Blackstone and the New World (2 page)

Yet, for all that, it seemed to Hiram Johnson, the man in the brown suit had missed nothing –
for all that
, he had probably learned a great deal more about his fellow passengers than they (despite their loquaciousness) had learned about each other.

And so it had continued for the six days, one hour and seventeen minutes they had been on the ship. Now, as they were sailing towards the dock, the man in the brown suit stood on the deck, looking out over – and apparently absorbed by – the Manhattan skyline, and it seemed to Johnson that if he were ever to crack through the man’s shell, this was not only his
last
chance, but also the
best
one which had been presented so far.

He sidled up to the rail, coughed discreetly, and when the Englishman noticed him, held out his hand and said, ‘Hiram Johnson.’

He would only have been slightly surprised if the other man had turned away at that point, but instead the Englishman took the proffered hand and said, ‘Sam Blackstone.’

The man had a powerful grip, Johnson thought, but it was a natural power, rather than one designed to intimidate.

‘Could I ask you if this is your first visit to my country, Mr Blackstone?’ the American said.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And what do you think of it?’

‘I’m impressed,’ Blackstone said.

Johnson felt a surge of satisfaction course through his veins.

‘And what, particularly, is it that you find impressive, Mr Blackstone?’ he asked.

‘Those very tall buildings, beyond the port. We don’t have anything like them back in London.’

Johnson nodded. He supposed it would have to have been that. It was the tall buildings just beyond the port which impressed
everyone
.

‘Over here, we call them skyscrapers,’ he said. ‘It’s a term that was originally applied to tall sails on ships, you know.’

‘Yes, I did know that,’ Blackstone replied, though without any hint of superiority in his voice.

‘They look like they’ve been here for ever, don’t they?’ Johnson continued. ‘As much a part of the natural landscape as your own baronial castles back in England?’

‘Well, perhaps not
quite
as much as the castles,’ Blackstone said, in polite disagreement.

‘No, perhaps not,’ Johnson conceded. ‘And, in fact, they haven’t been there very long
at all
. The first one was completed in ’89.’

‘Only eleven years ago,’ Blackstone said reflectively.

‘Only eleven years ago,’ Johnson echoed. ‘And that particular building has quite a story attached to it, if you’d care to hear it.’

‘I would,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘It all started when a smart young silk merchant by the name of Stearns bought a vacant lot at 50 Broadway. He planned to put up a building that he could rent out as offices, but the problem was that the frontage was only twenty-one and a half feet wide, and if he built it out of stone – which is what all buildings of that nature
were
built of at the time – the walls would be so thick there wouldn’t be enough space inside to turn a profit.’ Johnson chuckled. ‘And we Americans, you know, always want to turn a profit.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Blackstone said.

‘Well, sir, Stearns pondered on the problem mightily, and then the solution came to him in a flash. Why not build it on a steel skeleton framework, a bit like a bridge – although in this case, the bridge would be standing on its end, rather than spanning a gap? If he did it that way, he argued, the walls would only have to be twelve inches thick, and need bear no weight at all.’

‘Very clever,’ Blackstone said.

‘Not everybody thought so. When the newspapers got to hear of it, they soon started calling it the Idiotic Building.’

Blackstone’s lips twitched, forming a slight smile. ‘That does sound rather unkind of them,’ he said.

‘Yes, it was rather unkind,’ Johnson agreed. ‘But you could see their point, because apart from Stearns and his architect – a guy called Gilbert – there wasn’t a soul in New York who didn’t believe that it would blow over in the first strong wind. Then, one Sunday morning in ’89 – when all thirteen floors had been finished and there was only the roof left to be put on – there was one God Almighty storm, with the winds reaching up to eighty miles an hour. Stearns and Gilbert rushed straight to their building, as you’d imagine they would, and by the time they arrived, there was already a crowd there – just waiting for it to come toppling down. And do you know what Gilbert did next?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Blackstone said.

