by David Liss
Experience a heart-pumping and thrilling tale of suspense!
Originally published in THRILLER (2006),
edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author James Patterson.
In this Thriller Short, New York Times bestseller David Liss returns to eighteenth-century London with his flawed and fearless character Benjamin Weaver, who shines in a different light through this complicated tale.
An old man named Fisher pays someone to write down his story, a story that relates his first brush with Benjamin Weaver. Weaver was committing a robbery when Fisher swooped in and stole the plunder. Both escape, and Fisher soon realizes that an angry Weaver has painted a target on his back. But as time passes, Fisher believes that Weaver has moved on, so he finds a new partner, and they both take up thievery. But, of course, Weaver hasn’t forgotten…
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The Double Dealer by David Liss
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The Double Dealer
David Liss
CONTENTS
The Double Dealer
DAVID LISS
David Liss’s first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper began with what may have been an unlikely inspiration for a thriller: his ongoing doctoral work on the 18th century British novel and its relationship to emerging modes of finance. Liss succeeded by showing how the rise of paper currency was surrounded by an air of mystery, danger, urgency and cultural paranoia, but he also succeeded because of his intrepid protagonist, Benjamin Weaver, a daring and reckless thief-taker—roughly a combination of modern-day private eye, police-officer-for-hire and hired muscle. Weaver’s fearlessness on the lawless streets of 18th century London, and his willingness to meet danger head-on, won the character many fans, and he returned in A Spectacle of Corruption and will be back again in The Devil’s Company.
Liss has stated in interviews that he tremendously enjoys writing about Weaver and the violent and colorful world he inhabits, but he feels the need to divide his time between that character and his stand-alone thrillers, The Coffee Trader and The Ethical Assassin. Unfortunately, between writing more tales of Weaver and the time required to explore other interests, Liss has had no time to pursue a project that has interested him since completing Conspiracy—a story set in the same world inhabited by Weaver but focusing on other characters—with Weaver occupying the role of secondary figure.
Until now, that is.
The Double Dealer has at its center an aging highwayman who wants to tell one last story before he dies, the story of an encounter years ago with the young Benjamin Weaver, once a highwayman himself. The fun in a project like this, according to Liss, is to rethink some of the most basic ideas of a recurring character in order to see him anew. Liss enjoys writing about flawed protagonists and sympathetic villains because in real life no one is perfect or perfectly bad, and everyone is the hero of his or her own story.
The Double Dealer has given Liss the chance to present his ongoing hero as the villain of someone else’s story.
THE DOUBLE DEALER
I’m old and like to die soon, and no one will care when I do, and that’s the truth. But I’ve a story to tell before I go, and I’ve paid this here gaunt scholar fellow with a face of a rotten apple to write it down. I aim to make him read it back, too, as I don’t trust him and I’ll not pay a penny until I like what I hear.
It ain’t often I like what I hear. Them newspapers are full three, four, maybe five times a year of the great deeds of that worthless Jew, Benjamin Weaver—that great man, what done this favor for the ministry, or that for the mighty Duke or Arse-Wipe or good Squire Milksop. Old as he is, he’s still at it. They forget, they do, but old Fisher don’t forget. I recollect it all, as I crossed with him when we was both young and he was no better than me—maybe worse, for his being a Jew withal.
It ain’t no secret, but not oft spoke of neither, that time was this hero, a “thief-taker,” claims to make streets safe for the likes of what calls themselves ordinary man. No better than one of my number, a prig and one of the highway, and he’d have been at ease with the shitten likes of any blackguard cutpurse.
The world remembers that he was once a pugilist, and lived by his fists. They know him now as some kind of do-gooder, but there was a time between that, when his fighting days was done, and he ain’t yet figured out this thief-taking lay. I know all about it, and I aim to make it public.
So, I begin with a piss-rainy autumn day, maybe 1717 or ’18—maybe ’19 or ’20. Can’t say as I quite recall, being as I said old and having blood come out both me lungs and me arse. But that ain’t your concern. Yours is that when I was young I come ’pon a handsomely dressed spark finishing his business with a mighty fine-looking equipage—lonely all of them, on a nice, ripe deserted stretch of highway. He had in his hands a sack full of coins and jewels and mighty pretty things, and then said his farewells to a pair of ugly bitches, past thirty, and so good for nothing. He charmed them, though, as he called himself Gentleman Ben, and they blushed and bat their eyelashes like he were a spark at a dance and not the man what bound up their coachman and took their precious dainties. His partner, a fellow called Thomas Lane, were some twenty feet down the road, keeping his eye sharp for trouble.
These two were like brothers, never thinking to do a lay, one without the other. They even looked alike, with their dark hair, tall stature and wide backs, both. And that’s the thing, ain’t it? You don’t want to mess with these sorts of prigs, these coves what are never one without the other, these sparks what come to be like blood, for you do wrong by the one, you must surely face the other.
