Chapter 6: Meet M. Peter Holmes

1865

MacNeal Peter Holmes stood in the paneled bar of the Willard Hotel, his dark suit, fancy weskit, glowing boots and silk cravat helping him blend in with the dozens of prosperous-appearing men about him. The room was thick with tobacco smoke. He touched the diamond-looking stickpin at his breastbone and sipped his watered brandy, patiently waiting for his drinking companion to find the end of a muddled story about some inebriated duck hunters on the Eastern Shore.

"So," his young friend said loudly, bending over with unrelieved glee on his pock-marked face, "the damned cannon exploded, scared off all the fowl and they got nothing but wet feet and a few powder burns."

Mac Holmes joined in his companion's laughter and endured having his broad back pounded. When the man standing beside him collected himself and ordered them both another drink, Holmes got to the subject closest to his heart. "My new ship's just about ready to slide down the ways."

His red-faced friend nodded.

"I'm a bit strapped for ready cash, for the rigging and such, cordage, to finish her up," Holmes said. "How about letting me have five-hundred for a month or two, at, say, ten percent."

"How about crossing the muddy Potomac on your bare feet?" the man said, finishing one drink and picking up the other, holding it to the light and frowning. "Think this looks right?"

"Come on, Bobby, surely my friend, only five hundred, just for a month."

"My dear father would skin me. He's got me leashed and muzzled."

"That girl?" Mac Holmes asked, his face showing his disappointment.

"Of course, her miserable father, and her blasted brother, that foul buffoon."

"But she's lying, isn't she?"

"Don't matter. They sent her to some convent over in Baltimore."

"Good riddance. She was a pig," Holmes stated.

"No, no," the young man said stiffly, "a nice girl, just stone dumb."

"I romanced her y'know?" Mac said with an evil grin.

"You never!"

"Not bad, considering how young she was," Holmes said boldly, enjoying the discomfort on the boy's soft face. "Spread her legs and smiled at mr."

"You jus' don' care, do you," said his companion.

"That's all past. Must be going. Thanks for the drink."

"Thought you were paying," the young man cried to Mac Holmes' back.

Holmes ran across the street and jumped on the horse-drawn omnibus that was just pulling from the stop. He avoided the conductor collecting fares down the middle of the car and stayed on the side board, going only three blocks eastward before he disembarked and scurried into another bar in the front hall of a much smaller and less grand hotel, a shingled place barely a cut above the city's many rooming houses.

"How's business?" he greeted the bartender with a wave.

"Slow, sir, mighty slow," the man replied as he almost always did.

Mac Holmes used his key and entered the windowless back room, plopping himself behind the small desk. He turned up the flickering lamp, flipped open his big ledger, traced his finger down a row of names, made a face, slapped the book closed and left his office just as quickly, careful to lock the door behind him. He did not even bother to check the till as was his usual habit. Illegal alcohol was Holmes main business, bringing in rum and other spirits from the islands as well as popskull from the local stills and owning this tavern was just a sideline, a place to get rid of leftovers and to doctor up what he sold.

Worried, dispeptic and in a hurry as he often was, Holmes crossed the Avenue. Slightly out of breath, he climbed the stairs of a large clapboard building with blue shutters, knocked and was admitted. "Harrison," he said to the man who had let him in. "I mean Harrington, sorry. Good to see you."

"Glad you come, Mistuh Mac," said the big black man, his gold tooth shining. "Wanted t'see ya. That las' batch weren't worf drinkin'. Piss-poor, thas' what it were."

"What are you saying?" asked Holmes, who had been providing several of Washington's illegal clubs with smuggled alcohol of various types, most of which he labeled rye.

"No good, you heered me, foul. Tasted like it come out'a the Eastern Branch. I dumped it in the creek. Probably killed the fishes, that stuff."

"Well, I'm sorry, man. Never had no trouble before, did we? I'll refund your payment next month when we settle up."

"Nosuh, s'aw'right" the black man said, "but couldn't nobody drink that hooch. Thought 'chu ought'a know."

"Sorry," said Mac Holmes, "and I came over to ask you for a favor."

"Yessuh," said Makepeace Harrington who had been a slave in D.C. until 1862 and since then had become a reasonably wealthy member of his community with a gold-headed cane as well as a gold tooth and several lady friends including one who passed for white. The ridged stripes on his back meant nothing now nor did the fact that he had run away from three different masters.

"I need some money, not much, but I need it quick."

"Uh huh," the black man said, waiting. His bawdyhouse generally made, after expenses, nearly a hundred dollars during the week and twice that on Friday and Saturday. Of course, he had to pay the police every single Monday and a white lawyer monthly and sometimes a doctor, but he made a great deal of money and sometimes spent even more. The last time he counted, he owned twenty-seven pairs of shoes and boots and had wives and offspring in three different homes. He closed the place on Sunday and took his youngest wife to the church where two of his lady friends sang in the AME choir.