All Other Nights (31 page)

“I see,” Benjamin said. “Well, we have all come to expect that sort of delay.” Benjamin examined him, again inspecting his eye patch and his scars, but Jacob could detect no suspicion in his glance. He was grateful that Benjamin didn’t seem interested in the details of how he had been injured, or more importantly, how he had returned to New York thereafter; he had stories prepared to explain it all, but it was exhausting to keep track of them. Fortunately Benjamin had other things on his mind. He glanced at the note again before looking back at Jacob’s disfigured face. “What’s become of dear Edwin, then?” he asked. “He doesn’t specify.”

Lying with a purpose had become second nature to Jacob. What he was still learning to enjoy, however, was his newfound talent for lying purely for his own amusement. “The matter is a bit delicate, I’m afraid,” he replied, his face somber. “Most men prefer not to advertise it when they’ve contracted syphilis.”

“Oh dear,” Benjamin sighed. Jacob stifled a smile. “Well, I must admit that I never did find him terribly reliable for our purposes,” he said. “It seemed to me that he cared rather more for his brother than he did for us.” Benjamin’s perceptiveness was more than a rumor, Jacob noted. He would have to be careful, if he valued his life. He watched as Benjamin sipped his tea. “It’s just as well, though,” Benjamin added. “We are halting funds to Toronto at the moment, so as to concentrate resources on Maryland and the signal corps line. The Canadian operations have been a bit cursed, it seems. The great challenge now is to convince a few more of those in Canada to return, so that we can use their services in Maryland and in the Northern Neck.”

“Hm,” Jacob said. On a Sunday morning between him and Benjamin, the air was redolent with trust, and ripe with low-hanging assumptions. Jacob tried to touch one, to see if he could. “Edwin did mention the Maryland plan. To him the arrangements appeared overly compromising, though perhaps that was merely due to his lack of commitment to the cause.”

He was stretching, he knew, reaching far beyond his grasp. But luck was on his side, this time at least. Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. At first Jacob’s throat clenched, but soon he saw that Benjamin’s anger was directed not at him, but at Edwin Booth. “In that case, let me be absolutely clear, to ensure that everyone understands this,” Benjamin said, his voice firm. “This is not an assassination plot.”

Jacob pursed his lips, fighting the impulse to gape. Benjamin’s irritation, layered over the free air of Sunday morning, rendered the space between them electric. The Secretary buzzed like a fly trapped in a kerosene lamp. “In fact, if even one of them were to die, then the entire objective would be lost,” he added.

One of them? One of whom? Benjamin had already settled back in his chair, at once aware of his indiscretion. He took another piece of cake and chewed it quickly, swallowing with barely disguised regret. Jacob worked hard to affect only the mildest of interest as he stirred his tea, trying to think of a way to change the subject. Benjamin changed it first, or nearly did.

“The problem at the moment is that too much of the capital is with our agents in Canada,” he said. “We need some of these agents to return, but the funds have already been disbursed. There is some allotment to draw them back here, but there is very little room for waste, and it isn’t clear to me how to use what we have most effectively. Despite the popular prejudice, I haven’t much of a mind for finances.”

Jacob struggled to look at him calmly. “Your talents in other areas are surely more than sufficient to compensate,” he said.

“Well, I am more a man of letters than a man of numbers,” Benjamin replied.

Jacob looked pointedly at the stacks of books and papers around the room. “One never would have guessed,” he grinned.

Benjamin smiled, though he seemed barely to have heard him. He was watching Jacob, weighing his own thoughts. Then, suddenly, he leaned toward Jacob, planting his hands on his knees. “Rappaport, you were the bookkeeping wizard, weren’t you? Harry mentioned that to me. Weren’t you the one working in your father’s import-export firm in Madison Square?”

“I was,” Jacob replied, nervous. How had Benjamin remembered that?

“Harry said that your father had relied on you completely since you were sixteen years old,” Benjamin said. “He couldn’t believe that your father would have let you leave New York, given how valuable you were to him. He speculated that you must have run away.”

Jacob’s head ached, thinking of his father. His father had never told him how much he needed him. “I did run off, it’s true,” Jacob said. “And the firm did lose half its value while I was gone.” Of course, the firm’s losses had far more to do with the ostensible country Benjamin served than with Jacob’s absence. But Jacob allowed the assumptions to dangle, ready for the taking.