So it was that I rode close to Thomas Lane (though I didn’t hear his name ’til later). The other one, what I learned was Weaver, was at the equipage, making pretty talk to the ladies. The sun, peeking through them clouds, were before me, and I couldn’t see Lane’s face all clear, but I could see it crumpled well enough and I knew he’d had enough and more of Weaver’s fripperies with these hags. He were looking back ’pon Weaver and not forward to me, so that he never heard me nor saw me neither, and I rode real quiet, as I trained my horse to do, and snuck up to him all silent like and pummeled him hard in his head. He fell over but not down, and so I struck him in the head again, and once again in that very same pate to make certain he stayed quiet, and this plan worked well enough, for this last blow, I later heard, quite killed him,
but I didn’t think so then. All I knowed was that he made not a sound more, and that contented me.
I had no plan to kill him. He weren’t no friend of mine, but he was a brother prig, and I meant no more but his silence. Still, once it were done, there could be no helping it. No tears will squeeze the breath back into him, will it?
Now, coming from the other way were my friend and partner in these affairs, a spark called Ruddy Dick. There were some three or four fellows I regularly engaged with for my adventures, but none were more trusted by me than old Dick, an aged fellow, as I thought then, though some twenty years my junior to where I am now. So, I catch old Dick’s eye, and we know at once the lay, for we were longtime friends, like I said.
This Weaver might have not been keeping his wits about him, but those what he robbed were, and they saw the freaks I played ’pon Thomas Lane. They pointed and cried out, as though these two highwaymen were friends and I the enemy. Never once did they presume I come to save them, but that’s the curse of this here face, even more terrible when I was young, if you’ll credit that.
With the hags crying out and then taking shelter in their coach, I turn to this gentleman bandit, and I shout to him. I say, “Ho, my spark, I’m afeard I’ve quite bludgeoned your fellow, and I’m afeard you’re next.”
Weaver—though, as I says, I knew not yet his name—turns to me and stares not with surprise or horror or sadness, but with a rage burning in those dark eyes, clear enough through the misty rain. In the time it takes between you cut yourself and the blood starts its flowing, he understood all. He observed the scene, observed what I intended, and I knew then that I’d made an enemy.
That were the bad news, as they say. The good news were that I didn’t expect he’d live long, not with Ruddy Dick coming down ’pon him hard. He’d spurred his horse to a good gallop and drew his blade, ready to take off the distracted Jew’s head as though it were the foreskin ’pon a privy portion.
Now, there’s Weaver, staring at me with those hateful eyes, and there’s me, holding his gaze, keeping him distracted while Dick rides hard. It’s but a tick of the clock, or less even, before this angry fellow is a headless angry fellow, but all at once, like he’s got eyes peeking through them locks behind him, he turns. He drops his sack of goodies, and in an instant his blade is out and swinging, and it’s at Dick before Dick’s blade is on him. Nothing quite so colorful as a beheading, but the blade swings and opens Dick’s throat, and the blood’s all ruddy fountainish. That was it, then. The death of Dick.
Right tragic it was, a good friend such as he, who I shared my victuals and coin and whores with. Still, life must march forward, and Weaver weren’t the only one who could see all clear and easy in the blink of a rat’s eye. I spurred my horse, and make like I’m like to take a swipe at Weaver, all revenge-ish, but instead I reach down, grab the sack of plunder as was dropped, and I speed away, leaving behind me a pair of corpses with their puddles of blood.
It was but a matter of weeks before I learned that the one I pummeled never lived after. The other one, the cove yet alive, I now heard were called Benjamin Weaver, and that he had vowed to be revenged for what I done. So a month or two I stays on my guard, but nothing transpired. I heard no discussion of Weaver nor of his exploits, and I began to wonder if he might be dead or gone into hiding. That, I told myself, were the end of it. But it weren’t the end, and though I talked a mouthful and been through two pints, it ain’t but the beginning of this tale.
* * *
So, a year or more later, I’m on a fresh lay. I wished I could hole up as men was being nabbed all regular like, sent to the gallows like chickens to the butcher. I planned my lays careful, and didn’t like to do many and take the chance of being ’peached. This one was no more than a month since the last because the last ain’t quite worked as intended. I’d been led to believe that a particular coach would contain a great fortune, and for what I knew it did, but all were contained within a strongbox. This particular box was made by some German named Domal, said to be the cleverest maker of such things in the world. It were too strong for breaking, and too intricate for picking. All that work had brought wealth, but wealth I could not reach. I still had it hidden away, in my secret spot in my secret rooms—for I told no one where I lived, not even my closest friends, for it’s best to trust no one, in particular your friends.
