The Death Instinct

Chapter Seventeen

Under the headline 'Invited to Mexico,' Littlemore read the following front-page story:

An invitation to President-elect Harding to visit Mexico was extended at a conference last night between Senator A. B. Fall of New Mexico, and Elias L. Torres, envoy from President-elect Obregon of Mexico. The invitation contemplated Senator Harding's attendance at the inauguration of President-elect Obregon in Mexico City on the twenty-fifth of this month. Whether the invitation will be accepted seems very uncertain and tonight there was no official statement from the President-elect. Senator Harding is exceedingly anxious to restore amity between Mexico and the United States, but his close advisers doubt the propriety at this time of the President-elect going to foreign soil.

Littlemore was riding a train back down to Washington. He stared out the window for a long time.

On arriving in Washington, Littlemore took a taxi directly to the Library of Congress, just down the street from the United States Capitol. There he asked for some basic facts and history concerning the country of Mexico; the librarian directed him to the World Book of Organized Knowledge. A half-hour later, his pace quickening, Littlemore went to the Senate Office Building.

'What's the matter?' asked Fall when Littlemore was let in to see him.

'I read the Mexico story in the paper, Mr Senator.'

'Now that's something I'm proud of,' said the Senator, stretching his arms and leaning back in his chair. 'The two presidents-elect of the two largest democracies in the world. It'll be a first. Harding doesn't want to go, but I'll persuade him. Obregon will pull his troops out of the mines and let us keep our oil wells, and all will be right with the world.'

'I don't think Mr Harding should go, sir.'

'You're giving me advice on foreign policy?'

'What if it was Mexico, Mr Fall?'

'What if what was Mexico?'

'What if it was Mexico, not Russia?'

There was a long pause. 'You ain't talking about the bombing, are you, son?' asked Fall.

'Remember what you asked me the first time I met you? What country stood to gain from the bombing, what country had the motive, what country would have felt it had the right to attack us?'

'Sure I remember.'

'Nobody had a bigger motive to bomb J. P. Morgan than the Mexicans,' said Littlemore. 'Morgan's been bleeding them dry — keeping every banker in the world from lending to Mexico for six years. That's not the only motive either. From what I hear, they hate us pretty good down there, sir. Been looking to pay us back for a long time.'

'What for?'

'The Mexican-American War.'

'What kind of-? That's ancient history, boy. Nobody even remembers that war.'

'They remember it, sir. We took almost half their land. Invaded them. Occupied Mexico City. Killed a lot of people. There were some atrocities. I think they think we look down on them, Senator Fall. On top of which they think we're taking all their silver and oil, getting rich while they're dirt poor.'

Fall considered. 'I was going to say that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, but maybe it ain't. This new envoy Torres — I'll tell you the truth, he didn't rub me the right way. Like he was hiding something.'

'Let's say they were getting ready to nationalize our oil wells,' Littlemore went on. 'They'd have to show us that even though our army can lick theirs, they can hurt us in a different way — a new way — that an army can't stop. Hurt us badly enough so it wouldn't be worthwhile to invade.'

'You're saying the bombing was supposed to show us how they'd fight if we invaded?'

'I'm saying that if you look at it from Mexico's point of view, it starts to make sense. An attack on Morgan. Revenge for our invasion. And a warning of what kind of damage they can inflict on us if we move in with our army after they take back the oil. All three at once.'

'In that case they'd have to be first-class idiots,' said Fall, 'because they forgot to tell us they were the ones who did it.'

'They wouldn't want to say it right out,' answered Littlemore. 'Then we'd have to send the army in, which is what they don't want. So they'd leave us a sign showing they did it, without giving us any proof.'

'But they didn't leave a sign.'

'They did,' said Littlemore. 'Do you know when Mexican Independence Day is?'

'No.'

'September sixteenth.'

Fall was silent for several seconds. 'You sure about that? Not the fifteenth, not the seventeenth?'

