The Death Instinct

Chapter Ten

At the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighty-seventh Street, a stone's throw from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stood a grand mansion in the classical style. On Tuesday morning before the sun had risen, Littlemore instructed Roederheusen to cover the back of that mansion while he approached the front door.

There was no activity in the house. Fifth Avenue was quiet at five in the morning; a lone omnibus clattered down the street. One block north, a limousine idled on the park side of the avenue. Littlemore wondered whether it was Speyer's car, waiting to take him to the harbor.

Littlemore rang the front bell — and rang again and again, when no one answered. At last he heard footsteps on stairs. A light went on in the foyer.

'What is it? Who's there?' called a man's voice from behind the door, with the same German accent Littlemore had heard at Delmonico's.

In his best cockney accent, which was fair, Littlemore said, 'Is there a Mr Speyer in the house? Sailing today on the Imperator? Message for him from the Captain.' The Imperator was a British ship, its crew English.

'The Captain?' asked Speyer, opening the door.

'Yeah,' said Littlemore, pushing through and entering the foyer. 'The Police Captain you played for a sap on Sunday.'

Speyer, in a burgundy satin bathrobe, belted at the waist, fell back a step. 'I wronged you, Officer. I ask your forgiveness.'

'Turn around,' said Littlemore.

Speyer complied, saying, 'I ask you to forgive me.'

Littlemore jangled his handcuffs behind Speyer. 'Give me one good reason not to haul you downtown for absconding from a police officer.'

'I broke faith with you. Please forgive me.'

'Stow the forgiveness thing, will you?' said Littlemore, handcuffing Speyer.

'Sorry,' said Speyer. 'I was required to ask three times today. How much do you want? I'll give you whatever you want.'

'Now you're bribing me? That's five more years in the pen.'

'I beg your pardon. I assumed you were shaking me down.'

'Shaking you down. Pretty good English for a German. What did you do that I'd be shaking you down for?'

'I'm not German,' said Speyer, pronouncing the G in German with a hard Ch. 'I was born in this city. I'm as American as you are.'

'Sure you are,' said the detective. 'That's why you bankrolled the German army after we declared war.'

'Not me — my relatives, who live in Frankfurt. I had nothing to do with it.'

'Then why did your pal the Kaiser make you a knight of the Red Eagle?'

'That was in 1912,' protested Speyer. 'And if that makes a man a traitor, you should have arrested J. P. Morgan. He received the Eagle too.'

For the first time, Littlemore was caught off guard: 'Morgan?'

'Yes. He won it the year before I did.'

'If you're such a patriot,' said the detective, 'why are you skipping out of the country?'

'Skipping out? I'm going to Hamburg to have some very important contracts signed. I'll be home the eighth of October.'

'Show me those contracts,' said Littlemore. 'And your return ticket.'

'In my briefcase,' said Speyer. 'On the dinner table.'

Littlemore, pushing Speyer before him, entered a formal dining room, heavily ornamented, with a Michelangelesque fresco splashed on its ceiling. Oil paintings, large and small, adorned the walls. The detective stopped before a small portrait, so dark he could not at first make out its subject; it depicted an old man with a ruddy face and pouches under his eyes. 'This one must be worth a lot, since you can't even see it. How much does a little thing like this go for?'

'Do you know what that "little thing" is, Officer?' asked Speyer.

'A Rembrandt.'

It was Speyer now who was taken by surprise.

'Saw one just like it at the museum,' added Littlemore.

'I paid a quarter of a million dollars for it.'

Littlemore whistled. On a rectangular table long enough to seat twenty lay an open briefcase. Inside was a ream of bond and debenture documents in English, Spanish, and German. Littlemore flipped through them. 'And who did the full-length picture behind me?' asked the detective, without looking up. 'The one of Mr James Speyer.'

'A boy from the Lower East Side,' said Speyer. 'A student at the Eldridge University Settlement. One of the schools I fund.'

The contracts concerned an enormous sum of money, evidently destined for a Mexican bank — whose chief officer was James Speyer. Littlemore also found an American passport and a ticket on the Cunard White Star sailing for New York City out of Hamburg on October the first.

