The Anarchist (10 page)

“You know that the president has said that this may be the most important speech of his career—it’s intended to set the agenda for his second term.” Cortelyou scanned the guards who patrolled the sidewalk in front of the house. “Look at the security we have—they’ve cordoned off the entire block. We have Buffalo police, military personnel, and of course the beloved Pinkertons.”

The attempt at humor didn’t take, however; if anything, it made Rixey more agitated. “You take all these precautions, and yet—do you know what the president did again this morning?”

Cortelyou knew, but he shook his head.

“He came downstairs and before breakfast was served, he went outside, and took a
constitutional
around the neighborhood—ordering the guards that he was
not
to be followed. The president, wandering alone around the streets of Buffalo, without any protection at all!”

“As his physician, you might recommend that he take more constitutionals. Nothing would be better for his waistline.”

“I’m not talking about the fit of his vest,” Rixey said. “He defies my every precaution. At the Executive Mansion once he was sitting by an open window—at
night
when he was in
full
view from the street. When I mentioned this to him, what did he do? He got up, pulled down the
shade
, and took his seat again. When
I suggested that he move away from the window, he was astonished, and asked, ‘Who would wish to harm me?’”

“He is beloved,” Cortelyou said. “You saw his reception yesterday. He enjoys being among the people, meeting them. He detests the isolation of the office, which I find an admirable, even healthy, response.”

Rixey folded his arms as though to restrain himself. “You know what he once said to me? He said, ‘If it weren’t for Ida, I’d prefer to go the way of Lincoln.’”

Out in the street they could hear the sound of carriage wheels and horse hooves approaching the house. Behind them there was the rustle of skirts from the far end of the hall. Rixey turned and watched Mrs. McKinley walk from the dining room, followed by her maid, Clara Tharin. Both he and Cortelyou stepped aside, bowing slightly. She didn’t really look at either of them, but stared straight ahead. She passed through the front door, and the president smiled as he took her arm.

“You watch,” Rixey said. “As the day progresses at some point the first lady will …”

Tactfully, he let it stop there. It wasn’t necessary to go further; they both knew what would happen, for Mrs. McKinley could be quite exasperating and predictable. To be sure, at some point during the day’s events she would grow tired, and suddenly special arrangements would have to be made to accommodate her.

“Presley,” Cortelyou said, placing a hand on the doctor’s forearm. “We’re all fortunate you’re here.”

Then they both followed the others down to the waiting carriages.

CZOLGOSZ had never seen such a crowd, thousands gathered in the Triumphal Causeway before a stage built especially for the
president’s speech. He was so far back from the platform he could barely hear the president. He worked his way forward slowly, gazing across the sea of hats and parasols. It was so rare to actually
see
the president that people didn’t seem bothered by the fact that they couldn’t hear every word he said.

Czolgosz kept his right hand in his coat pocket, holding his revolver tightly, but as he neared the stage he realized it would be impossible to get close enough. There were soldiers in full-dress uniform lined up in front of the platform. He got to within twenty yards of them, but he stood shoulder to shoulder with two men, and it would be impossible to take aim and fire accurately before one of them made a grab for the pistol. It was very hot and he was sweating heavily. All around him people wiped their faces with handkerchiefs—he’d left both his handkerchief and his fedora in his room at Nowak’s.

McKinley did not seem affected by the heat. He held a sheaf of papers before him as he spoke, while his other hand was casually tucked in the front pocket of his striped trousers. He was fatter than Czolgosz had expected, but somehow that didn’t make the man an easier target. Nor did he seem particularly threatening. Even from this distance, his face was wide and fleshy, but his voice was deep, clear, and remarkably precise as it drifted out over the hushed crowd. He was simply a man who ate well and dressed formally—when he first stepped up onto the stage he had been wearing a silk top hat, which he removed before delivering his speech. He was talking about things that meant nothing to Czolgosz. He used the word “reciprocity” numerous times, and it seemed to have something to do with America’s trade relations with other nations. Behind him on the stage sat dozens of foreign dignitaries; some wore their native clothing, shiny pastel silks from the Orient, and one man wore a red fez. Compared to these other government representatives, the president was as bland as he was fat.

This huge crowd, all these ornate buildings in the exposition—it seemed so distant from the dim, noisy, foul-smelling
factories where Czolgosz had worked in Cleveland. He tried to imagine what Emma Goldman would say if she were up on that platform. She would talk about the children whose youth was being destroyed by endless days on the factory floor. She would talk about the city streets where tenement buildings did not have electric lights, where the squalor, filth, and lack of sanitation led to disease and death. She would talk about women bearing children until it finally killed them. Gesturing with her arms, her glasses glinting in the sun, Emma Goldman would shout down this fat man. She would insist that instead the president look closely at the daily lives of American citizens.

AT Norris’s insistence, two Pinkertons accompanied Hyde to the exposition for the president’s speech. They bought three pairs of binoculars from vendors just inside the gate, and then they agreed to split up, seeking high vantage points from which to view the wide esplanade known as the Triumphal Causeway. Hyde managed to find a place on the steps to the French exhibit building, where he had a good view of the stage. The two Pinkertons—Rawley, leaning on a windowsill in the Brazil exhibit, and Miles, standing next to a palm tree rising from the flat roof above the Streets of Cairo—scanned the crowd methodically, but they frequently trained their binoculars on Hyde, as he was the only one who knew what Czolgosz looked like. The newspapers predicted that anywhere from fifty to one hundred thousand people would come to hear the president. The crowd was enormous; Hyde had never seen anything like it.

