Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

are several freedmen in New York, including the barber Micah Reynaud, there is a precedent to be followed. Put your money up, I'll call Evelyn over.' He raised a hand for the waitress and the bill.

'A precedent, yes,' Matthew agreed, 'but every slave granted manumission was so approved before Lord Cornbury came. I'm wondering if he can be induced to sign a writ.'

'First things first. Put your money up. You're done, aren't you?'

Matthew's hesitation spoke volumes, and Greathouse leaned back in his chair with a whuff of exhaled breath. 'Don't tell me you have no money. Again.'

'I won't, then.' Matthew almost shrugged but he decided it would be risking Greathouse's wrath, which was not pretty.

'I shouldn't stand for you,' Greathouse said as Evelyn came to the table. 'This will be the third time in a week.' He smiled tightly at the waitress as he took the bill, looked it over and paid her the money. 'Thank you, dear,' he told her. 'Don't take any wooden duits.'

She gave that little bell-like laugh and went about her business.

'You're spending too much on your damned clothes,' Greathouse said, standing up from his chair. 'What's got your money now? Those new boots?'

Matthew also stood up and retrieved his tricorn from its hook. 'I've had expenses.' The boots were to be paid off in four installments. He was half paid on his most recent suit, and still owed money on some shirts from Benjamin Owles. But they were such fine shirts, in chalk white and bird's-egg blue with frills on the front and cuffs. Again, the latest fashion as worn by young men of means. Why should I not have them, he thought, if I wish to make a good impression!

'Your business is your business,' Greathouse said as they walked through the tavern toward the door. 'Until it starts taking money out of my pocket. I'm keeping count of all this, you know.'

They were nearly at the door when a middle-aged woman with thickly-curled gray hair under a purple hat and an exuberant, sharp-nosed face rose from the table she shared with two other ladies to catch Matthew's sleeve. 'Oh, Mr. Corbett! A word, please!'

'Yes, madam?' He knew Mrs. Iris Garrow, wife of Stephen Garrow the Duke Street horn merchant.

'I wanted to ask if you might sign another copy of the Earwig for me, at your convenience? Sorry to say, Stephen accidentally used the first copy I had to kill a cockroach, and I've boxed his ears for it!'

'I'll be glad to, madam.'

'Any new adventures to report?' breathlessly asked one of the other ladies, Anna Whitakker by name and wife to the Dock Ward alderman.

'No,' Greathouse answered, with enough force to shake the cups of tea on their table. He grasped Matthew's elbow and pushed him out the door. 'Good morning to you!'

Outside on Nassau Street, in the cool breeze with the silver sunlight beaming down, Matthew reflected that one might be a celebrity one day and the next have cockroach entrails smeared across one's name. The better to wear nice clothes, hold your head up high and luxuriate in fame, while it lasted.

'There's one more thing,' Greathouse told him, stopping before they'd moved very far from Sally Almond's door. 'I wish to know the extent of Zed's intelligence. How much he can grasp of English, for instance. How quickly he might be taught. You can help me.'

'Help you how?' Matthew instantly knew he was going to regret asking.

'You know a teacher,' Greathouse answered. When Matthew didn't immediately respond, he prodded: 'Who helps Headmaster Brown at the school.'

Berry Grigsby, of course. Matthew stepped aside to get out of the way of a passing wagon that pulled a buff- colored bull to market.

'I want her opinion. Bring yourself and your lady friend to City Hall at four o'clock. Come up to McCaggers' attic.'

'Oh, she'll love that!' Matthew could picture Berry up in that attic, where McCaggers kept his skeletons and grisly relics of the coroner's craft. She'd be out of there like a cannonball shot from a twelve-pounder.

'She doesn't have to love it, and neither do you. Just be there.' Greathouse narrowed his eyes and looked north along Nassau. 'I have an errand to run, and it may take me awhile. I presume you have something to do today that doesn't require the risk of your life?'

'I'll find something.' There were always the detailed reports of past cases that Matthew was scribing. Once a clerk, always so.

'Four o'clock, then,' said Greathouse, and began to stride north along the street, against the morning traffic.

Matthew watched him go. I have an errand to run. Something was up. Greathouse was on the hunt. Matthew could almost see him sniffing the air. He was in his element, a wolf among sheep. On a case, was he? Who was the client? If so, he was keeping it a secret from Matthew. Well, so was Matthew keeping a secret. Two secrets, really: the blood card and the amount of debt he was carrying.

A third secret, as well.

Your lady friend, Greathouse had said.

Would that it were more, Matthew thought. But in his situation, in his dangerous profession, with the blood card laid upon him

Lady friend would have to do.

When he'd watched Greathouse out of sight, Matthew turned south along Nassau. He walked toward Number Seven Stone Street, where he would spend the morning scribing in his journal and from time to time pausing to mark what might have been the faint laughter of distant ghosts.

Four

Clouds moved across the blue sky, and the sunlight shone down upon villages and hills daubed with red, gold and copper. As the day progressed, so did the affairs of New York. A ship with its white sails flying came in past Oyster Island to make fast at the Great Dock. Higglers selling from their pushcarts a variety of items including sweetmeats, crackling skins and roasted chestnuts did a lively business, drawing an audience for their wares with young girls who danced to the bang and rattle of tambourines. A mule decided to show its force of will as it hauled a brickwagon along the Broad Way, and its subsequent stubborn immobility caused a traffic jam that frayed tempers and set four men to fighting until buckets of water poured on their heads cooled their enthusiasm. A group of Iroquois who had come to town to sell deerskins watched this entertainment solemnly but laughed behind their hands.

Several women and the occasional man visited the cemetery that stood behind a black iron fence alongside Trinity Church. There in the shade of the yellow trees, a flower or a quiet word was delivered to a loved one who had journeyed on from this earthly vale. Not much time was taken to linger here, however, for all knew that God accepted the worthy pilgrims with open arms, and life indeed was for the living.

Fishing boats in the rivers pulled up nets shimmering with striped bass, shad, flounder and snapper. The ferry between Van Dam's shipyard on King Street and the landing over the Hudson in Weehawken was always active for travelers and traders, who often found that the winds or currents could make even such a simple trip a three-hour adventure.

Across the city the multitudinous fires of commerce-be they from blacksmith's furnaces or tallow chandler's pots-burned brightly all the day, sending their signatures of smoke up through a mason's delight of chimneys. Closer to earth, workmen labored at new buildings that showed the northward progress of civilization. The boom of mallets and scrape of sawblades seemed never ceasing, and caused several of the eldest Dutch residents to recall the quiet of the good old days.

Of particular interest was the fact that the new mayor, Phillip French, was a solid, foursquare individual whose aim was to put his shoulder to the wheel and get more of the city's streets paved with cobblestones; this enterprise, too, was directed northward past Wall Street, but as it cost money from the treasury, the task was being currently stalled in paperwork by Governor Lord Cornbury, who was seldom seen in public these days outside