The Anarchist (21 page)

“I’m looking for Katrina,” Hyde said.

They all stopped working and stared at Hyde, and then the man at the cash register turned toward the woman who had been slicing meat. She was thin, pale, and in late pregnancy. “What do you want?” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

Hyde went down the bar and said quietly, “Motka sent me.” He laid his bandaged hand on the counter, and opening it he let her see the earring pinned to the cloth. “I must speak with you.”

She put down her knife, glanced at her relatives, and then led Hyde to a door at the back of the bar. They entered a storeroom with shelves stacked with boxes, jars, and cans.

Hyde closed the door behind them and took the three twenty-dollar bills from his pocket. “This is for Anton.”

Katrina sat gently on a crate and rubbed her back. Her eyes were a very pale blue, and now they seemed relieved; she took the bills from him and said, “All right. I can tell you they are on a
barge in the river—it’s tied up at a wharf north of the coke plant. I don’t know how you tell it from the others. I don’t know the name. You must find it, go there tonight, and show this earring to Anton.” She handed two of the bills back to him. “He says they need this.”

She started to get up, but had difficulty. He took her by the arm—as thin as a child’s—and helped her to her feet. “You should be home resting,” he said.

He turned to open the door, but Katrina took hold of his shirt and turned him back to her—her fingers were surprisingly strong and her eyes now bright with fear. “You find Anton and you get him away from them.”

“Who?”

“There is Bruener, who owns the barge, and his son Josef.”

“I know Bruener.”

“Anton believes in the workers’ cause, but he’s having doubts since this outside man came to Buffalo.”

“What outside man?”

“I don’t know. He is planning something—”

“What?”

“I don’t know, but it’s going too far. I can tell Anton is afraid—and he’s afraid to leave them.” Her eyes began to brim over with tears.
“Please
. I have one son, and this one on the way. Please send my husband back.”

“I’ll try,” Hyde said. He put his hand over hers, and slowly she released his shirt.

NINE thirty Friday night Cortelyou’s bulletin read: “The president is dying.”

Rixey remained with the president while Cortelyou went downstairs to deliver the bulletin to the reporters stationed in
front of the Milburn house. Outside there was a high wind, as well as frequent thunder and lightning.

For the next few hours government officials came to McKinley’s bedside. Toward midnight there were visits from his brother, sisters, nephews, and nieces. The president, who went in and out of a stupor, requested to see his wife twice. During her last visit she held his hand while he sang a few lines from his favorite hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” When she was led out of the room, she made no display of grief or tears.

Word arrived at the Milburn house that an enormous mob was gathering in the streets around the Buffalo police headquarters, and that Chief Bull had requested that national guardsmen and army regulars encircle the building.

At one a.m. the
Buffalo Commercial
distributed an extra edition with the headline
HE IS DEAD.
Although John Milburn appeared on the front steps of his house to insist to a crowd of reporters that the president was still alive, other papers hastily released editions with similar headlines. Soon after, the county coroner arrived at the house, claiming that he had come to take charge of the body. He was turned away and told that he would be notified when he was needed.

A few minutes past two o’clock, the president’s breathing, which had been mechanical and audible, stopped. After a short time, he took one more deep breath, and then was still. Rixey put his stethoscope on William McKinley’s chest, and said quietly, “The president is dead.”

M
RS. MCKINLEY WAS loath to even consider an autopsy, but after Rixey and Cortelyou discussed the matter with her at length she accepted a compromise: the doctors could examine the heart, lungs, and intestinal organs, but she was adamant that nothing be removed from the body other than small tissue samples necessary for microscopic study. The autopsy began at noon on Saturday, conducted by the Erie County coroner, James Wilson, and Dr. Harvey Gaylord and Dr. Herman Matzinger of the New York State Pathological Laboratory. Present were Dr. Rixey and many of the other physicians who had been involved in the case. The procedure lasted four hours, and before it was concluded Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president of the United States in the Wilcox house, which was a short distance down Delaware Avenue.

The autopsy findings proved to be controversial: a passage in the coroner’s report stated that gangrene had been found on “both walls of the stomach and pancreas following the gunshot wounds.” Within hours of the autopsy hysterical newspaper articles appeared across the country, claiming that the president had died of infection, not gunshot wounds; furthermore, there was embarrassment over the argument that an insufficient portion of tissue had been removed for study. The doctors disagreed
about the cause of the gangrene. Dr. Park argued that the damaged pancreas caused death, while Dr. Mann was more interested in the condition of McKinley’s heart. The muscle tissue was pale and extremely fatty, the result, apparently, of the president’s sedentary routine. The most controversial opinion, however, came from Dr. Wasdin, the anesthesiologist, who claimed that the patient’s rapid decline could only be attributed to the fact that the assassin had used poison bullets. Though there was no substantiating evidence, newspapers reported this theory in the most sensational way.

During the week following the shooting, the press had lauded the medical staff for its valiant efforts; yet within hours of the president’s death numerous articles and editorials cast suspicion on the competence of the physicians involved in the case, many of whom were now prone to acrimonious statements about one another, which were quoted in the papers.

