by Paddy Hirsch
“That’s not fair.”
“Is it not? Well then, I’ll bid you good night, Justice Flanagan, and pleasant dreams. If you can sleep.”
She stormed away down the steps, the blue dress billowing behind her like a dirty cloud.
“Should I see her home?” Lars asked.
Justy shook his head. “She wouldn’t thank you if you asked.”
They walked down to Justy’s boarding house.
“So what now?” Lars asked.
“Did you not hear what I said to Kerry?”
Lars grinned. “I heard. But I know you well enough to ken you’ll not let this lie.”
Justy shrugged. “Right now all I know is that I need a bath and a bed, and a surgeon to look at this goddamned knee.”
“The fella who fixed me up isn’t too bad. I’ll take you to see him in the morning.” Lars glanced sympathetically at Hardluck. “It’s a pity we’ll not be able to go in that rig of yours.”
The coachman shrugged. “It was never mine, sir.”
“No, but I meant it to be,” Justy said. “Come with us tomorrow, and I’ll remedy your situation for once and done.”
Hardluck said nothing. He looked lost.
“I can’t have a slave, Hardluck,” Justy said, softly.
The driver nodded. Lars slapped him on the back. “Come on, matey. Let me buy you a drink at Hughson’s. Happen we could find a place for you on board the Netherleigh, a strong fella like yourself. Have you ever thought about going to sea?”
He winked at Justy, and led Hardluck away down the street.
* * *
It was dark in the hallway of Mrs. Chow’s house, and Justy had to fumble to find a match to light the candle in the sconce beside the door. He wiggled the taper free, and walked slowly past the parlor and along the hall.
And then he stopped. The hairs rose on his forearms and the back of his neck. It was a moment before his brain registered what was out of place. A smell. Not the jasmine that Mrs. Chow favored, and not the lingering smells of spice from the kitchen. Something darker.
And then a sensation, the faintest vacuum in the air as the door to the parlor swung back, making the candle flicker.
He did not hesitate. If his knee had not been a wreck, he could have run for it, through the kitchen and out into the back yard. But he knew he could not run five paces without collapsing. So there could be no retreat, only attack.
He turned quickly, threw the candle down the hallway towards the front door, and took two quick steps backwards at the same time. The candle went out, but not before he had seen the dark shape of someone standing just inside the door to the parlor, and the light reflecting on something long and narrow. A sword against his knife. Not bad odds, because they were indoors, which meant close quarters. And the tighter the clutch, the shorter the blade.
He slipped the knife out of his pocket, pressed the metal catch and used his other thumb to ease the blade open under control. It snicked quietly into its housing. He held the blade outwards, level with his waist, and leaned forward, straining his ears. He stared at the doorway to the parlor. The hallway was as dark as a cellar, but he was sure he could see the corners of the door in the blackness. And the shape of a man moving there.
He was coming out. The earthy smell was suddenly much stronger, and Justy realized it was blood he had smelled, mixed with sweat. The darkness seemed to shift again, and then Justy heard the sound of breathing, hoarse and labored.
Gorton.
And then everything changed, because Justy heard the telltale double click of a hammer being cocked, and he realized that Gorton had brought both a sword and a pistol, and that when a man thought to bring one pistol, he often decided to bring two.
Everything happened very slowly. He wasn’t even aware of making a choice, and it was almost as though his body had made the choice for him, his hand flicking the blade underarm, forward into the blackness. He was not conscious of where he threw the knife, only that it seemed to be the right place to aim it.
The pistol fired. Justy was already falling, using the momentum of his throw to carry him out of Gorton’s aim. A long tongue of flame licked at him, scorching his left shoulder as he went down. He rolled to his right, and then sprang to his feet.
Or he would have, had his knee not given way under him. It seemed to take forever to stand, and when he was finally upright, Gorton was on him, wheezing and choking, his fist and the butt of the pistol like an iron flail on Justy’s head and shoulders. Justy shoved hard, driving Gorton back into the darkness of the parlor.
