The Death Instinct (13 page)

    Jimmy Littlemore bottomed his whiskey glass, but there was nothing; in it. He tried to pour himself another; there was nothing left in the bottle either. Daylight had just begun to show in the windowpanes. 'Okay,' he said slowly 'What happened next?'

    'That's all. I left the next day. Went to India.'

    'India?'

    'Stayed there almost a year.'

    Littlemore looked at him: 'Stuck on her, huh?'

    Younger didn't answer. India had repelled him - and fascinated him. He kept planning to leave, but stayed on for month after sweltering month, wondering at the snake-headed men of Benares, at the filth of the Ganges where natives washed themselves after bathing their family's corpses, at the harmony of the great palaces and tombs. He knew he remained only because nothing in India reminded him of Colette, whereas in Europe or America everything would have. Eventually, however, Indian girls began reminding him of Colette too.

    'Guess it's time to switch to coffee,' said Littlemore. He went to the stove and, with his good arm, set up a percolator. 'What happened to the Miss?'

    'She wrote to me. There was a letter waiting when I got back to London. She'd sent it last Christmas. Apparently she'd left Vienna without even going to the prison to see her soldier fiancé. She'd had a conversation with Freud and changed her mind. She returned to Paris, worked at the Radium Institute for six months, and then the Sorbonne finally took her. She was finishing her degree. She asked if I might come down to visit.'

    'What did you write back?'

    'I didn't write back.'

    'Sharp move,' said Littlemore.

    Neither spoke.

    'Did you ever get to a point with a girl,' asked Younger, 'where you couldn't close your eyes without seeing her? Day and night - awake, asleep? Where you couldn't think of anything without also thinking of her?'

    'Nope.'

    'I don't advise it,' said Younger.

    'Why didn't you write to her?'

    'If I were an opium addict, what would you suggest I do - give in to the craving or resist it?'

    'Opium's bad for you.'

    'So is she.'

    'Then what?'

    'I came back to America. Last July.'

    'But how'd she get here?'

    'I recommended her for a position at Yale. A radiochemist named Boltwood was looking for an assistant. She was the best-qualified candidate.'

    'You've got to be kidding.'

    'She was. By far.'

    'Come on - what are you waiting for?' asked Littlemore. 'When are you going to propose?

    The kettle began to rattle.

    'What is it with you husbands?' asked Younger. 'You think every man wants to be in your condition. I got stuck on the girl. Now I'm unstuck.'

    'You said yourself you wanted to marry her. When you were in Vienna.'

    'I was wrong. She's too young. She believes in God.'

    'I believe in God.'

    'Well, I don't want to marry you either.'

    'You're just sore because she lied to you about Hans.'

    'I'm sore because I wanted her and never had her,' said Younger. 'Freud was right - I do mistreat women. Once I have them, I don't want them anymore. I use them up. I can't stand the sight of them after three months, and I toss them aside. She's better off with Hans. Much better.'

    'She doesn't want Hans. She changed her mind.'

    'And she'll change it again,' said Younger. He finished off his glass and spoke more quietly: 'You think she's forgotten him - the man she was engaged to? That's not how women work. I'll tell you what's going to happen. She'll go looking for him. Count on it. Sooner or later, she'll realize she needs to see her Hans again - just once - just to be sure.'

    Stirrings came from down the hall, then footsteps. The men glanced at each other. Colette entered the room, squinting, wearing a nightgown too large for her, borrowed from Littlemore's wife. Only youth is beautiful at six in the morning; Colette, despite a confusion of hair, was beautiful. Both men rose.

    'Morning, Miss,' said Littlemore. 'Coffee?'

    'Yes, please - oh, I'll do it; sit down, you two invalids,' she answered. Bursts of hot water were sputtering in the glass button on the coffee pot's lid. Rubbing her eyes, Colette saw the empty whiskey bottle on the table. 'Isn't that illegal here?'

    'You can drink it at home,' said Littlemore; 'you just can't buy it or sell it. Great policy. A lot of folks are making spirits in their bathtubs.

    Say, I never complimented you, Miss, on that trick you pulled last night - getting them to steal your radium so we could trace you.'

    'Thank you, Jimmy,' said Colette. 'I was lucky.'

    'She did that on purpose?' asked Younger.

