the other to stay in business. “How have you been, Barnaby?”

  “Well enough, Joyful. But I could do with a game of billiards.”

  “You mean you think you might beat me now I’m one-handed, since you seldom could when I’d two.” He had practiced using the glove to support his cue stick. It was awkward as bloody hell.

  “I’d like a chance to try.”

  “Sometime soon, old friend. That is, if you’ll be able to spare the time. Look at this.” Joyful nodded at the jammed warehouse. “Never seen such a crowd in here before. Are you planning a permanent switch to auction hall?”

  It was not as far-fetched a notion as it might have been a few years back. These days New York had outgrown the informal arrangement that allowed each type of commodity to be traded at a particular inn or tavern—real estate at the Exchange Coffee House, goods and shipping cargoes at the Merchants’. Since Independence, businesses had sprung up with no purpose other than the sale of whatever came out of a ship’s hold. Most of the auction venues were in fact here on Pearl Street, because it was hard by both the wharves and the countinghouses. Auctioneers, on the other hand, were for hire all over the town.

  The one Blakeman had found to conduct his sale was a small wiry man, agile and with a booming voice. Most important, he was fast. While Carter and Joyful talked, the auctioneer arrived at the crying of lot fifty-one, half a dozen bolts of shimmering silk in rainbow colors that glowed and glistened in the light of the flaming torches. Moments later the hammer fell and the fabric had gone to a consortium of the city’s finest mantua-makers—all women—whose representative paid an astonishing seven hundred dollars. Still, it was less than Blakeman might have gotten had he used a regular auction house. None of those would have permitted a single buyer to represent a group of competing merchants, to avoid bidding against each other and driving up the price. It was a rule the city’s tradespeople broke at their peril; the penalty was to be banned from future public sales. Worth the risk today, probably. God alone knew when another ship would arrive from Canton.

  Or perhaps not God. Might be that the information lodged with Jacob Astor.

  The great man was standing off to the side of the auction block. As far as Joyful could tell, he had bid on nothing. Come simply to see what Canton Star had managed to get through the blockade, and because, like every trader in New York, scenes like this were what he lived for.

  Barnaby disappeared, summoned by one of the porters. Joyful saw his chance and began edging toward Astor, trying to attract no attention. Not too difficult in these circumstances; everyone was concentrating on the goods, and the auctioneer, and the drama that took place as each lot was cried and the bids spiraled ever upwards.

  Now he was close enough to see Astor’s narrow mouth and beaklike nose. The eyebrows were black, the hair, cut to earlobe length. Naturally white, it seemed. Joyful could see no traces of powder on the exquisitely hand-stitched lapels of the great man’s cutaway. He was short and stout, and said to be over fifty, but there was nothing soft or aging about Jacob Astor. Simply standing beside him, Joyful could feel the man’s strength.

  He had written the note before coming here, after he’d left Manon at the Fly Market, while he thought about the diamond she described. No one in all New York could afford to buy such a stone. Not even Jacob Astor. It is a jewel for a king or an emperor. The crush of bodies kept pushing him closer. Near enough now so he could jostle Astor’s arm, or just slip the note into the man’s pocket. Too risky. What if he never checked, simply put the coat in the hands of his valet?

  Astor bumped his hip. An accident, Joyful told himself. There was a second bump, and he would swear Jacob Astor had pinched his thigh. He looked down. Astor’s hand was extended palm up, ready to receive the note that no one other than Joyful himself knew he had written.

  Jesus God Almighty, the man was a seer. Joyful’s fingers were trembling when he pressed the piece of paper into Astor’s hand. The older man was cool as ice. His expression never changed and he never looked at Joyful. His fingers curled around the bit of paper and made it disappear. Seconds later he was gone.

  Finbar O’Toole was also at the auction, his face impassive as the bids soared and the amount earned by his daring and seamanship climbed ever higher. Joyful picked him out of the crowd and watched him for a time, then transferred his attention to the man who had crafted this drama.

  Gornt Blakeman was seated to the rear of the auctioneer in a chair placed on yet another makeshift dais of kegs. He was caped and hatted, his face in the shadows, legs sprawled in front of him. One hand rested on an elaborate gold-topped walking stick. The effect was that of a king on a throne.

  The last lot was cried soon after three. Now the business of paying for it all began. There were four cashers with quills and inkpots, seated at side-by-

  side tables near the entrance to the warehouse, ledgers open in front of them. An iron-banded chest sat beside each man. The coins dropped into the chests with a constant clatter, mounting in hills and valleys that every once in a while a casher leveled with the side of a hand grown black with the filth of so much money. A small group of head porters stood next to the tables, checking receipts against lot numbers and, once convinced of ownership, waving the treasure out the door on the backs of the lesser porter
s in their charge.

