The Coffee Trader (30 page)

Miguel swallowed hard. At last this money would be his. And he had won—something that happened far too infrequently of late. “I agree,” he said.

Ricardo sighed. “Very well. Understand that my client instructed me very clearly to keep this information a secret. It was not my choice or my doing.”

“Just give me the name.”

“I said I would. The name,” he said, “is Daniel Lienzo.” He let out a squealing little laugh. “It is rather funny, when you think about it. He put the squeeze on you for the thousand you had borrowed of him, but all the while he owed you more than twice that. He has been lording it over you because you are in his debt, but these past weeks he has been your debtor. Do you find that as amusing as I do?”

Miguel picked up a stack of papers and threw them at Ricardo, scattering his notes and ledgers and correspondence all over the room. By doing so he hoped to indicate that he did not, in fact, find it as amusing as Ricardo did.

29

Miguel had known that Daniel’s finances were in trouble, but he had not known to what extent. All his sneering, all his grumblings about Miguel’s dealing in mischief when he was making mischief of his own—Miguel could forgive that; he could forgive the superiority and the judgmental glares. He could not forgive Daniel for taking money—for stealing money—when he knew his brother needed it.

But even with his resentment, Miguel did not dare to speak of it. He did not dare to complain, because until he resolved this coffee matter one way or another, he could not risk moving from his brother’s house, a move that would attract far too much notice.

Some days later, Annetje came again to Miguel’s study with an announcement that would have been far more shocking if it had been unprecedented. Joachim Waagenaar was at the door and wished to meet with him.

Joachim climbed down the narrow stairs using one hand to steady himself, the other to clutch his hat. He stumbled when he reached the floor, teetering like a drunkard.

“Well, now, senhor, I see things have come full circle. As the saying goes, a bird always returns to the place of its nest.”

Joachim was not so drunk as he had first seemed. An idea came into his head: Joachim had drunk just enough to give himself courage. But courage for what? Once more, Miguel looked for anything that could be used to protect himself.

“Is this your nest?” Miguel asked. “I hardly think so.”

“I disagree.” Joachim sat without being asked. “I feel like this very room is where I was born—the me I have become. And what I have become—even I hardly know that now.”

“Is that what you came to say?”

“No. Only that I’ve been thinking, and in a strange way I’ve decided you may be the greatest friend I have right now. Strange, isn’t it? Once we were—well, not friends really, but friendly like. Then we were enemies. I’ll take most of the blame for that, though my anger was justified; I’m sure you know that. And now we are friends at last. True friends, I mean. The kind who must look after each other.”

“How do you come to such an unusual conclusion?”

“Very simple, senhor. I have information you want. I have information from which you can make a great deal of money. In fact, I have information that will save you from ruin. I cannot help but fear you may be too much of a fool to take it, but just the same I have it and I am willing to share it.”

“And for this information you want the five hundred guilders of which I’ve heard so much?”

The Dutchman laughed. “I want instead a piece of your profit. You see the joke, I hope. I want my success, my fortune, once again to be bound with yours.”

“I see.” Miguel took a deep breath. He hardly even recognized his own life anymore. Here he sat, in his cellar, negotiating with Joachim Waagenaar. Were he to be caught doing so, in all likelihood Solomon Parido would argue to the Ma’amad that the crime should be forgiven. The world had become an unknown wilderness.

Joachim shook his head. “You don’t see, Lienzo, but you will. Here is what I propose: I agree to give you information from which you will make wondrous profits. If I’m right, you give me ten percent of what you make because of that information—a broker’s fee, shall we call it? If I am wrong, you owe me nothing, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“Aren’t you overlooking an important detail?”

“What detail is that?”

Miguel swallowed. “That you are a madman, and nothing you say can be trusted.”

Joachim nodded, as though Miguel had made a sage point of law. “I’ll ask you to trust me now. I’m never been a madman, only a ruined man. Can you say what would become of you, senhor, if you lost everything—if you had no money, no home, no food? Can you say that you would not fall victim to the lunacy of desperation?”

Miguel said nothing.

“I’ve never wanted revenge,” Joachim continued, “only what’s mine, and I’ll not sit by and watch one man destroy another for the pleasure of it. I’ve no love for you. I suppose you know that, but I’ve learned what ruin is. I’ll not bring it on another.”

Joachim now had Miguel’s full attention. “I’m listening.”