Benjamin nodded, captivated, and took one. “So you are a sort of magician with funds, then,” he said. “Brilliant with numbers.”

Jacob thought of his father, and winced. “People have told me that,” he replied.

Benjamin nodded again, and took a bite of his cake. As Benjamin chewed, Jacob could see him thinking, though he could not imagine what was on his mind. Benjamin swallowed, and spoke. “Tell me, Rappaport,” he said. “From a purely financial perspective, how would you motivate these agents to return, without an exorbitant expenditure of capital, when most of them believe that they have already been paid in full? They are all quite committed, of course; nobody is doing this to become rich. But one needs to defray their expenses, at the least, and that is no small matter. As you can imagine, we hardly have unlimited resources at our disposal. I have been thinking this through for quite some time, but it seems to me that once one has paid someone out, there isn’t really any going back.”

“Not necessarily,” Jacob told him. “One just has to offer future incentives on a sliding scale over time.”

Benjamin leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“I mean a schedule of payments, with choices to encourage loyalty,” Jacob said, the space behind his missing eye aching. “First one offers a small sum, but with perhaps only fifteen percent of the payment available immediately, and arranged such that the person has to return to the desired location in order to draw it in liquid. Then one offers the recipient a choice as to how to collect the remaining eighty-five percent. First, he might receive it in a lump sum on a predetermined date. Or, as a second option, he might receive it in the form of installments to be collected at multiple predetermined dates further in the future—but the installments are paid out with compounded interest and, if necessary, with additional incentives attached to each payment at the later dates. Now if the initial cash outlay presents a hardship, one might be tempted to offer only the installment plan, but I believe that would be a mistake. One needs to offer a choice, so that the recipient believes himself to be personally invested in his own compensation. That makes a much larger difference than one might expect.” Jacob’s head throbbed as he continued. “In my experience, most men are rather shortsighted and prefer to be paid as soon as possible, even if it means being paid less. But the presentation of a choice creates an advantage for those making the payments, because it provides a sorting mechanism. The recipients who choose the more immediate payment have already proven that a continuing relationship is not their real priority. And those who choose the installment plan are precisely the sort of men one actually wishes to retain. The interest is money well spent to find those who are truly dedicated.”

This was almost childishly simple, nothing that anyone who had ever engaged in the most rudimentary sort of business wouldn’t know. But Benjamin had been immersed in quite a different world, with far more urgent problems, and at this point there was apparently little room available in his intellect to devote to this sort of minutiae. He drew his dark eyebrows together. “I see,” he said, rubbing at his beard. “Rappaport, are you expected back in New York?”

Jacob saw his opportunity, and seized it. “Not particularly,” he said. “My parents have quite given up on expecting me, I’m sorry to say. They—they did not approve of my late wife, and even now there is considerable discord between us.” The lies were becoming easier to tell, and harder to distinguish from the truth, even for Jacob himself. “I had intended to return only as Edwin’s replacement.”

“Well, that will no longer be necessary,” Benjamin said. He clearly had no interest in Jacob’s alleged personal troubles, and for that Jacob was grateful. Benjamin rubbed at his beard again, and Jacob wondered whether this sort of rubbing was precisely what had thinned it: a physical worrying, anxiety deflected from his demeanor onto his cheeks. “You would be far more useful to us in handling disbursements from here,” Benjamin said. “Tell me honestly: would that be of interest to you? You would receive a commission for your services, of course.”

This seemed almost too easy. Surely this was how Timothy Webster had felt after receiving an offer just as promising, unable to conceive of his own success. But he was hanged six months later. Was it possible that Benjamin was as gullible as he seemed? Or perhaps Jacob was the gullible one. But he remembered his promise to Philip, and understood how limited his options were. He had to risk everything.

“It would be a privilege to serve you, and the cause,” he said.

Benjamin’s bearded face parted into an enormous grin as he shook Jacob’s hand. “Rappaport, I cannot even express to you how useful your services would be. These disbursements have generally been my sole responsibility, but I trust that you would be able to execute them with requisite discretion.”

Jacob nodded, trying his best to smile. “I would.”