'September sixteenth, Mr Senator. And it's a big day for them, just like it is for us.'

'Well, I don't use the word irony much, but ain't that an irony? They were trying to show us they ain't so puny, but they're so puny we didn't even get the message.' 'Something else, Mr Fall. Two weeks before the bombing, Mr Lamont of the Morgan Bank was threatened. Lamont got it mixed up though. He thought a banker named Speyer was the one making the threat, but it wasn't Speyer. It was a Mexican consul — a guy named Pesqueira — who said that if Morgan didn't start letting money back into Mexico, there would be hell to pay.'

A thought came to Fall's eyes: 'Why, this envoy Torres, he may have been playing me for a fool. I believe I was a fool. They blow us to pieces, and I get the President of the United States to make peace with them — after they've seized our mines. Maybe they are planning to go for the oil next. Damn my eyes for a blind man.'

'We don't have any proof, Mr Fall. Not yet. And the missing link is still the gold.'

'That's right — what about the gold?' Fall's eyes moved back and forth. 'It can't be, Littlemore. You're telling me that by coincidence our gold was being moved on Mexican Independence Day?'

'I don't think it was coincidence, Senator. Like you said, maybe the Mexicans paid off somebody in our government — somebody in a position to arrange when the gold would be moved. I'm going to the Mexican Embassy, Mr Fall. I'm going to talk to this Torres. And Pesqueira.'

'By God, son, if you get to the bottom of this, I'll get you an embassy of your own. Where'd you like to be ambassador?'

'Not my line, Mr Fall.'

'Then how does Chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sound?'

The Mexican Embassy, a substantial four-story house on I Street, had a damp and insalubrious odor in its foyer. Discoloration streaked its walls.

'You got mold in here, ma'am,' said Littlemore to the receptionist.

'I know,' she replied. 'Everyone says. Can I help you?'

The detective learned that Elias Torres, the new envoy, had not yet presented his credentials at the embassy, but was expected tomorrow.

Senor Pesqueira, however, was upstairs.

Roberto Pesqueira was a small man with well-oiled black hair, fair skin, an ink-thin mustache and small but perfectly white teeth. He showed no signs of unease when Littlemore introduced himself as an agent of the United States Treasury. If anything, he looked as if he might have been expecting the visit.

'I have reason to think you threatened a man in New York City two months ago, Mr Pesqueira,' said Littlemore.

'What man?'

'Thomas Lamont. Two weeks before the Wall Street bombing.'

Neatly folded white handkerchiefs were piled on one corner of Pesqueira's desk. He removed one of these and applied it to his teeth. 'Your emperor,' said Pesqueira.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Senor Lamont is the king on your throne. Everyone else is his lackey. Wilson, your so-called President, is his lackey.'

'You don't deny the threat?'

'The Morgan Bank strangled my people for six years,' said Pesqueira. 'Your government propped up a corrupt dictator in my country for twenty years. You occupy my country. You steal California from us. You warn us you will make another war if we do not change our constitutional laws. And you accuse me of threatening?'

'I'm just doing my job, Mr Pesqueira.'

'Really? You must have forgotten the first two words of the law of nations.'

'What would those be?'

'Diplomatic immunity. Your law doesn't apply to me. You cannot arrest me. You cannot search my home. You cannot even question me.'

'Nope. You're a consular agent, just like Juan Burns was,' said Littlemore, referring to a Mexican consul jailed in New York City for illegal weapons purchases in 1917. 'You don't have diplomatic immunity.'

'Forgive me, you are not as ignorant as I assumed; one gets so used to it with Americans. But I am not a consular agent anymore. My office is here now, as you can see, in the embassy — and all embassy officials, I'm sure you know, enjoy the immunity of the diplomat. Technically, you are on Mexican soil right now. You cannot even be here without my consent. Shall I call the police, Agent Littlemore?'