There was the sound of a chair turning over, and then Gorton getting to his feet in the dark. This was Justy’s home, and he knew the layout of the parlor well. Much better than Gorton, who had perhaps taken a single glance around it before putting out his light and waiting in the dark. He thought about how Gorton had fallen through the door and which chair he would have upset. Where he would be standing now. Blind in the darkness, listening.
Justy took a single step forward, until he felt the edge of a rug under his feet. He took a long step right, and then forward again, guided by the back of a chair under his left hand. Gorton was moving too, far to his left, close to the window. He wondered how much damage the candle had done when he had shoved it into Gorton’s throat. And how the hell he had managed to get it out.
Justy took another step forward. He could smell the cold ash in the fireplace. He reached down slowly, his fingers feeling for the poker that was usually left resting against the wall.
The brass felt cool in his hand. He smiled to himself, because he knew now that he had won. He could hear Gorton stepping backwards, uncertain, his boots scraping on the floor where the rug ended. Justy knew exactly where he was. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the parlor, the chairs facing each other, grouped around the low square table in the center of the room. Justy had to take two steps forward and a quarter turn to the left, and he would have an open line of approach. Five fast, hard steps. Maximum aggression. Never mind his damaged knee. Gorton would never know what hit him.
He took the two steps forward. He made the quarter turn. He readied the poker.
For a moment, Justy thought Gorton had fired blind, and the powder in his pistol had somehow lit the room. But the bang was the sound of the front door slamming open. And the illumination was moonlight, streaming in from the hallway. There was Gorton, frozen, his sword in one hand, his pistol in the other. And there was Hardluck, picking himself off the floor of the hall.
Gorton spun around, his pistol swinging up. Justy threw the poker. There was another loud bang, and the room was instantly full of reeking smoke. Justy ran at Gorton, grabbing the candelabra off the table. Gorton spun towards him, swinging hard with his sword. There was an immense clang as Justy caught the blade on the pewter candlestick. Justy went down on his injured knee, his arm numb as far as his elbow. One of the arms had sheared off the candlestick. Gorton raised his sword again. He made a muffled sound. He was laughing. He had dragged the wax taper out of his throat and bandaged the hole. The blood was a black blot on the white cloth.
And then Gorton stopped laughing. His head tilted slightly, as though he was listening for something, and his sword slipped out of his hand, and his knees gave way, and he fell onto one of Mrs. Chow’s uncomfortable chairs.
Hardluck stood behind him, the poker in his hand.
Justy knelt on the floor, his lungs heaving. It was a few moments before he was able to drag himself to his feet, for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day. He staggered to the window and pulled back the heavy drapes, so that the parlor was flooded with moonlight.
Hardluck stood by Gorton’s body, staring at the poker in his hand, and the clotted mess of blood and matter on the handle.
Justy put his hand on the jarvie’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Hardluck nodded, numbly.
Justy took the poker from him. “What brought you back?”
“I wanted to talk to you, about going to the be
ak. I heard the shot, so I charged the door.”
He looked at the body, slumped on the seat of the chair. Gorton had wrapped a rag around the hole in his throat, and stuffed another into his mouth, to staunch the blood from the wound the end of the candle had made when it speared the soft tissue around his nose and his gullet. Justy shivered, imagining the excruciating pain. He opened Gorton’s waistcoat, looking to see if his knife had hit its target. He had missed by a mile. He looked around, and saw it, embedded at head height in the parlor door.
Hardluck groaned, and put his face in his hands.
“Why so maudlin?” Justy asked. “You did a good thing today. Saving my life is only the half of it. That man was the worst kind of criminal, and you stopped him. There will be a reward from the city for that.”
“A reward is no use to a dead man,” Hardluck said, though his fingers.
“A dead man? What are you talking about?”