“And I would be forever grateful for your assistance. I have far too many other matters occupying me, and I’ve already taken on too much. Mr. Davis is unavailable all too frequently, I’m sorry to say. He suffers from neuralgia, and lately he has had bouts where he has been incapacitated for days. I have had to extend myself quite beyond reasonable limits to compensate for his absences.” This was new information to Jacob. He wondered how many people in Washington were aware of it. “The new plan’s odds of success may not be terribly high, but the reward would be priceless. It is calculated to end the war, on favorable terms.”

This was almost inconceivable. What sort of plan? He knew Benjamin would tell him nothing further, at least not yet. But he couldn’t help prodding him. “I must say that the common perception from New York is that our prospects are rather bleak,” he said.

Benjamin pressed his palms against his knees, his face animated with sudden energy. “The naysayers are fond of telling me that we are doomed. But Mr. Davis and I believe that if we were as doomed as they claim, then we would surely have met our demise long ago. Think of the resources at the Union’s disposal. The fact that our country still exists at all ought to boggle the mind. They should have beaten us in ’61, and easily at that. They haven’t the slightest notion of what we are capable of enduring.”

This hardly seemed optimistic to Jacob. He was reminded of the witticism that his father claimed his grandfather had coined during a string of anti-Semitic riots he had survived in the German states: “God forbid that this should last as long as we are capable of enduring it.”

Benjamin took another bite of cake, swallowing before he continued. “Our prospects may appear a bit grim at this point, but we are by no means exhausted. Many more strategies are possible, most of which I cannot share with you. Be assured that the current plan is merely one of many. I have also been working on an emancipation proclamation.”

Jacob gagged on a piece of cake, which he only succeeded in dislodging from his gullet after an embarrassingly long series of coughs. Benjamin, ever the master of equanimity, dabbed at his mouth and glanced away.

“Pardon?” Jacob asked.

“It’s a very innovative plan,” Benjamin said cheerfully. “The idea is that we shall offer freedom to any slave who agrees to join the army.”

Surely this was some sort of joke. Jacob smiled, waiting for Benjamin to laugh.

“The Yankees appear to have endless manpower,” Benjamin said, launching into a speech. “But the truth is that whenever we kill too many of them, they simply import more Irishmen to send down into the trenches. They actually pay the Irish five hundred dollars a head for the privilege of dying. Those are the slaves the Union has bought for itself.” He drummed his stubby fingers once on the arm of his chair. “I’ve tried to lure the Irish here the same way, but Britain has not been particularly cooperative. It’s quite a complicated situation, you see.” He smiled at Jacob, his eternally inappropriate smile, and continued. “We appear to suffer from a shortage of means, but it is a false shortage. We simply haven’t been using all of the means at our disposal. This emancipation plan ought to increase our ranks by fifteen percent or more.”

The absurdity of this suggestion caught Jacob off guard. He thought of the slave woman who murdered Jeannie’s mother, and of Caleb Johnson and his laundry-hanging wife in General Longstreet’s headquarters, and of the entire Legal League, and marveled. The idea was so idiotic that only a genius could have thought of it.

“You want to arm the slaves,” Jacob said carefully.

“Well, they wouldn’t be slaves anymore, you understand,” Benjamin retorted. “They would simply be free Rebels.” The man was a lawyer through and through.

“Does this—does this idea have any support?”

“The men in the trenches are practically begging us for it,” he replied. This did not impress Jacob; it seemed clear to him that men in the trenches would beg for just about anything that might delay their inevitable deaths. But Benjamin was undeterred. “Mr. Davis agrees with me in theory, but not in his heart. It’s going to be a hard battle to convince the Congress that I’m right.”

Jacob tried his best to summon his acting skills, but he was at a loss. Wasn’t this, at the end of all the arguments, the reason everyone had gone to war? If the Rebels were to free the slaves themselves, then what cause had there been for Jacob murdering his uncle, or for Jacob’s crippling, or for the deaths of hundreds of thousands on either side? Was any of it necessary? Later Jacob would be able to think of many answers, many explanations, many comforts to aid him through the wreckage left behind. But now he could think of only one cause, the smallest and most private. Both Jacob and Benjamin were preoccupied, haunted by the desperation of their loves.