Littlemore hurried back to Senator Fall's chambers and, notwithstanding the protest of one of the Senator's assistants, knocked on Fall's door and strode through.

'Don't you come busting in here, boy,' said Fall, seated at his desk, white handlebar mustache contrasting sharply with a florid countenance.

'Sorry, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore. 'I need to know where I can find the Mexican envoy you were telling me about — Torres. Right away.'

'Why?'

'He's not on staff at the embassy yet. Can't claim diplomatic immunity. Can we find out where he's staying?'

'That's the sort of thing I'm good at,' said Fall. 'Go sit yourself down in my waiting room. Could take a little while.'

Littlemore went to the Senator's waiting room, but he didn't sit. He paced. He looked at his watch. He got a cup of coffee. Finally, over two hours later, the businesslike but exceedingly good-looking Mrs Cross emerged with an address and a car key. 'Mr Torres has taken an apartment on Crescent Place,' she said. 'Senator Fall says you can use one of his motorcars, if you like. I'll show you where it is.'

In the basement of the Senate Office Building, an electric monorail shuttled people through an underground passage to and from the Capitol. Mrs Cross led Littlemore to a parking garage, where she climbed into the driver's seat of an open-roofed sedan.

'Excuse me, ma'am,' said Littlemore. 'I think I better do this on my own.'

'Because it might be dangerous?'

'That's right.'

'I like dangerous,' she answered. 'Besides, you're in a hurry; do you have any idea where Crescent Place is?'

'No.'

'Then you're wasting time. Get in.'

Mrs Cross slowed as they approached a narrow lane in a fashionable neighborhood. They were on Sixteenth Street. In their rearview mirror, the gates of the White House were visible in the distance far behind them. Mrs Cross turned into the curving lane and parked in front of a small apartment house. Dusk had begun to fall.

Littlemore found the name, 'Elias Torres,' handwritten in relatively fresh ink next to the mail slot for apartment 3B. Climbing to the third floor, Littlemore rang the bell. Mrs Cross stood behind him.

'Who it is?' called a Spanish-accented voice from within.

'Federal agent James Littlemore,' said Littlemore. 'Is that Elias Torres?'

'Jace.'

'What did you say?'

'I am Elias Torres.'

'I want to ask you a few questions, Mr Torres.'

'What about?'

'About the bombing of Wall Street,' answered Littlemore.

There was a pause. 'All right. A minute. I am putting on the shirt.'

'I'll give you thirty seconds,' said the detective. Littlemore put his ear to the door. He heard rushed footsteps and a window being thrown open.

'He's running,' said Mrs Cross.

'I know,' replied Littlemore.

'Aren't you going to do anything?' she asked.

'Yup — wait to make sure he's on his way.' Littlemore banged on the door. When no response was forthcoming, the detective took out a pick and metal file and went to work on the lock. 'We don't want Torres, Mrs Cross.'

'Why not?'

'He just arrived from Mexico,' said Littlemore, working his file between doorjamb and bolt. 'Hasn't moved into his embassy office yet. No diplomatic immunity. We can search whatever boxes and government papers the guy brought with him: that's what we want. But without a warrant, you can't just break into somebody's place and search his stuff — unless of course your suspect is attempting to flee.'

Littlemore popped the bolt.

'You play by the rules, New York,' said Mrs Cross.

'Somebody has to.' A breeze was blowing the curtains of the living- room window. Littlemore looked out: the window opened onto a fire escape. 'That's where he went.'

The apartment was newly and cheaply furnished. The only decorations were a few wall-hung watercolors of clowns and bulls, along with a vase of flowers sitting on an inexpensive table. Littlemore went through the rooms, the closets, the drawers. He found nothing — only a smattering of clothes and personal effects. Mrs Cross stood in the living room, smoking a cigarette. 'Sharp move,' she said, 'letting him run.'

'Not looking too smart, am I?' asked Littlemore.