“I killed a white man, sir. That means mortal trouble for me.”
He was right. A judge would have little sympathy for the argument that Gorton was part of a criminal conspiracy, and had protected a pimp, a slaver, and a swindler, all while pretending to serve the city. He was also a white man, and even following the gradual ban on slavery in New York, the men who ran the city were loath to encourage the idea that a black man could get away with killing a white man, for whatever reason.
And then he smiled.
“Don’t worry.” Justy went to the parlor door and pulled the knife out. He tested the point and folded it away. He patted the big man on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”
FORTY
Friday
The judge studied the papers on the desk in front of him. Roderick Thorne was a dried-up husk of a man, with pale skin speckled with light brown splotches that made it look as though someone had thrown a spoonful of thin beef gruel at him. His eyes were a watery blue, his nose long and hooked. He wore a wig that was at least a size too large, and a coat that was shiny with grease on the lapels and use on the elbows. He smelled of mothballs and dried sweat.
He snorted and picked his nose. “Hardluck. What manner of a name is that?”
Justy said nothing. He knew the judge didn’t expect an answer.
Thorne shifted his ill-fitting wig and glared at Justy. “This seems perfectly clear. The Negro Hardluck killed a man in cold blood. Clearly not a case of self-defense, because his life was not being threatened. Yours was, by your own account. Had you killed the man, self-defense it would have been. But no. This is manslaughter.”
Justy had spent most of the night dealing with the situation at his boarding house. He had first hunted for Mrs. Chow, and found her in her bedroom, gagged and bound, but otherwise unscathed. She had calmly gone to the kitchen to make tea. Hays had appeared, but said nothing to Justy, other than to instruct him to appear before the duty judge in the morning.
Justy was not under suspicion. Hays had provided a written statement testifying that Gorton had been a turncoat, that he had clearly threatened Justy’s life, and that Justy could produce witnesses if required. The problem was Hardluck. But Justy knew the law, and the law was on Hardluck’s side.
“New York versus Cullen, Your Honor,” he said.
The old man’s head snapped up, so fast that his wig slid down his brow. He pushed it back up. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Cullen was a slave, owned by a Johan de Vries, of Orange. He shot a man named Thomas Stark—”
“I know the damned decision, man! What of it?”
“Then you’ll know that de Vries believed Stark was going to kill him. Just as I believed Gorton was going to kill me.”
“And?”
“Well, Your Honor, as you’ll recall, the court ruled that a slave is the extension of the hand of his master. Therefore, when Cullen killed Stark, he was acting as de Vries’ own hand. And because de Vries was in fear for his life, the killing was therefore self-defense.”
The splotches on the judge’s face had darkened. “I fail to see what this has to do with the case at hand, Mister Flanagan.”
Justy smiled. “Hardluck is my slave.”
Thorne’s face sagged. “What?”
“My slave, Your Honor. And as you noted, I was in fear for my life. Which means when he killed Gorton, he was acting in self-defense.”
“This is preposterous!”
“Not at all. I am his legal owner. The papers…” He pulled two envelopes from the inside of his coat, opened one and laid a document on the table.
Thorne read it, grunting and mumbling to himself. “Piers Riker? This very week?”
“Yes.”
The judge looked up, a mean look creasing his face. “In which case, the offense is doubled. The purchase or sale of slaves is illegal in New York, so if this document is true, it means you have broken the law. Moreover, because the traffic in slaves is illegal in this state, the transaction is legally void, which means the Negro named Hardluck is not your property. Making him guilty. As are you, Mister Flanagan. Guilty of buying a slave. A trifling offense, in comparison, but one which carries with it a significant fine.” He pushed the document across the table.
Justy pushed it back. “Except that Hardluck was not sold. He was a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Indeed, Your Honor. No money changed hands.” Which wasn’t quite true, but if it came to it, he could argue the technicality. That he had wagered for the carriage, and Hardluck had been added to the prize without his knowledge.