‘He grabbed a plumb line and began to climb a ladder up the side of the building. The people who’d come to watch began screaming at him, telling him not to be such a reckless fool and to come down before he was killed. But he didn’t pay them no mind.’

‘A determined man.’

‘A very determined man. He climbed right to the top of that thirteen-floor building, and once he was there, he crawled on his hands and knees along the scaffolding, until he reached the very edge of the structure.’

‘This would be where the plumb line comes in,’ Blackstone suggested.

‘You’ve heard the story before, Mr Blackstone,’ Johnson said, sounding a little disappointed.

‘No, I promise you that I haven’t,’ Blackstone replied. ‘Do please go on, Mr Johnson.’

Well, Gilbert got the plumb line out of his pocket, held one end, and let the other – the one with the lead weight on it – fall towards the street. And there it was – hanging taut. Which meant, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, that the building wasn’t vibrating at all. And that day, sir,’ Hiram Johnson said, with an impressive swelling to his voice which indicated he was reaching the grand finale of his story, ‘was the day that changed the history of New York City.’

‘Is that the place?’ Blackstone asked, pointing at a domed building in the distance.

‘Why, no sir, that’s the Pulitzer Building. It’s named after its owner, Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the
New York World
newspaper, and that’s got a story of its own.’

The ship had almost reached the dock, and already there was a flurry of activity, as stevedores prepared to unload the cargo, and customs offices stood waiting to come on board. Within half an hour or so, he would be on American soil for the first time in his life, Blackstone thought.

‘I said, the Pulitzer Building’s got a story of its own,’ Johnson repeated. ‘Would you care to hear that, too?’

Blackstone smiled again. ‘Why not?’

‘Pulitzer’s a Hungarian by birth,’ Johnson said. He paused. ‘I guess that’s
somewhere
in Europe.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Blackstone confirmed.

‘Joe came here in the Fifties, and when the Civil War broke out in ’61, he already felt patriotic enough about his new home to join the Union Army as a cavalryman. Well, one day, when he was on a short leave in New York City, he went into French’s Hotel in search of some refreshment, but the management was worried his frayed uniform might offend some of their fancier guests, so they refused to serve him.’

‘Bastards,’ said Blackstone, who had been a soldier himself, and knew all about frayed uniforms.

‘Joe survived the war, and started his newspaper, which became a big success, and when he’d made enough money, he bought French’s Hotel outright, had it razed to the ground, and put the Pulitzer Building there in its place.’

‘So the story had a happy ending,’ Blackstone said.

‘Yes, it did,’ Johnson said, though that was not the point of
his
story at all. ‘But do you know why he built it so tall?’

‘Because he needed a great deal of space to run his newspaper properly?’ Blackstone guessed.

‘That’s part of the answer, but
only
part of it. You see, the
World
’s two biggest rivals, the
Sun
and the
Herald
, have their offices nearby, and Joe wanted his building to dwarf theirs. The popular tale is that he said he wanted a building in which his editors only had to go to the window in order to spit on the
Sun
, but I believe – if you’ll excuse the crudity – that what he actually said was that they only had to go to the window in order to
piss
on it.’

‘That sounds more like a Hungarian,’ Blackstone said in a tone which left the American unsure whether he was joking or not.

‘So that’s the building he wanted, and that’s what he
got
,’ Hiram Johnson continued. ‘It’s three hundred and nine feet tall, which makes it the
tallest
building in the whole wide world.’

‘But from what I’ve already learned about you Americans, I don’t think it will be the tallest building in the world for long.’

‘I do believe you’re right, sir,’ Johnson agreed.

‘And this Joe Pulitzer bloke started out with nothing,’ Blackstone said thoughtfully.

‘And he started out with nothing,’ Johnson confirmed.

‘So it would seem that this really
is
the land of opportunity.’

‘It is, sir. We pride ourselves on the fact.’