'Don't you think this is taking things a little far,' asked Speyer, 'for a bottle of wine?'

'What bottle of wine?'

'The one I had at Delmonico's. Isn't that why you came to my table? Isn't that why you're here?'

'Dry laws aren't my department,' said the detective. 'Let me get this straight. Your story is that you ran out on me at Delmonico's because you were afraid I was going to pinch you for boozing?'

'That's right.'

'And what — you thought I'd just let you go?'

'I didn't realize you knew who I was,' said Speyer. 'But now that you do know, I might as well warn you, Officer. I'm a rich man, and a rich man can make life very unpleasant for a policeman who troubles him.'

'Don't give me that. You're broke, Speyer,' said Littlemore. 'You had to sell off two of your bigger paintings recently. You even let go of your old servants.'

Speyer stared at the detective: 'How do you know so much about me?'

'Just using my eyes.' Littlemore pointed to two spots on the wall where the slightest lightening of the wallpaper indicated that smaller portraits were now on display where two larger frames used to hang. 'You wouldn't be answering your own doorbell if you still had the servants a man who lives in this kind of house ought to have. I'd say you're trying to maintain appearances, Speyer. I'd say things are getting desperate. Why didn't you sell the Rembrandt?'

A long pause followed. 'I couldn't let it go,' said Speyer at last. 'What do you want with me?'

'The NYPD provides security when presidential candidates come to town,' answered Littlemore, not untruthfully. 'We have plain-clothesmen at every dinner. You were overheard at one of those dinners threatening a J. P. Morgan man.'

'Nonsense.'

'You deny telling a Morgan partner to watch out because the Morgan firm was combining with others to deny you credit?'

'What? I wasn't threatening Lamont. I was warning him.'

'You might be surprised, Mr Speyer, but the law doesn't draw too fine a distinction between threats and warnings.'

'You don't understand. I was warning Lamont about the Mexicans — despite everything Morgan's done to me. Mexico's new financial agent, he was the one doing the threatening. Making the wildest claims about what would happen to the House of Morgan — to Morgan himself — if they didn't lift the embargo.'

'What embargo?'

'The Morgan embargo against Mexico. You must know about the default?'

'No.'

Speyer shook his head. 'Where to begin? Twenty years ago, J. P. Morgan — the old man — floated the entire Mexican national debt. A big gamble, unheard of for a United States bank. It was a bold wager. Worked out handsomely for a long time. Made Morgan a fortune. But then Mexico had its revolution, and in 1914, the Mexicans defaulted. They haven't paid a penny since. By now they owe hundreds of millions in interest alone. Morgan pressured all the other houses not to lend Mexico any new money until they've paid what they owe on the old.'

'What's wrong with that?' asked Littlemore.

'Wrong? There's no right and wrong in banking. There are only bets, good ones and bad ones. Morgan didn't see the revolution coming. That's why the Morgan people are so unhinged about me.'

'I don't follow you, Mister.'

Speyer took a deep breath. 'I'm betting on the revolutionaries. I'm breaking the embargo. I'm the only one. Lamont knows I have funds lined up, but he doesn't know where the money is coming from. That's why I ran from you on Sunday. I couldn't afford to be arrested. I can't afford the delay — or the publicity.' Speyer sat down awkwardly, his hands still shackled behind him. 'Lamont knows I'll take my money and lend it straight to the Mexicans. He'd do anything he could to stop me.'

Littlemore took this in. 'If Mexico can't afford to pay Morgan, why would you lend them money?'

'Oh, they can afford to pay. They have railroads. They have silver. Most of all, they have oil. More oil than anybody else on earth. I have to make this trip, Officer. It's my last chance. My wife is very ill. If I'm not on the Imperator, I'll lose everything. I promise you I'll be back on the eighth'. I can give you collateral.'

'What kind of collateral?'

'Any kind. Name it.'

Littlemore named it. Speyer swallowed hard.

The same morning, Younger sent Colette a reply to her request that he accompany her to Vienna. His letter could not be faulted for excessive length:

September 21, 1920

No.

— Stratham

Back outside on Fifth Avenue, Littlemore let Roederheusen take the driver's seat of their car. The detective's hands were occupied with a rectangular object wrapped in a heavy blanket. When Roederheusen asked what the object was, Littlemore told him it was a quarter- million-dollar bond.