'Tidy Mexican gentleman,' said Mrs Cross, making use of a clean ashtray on the dining table. 'He might have swept his floor a little better.'

Littlemore followed her line of sight. At the base of the wall, a small mound of sawdust was visible. Five feet above this sawdust, hanging on the wall, was a watercolor of a bullfight.

'Got him,' said Littlemore.

He lifted the picture off its hanger. A hole had been drilled behind it — a hole large enough for a man to stick his hand into. Which is what Littlemore did, drawing out therefrom a cardboard cylinder. The corners of rolled-up documents poked out from either end of the tube. Littlemore pulled the sheets free and flattened them out on the table, holding them down so they didn't curl.

Some of the documents were photographs. Another was a letter, in

Spanish, bearing the stamp and letterhead of a Mexican governmental department. One was a diagram.

'Holy cow,' said Littlemore. 'Holy mother of cow.'

'Why are we going down the fire escape?' asked Mrs Cross, descending the metal stairs a few treads behind Littlemore.

'Because if anybody's waiting for us, they'll be out front.'

'Who would be waiting for us?'

'If I'm Elias Torres and I left these documents behind, I'm coming back for them. With some friends. And some guns. Hold this.'

Handing Mrs Cross the cardboard cylinder with the documents inside it, Littlemore let himself down a short metal ladder, at the end of which he had to jump the last several feet to the ground. He was in the building's rear lot, which appeared to be empty.

'Throw me the tube,' he said quietly, 'and come down.'

She complied, but when she reached the last rung of the ladder, still some six feet off the ground, she looked at him and said, 'Now what?'

'Let go,' he answered. 'I'll catch you.'

She hesitated.

'Jump, for Christ's sake,' he whispered.

She did; he caught her. She had one hand on his chest: 'You're stronger than you look.'

'Is that a compliment?' he asked. 'Don't answer. Just keep quiet.'

He led Mrs Cross around the apartment house, keeping her behind him, pressing himself against the wall when they came to the street. Peering around the corner, Littlemore saw four men, hats pulled low over their heads, outside the front door of the building. One sat on the hood of the sedan in which Mrs Cross and he had arrived; the man seemed to be carelessly polishing his shoe. Littlemore drew his gun.

'Wait,' whispered Mrs Cross. 'I'll go. They don't know you're with a woman. I'll pick you up on Avenue of the President.'

'Where's that?'

'It's Sixteenth Street.' She pointed the way. Then she walked boldly out into the street, displaying not a hint of anxiety. As she sauntered near the car, the men elbowed each other. One whistled; another asked her questions of a personal nature, which Mrs Cross did not answer. When she let herself into the car and started the engine, the man sitting on the hood leaned over the windshield.

'Where do you think you're going, honey?' he said. Perhaps he thought she couldn't pull out with a man on her hood. If so, he was mistaken.

'If you can hang on, you'll find out,' answered Mrs Cross. She put the car into drive and shot from the curb, dumping the man onto the pavement behind her. Without turning to look, she gave the four men a wave of her hand and turned at the first corner. Littlemore, in the meantime, had taken advantage of the distraction to walk off, unnoticed, in the other direction.

Mrs Cross and Littlemore, coming from opposite directions, met on Sixteenth Street, renamed Avenue of the President by its socially ambitious residents. Littlemore glanced over his shoulder before climbing in the car: no one was following them.

'Where to?' she asked.

'Your senator — where would he be right now?'

'Mr Fall? Home — at the Wardman Park Hotel. It's not far from here.'

'Go,' said Littlemore. He checked behind them again. 'Not bad, Mrs Cross.'

'Why did you ask my first name if you aren't going to use it?' she replied.

The central lobby of the thousand-room Wardman Park on Connecticut Avenue, which sprawled out in several wings on a bucolic sixteen-acre hill, was bright and crowded with brand-new automobiles as well as a throng of onlookers ogling them despite the lateness of the hour.