  Gradually, the place began emptying, and the worst of the crush was transferred to the street, where cartmen and those who’d hired them jockeyed for the best position to load the bought-and-paid-for goods. Standing in the dimness between the doors and the cashers’ stations, Joyful saw one porter, a man who seemed far too old for this sort of work, stagger and fall to his knees, clutching his breast. He started for him, but the man struggled to his feet, heaved up his load, and headed for a cart.

  The lines in front of the money takers finally came to an end. The last buyer, a short, heavyset woman with an astonishing amount of chin hair, had succeeded in capturing one small lot of silk ribbons and paper fans. She paid a bit over thirty-one dollars for her goods, twelve guineas English. The casher who took the money bit hard on each coin before pronouncing it the genuine article and dropping it into his chest. Despise the British most of them might, but every New Yorker knew there was no currency more to be prized than English silver.

  The woman’s booty fit into a foot-square wooden box, and she carried it herself, passing close by Joyful. Delight had hired Bearded Agnes some six months after the place opened, to look after the frocks and furbelows of the Knave’s ladies, and Agnes had become a kind of auntie to the lot of them. Stern but always fair, she went about her duties as if she were unconcerned by the contrast between herself and the pretty young things in her charge. Joyful knew better. Bearded Agnes had sneaked into the hawk’s nest one night to ask in a hushed whisper if there was some way he could permanently cut away her disfigurement. “You or your cousin, perhaps?” He’d had to say that neither of them could help her, that he’d been with his cousin when another woman with the same complaint had come looking for a cure and been sadly turned away. Something gone awry in the makeup of her, Joyful. But nothing I’d know how to excise with a scalpel.

  Bearded Agnes drew level with Joyful, then passed him by. Joyful watched her openly—Agnes incurred curious glances wherever she went—but she ignored him. He turned his head slightly, so his line of vision included Gornt Blakeman. As he’d suspected, Blakeman was eyeing them both. Know who she is, don’t you, Mr. Blakeman? And, I suspect, you know who I am. Or you think you do. He took a couple of steps in Blakeman’s direction and nodded. Blakeman looked surprised at first, then nodded back. Agnes had disappeared meanwhile. “A fine day’s undertaking, sir,” Joyful said touching the brim of his stovepipe. “My congratulations.”

  Blakeman bowed. “Some of us can claim only to be businessmen, Dr. Turner. Neither hero nor surgeon.”

  “That’s as may be, Mr. Blakeman. In my case the description of surgeon no longer applies.” Joyful held up his gloved left hand.

  “The cruel fortunes of war, Dr. Turner. But a man of your talent will surely rise above them. I noticed you present throughout the sale.”

  “I was here as an observer only, Mr. Blakeman.”

  “Might I ask on whose behalf?”

  “My own, sir.”

  “Indeed.”

  Their eyes met. Blakeman abruptly turned away and went over to the line of cashers, studying each ledger in turn, making notes meanwhile on a bit of paper. “In round numbers, something over twenty-five thousand pounds sterling,” he announced finally. “To be precise and patriotic, let’s call it two hundred and seven thousand American dollars.” He turned and said in an even louder voice, “Will you accept that figure as accurate, Captain O’Toole?”

  Finbar O’Toole stepped out of the shadows, his glance roving over the four chests. “Fair enough, I expect.”

  “Excellent,” Blakeman said. “And if I calculate correctly, that makes your share six thousand seven hundred of our proud United States dollars.” He began counting out coins, accumulating a hefty pile of silver and gold, and finally pushing it all in O’Toole’s direction. “Did you bring a sack, Captain? Perhaps you need the loan of one. I, as you can see, came prepared.”

  Blakeman reached behind him to where a store of sturdy homespun moneybags waited on a table. “Will this do, sir?” O’Toole nodded. Blakeman handed the bag to one of the porters, now standing around waiting for his day’s wages to be paid. The man took it, held it open with one hand, and swept the coins into it, then tied it tight closed, but it was Blakeman himself who passed it to O’Toole. “Your due, Captain. Well earned.”

  “Not quite.” Joyful stepped forward. “These were in the pile you counted out before this fellow here dropped them.” He dropped to one knee and picked up four coins that had fallen to the dirt floor and been kicked beneath the table by the porter. It was the man’s private dodge, not Blakeman’s, but there was no doubt whatever that Blakeman had seen it happen and said nothing.