As they drove off, Littlemore noticed the limousine up the street pulling away as well, in the opposite direction.

Because it was still early, Littlemore decided to spend an hour in a law library. The librarian was eager to help, but she knew less about researching the law than did the detective. They found nothing.

The telephone was ringing when Littlemore arrived at his office. Rosie, the operator, informed him that a Mr Thomas Lamont was on the line — and that he'd been calling all morning.

'Did you speak with Mr Speyer?' asked Lamont when the connection was made.

'You know I did, Lamont. Your man was keeping watch.'

'I see. Well, we do like to keep an eye on things. Did you find out anything?'

'Yeah — I found out I was being used by J. P. Morgan. You were hoping I'd arrest Speyer, or at least hold him up a few days. That way he doesn't get his money abroad, and he can't lend it to the Mexicans.'

The line fell silent for a moment. 'Speyer told you about Mexico?' asked Lamont.

'That's right.'

'What did he tell you?'

'Enough,' said Littlemore.

'We are trying to help Mexico, Captain. A nation cannot simply default on her debt. Mexico will destroy her own future if she persists in this shortsightedness. A debt is a sacred obligation. Mr Speyer, like so many of his kind, cannot understand that. For him a debt is only money.'

'Whereas to you it's religion,' said Littlemore. 'I offered to help you, Lamont. You tried to make me a stooge.'

'I swear to you, Captain, that was not my intention. My sole concern is whether my firm is being attacked — and if so, finding out who is behind it.'

'I don't believe Speyer had anything to do with the bombing, and neither do you.'

'But the man threatened me. He practically warned me he was going to resort to violence. Did you ask him about that?'

'It wasn't a threat. He was trying to warn you about a new financial guy from Mexico — maybe the same guy who came to your club the other night.'

'Who — Pesqueira? What about him?'

'I don't know, Lamont. It's your business, not mine.'

'You can't just let Speyer leave the country, Captain. What if he never comes back?'

At that moment, Officer Stankiewicz poked his head through the door. 'Hey, Cap,' he said, out of breath, 'the Bureau — '

Littlemore silenced him with his palm. 'He'll come back,' he said to Lamont, ringing off. 'What is it, Stanky?'

'The G-men found a guy who serviced the bombers' horse and wagon,' said Stankiewicz. 'They say he's fingered Tresca. Flynn's announcing it to the press in ten minutes.'

'Where?' asked Littlemore, putting on straw hat and jacket.

'In front of the Treasury.'

'Go get that horseshoe,' said Littlemore, setting off down the hall. 'Meet me there.'

On the steps of the United States Treasury, with the statue of George Washington behind him and a phalanx of armed soldiers on either side, Big Bill Flynn of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had his arm around a grizzled workman wearing an oil-stained leather apron. To a small crowd of reporters and photographers, Flynn made the following proclamation:

'What we got here is a major break in the investigation. This fine American is Mr John Haggerty, a horseshoer of over forty years' experience, located by agents of the Bureau under my personal command. Get your pens out, boys; here's your story. On or about the first of this month, an individual appeared in Mr Haggerty's stable on New Chambers Street in the company of a horse and wagon, which horse and wagon was in need of new shoes, and which was outfitted with unusual brass turret rings just like the ones we collected from this plaza after the explosion. Mr Haggerty put size-four shoes on that horse, said shoes being united to said horse by means of shamrock nails and Niagara hoof pads — cooperating in every respect with the evidence we collected here.'

'They didn't collect that stuff, Cap,' whispered Stankiewicz to Littlemore. 'We gave it to them.'

Littlemore motioned him to be quiet.

'In other words, the horse and wagon shoed by Mr Haggerty three weeks ago was the exact same horse and wagon employed by the anarchists to transport their incendiary device here on the sixteenth. The individual who brought that horse into Mr Haggerty's stable was approximately five foot seven inches in height, slight of build, poorly shaven, and very dirty and low in appearance. Ain't that right, Haggerty?'

The stableman nodded gravely.