“You’ll have to do more than listen. You’ll have to agree.”

“Suppose I listen to what you have to say and don’t believe you?”

“That’s well and good, but if you decide that you do believe me, and you act on that information, you’ll have to give me ten percent of what you make.”

“Or?”

“There’s no
or,
” Joachim said. “There can be no more threats between us. I’ll not make you sign a contract; I know you risk ruin if you put something on paper with one of us. I will leave it to your own sense of what a gentleman should do.”

Miguel took a gulp of his wine. Joachim no longer spoke like a madman. Would Parido’s coin be enough to drive the evil vapors from his brain, or could only Joachim’s own clarity and determination do that? “I’ll listen.”

Joachim breathed in deeply. “You have any of that wine for me? Or maybe some beer?”

“I’m not your host, Joachim. Speak or get out.”

“There’s no need to be so unfriendly, senhor. You’ll be serving me drinks aplenty when you listen to what I have to say.” He paused again. “All right, then. You see, last time I came to you, I was not entirely honest about what I wanted. As it happens, I fell in with this man who sent me here to do his bidding.”

“Solomon Parido,” Miguel said. “You might as easily have brought him with you for all that I was fooled.”

“I suspected you knew, but I didn’t say a word to him. I was already thinking about what might come of our sad partnership, and I figured you told me what you did because you wanted him to believe it. I had already begun to hate him more than I hate you, so I held my tongue.”

“Let’s take this path more slowly. How did you find yourself in Parido’s employ?”

“He’s a tricky one. He came to me, said he knew I’d been following you through the town, and said he knew why. He said maybe we could do some business together. He was very kind to me. He even gave me ten guilders and told me he would come see me in a week’s time. A week goes by, and he wants me to start coming to talk to you. I tell him I won’t do such a thing, that things have taken a turn for the worse between us. I admit I only wanted to hear what he might offer me. But he offers me nothing. He tells me that if I feel that way, he would just as soon I repaid that loan and its interest, and that would be all between us. I told him I couldn’t repay the loan, and he began to threaten me with the Rasphuis. He knows men on the City Council, he says, who will lock me away without cause or regret, and perhaps raise some questions about how I had been released so quick after my previous detention. I had no desire to return to that dungeon, I can tell you.”

“Go on.”

“So I do what he tells me for a while, but all the time I’m thinking about what I might do for myself, which, as it turns out, has a lot to do with what I might do for you. I liked the little trick you tried to play, by the way, but he didn’t believe it. When I told him what you had said to me, he said that of all the Conversos he knew, you were the one best made to be a liar.”

Miguel said nothing.

Joachim rubbed his sleeve against his nose. “In any case, I managed to fit a few things together. You know someone named Nunes, a trader in goods from the East Indies?”

Miguel nodded, for the first time really believing that Joachim might have some information of importance.

“This Nunes works for Parido. There’s something to do with a shipment of coffee, a drink I had once, by the way, and very much despised for its pisslike taste.”

Nunes working for Parido? How could that be? Why would his friend betray him?

“What about the shipment?” Miguel spoke so quietly he could hardly hear himself.

“Nunes lied to you—told you a shipment is late, never obtained, or such nonsense that he concocted—but it’s all false. They changed the ship, so it’s on something called the
Sea Lily
,
which near as I can tell is to come in next week. I don’t know much more than that, except that Parido doesn’t want you to learn this and he wants to do something with the prices.”

Miguel began to pace about the room, only vaguely aware that Joachim stared at him. Parido and Nunes together! He would not have thought Nunes such a traitor, but it explained a great deal. If Nunes was Parido’s creature, he would have reported Miguel’s sale. Parido would then have begun conspiring to find ways to ruin Miguel while simultaneously making money himself. But Parido knew only about the coffee itself and how Miguel had gambled on its price falling. Perhaps he did not know about the plan to establish a monopoly. The shape of the scheme eluded him, but Miguel knew he had to assume one thing: if Geertruid did work for Parido also, she had not told Parido all she knew.

“You mentioned Geertruid Damhuis to me before. Does she work for Parido?” Miguel asked, hoping he might resolve the question forever.

“You’d be wise to keep clear of that one.”

“What do you know of her?”

“Only that she’s a thief and a trickster, she and her companion both.”

“That much I already know. What does Parido have to do with her?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Nothing that I am aware. Two such jackals could never run in the same pack. I’ve only heard him say he knows you have some business with her.”