  “So, Dr. Turner”—Blakeman turned to face him—“not just a war hero, but eagle-eyed with it.”

  Joyful started to say something, then felt Finbar’s hand on his shoulder. “That money you’re holding belongs to me, I believe.”

  “So it does.” Joyful handed over the four coins, then nodded to Blakeman and turned and followed the Irishman out the door.

  Behind him he heard Blakeman’s instructions that each head porter be paid fifteen coppers for his day’s work, ten to the under-porters. “And twenty dollars to the auctioneer. A fine job, sir. I thank you.” Not a word about Barnaby Carter. A professional auction house would have taken one percent of the profit. Barnaby, since he could not exist without the business of Blakeman Coaching, was to get nothing and like it.

  “I suppose I should thank you for getting back the money that godrotting porter tried to steal.”

  Joyful shrugged. “Why bother?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that it makes no difference if you have a few dollars more or less, Finbar. It’ll all be gone in a matter of weeks—or days, more likely. Depends on where you do your gambling.”

  “I’m not gambling,” O’Toole protested. But he did not meet Joyful’s gaze.

  “It’s a disease, old friend,” Joyful said softly. “There’s no talk of it in any of the medical literature, but I’d warrant my soul it’s a sickness as real as yellowing fever or dropsy.”

  “Do I look sick to you?”

  “Your symptoms aren’t the kind that show in the body. How much of your life have you spent waiting for the turn of a card or the fall of a die, Finbar? A third? Two-thirds?”

  O’Toole took a long pull of the ale he was drinking with his dinner of mutton chops and beans. “Depends on how much of my span I’ve spent aboard ship,” he said. I don’t gamble when I’m at sea, lad. Never. Not just now I’m a captain. ’Twas the same when I was an ordinary tar. The ocean calms me, calms the poxing itch.”

  “An itch. Is that what it is?”

  The Irishman shrugged. “Only way I know to describe it. What about you then? No vices? Hero and healer, is that what they’ll write on your gravestone?”

  “Not likely. And I’ve vices enough.” Jesus God, yes. But the lack of control was what separated him and O’Toole “We’re not talking about me.”

  “What then? Why did you want to get Gornt Blakeman thinking on you by pushing yourself forward the way you did? Not for four poxing coins, I’m sure o’ that.”

  “Let’s say I’d like him scratching a bit as well. Finbar, back in Canton, either on the trading strip or the Bogue, did you ever hear talk of a diamond big as a pigeon’s egg called the Great Mogul?”

  “Not unless the talker was full of white smoke.” The devil opium. In Canton, since the British began bringing the stuff in from India so’s to have something to trade for Chinese silk, four of every ten men were said to be addicts. “I don’t think a diamond like that could—Holy Mother of God, you’re talking about the jewels in Blakeman’s private chest, aren’t you?”

  Joyful leaned forward. “Lower your voice. I’m not sure that’s what was in the chest. It may have been. May. That’s all.”

  O’Toole looked down at his plate, busied himself with his mutton chop, then pushed t
he food away. “Something else I’ve got to tell you. Fellow who came after that poxing box. Used to be the town whipper, you said.”

  “What about him?” Joyful took a swallow of the tall ale in front of him, considering Finbar over the tankard’s rim.

  “He’s the chucker-out at a fancy parlor house out at the edge of town on Rivington Street.”

  “That has to be the Dancing Knave,” Joyful said evenly. “More gaming club than parlor house.”

  “Caught the fever yourself, have you?”

  “No. At least not the way you mean.”

  “You’re talking about a different sort of wager.”

  Joyful nodded, then leaned forward, something in him shamed by not being entirely straight with the man his father would have trusted with his life, but not ready to tell him everything despite that. “Finbar, I’ve got a ship. To make that Caribbean voyage.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. The sloop Lisbetta. You can get a look at her up at—”

  “I’ve no need to get a look at her. She’s one o’ Devrey’s.”

  “Indeed.” The papers Bastard had signed were still in the inside pocket of Joyful’s cutaway.

  “So? Bastard Devrey just handed her to you? Out o’ the kindness o’ his heart?”

  “Something like that.”

  The Irishman shook his head. “Not good enough, lad. I’m bloody sure there’s not a chance Bastard Devrey would trouble himself to do a favor for any man named Turner. What’s his reward to be?”

  “Salvation.”

  O’Toole pulled an ivory toothpick from his pocket and began working on the bits of mutton stuck in his teeth. “Is it Jesus Christ you think you are then?”

  “It’s complicated, Finbar. You’ll have to trust me.”