The judge’s face was pinched, his eyes and mouth drawn tight around his nose. “And Mister Riker will testify accordingly?”
“He will.”
A long pause. “Well, in that case, I suppose…”
“May I order him released?”
Thorne cleared his throat. He rubbed his hands dry on his lapels. “Yes. Yes, you may.”
Justy turned to the guard standing behind him at the door. “Bring up the prisoner that goes by the name Hardluck.”
The man nodded and disappeared.
Justy waited.
“Why the devil are you loitering?” the judge snapped.
“Just one more piece of business, Your Honor.”
“Well, then, out with it. There is still a great deal of the city’s business to do.”
“Of course.” He opened the second envelope. He made a show of reading the papers. The judge held out his hand. “Come on!”
“Just a moment.” Justy leafed through the pages until he heard the sound of boots on the floors of the hallway behind him. Then he handed over four sheets of paper to the judge. “Certificates of emancipation, Your Honor.” He smiled. “For the Negro, Hardluck.”
The judge snatched the papers up. The blotches on his face seemed to swell as he read the documents, and then read them again. But Justy had been careful. He had come in at dawn and got to work ensuring the papers were correct in every detail.
The footsteps stopped behind him. The guard held Hardluck tight by the arm. The jarvie looked disheveled. His face was grizzled with stubble, his eyes were red. He wore a loose shift and his shoes, and nothing more, which told Justy the Watch had come for him in the night, and not done him the courtesy of letting him dress. But then, he was a slave, and a Negro and a presumed murderer, so that was not surprising.
“You may let him go,” Justy said, and the guard reluctantly loosed his grip. Hardluck stared into the room. Justy nodded and turned back to the judge.
“You wish to give up all legal rights to this man and set him free?” Thorne asked the formal question. His tone was grudging.
“Yes,” Justy replied.
Ink splashed as Thorne jabbed his pen into its well. He scribbled at the bottom of the first document, and then the second. He paused at the third, and gave Justy a baleful look.
“Just in case, My Lord,” Justy said.
The judge signed the remaining two certificates and pushed the papers away. Justy examined them. D
ate, name, title, signature. He could feel Thorne twitching and boiling a few feet away. He ignored him. He wanted to make sure there were no errors. He handed one of the documents to Hardluck. The second and third he folded and put in his pocket. The last he placed back on the judge’s table.
“This one’s for you. For your records.” He smiled. “Your Honor.”
FORTY-ONE
Justy and Hardluck walked slowly down the stairs to the mezzanine above the lobby. It was crammed with petitioners hoping to see the Mayor, who once a month held a special session to hear appeals against City rulings. A long line snaked around the ornate stone floor, men and women of all sorts, from wealthy merchants in fur-lined coats to servants dressed in their black-and-whites. Everyone was chattering, complaining, hurling insults, laughing. The noise was deafening, like a huge waterfall, amplified by the acoustics in the high-ceilinged lobby. Justy had the impression of a hundred birds in a nest, all with their beaks wide open.
Hardluck was staring at the paper in his hand.
“Can you read?” Justy asked.
“A little, sir. The Rikers like their people to have their letters.”
“So you know what it says. You’re free. You don’t have to answer to anyone, anymore.”
The big driver had tears in his eyes. “I’m grateful, sir. But—”
“I know, you said before, you’re frightened about making your way. But I believe you will, carriage or no. So until you get your feet under you, you’ll stay at Hughson’s, on my account.”
“I can’t let you do that, sir!”
“It’s the least I can do. I burned that carriage, after all, and my intent was to give it to you.”
“I’ll pay you back, sir. I promise you.”
Justy grinned. “I believe you would, but there’s no call. Now, there is one more thing for you to do here. It might be better if you were dressed, but this can’t wait.” He was still holding the second envelope. He took three sheets of paper from it. “You need a new name.”
“Sir?”
