I bowed to her. “Far too many, and yet while I have aged, you look no different than when last I saw you. I trust you are well?”
So went our exchange of nothings. She, politely, made no mention of my having been disgraced since I last saw her. Very polite woman. After a moment of this, Hamilton excused himself from his wife and pulled me a few feet away. “What are you doing here?”
“I did not mention I was invited? It’s strange. You know, sometimes I think we are not so close as we used to be.”
“Saunders, I don’t want you muddling things. You have no business here. I don’t want you making enemies.”
“What do you care if I make enemies or no?”
“I don’t want you making enemies for me,” he clarified.
“Oh,” I said, noting that his eyes moved past me to nearly the other end of the room where stood a man of about the same stature of Hamilton. He had red hair and a handsome face that beamed with pleasure, in no small part, I thought, because he was surrounded by a small group of men who appeared to hover over his every word.
“Why, that’s Mr. Jefferson,” I said, more loudly than Hamilton would have wished for.
“Please leave,” Hamilton said.
“You know,” I said, “if you did not wish Jefferson and his minions to associate the two of us together, all you had to do was ignore me. Now here we are in close conversation. Looks quite bad for you.”
“That is the least of my worries,” he told me. “I want you to go.”
Across the room, Jefferson appeared to note Hamilton ’s attention, and the Secretary of State offered the Secretary of the Treasury a stiff bow. As Hamilton returned it, the hatred between the two seemed to me an almost physical force, as solid as steel, as hot as the sun. If a man had stepped between their searing gazes, he would surely have been incinerated.
Jefferson looked away, and I turned to say something to Hamilton, but he too had walked away, having wasted, perhaps, enough energy on me already. I could not help but think there was something of a kindness in his words, as though he had asked me to leave for my own good rather than his own, and I wondered if I ought to take it to heart. I continued to wonder as I crossed the room, and I might have kept on wondering to the point of departure if I had not observed the man I had come to molest.
Huddled with a small group of men was Mr. Duer, and his rugged associate was nowhere to be seen. I took a glass of wine from a passing servant, finished it, found another, and began to approach the speculator.
I had not gone more than a step or two before I was joined by Mr. Lavien, who moved along as though we had been by each other’s side all night. “Shall we?” he asked.
“I did not think you were invited,” I said.
“I know for certain you were not,” he answered.
We strode toward Duer, who was engaged in conversation with a trio of men, two of whom were unfamiliar to me, though I recognized the third as Bob Morris, perhaps the wealthiest man in America, in whose Philadelphia mansion George Washington lived and worked. An unapologetic speculator, Morris had grown rich off the Revolution and even richer in its aftermath. Even this capacious cormorant hung upon Duer’s every word.
Now that I had a chance to study him, Duer appeared even smaller and more fragile. He was as delicate as a statue made of glass, and his little body suggested smallness the way the night suggests darkness. I had the distinct impression of towering over him, though he was only slightly shorter than Lavien. Finely dressed in a trim suit of navy blue velvet with bright gold buttons, he was a dandyish-looking fellow, whose hair was cut into one of those unnatural short bobs then fashionable. It looked for all the world as though someone had dropped a pyramid of hair, from a great height, to land upon his head.
Upon seeing us, Duer turned to his companions. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me. Even at such a pleasant gathering as this, there are unpleasant duties to which I must attend.”
His courtiers disappeared, and we had the great speculator to ourselves. He prepared himself to say something dismissive, something intended to introduce and conclude our conversation in a single stroke. I understood the look of determination upon his face, and I jumped in just as the corners of his mouth twitched. I would not let him take a position from which he would find it hard to retrench.
“I am sorry,” I said, before he could utter a sound, “if I approached you too abruptly the other day, sir. Allow me to say I have long admired you, if only from afar. I am also sorry if you have been troubled in the past by this fellow Lavien. He is troublesome, I daresay.”
“In the capacity of serving his master, yes, even though his master is an old friend of mine. Even so-”
“Even so,” I interrupted-always a risky move, but I aimed to show Duer I was more his man than he was himself-“there is a time and a place for everything and this is not the time for pushy Hebrews to be troubling men at so glorious a gathering. Do you know, Mr. Duer, that he has not even an invitation to be here? I know, it is scandalous. Oh, don’t look that way, Mr. Lavien, if we were to insert ourselves into a secret gathering of the high Pharisees, I am sure we would be made to feel as unwelcome as we must, alas, make you under these circumstances. So be so kind as run along, there’s a good fellow. Find yourself some unleavened bread and perhaps something porkless to put upon it.”
Lavien, who never betrayed a feeling without first calculating its efficacy, now wore upon his face a mask of anger and humiliation. We had discussed nothing in advance, but he allowed me to pursue my course without hesitation, and I could not help but think how well it would be if our partnership could be formalized. What great work we could do for our nation! I watched as he wandered off, demonstrating his fictional chagrin with countenance and body language. I, for my part, set aside my glass of wine.
“What is your connection to that man?” Duer asked me.
“Oh, it is a silly thing, really,” I said. “I have, through a series of obligations with which I shan’t trouble you, decided to look into the disappearance of Mr. Pearson-a favor for a friend of a friend of the gentleman-and that man Lavien has set himself as my rival. I believe he attempts to curry favor with Colonel Hamilton, and it is a most irritating thing to look upon. Now, I admire Hamilton as much as the next man, but he has been curious in his choice of whom to employ and, if I may be so bold, whom not to. Those first few months, when you were taking charge of things at Treasury, were the most productive, I think.”
He bowed. “You are kind to say so.”
I was quite astonished to discover how prone he was to flattery, but I knew it was a hand that must not be overplayed. “Not at all, not at all. Now, if you don’t mind, a question or two. I promise to make it quite painless, and you may always decline to answer. An easy thing between gentlemen-Christian gentlemen, I should say.” That we together could have the joy of drawing a circle on the ground in which Lavien could not step was enough to satisfy Duer.
“I shall do my best to help you,” he said.
“So good of you, but no more than I expected. Now, to the matter of Pearson. Can you tell me more about your dealings with him?”
“Oh, it is no great secret,” said Duer. “He and I did some little business together, and though Pearson was desirous of doing more, he was never to my taste. Our paths crossed most significantly over a matter of property. He had some investments in a project of mine to buy and sell and hold leases on the western border of this state.”
“You two dealt with war debt, did you not?” I affected an easy attitude, concealing the disgust I felt for a man who would cheat veterans out of their promise of payment when they had held on to their promissory notes for a decade or more.