'An auto show,' said Littlemore disparagingly. 'The whole world's foul, and all these people can think about is a new car.'

'Why Agent Littlemore,' said Mrs Cross, 'this is a new and darker tone for you. I thought you looked at things on the bright side.' 'They got a hundred elevators in this place. Which way?' 'Follow me.'

On the eighth floor, Senator Fall himself opened the door to his rooms, dressed in a dark red smoking jacket. Mrs Cross walked right in, making herself at home. Littlemore stood in the doorway 'You found something?' asked Fall.

Littlemore nodded.

'Have you shown it to Houston?'

'I can't,' said Littlemore.

As Littlemore spread out the documents on Senator Fall's dining table, Mrs Cross placed two tumblers of whiskey over ice in front of the men. She poured another for herself. 'What are the photographs of?' she asked.

'Looks like a military training camp somewhere in Mexico,' said Littlemore. 'That's a shooting range there. These are machine rifles. This one shows people working with fuses and detonators.' 'What's this list of names?' asked Fall.

'I'd say those are people who spent time at the camp. See, it shows how long they spent, what dates, and what weapons training they got. They're from all over the world. They got Italians, Russians — you name it.'

'It's a goddamn terrorist boot camp,' said Fall, 'right under our noses.' 'Do you see these two names, sir?' asked Littlemore. 'Sacco and Vanzetti,' said Fall.

'Looks like Flynn was onto something after all,' said Littlemore. Then he placed a different, thicker sheet of paper on top of the others. This one had a pen-and-ink sketch on it, carefully drawn, with arrows and labels in Spanish.

'My God,' said Fall.

'What is it?' asked Mrs Cross, sipping her whiskey.

'A diagram for arranging shrapnel around a bomb loaded in a wagon — a horse-drawn wagon.'

No one spoke.

'And that's not even the kicker, Senator Fall. Look at this one.'

Littlemore pointed to a document bearing the letterhead of the Controller-General of Mexico and, at the bottom, that gentleman's signature. Between these two formalities were several paragraphs of flowery Spanish. Senator Fall read them.

'You understand what this letter says, son?'

'Yes, sir. It's an authorization to transfer $1,115,000 to the accounts of three United States senators and one United States Cabinet member.'

'Are you one of the three, Senator dear?' Mrs Cross asked innocently.

Fall swatted Mrs Cross on her flank. 'No, I ain't. It's Borah, Cotton Tom Heflin, and Norris — the three biggest friends in Congress of those bandits running Mexico.'

'Senator Borah — the one having an affair with Alice Roosevelt?'

'Is that the only thing you women think about?' asked Fall.

'It might explain why Mr Borah needed extra money,' replied Mrs Cross. 'Which Cabinet member was getting rich?'

'Mr Houston, of the Treasury,' answered Littlemore.

Toward midnight, important men began arriving at Senator Fall's apartment at the Wardman Park Hotel. Retiring to a private study, they engaged in discussions from which Littlemore was excluded, although the detective was asked in several times to repeat the circumstances in which he'd found the documents. The meeting went on for hours. To judge from the sharp and raised voices, the discussion was contentious — occasionally acrimonious. At one point, Littlemore heard Senator Fall arguing that President Taft had 'done no less' for Wilson in 1912.

Mrs Cross identified some of the men to Littlemore: Mr Colby, the Secretary of State; Mr Baker, Secretary of War; Mr Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; Mr McAdoo, whom Littlemore had met with Commissioner Enright and the Mayor; and Mr Daugherty, the man expected to be Harding's Attorney General. 'Senator Harding himself would be here,' she said, 'but he's vacationing, lucky man. Not that he would have made any decisions anyway. These are the men who make the decisions.'

'So this McAdoo — he's the President's son-in-law? He must be as old as Wilson himself.'