Miguel returned to his seat. If Geertruid did not work for Parido, what was her plan and why had it been necessary for her to deceive him into a friendship? Perhaps Joachim did not know all of Parido’s secrets. He might have hired her and then realized she had been deceiving him as well as Miguel. He could make no sense of it, but it seemed likely that Parido had only a murky idea at best of his plans with Geertruid. “What about my brother?” Miguel asked at last, blurting out the words before he had fully realized his intentions.

“Your brother?”

“Yes. What do you know of his relationship with Parido? Have you heard him speak the name of Daniel Lienzo?”

Joachim shook his head. “What a sad affair when a man cannot even trust his own brother. I suppose it has ever been thus among your people. Only look at Cain and Abel.”

“Cain and Abel were not Jews,” Miguel said testily, “they were merely the sons of Adam and, as such, your ancestors as much as mine.”

“I’ll be careful not to quote you scripture again. But as for your brother, I can tell you nothing. I know he spends a great deal of time with Parido, but you know that yourself. You want to know if he acts against your interests, but I can’t tell you.”

“And the pig’s head? Parido’s doing or yours?”

Joachim’s lips parted just a little. “Both,” he said.

Miguel paused for a moment to feel justified. Daniel had thought Miguel the villain for bringing down such horrors on his house, but the
parnass
was the villain all along. “How is it that Parido was so foolish as to speak of all of this in front of you? He may well have sent you to me with this information.”

“He may have,” Joachim said. “I’d wonder the same thing if I were you. But I don’t see what he would have to gain by giving you this information. Once the
Sea Lily
docks it will be easy enough to pay a sailor to crack open a barrel and tell you what is inside.”

“You haven’t answered my first question. Why would he reveal all this to you?”

“He wouldn’t,” Joachim said. “At least he wouldn’t intend to. After all, who would suspect a half-mad Dutchman of understanding the language of Portuguese Jews?”

Miguel laughed in spite of himself. “In a city like Amsterdam,” he said, repeating what Joachim once told him, “one must never assume that a man does not understand the language you speak.”

“It’s still good advice,” Joachim agreed.

“I’ll have to think very carefully about what you have told me.” It could all be a lie, he told himself. Another of Parido’s tricks. But what trick? What trick would be worth revealing to Miguel this web of deception? He could bring Nunes before the courts now if he chose; no one would blame Miguel for not trusting this matter to the Ma’amad. Would Parido have knowingly given Joachim such powerful information?

Miguel looked at Joachim, who now appeared for all the world his old self—twitchy and uneasy, but no madman. It must be true, he told himself. A sane man could fake madness, but a madman could never trick the world into thinking him sensible. Money had brought Joachim back to his senses.

“You think, then,” Joachim said. “But I ask you to give me your word. If you choose to act on what I’ve told you, and these acts turn to profit, will you give me ten percent of what you make?”

“If I find you have told me the truth and acted with honor, I’ll do so gladly.”

“Then I am content.” He stood. He looked at Miguel for a moment.

Miguel opened his purse and handed him a few guilders. “Don’t spend it all at the taverns,” he said.

“What I do with it is my concern,” Joachim said defiantly. He stopped halfway up the stairs. “And you may take it out of the ten percent if you like.”

Having concluded his business, Joachim bade Miguel a good afternoon, but Miguel followed him up the stairs for no reason other than that he did not like the idea of Joachim wandering around the house unescorted. At the top of the stairs, Miguel heard the swish of skirts before he saw Hannah as she hurried away. The panic that burst in his chest dissipated almost immediately. Hannah spoke not a word of Dutch; she might listen all she liked, but it would hardly tell her anything.

After Miguel had seen Joachim out, however, Hannah awaited his return in the hallway. “That man,” she said softly. “He was the one who attacked us on the street.”

“He didn’t attack you,” Miguel said wearily, half staring at the swell of her belly, “but yes, it’s the same man.”

“What business can you have with such a devil?” she asked.

“Sadly,” he told her, “a devilish business.”

“I don’t understand.” She spoke softly, but she held herself with a new confidence. “Do you think because you know my secret you may intrude upon my good sense?”

Miguel took a step forward, just enough to suggest an intimacy. “Oh, no, senhora. I would never behave thus to you. I know it appears unusual, but the world”—he let out a sigh—“the world is a more complicated place than you realize.”