The ship had docked, and no sooner had the gangplank been lowered than a stream of people poured down it. There were men, women and children, all poorly dressed (though not a great deal more poorly than Blackstone himself), and they carried their possessions in a variety of carpet bags, sacks and small steamer trunks. The dockside police had been waiting for them, and shepherded them towards a number of moored barges.

‘Where are they going?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Ellis Island,’ Hiram Johnson told him. ‘It’s out in the bay. It’s where they’ll be processed.’

‘And will you and I be going out to this Ellis Island, too?’ Blackstone wondered aloud.

‘No, sir, we will not. It’s only the steerage passengers who are taken to the island. We’ll be processed on board the ship.’

‘So despite this being the land of opportunity, there’s still one law for the rich and another for the poor?’

Johnson chuckled. ‘Now you’re catching on,’ he said. ‘The preamble to our Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” However, if you read between the lines, it
also
says, “But if you think the rich will get the same treatment as the poor, you must be crazy”.’

He paused, as if suddenly concerned that having held his country up as a shining example, he had now said something which might tarnish it in Blackstone’s eyes.

‘Of course, with the numbers involved, we’ve no choice in the matter,’ he continued hastily. ‘Why, last year alone, a million and a half people passed through Ellis Island. There simply wouldn’t be the space to process that many people anywhere else.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Blackstone agreed non-committally.

A new thought came into Johnson’s mind. It had been his mission to find out more about the other man, and in that he had failed miserably. Where he should have been asking shrewd questions, he had fallen into the trap of instead boosting his home country. Where he should have been analysing responses, he had instead provided responses to be analysed.

Well, there were still a few minutes left, and he was determined to make the best of them.

‘So, tell me, Mr Blackstone, what brings you to the United States of America?’ he asked. ‘Business?’

‘I suppose you could say it was business, in a way,’ the other man replied enigmatically.

‘You’re a salesman perhaps?’ Johnson suggested, though Blackstone’s shabby suit seemed to argue against that possibility. ‘That’s my own particular line of work, you know.’

‘I’d never have guessed that,’ Blackstone said, and once again the American was not sure whether he was joking or not.

‘Yes, I represent Buffalo Pharmaceuticals,’ Johnson continued. ‘We started out small, but we’re growing bigger every day, and now we even have a European office, which is why I happen to be . . .’ He paused, conscious of the fact that he had allowed himself to drift away from his intended aim again. ‘So
are
you a salesman?’ he asked, getting back on course.

‘No,’ Blackstone said, ‘I’m not.’

‘Then perhaps you’re an engineer of some kind?’ Johnson said doggedly. ‘A railway engineer? We’re very big on railways in America.’

‘No, not that, either,’ Blackstone replied. For a moment he said no more, then – perhaps deciding it would be rude to supply no details at all – he added, ‘I’m here to pick up a man, and escort him back to England.’

‘Then you’re kinda like the Pinkertons?’ Johnson exclaimed.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They’re a big detective agency, but most of their work doesn’t involve
detecting
at all. Their main business comes from providing protection. I suppose you’d call them bodyguards.’

‘Ah!’ Blackstone said.

If that was Blackstone’s line of work, it would certainly explain his innate hardness and aloofness, Hiram Johnson thought. It would
even
explain why he felt under no compulsion to be more smartly kitted out. Because if you were willing to entrust your life to a man – and he was good at his job – you wouldn’t give a damn how he dressed.

Blackstone had still neither denied nor confirmed that this
was
his line of work.

‘So you’re a bodyguard of some sort?’ Johnson repeated.

‘In a way, I suppose I am,’ Blackstone conceded, smiling again, but very thinly this time. ‘It is my job to see that nothing untoward happens to the man who I’m picking up until he’s safely back in London.’

What a very strange way to phrase it, Johnson thought.

‘And will something “untoward” happen to him once he
is
back in London?’ he asked jovially.

‘That would depend on your point of view,’ Blackstone said. ‘I wouldn’t regard it as untoward at all. In fact, I would see it as a very satisfactory conclusion to the whole affair. But I suspect the man I’m escorting won’t see it in quite the same way.’