    'Sure,' said Littlemore. 'Kind of obvious, Doc. How many times did the kidnappers go to the Miss's hotel room?'

    'I don't know - twice?' asked Younger.

    'Twice,' agreed Littlemore. 'The first time, they took Luc. They already had him when you called, remember? But when we got there, Drobac was in the hallway with his pockets stuffed, and the ash next to the Miss's case was still warm. In other words, he went back a second time, and that's when he took the elements. So why didn't he take them the first time if they were worth all that dough? Because he didn't know about them. How'd he find out about them? The Miss must have told him. The only question was whether she let it slip by accident or on purpose. Given how smart the Miss is, I had to figure on purpose.'

    Younger nodded. 'I'm impressed - doubly impressed.'

    'I have to go back, Stratham,' said Colette.

    'To the hotel?' asked Younger.

    'To Europe.' Colette unplugged the percolator. She poured coffee.

    Littlemore looked at Younger.

    'You can't - you're in charge of Boltwood's laboratory,' said Younger. 'Don't judge America because of what happened yesterday. It's safe here.'

    'It's not that,' she answered. 'I received a letter. From Austria. It was in the mail that Jimmy's friend Spanky brought back from the hotel.'

    'Stanky, Miss,' said Littlemore. 'Not Spanky.'

    Younger said nothing.

    'Who was the letter from?' asked Littlemore.

    'From a policeman who helped me once when I was in Vienna,' she replied. 'Hans is getting out of jail, Stratham. In just a few weeks. I have to go back.'

Part 2

Chapter Eight

    The morning after the attack, a hundred thousand people gathered on Wall Street.

    They came unbidden, drawn by the afterimages of devastation, the lingering proximity of death. Some were gawkers from out of town. Others had employment in the financial district. But most drifted in like wanderers, with no articulate aim, moved by a need they could not have explained, as if being there might somehow supply a void they felt without knowing they felt it.

    As a result, the Constitution Day celebration was the largest the country had ever known. Workmen laboring all night erected a wooden platform in front of George Washington's bronze statue. Bunting had been hung in red, white, and blue, festooned with American flags. With a fully armed company of solders still guarding the Treasury Building, the impression created was halfway between a holiday and a siege.

    Patriotic speeches were made. America the Beautiful' was sung, tears glistening on thousands of faces. While the words 'sea to shining sea' still echoed in the great canyons of lower Manhattan, a ruddy, white- whiskered brigadier general took the podium. The crowd quieted.

    'September sixteenth,' he proclaimed, his voice echoing off the skyscrapers. 'A date America will never forget. September sixteenth - the date on which Americans will say for the rest of time that our country changed forever. September sixteenth. On this spot where we now stand, one of the greatest outrages committed in the history of our country was perpetrated. Are we, as American citizens, going to close our eyes to this infamy? I say no, a thousand times no.'

    The word was repeated thousands of times more.

    The Brigadier General held up his arms, checking the crowd's cheers: 'The vampires must and will be brought to justice.'

    Thunderous applause.

    'Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken this morning with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer,' he went on, and the name of Palmer brought fresh cheers and foot stamping. 'General Palmer wished to be here himself this morning, but alas it couldn't be. The General desires me to assure you, however, not only that he is on the way to our city at this very moment but that he already knows the identity of the perpetrators of this outrage. Yes, he has their confession - their boastful confession - in hand. And he has a message both for us and for our enemies. General Palmer says, and I quote, that he "will sweep the nation clean of their alien filth"!'

    There was a roar of satisfaction and a thrilling chorus of 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' On the stage a young man stepped forward and began the national anthem. A hundred thousand voices made vigorous harmony.

    Younger was writing a letter at a small table in the Littlemores' living room when he sensed, rather than heard, Luc behind him.

    In the previous hour, Betty Littlemore had clothed, fed, and packed off to school an endless string of little Littlemores. The apartment was still not wholly peaceful: babies cried, toddlers banged cooking pots, and the detective's wife and mother-in-law were discoursing volubly in the kitchen. Younger couldn't understand their Italian, but the topic was evidently a matter on which both women had strong opinions.

    Younger turned to face Luc. The boy stood on the other side of the room, perfectly still, saying as usual nothing. His long dirty blond hair was well brushed, and his large observant eyes conveyed preoccupation with a multitude of thoughts, without giving a single one of them away.