He used the binoculars, though it seemed quite pointless. The back of his head still ached, and the lump left by Motka’s chamber pot was tender—it was very close to where her brother, Anton,
had hit him. When he had awakened he was lying in her bed, and she leaned over him, rinsing the cut on his scalp.

“Where’s Czolgosz?” Hyde had asked.

“Gone.” Her eyes were filled with tears. He’d never seen her cry before. “I do not understand this. He wants to shoot the president?”

“The gun—he took it?”

“Yes.” She wrung out the cloth over the pan of pink water.

He touched the back of his head and winced at the pain. “Did he give you any idea where he was going?”

“I did not understand what was happening. I thought you were going to shoot him.”

“I should have.”

She placed the cool, wet cloth on the back of his head again. “You must to stop him.”

But it seemed impossible amid this enormous crowd. Everyone gazed toward the stage, and from this angle it was difficult to see faces. Still, Hyde believed he could spot Czolgosz’s head, if not from the back, certainly in profile. There was a delicacy to his features, a dreamy expression that was unmistakable. With subtle adjustments of the binoculars, it was as though Hyde could leap across the audience and peer right at someone’s face. He examined scars, pockmarks, shaving nicks at close range. Men with facial hair he passed over quickly. But it occurred to him that Czolgosz might attempt some form of disguise. There wasn’t enough time, and there were simply too many men, too many faces raised, almost as if in prayer, toward the stage.

After he had left Big Maud’s, he went to tell Norris. He had never been to the Pinkerton office before, but he knew it was above a men’s haberdashery. When he entered the long room, detectives sat at desks smoking, talking, and like Norris they all possessed a well-fed brutality. They watched Hyde as though he were a suspect, but then a door opened at the back of the room and Norris waved Hyde into an office that was separated from the rest of the room by frosted glass.

The police captain Lloyd Savin was there, too, sitting in the corner. Norris leaned on a mahogany desk. They both listened to Hyde describe the previous night at Big Maud’s, though he didn’t mention Motka. When he was finished, Norris said, “So you’ve lost him. Again.”

“After he brains you,” Savin added. “That’s using your head.” Both he and Norris laughed, but then they stopped as if on cue.

“I don’t suppose you have a picture of him?” Norris asked.

Hyde shook his head.

“A blond man, slight build, not too tall, in his mid-twenties,” Norris said. “There shouldn’t be too many of those in Buffalo, I imagine.”

“And you’re sure he has a gun,” Savin said. “You saw it.”

“A revolver, yes,” Hyde said.

Norris got to his feet, opened the office door, and said, “Wait outside.”

Hyde went out and the door was closed behind him. The detectives in the larger office all stopped talking at once; they turned and stared at him. He went over to a window that looked down into the street. They could all hear Savin’s voice coming from Norris’s office—something about the way he spoke more distinctly indicated that he was talking on the telephone. He was arranging some meeting for later in the afternoon. When he mentioned the Milburn house, one of the detectives said quietly, “That’s where the president’s staying.”

After Savin hung up, minutes passed, causing the detectives to get restless, until finally the door opened; Norris came out, with Savin behind him, bringing absolute silence to the detectives in the room.

Norris said, “All of you are to go to the exposition this afternoon for the president’s speech. You’re to keep an eye out for a young man with blond hair, not too tall, slight build, and he’s carrying a revolver.”

Norris looked at him and said, “And you, Rawley—you and Miles take Hyde with you.” He paused a moment, and then glanced
at Hyde. “And when the speech is over—assuming the president doesn’t get shot—you are then to bring him back here.”

One of the other detectives snorted. “What if he does get shot?”

Norris stared long and hard at the man, who finally removed the toothpick from his mouth and looked away.

Norris and Savin went back into the office and closed the door, making the frosted-glass wall shake. The detectives didn’t move at first; then slowly, one by one, they got up from their desks and began to leave, each one as he put on his coat or hat giving Hyde a hard look on the way out.

Now the president finished his speech and the crowd burst into cheers. McKinley seemed genuinely surprised by the response. He bowed repeatedly, a gesture that was formal, yet humble and appreciative. He raised his arm and waved back at the crowd, and it was this simple gesture that seemed to elevate the noise until it swelled through the Triumphal Causeway in waves, Americans cheering their president, who waved back as though he were greeting old friends. A woman standing in front of Hyde wept with joy.

Hyde lowered his binoculars and watched the president leave the stage with his entourage. The crowd shifted and re-formed itself, and quickly an avenue was created, allowing the president’s carriage to move slowly down the causeway. Hyde looked through the binoculars again, and suddenly he saw Czolgosz, standing not five yards from the carriage. His head seemed to float on a sea of humanity—but while there were expressions of adoration around him, his face remained stony and unmoved.

As McKinley’s carriage continued on through the parting crowd, Czolgosz was pushed farther behind, and finally he began to make his way in the other direction, toward the Lincoln Avenue gate.