'Girls like older men in this town,' replied Mrs Cross. 'Eleanor must have been about twenty when she became engaged to him. He was over fifty. But a very handsome over-fifty. You don't approve of a girl taking an interest in older men?'

'Wonder how the President felt about it,' said Littlemore, thinking of his own daughters.

'They say it broke his heart. Mr McAdoo was a member of Mr Wilson's Cabinet at the time. But Mr Wilson let him go and then, last June, took the Democratic nomination away from him. I believe Mr McAdoo might have been our next president otherwise. Poor Eleanor. I wonder how she feels now.'

'Wilson fired his own daughter's husband from the Cabinet?'

'Oh, Mr McAdoo came out all right. He's a very prominent lawyer. He's here because he knows the location of the biggest oil wells in Mexico, which belong to one of his clients. I believe Mr Brighton is an acquaintance of yours? You rode his train to New York. It's quite nice, isn't it?'

'How does everybody know what I'm doing?' asked Littlemore.

'Were there any girls on Mr Brighton's train?'

'No, there weren't.'

'Too bad. There were the one time I was invited. Well, I'm taking a rest.' It was past two in the morning. At the foot of the stairs, she turned: 'Would you mind coming upstairs, Agent Littlemore? I need to ask you something.'

Senator Fall's apartment had two floors. Evidently the bedrooms were upstairs. Littlemore went to the stairwell. The motion of Mrs Cross's figure ascending a flight of steps was even harder to turn away from than it was on flat ground. He followed her and found her in a guest bedroom, unfastening her earrings. 'Close the door,' she said.

'Why?' asked Littlemore.

'I told you — I need to ask you something.'

He closed the door. She undid her blond hair and shook it out. 'What's your question, Mrs Cross?' he asked.

She approached very near him. With her heels, she was almost exactly his height. 'Does Mrs Littlemore know how important her husband's going to be?'

'Does Mr Cross know how his wife spends her nights?'

'There is no Mr Cross anymore. He died in the war.'

'I'm sorry about that, Grace, and I'm flattered, I really am, but I can't. There are rules about this kind of thing.'

'Rules?' She slipped off her shoes, one at a time, and looked up at him, putting her hands on his chest. 'This is Washington, Agent Littlemore. The rules don't apply here.'

'Maybe not,' he said, removing her hands. 'But I still play by them.'

At five-thirty in the morning, the meeting broke up, and the well- dressed gentlemen took their leave. There was little talk, and much seriousness of expression, as the long dark overcoats made their way out of Senator Fall's apartment.

'I'm too old for this,' said Fall to Littlemore after all had departed, pouring himself another drink and easing himself into a chair. 'The war order will go out tomorrow. It'll take a while to get the troops to the border. I told them we'll need half a million soldiers.'

'A half million?' repeated Littlemore.

'Baker thinks we can do it with a fifth as many, because he's not thinking about what we're going to be doing after we win. We're going to have a country to run, for Christ's sake.' Fall took a drink, grimaced. 'Where's Grace? I need milk. Wilson's people don't want to make it public yet that Mexico bombed Wall Street. That's what I was fighting with them about. They're afraid the people will panic if they realize that the enemy can blow the hell out of our cities. I told them the American people aren't a bunch of sissies. They'll demand war when they find out. Anyway, for now Baker's not going to say anything about the bombing. They're going to play it in the papers as a response to Obregon grabbing our mines.'

'What are they going to do about Mr Houston and the three senators?'

'Nothing yet.'

'I thought they wouldn't. All we've got is an authorization from the Mexicans to transfer funds. It's not proof any money ever changed hands. It's not proof of any crime at all. We need more.'

'You've done your country a great service, son.'

'Thank you, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore.

The sun was rising when Littlemore left. The November air was sharp and clean; the smell of burning leaves was everywhere. Littlemore walked the two miles back to his hotel. When he got there, he showered, trying to figure out how he would behave around Secretary Houston and what he'd need to do at the Treasury. He stayed under the steaming water a long time.