'And this is the kicker, boys,' added Flynn: 'The individual was

Eye-talian and gave his name as something in the nature of Trescati or Trescare. Ain't that right, Haggerty?'

'Could be,' said Haggerty.

'"Could be"?' whispered Stankiewicz.

'Shh,' said Littlemore.

'In other words,' Flynn went on, 'a spitting description of Carlo Tresca, just like I been saying all along. Okay, boys, take your pictures.'

Flynn shook Haggerty's hand. Cameras popped. The reporters asked Haggerty his age (which was sixty-four), what else he remembered about Tresca (which was very little), and so on. Haggerty answered in gruff monosyllables, addressing each reporter as 'sir.' In short order, Flynn brought matters to a close and moved to take the stableman away.

'Mr Haggerty,' called out Littlemore, 'you a union man?'

'Conference over,' shouted Flynn, recognizing the detective. 'No more questions.'

'But Mr Haggerty must be a union man, Big Bill,' said Littlemore innocently. 'Everybody knows an HSIU label was on the horse's shoes. It was in the papers on Saturday, wasn't it, fellas?'

The members of the press agreed that it was.

Flynn cleared his throat. 'An NYPD detective checking up on the Bureau, huh? That's fresh. How's the Fischer investigation going, Policeman? Heard any voices out of the air lately?'

Several of the reporters laughed.

'Okay, Haggerty,' said Flynn, 'the policeman here wants to know if your shop is union. Is it?'

'Yes, sir — HSIU,' answered Haggerty.

'And you put that label on your shoes, right?' asked Flynn.

'Yes, sir — every one.'

Flynn smiled broadly. 'Got any more smart questions, NYPD?'

'Just one,' called Littlemore, stepping forward through the crowd, carrying^8 a numbered canvas evidence bag tied with twine. 'I'd like to show Mr Haggerty the actual shoe — the one we pulled out of the bomb crater. He can tell us if the union label matches the one his shop uses.'

The reporters fell quiet. Flynn hesitated. He obviously wanted to take Haggerty away, but his reluctance to appear doubtful of his own witness's story kept him in place.

Littlemore untied the bag and handed the horseshoe to Haggerty. 'You can see a union label on that shoe, can't you, Mr Haggerty?' asked the detective.

'Yes, sir. HSIU. Same one we use in my shop.'

'There you go!' said Flynn triumphantly, taking the horseshoe from the stableman. 'I'll keep this. Federal evidence. Now let's get going. I'm hungry'

'Which means, Mr Haggerty,' said Littlemore in a loud voice all could hear, 'the shoe that Chief Flynn is holding, the one from the actual bombing, isn't from the horse and wagon you serviced in your shop three weeks ago — am I right?'

'Yes, sir. You're right,' said Haggerty.

The reporters burst into confusion. Flynn shouted above them, 'What's he talking about? The label's a match.'

'The HSIU label on a horseshoe is a surface mark,' said Littlemore. 'Wears away in no time at all. After a few hours, it's barely visible. But the HSIU label on the actual shoe is mint clean. The horse that brought the bomb to Wall Street was new-shod the morning of the attack — the day before at most. Not three weeks ago. Am I right, Mr Haggerty?'

'Yes, sir.'

The following evening, Younger joined Littlemore at a dingy waterfront bar built on a derelict pier near the harbor, where unintimidated rats picked at refuse among the pilings and the detective had to give a password to gain entry. The smoke was so thick, and the lighting so poor, Younger could hardly see the bar counter. 'They got a trapdoor in the back,' said Littlemore as they took a small table in a dark corner. 'Opens right onto the water. When they get raided, they dump all their liquor into a boat and off she goes. Cops never find a thing. If the tide's in, they just dump the liquor into the water. Divers bring it up later.'

'I don't think I've ever seen you break the law before,' said Younger.

'I'm not breaking any laws,' answered Littlemore. 'I'm getting a sassafras.'

'Then why are we here?'

'So you can get a drink,' said Littlemore. 'Looks like you could use one.'

Younger considered the proposition and found it accurate. All day long he had kept checking the hotel desk for a letter or wire from Colette. Every time the clerk informed him that there were no messages, Younger was furious at himself for caring about the girl at all.