Oddly, Dr. Rixey was somewhat removed from the controversy, despite the fact that he had been at the very center of the case. His role had not been as a specialist but as a general practitioner who had acted as the one who coordinated the other physicians’ participation in McKinley’s treatment. This new turn of events deepened his remorse and quite exhausted him. He felt almost fortunate that most of his time and energy was devoted to the health and well-being of the grieving first lady.

NORRIS received a telephone call from Lloyd Savin asking him to come to police headquarters. With the death of the president, an angry mob had again surrounded the building, demanding to lynch Leon Czolgosz. As Norris moved through the crowd he spotted the captain, waiting beyond the cordon of policemen that were protecting the building. Norris was admitted through the
line and joined Savin at the top of the front steps. The noise from the street was deafening, forcing Savin to shout, “We’ve requested hundreds of national guardsmen to help out.”

“It might not be enough.” Norris looked back down at the crowded street. “Maybe you should just throw Czolgosz out the window to them and be done with it.”

“Perhaps, but I called you because I thought you’d be interested in a certain dead prostitute.” He led Norris down a narrow set of stairs to the basement. “We call these the ‘dungeons.’” Savin’s voice echoed off the stone walls. “Ordinarily we’d hold them over in the city jail, but it’s under renovation.”

“Them?”

“We’ve been rounding up suspected anarchists. They claim to know nothing, and most hardly speak English. The one thing they have in common is they all bleed easily.”

Savin led Norris to the first door, where they could look through iron bars at perhaps twenty men crammed in a cell, some sitting on benches while others were sprawled on the floor. Most were bruised and bloodied.

“We’ve hauled in dozens with socialist connections, but we haven’t found anyone we can tie to Czolgosz.” Savin lit a cigarette and the smell of tobacco was a relief. “But …” He continued to the end of the hall, where a young uniformed policeman unlocked a heavy wooden door and swung it open.

Norris followed Savin inside and the door was closed behind them. The room was tiny and lit by a flickering gas lamp. A man was slumped in a chair at a wooden table. He was in his late fifties, and he wore a yellow-and-black-checkered vest and jacket, and a grimy top hat that was stove in on one side. His left ear was clotted with dried blood, and blood had run down his neck and stained his shirt collar, yet he maintained a lopsided grin and a gleam in his eye, as though he were genuinely happy to see them. In a grand gesture, he doffed his hat and bowed with exaggerated grace. “As you may observe,” he said to Norris in a British accent, “their powers of persuasion are without equal.”

Savin and Norris sat in the chairs across the table from him.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Norris asked the man.

“Oh, it’s certainly possible,” he said. “In my prime I performed
Hamlet
for Queen Victoria herself, but I have now attained a vintage that seems more appropriate to the role of Polonius, who gets run through whilst lurking behind an arras in fair Gertrude’s bedchamber—or even Claudius, the king, who at least gets to dally with said Gertrude before he himself is run through.” As he spoke his hands moved through the air, seeming to coax emphasis and perfect pitch from each syllable. “Suffice it to say that after this interrogation I might be prepared to play the Ghost.”

“No, I think I saw you in a saloon, somewhere in Black Rock,” Norris said, glancing toward Savin. “Two brothers were trying to convince me that a group of anarchists from Paterson were plotting to sink J. P. Morgan’s yacht in New York harbor.” He looked at the man across the table. “And you, you were up on the stage, singing, dancing, telling jokes, and giving recitations between appearances by—”

“That would be Lady Godiva, of the long, splendid tresses and the ample bosom, who, gloriously naked, would ride bareback across the stage upon her grand white steed.” He inhaled deeply, as though savoring a fine wine. “Oh, the firmness of those pale, bouncing buttocks as they jounced ever so gently on that handsome mount’s quivering haunches!” He placed his hand over his heart and bowed forward slowly. “I am but a humble thespian, sir. Augustus P. Quimby, at your service.”

“No,” Norris said, “it was Dr. Quimby, and you sold some elixir as well.”

“Ah, yes, well, even actors have to eat,” the gentleman said. “That would be Dr. Quimby’s Amazing Elixir, a dash of which I could use at the moment.”

“That’s the one,” Norris said. “I believe you did recite from
Hamlet.”

“‘Marry, sir, here’s my drift,’” Quimby said. “‘And I believe, it is a fetch of wit.’”

“The problem is,” Savin said, “he’s forthcoming, but only up to a point. And then we get a shitload of Shakespeare.”

Norris took his cigar case from inside his coat and laid it open on the table. Slowly he prepared the tip of a cigar with his knife, never once looking at Quimby. “So you’ve been persuaded to help us—in what way?”

“To proffer my assistance, of course, like the good citizen that I am!” Quimby said.

“You’re a drummer, a huckster,” Norris said. “Why should we believe you?”

Quimby raised his chin as though to deflect the insult. “Dear sir, I am many things to many people.” Then, leaning forward, he said, “‘For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.’”