    'Your sister has told you,' said Younger in French, 'that she plans to take you back to Europe.'

    Luc nodded.

    'And you're wondering if I intend to change her mind.'

    The boy nodded again.

    'The answer is no. She knows what's best.'

    Luc shook his head - just once, very slightly.

    'Yes, she does,' said Younger. He put down his pen, leaned back, looked out the window. Then he turned back to the boy: 'Well, if you are going back to Europe, we shouldn't be wasting time. I'll tell you what: Bring me a newspaper. We'll see when the Yankees are playing. Maybe Ruth will hit his fiftieth today.'

    The boy scampered away and returned a moment later, the morning paper in his hands and a disappointed expression on his face.

    Younger looked at the page to which Luc had opened the newspaper: the Yankees were on the road and therefore not playing in Yankee Stadium - which the boy apparently understood. 'Can you read English?' asked Younger.

    Luc shrugged.

    'I see,' said Younger, recalling how, when he was himself a boy, he had once astonished his father by having taught himself to read rudimentary Latin. He also recalled how he used to watch everything that happened in his household, understanding secret expressions on his mother's face that he was not supposed even to have seen. 'Can you speak, Luc? I'm not asking you to talk. I just want to know if you can. Yes or no.'

    The boy stared at him, unmoving.

    'Right,' said Younger. 'Well, too bad about the Yankees. Let me think - how would you like to go to the roof of the tallest building in the whole world?'

    Luc's eyes lit up.

    'Go see if your sister will let you,' said Younger. 'And if she'll join us.'

    Detective Littlemore might have passed for one of the gentlemen of the press packed into uncomfortable chairs in the Astor Hotel, except that the detective's hands were stuffed in his pockets, while the newsmen's were busy scribbling down the remarks of William Flynn, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who stood at the front of the room next to a chalkboard map of lower Manhattan. Chief Flynn had commandeered several suites of rooms at the Astor, turning them into his personal command center. Littlemore sat in the rear chewing his toothpick, straw hat so far back on his head it looked like he was braving a strong wind.

    The pug-nosed, barrel-chested Flynn had massive shoulders, a correspondingly big gut, and surprisingly clean-shaven, fresh-faced cheeks. Dressed in dark suit and tie, his brown hair slicked down, he bore a striking resemblance to a nightclub bouncer. He thought of himself, however, in more militaristic terms. Flynn believed that law enforcement was essentially military in nature and prided himself on knowing how to speak in the argot of the armed forces. 'At approximately oh-twelve-hundred hours yesterday,' said Flynn, tapping the map with a pointer, 'an incendiary device detonated in front of the Morgan Bank at number 23 Wall Street.'

    'You mean a bomb?' asked one of the gentlemen of the press.

    'That is correct,' said Flynn.

    'Captain Carey says it might have been a dynamite truck,' called out another.

    'The New York police got zero to do with this investigation,' Flynn shot back. 'The incendiary device was transported to the scene in an animal-powered transport vehicle.'

    'A horse and wagon?' called out a newsman.

    'Ain't that what I said?' Flynn replied with asperity. 'Now pipe down so's I can deliver myself. I got something important for you boys, and if you'll shut your traps maybe I can get to it. At oh-eleven-thirty yesterday morning, a United States letter carrier opened a mail receptacle here -' he tapped another spot on the chalkboard map - 'at the corner of Cedar and Broadway. The receptacle was empty at that time. At oh-eleven-fifty-eight, the letter carrier made another collection from that same receptacle, at which time he found five circulars' - a word that Chief Flynn pronounced
soyculars
- "without wrapping of any sort. Three minutes later, the letter carrier heard a loud noise, which was the incendiary device incendiarating. By order of General Palmer, we are making these circulars public, so's the law-abiding people of this country know who their enemies are.'

    Flynn handed around five handbills.

    'Don't paw at 'em!' Flynn barked. 'Anybody damages one of these, they're going to jail for destruction of evidence. I ain't kidding.'

    Each piece of paper was rough and cheap, about seven inches wide by eleven long, and each bore the same red ink-stamped message, the unevenness of which made plain that it had been hand-printed, one letter at a time:

    Rimember

    We will not tolerate

    any longer

    Free the political

    prisoner or it will be

    sure death for all of you

    American Anarchist

    Fighters

    The newsmen copied furiously.