Littlemore ordered his soft drink; Younger ordered a whiskey. The waiter brought him a fifth — just the unopened bottle — along with a 'setup,' which was a glass of ice and soda.

'You pour yourself the drink,' Littlemore instructed. 'Then you put the bottle in your coat pocket. If the law comes in, they say they only serve sodas. They can't help it if their customers bring liquor in.'

Younger poured himself a double. He and Littlemore toasted silently. Younger felt vaguely louche with the bottle of whiskey in his pocket — if in fact it was whiskey, which Younger doubted, because it tasted more like rubbing alcohol. He finished his glass and poured himself another. 'Boisterous little place,' he said. 'I like the atmosphere.'

At the bar, men hunched over their drinks, speaking in low voices. Even the bartender was taciturn. A solitary woman wearing a boa nursed a cocktail at one end of the counter; no one approached her. Near the door, the man keeping watch handled a pack of cards by himself at a table — not playing, just shuffling and reshuffling.

'It's the same all over town,' said Littlemore. 'Everybody's still spooked from the bombing. Only place they're not spooked is the Bankers and Brokers Club. They were having a ball when I went there a couple nights ago. I think it was relief — that they weren't the ones who got hit. Guess what: a doctor came to Bellevue today for Two-Heads. He heard about the shooting in the church and recognized her description. Her name's Quinta McDonald. I found out what's wrong with her. The doctor said it was confidential, but I got it out of him. She has syphilis. Apparently syphilis can cause a growth on your body?'

'Tertiary syphilis can,' agreed Younger. He thought about it. 'It could have made her demented as well.'

'That's what her doctor said. It got into her brain. Gave her delusions.'

'I did some work on syphilitic dementia a few years ago. If that's what she has, there's no reversing it and no cure for it.'

'So here's what I'm thinking,' said Littlemore. 'There may not be anything left for the Miss to worry about.'

'How's that?'

'Well, let's start with Amelia, the girl who left the tooth at your hotel. Amelia's in some kind of trouble, and she needs to leave a tooth with somebody she knows to get them to help her. But the clerk delivers the tooth to Colette by mistake. Meanwhile, Drobac's following Amelia. He's hunting whoever she's trying to leave the tooth with. When the tooth gets delivered to Colette, Drobac thinks Colette is his target. So he and his two pals kidnap her. After that, Amelia gets killed by the bomb, Drobac's two pals get killed when we rescue Colette, and Drobac himself is behind bars. That leaves only Two-Heads, the McDonald girl. We don't know why she came after Colette — probably she's just crazy from her syphilis — but it doesn't matter because now she's in a coma. So everybody's either dead, jailed, or otherwise out of commission. Case closed.'

'What about the other redhead?' asked Younger. 'There were two of them outside the police station.'

'Friend of the McDonald girl. Maybe her sister. Nothing to worry about.'

'I thought you didn't make assumptions,' said Younger.

'I don't. I was just trying it out to see how it sounded.'

'How did it sound?'

'Didn't make any kind of sense at all,' said Littlemore.

The two men drank for a long while. Younger could feel the cheap alcohol beginning to work on him.

'So the Miss is going back to Europe?' asked Littlemore.

'You can't tell me,' answered Younger, 'that marriage makes men happy. Do you know one married man who's actually happy?'

'I'm happy.'

'Apart from you.'

Littlemore thought about it. 'No. Do you know any unmarried guys who are happy?'

'No.'

'There you go, then,' said Littlemore.

The men drank.

At another table, a man tried to stand, failed, and fell to the floor, knocking his chair over with him. For a moment Younger thought the sound had been a gunshot. Then he heard more gunfire, but he knew it was inside his head. The recurring image that, ever since the bombing, he could neither forget nor interpret sprang into his mind again, this time with greater clarity. 'I know what I saw on the sixteenth,' he said. 'It wasn't a blackboard. It was someone shooting. When everyone else was running around in a panic, in the middle of all the smoke and dust, someone was firing a machine gun.'

'At what?'

'At a wall. Leaving marks on it.'

'Firing a machine gun at a wall?' said Littlemore. 'In the middle of the bombing?'

'Did I mention that I also saw the shrapnel flying through the air so slowly I could make out the individual pieces?'