Instead of this box, which I can’t open, I now set my eyes ’pon a coach to return Londonward for the season from the summer in Yorkshire. These things are ordered just so, and there would be trunks and ladies and jewels—silver buckles and fine handkerchiefs, and linens and all manner of goods. It’s somewhat dispiriting, as a prig can take three or four hundred pounds of swag, and not get more than three or four pounds from the fence, but there it is. Now, these rich folks, they would never have been so foolish as to travel the roads without escort, and an escort they could trust, too. But what signifies that? They were to have two, and a manly, strapping, all burly coachman besides. This coachman was a handsome fellow named Phillip, what name means “lover of horses.” I tell you that only so you understand I’m a scholar on top of all else.
This Phillip showed himself a liking for a kitchen girl, a pretty little thing, slim of form but fiery in humor. Maggie, she was called, and she loved me hot and mighty well, which was how I entered into this lay. I convinced her to shine her favors on poor Phillip, and so she done. Maggie worked her wicked charms, and he come up so gasping for breath, so clouded with the stink of love, he would do anything she might ask. So it were he consented to aid us for a share of the treasure and a share of pretty Maggie, too. So he thought, but I’d taken to myself the role of the double dealer.
That’s how we begun, me with my partner by my side, for as I said, I had not come so far and done so much without a few good fellows to aid. Here was a spark called Farting Dan, and aptly named he was. But beyond his farting, he was one of them thinkers, which was the good of him. The bad was his stench.
Many’s the time I thought the men in pursuit should find us by his fragrance, for it weren’t any ordinary farts he offered, but the kind to make your eyes water and your head feel strange. For all that, Dan earned his keep, he did, stench be damned. Not quite so daring or adventuresome as old Ruddy Dick, but a dependable man, who knowed more about pistols than any other spark I’d encountered. With his aid, I could be as certain as ever a man could hope, that my pistols should not misfire. Besides, once we divvied up the spoils and went looking for our fun, never once did the choicest ladies prefer him to me, even with my face being what it is.
So the day comes, and we wait among a copse of trees until our mark passed us, a fine equipage ’twas, all turquoise and gold, with black trim. It looked to me like money bags pulled by two stout horses. Before it rode one tough, and behind it another, and both these fellows burdened by the tedium, which was how I liked them.
Farting Dan begins it, riding hard up to the rear guardian and unloading a pistol directly into his chest. There’s a burst of powder and flame, and this fellow slumps over onto his horse.
This were by no means the way I was accustom to do business. No need to kill a spark who might as well be knocked down. Still, best never to fret, and I go to take care of my guardian to the front, but Farting Dan is on it before me, galloping hard and now firing a second pistol right into this fellow’s back.
I’m close now, and for an instant I’m blinded by the flash, but when it clears I see the horse with no rider, and a body ’pon the ground.
I give him a look, and he shrugs in answer. Fair enough, I thinks to myself.
Screams and cries now filled the air, for the sorts of folk in the equipage were by no means prepared for such bloodshed as now was unleashed. In truth, these dandy highwaymen had made our job easier, for the ladies were inclined to believe that being robbed should be the most romantical of experiences, so when they saw it up close, with its blood and gore and the stench of death and shite they were all the more like to obey our
commands.
Farting Dan let loose with one of those stenches for which he was known and rode hard to the coach. I’m behind him, making ready with a pistol, wiping at the stink-full air, for the equipage must be stopped. Phillip were supposed to make a good show of attempting to outrun us, and he’s making wild with the reins and the horses are at full gallop, maybe a fuller gallop than I’d like, and by all appearance, the two dead toughs inclined Phillip to feel all mistrustful and switch allegiance.
The way we’d planned it, I’d be the one who made as though I was dealing with Phillip, but that Farting Dan had another scheme, and like a trick rider at Bartholmew Fair, he’s on the back of his horse, and then leaping in the air. Always thinking, that Farting Dan, and now he thinks to come down ’pon that coachman Phillip, the very one what’s supposed to aid us. Farting Dan knowed that well, but he showed no sign of caring, for I look over and see he’s got a pistol out and he’s using it as a club. He swings it and swings it again. A third time and a fourth. I hear grunts and moans, but the struggle is out of my view. When I come again into the view, the coach is still, the coachman is slumped over, the ruins of his skull are bathed in blood. Farting Dan has that terrible redness all over his hands, splattered upon his shirt, sprinkled upon his face. He grins at me something terrible and then licks the blood off his lips.
I ride now up to the still coach. A quarter mile down the road are two bodies and two horses. I don’t like to leave a trail such as that, but the road is not so traveled that we can’t presume a quarter hour’s isolation. Most like we’d have an hour, but I don’t care for presuming. A man remains cautious or he gets nabbed. Nothing simpler.
Farting Dan jumps down, letting loose with an arsey trumpet blast. I breathe through my mouth and dismount. Now’s the time to conduct the business.
Whimpers come from the guts of the equipage, but I could see nothing with the curtains drawn, as though they might hide behind their flippery. Still, a man is wisest to exercise caution, so I wave my pistol and point at the door. “Out, you bitches!” I shout. “Nice and slow, with your hands high and not near nothing. Any man what don’t do as I say gets himself shot, his privy removed, and placed in the mouth of the nearest lady.”