    'Cedar and Broadway,' Flynn resumed, using his pointer again, 'is four minutes by foot from the incendiary location. That leaves no doubt about what happened. The anarchists parked their animal-powered vehicle on Wall Street at approximately oh-eleven-fifty-four. When they reached Cedar and Broadway, they placed these circulars into the mail receptacle, three minutes before the explosion.

    'It will be recalled,' Flynn went on, 'that the circulars connected with the bomb outrages of 1919 looked just like these here and were signed by the same enemy organization. If any further cooperation was needed, which it ain't, it will also be recalled that the Chicago Post Office bombing of 1918 occurred on the third Thursday' - pronounced
toyd Toysday
- 'of September, which yesterday was too. The exact anniversary. In other words, these are the same terrorist Bolshevikis who bombed us in 1918 and 1919 - Eye-talians associated with the Galliani organization. There's your story. You print it. I will now read you the names of the wanted.' Reading from what appeared to be an arrest warrant, Flynn continued: 'Carlo Tresca, anarchist leader and known terrorist; Pietro Baldesserotto, anarchist; Serafino Grandi, anarchist and revolutionary; Rugero Bacini, anarchist; Roberto Elia, anarchist.'

    The newsmen kept scribbling some time after Flynn had finished his recitation. Then one of them called out, 'Was J. P. Morgan hurt, Chief?'

    'What are you - stupid? J. P. Morgan wasn't even in town yesterday,' said Flynn. 'This outrage was not directed at Morgan or any other individual. It was an attack on the American government and the American people and the American way of life. You put that in the papers.'

    'What can you tell us about the horse and wagon, Chief?' a newsman asked.

    'The witnesses thus far examined,' said Flynn, 'have told us that the horse was facing east, which ain't legal under traffic regulations. But terrorists don't care too much about traffic regulations, do they?' Flynn's torso heaved up and down at the last remark, which he apparently found humorous.

    'So you haven't identified the wagon?' asked a reporter.

    'They blew it up, you chucklehead,' Flynn shot back, irritated. 'How are we supposed to identify it? It's in a million pieces - and so's the horse. Any more bonehead questions?'

    'What about Fischer, Chief?'

    'Don't worry about Fischer,' said Flynn.

    'Have you caught him yet?'

    'Who says I'm looking? NYPD wants Fischer; let them look.'

    'But how did he know about the bombing?'

    'Who says he knew about it? The postcard never said bomb. And it said the fifteenth, not the sixteenth. I ain't gonna comment on Fischer. If you ask me, he's a mental case who got lucky. Now get out of here, all of you. I got men in the field waiting for orders.'

    Under vaulted gold-leaf ceilings, Younger pointed out to Colette and Luc the caricature of old Mr Woolworth himself, carved in stone, counting his fives and dimes. They boarded the express elevator. The boy's eyes fixed in wonder on the winking lights that indicated the breathtaking passage of floors. Only a slight rocking of the car and a whistling of air betrayed the rapidity of their ascent.

    Fifty-eight stories up, they emerged through heavy oak doors into a blinding blue sunlight and a wind so fierce Younger had to take Colette around the shoulders and Luc by the hand. The three-sided observation deck was lined with sightseers, coats flapping. At a railing, Younger, Colette, and Luc - on his tiptoes - gazed down on roofs of buildings that were themselves taller than the tallest cathedrals of Europe. Impossibly far below, rivers of mobile humanity - minuscule models of people, cars, buses - flowed and halted en masse to strangely slow rhythms. This was not a bird's-eye view. It was the view of a god witnessing America's breach of the first axiom of divinity, the separation of earth from heaven.

    Behind them, the heavy oak doors swung open again, discharging another elevator load of visitors onto the deck. Among the newcomers was a man in a fedora pulled low over his forehead. He walked with a limp, and his clean-shaven face was mottled with scarlet patches - burn marks of some kind.

    As the reporters field out of his office, Big Bill Flynn sat down behind a large oak desk, taking up a fountain pen like a man with important documents to sign, although in fact the only papers on his desk were newspapers. Two dark-suited assistants stood behind him, one on either side of his desk, hands behind their backs, feet apart.

    Littlemore remained in his seat, toothpick protruding from his mouth, examining one of the handbills. 'Isn't that funny?' he asked of no one in particular, after the last newsman had left.