'No, you didn't tell me that, and don't mention it again. They'll lock you up with Eddie Fischer.'

Detective Littlemore was restive as he paced the cramped offices shared by Homicide and Special Crimes. Overcrowded desks vied for space with overstuffed filing cabinets. Typewriters clacked. Men yelled at one another, their complaints mostly jocular. The joking irritated Littlemore. A week had passed since the Wall Street bombing, and they had made no progress. Loose threads dangled everywhere.

There was Fischer, now confined in a sanitarium, whose prescient warnings remained unaccounted for. There was Big Bill Flynn, determined to hang the crime on Italian anarchists even though each piece of evidence Flynn came up with was thin as cheap typing paper. Then there was Attorney General Palmer — or rather, where was Palmer? Everything Littlemore knew about the Attorney General would have predicted Palmer's seizing control of the case, giving press conferences, taking the spotlight. Instead Palmer had passed through town for a night on his way to a family holiday — why? Finally, there was the fact that the attack seemed wholly unmotivated. If there was a target, it appeared to have been the Morgan Bank, yet Littlemore had identified no individual or organization with the right means and motives for attacking Morgan in so blunderbuss a fashion.

'Hey, Spanky,' Littlemore called out.

'Sir?' replied Roederheusen.

'Go over to the Mexican consulate,' said Littlemore, 'and get ahold of a guy named Pesky something or other. Pesky-air-uh, I think. I want to talk to him.'

'Say, Cap,' called out Stankiewicz from his desk, 'I found the cards.'

'What cards?'

'The filing cards we made on Wall Street.' Stankiewicz was holding a stack of handwritten note cards made at the scene of the bombing — one card for each of the dead. 'You remember, you thought there was somebody who was killed who should've been on the casualty list, but he wasn't on the list, so you asked me to find the cards.'

'Give me those,' said Littlemore irritably. He flipped through the note cards. 'The guy was a Treasury guard. Name began with R.'

Littlemore found what he was looking for. 'Here he is: "Riggs, United States Treasury." Now where's that casualty list?'

Stankiewicz fished through the papers piled haphazardly on his desk. 'I had it a second ago.'

'Tell me you didn't lose the casualty list,' said Littlemore.

Stankiewicz handed the detective the stapled, typed, many-paged document.

Littlemore went through it, checking both the alphabetical listing and the page specifically naming government officers killed in the blast. 'No Riggs,' said the detective. 'What happened to "Riggs, United States Treasury"?'

'Guess they missed him.'

'They?' asked Littlemore. 'Who's they? Didn't you type this list?'

'Not exactly.'

'Who did?'

'Um, the Feds did. A couple of agents came over the day after the bombing and asked if we had a list of the dead and wounded. I said sure and let them have a look — you know, at the handwritten list, which we made from the cards. They volunteered to have it typed up for us over the weekend. They said they had typists who would do a nice job. So I-'

'You gave the Feds our list?' asked Littlemore, incredulous.

'I'm not too good with a typewriter, sir. I figured it would come out better this way.'

'You figured you were too lazy,' said Littlemore. 'What kind of Feds? Flynn's boys?'

'No, sir. They were T-men,' said Stankiewicz, using the shorthand name for Treasury agents.

A second letter from Colette arrived on Thursday, but it turned out she must have sent it before receiving Younger's reply. The letter lay open on Younger's hotel room bed:

21-9-1920

Dearest Stratham,

I am finished with your Professor Boltwood. He is going to prevent Yale University from awarding Madame Curie an honorary degree when she comes. He says she is both academically and morally unfit. He is unfit to tie her shoelaces. My one consolation for running his laboratory is that I am disproving his theories. I can't stay on here, no matter what.

But I also have wonderful news! I dared to wire Dr Freud in Vienna, and he has wired back. He says he will see Luc again, and also that he is very eager to see you as well. He says he has a great deal to tell you.

Please, please come. I need you there with me.

Affectionately,

Colette

Younger returned by himself that night to Littlemore's waterfront clip joint. A woman in red lipstick and an orange dress approached while he drank the foul whiskey. 'What about it, handsome?' she said.

'No thanks,' he replied.