“Well, sir, can’t you see that this does a good job of explainin’ why Captain Herkimer was so frantic to prove Cleo a figment of me diseased imagination? He wasn’t only worryin’ about a messy unsolved case that might cause him to miss his promotion—which it has, as it turns out—he was worryin’ about a witness to a murder. He couldn’t tell what she knew; he was afraid she might cause him to walk up thirteen steps and only come down one, if you catch me meanin’.
“And another thing. Herkimer and Hand are thick as thieves.”
“Appropriate,” the Commissioner murmured.
“Yes, sir. We know from Cleo’s narrative how Hand was always calling Herkimer for information.” Muldoon gasped as a sudden thought occurred to him. “And he was already acquainted with Baxter, too! It was only natural for him to be callin’ that house with the news.
“And finally, sir, I think it’s just a little bit on the rum side when Herkimer, who’d heard me story, and knew about Crandall’s paintin’ of Cleo, meets me in an art gallery, and before the day is out, I’m assaulted and left for dead by Eagle Jack Sperling and his gang. Things seem to happen right after Herkimer finds out about them, don’t they?”
“Suggestive, Muldoon. But how do you account for the fact that Hand seems to be as baffled by the Rabbi as we are? What of the poisoning of Mrs. Le Clerc? What of the physical dissimilarity? What of the enigmatic note about the twenty mill gals?”
“He could have killed the old lady because Hand was worried I might be closin’ in; Hand could have told him about her. Once we knew who she was, she wasn’t hard to find.” Muldoon sighed. “As for Hand’s ignorance of the doin’s of the Rabbi, well, maybe it’s an act.”
“It’s no act, Muldoon,” the Commissioner said, shaking his head energetically. “I saw Hand today; his terror was genuine; you may count that as a certainty.”
Muldoon shrugged. “Well, maybe Herkimer is deceivin’ him, who knows?”
“Why should he do that?” Roosevelt hissed through his teeth.
“There, I must be admittin’ you’ve got me stumped. The Lord never intended for me to make me way through the world by thinkin’. But I’ve got a word or two to say about the fellow’s appearance.
“Now, you’ve met me sister Maureen. I’m not supposed to know this, but she’s not all the time readin’ at Mr. Shakespeare’s plays because she loves literature the way her big brother does. She’s readin’ at them, and Ben Jonson, and Oliver somebody-or-other, because she loves the Stage.
“Now, my opinion is, anything that can go producin’ a Mr. William Shakespeare can’t be all bad, but Katie’d skin her alive if she found out. This’ll all be comin’ to a head soon. Mr. William Gillette is one of these matinee idols, and Maureen is sweet on him—he’s readyin’ a play for the fall, and Maureen’s got her heart set on seein’ it.”
“I do not care to go to the theatre, though I do enjoy reading drama,” the Commissioner said. “That may be the reason I have no idea what it is you’re trying to say.”
Muldoon wiped his moustache. “Sorry, I got off the track. The point is this. I read in one of the theatre magazines Maureen is always sneakin’ into the house how they make people up to play different parts. Put Herkimer in a corset, some elevated shoes, some false white hair to cover his own beard—the stuff is easy—you put it on with spirit-gum, take it off with ether—let him speak in a whisper to cover that voice of his, and there you have it. I’ll wager we could get Cleo to pass for this Rabbi fellow, at least from a distance.”
The Commissioner sat back in his chair. “Have you finished, Muldoon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ha! Then it is your position that I should have Herkimer watched?”
“That’s what I think, sir,” Muldoon said. He was looking his superior straight in the eye. If there was one thing this case had taught him, it was confidence in his own judgment.
“Well, I think so too!” Roosevelt said at last. “This part has been a test, Muldoon, though I didn’t work it out in as great detail as you just have. Still, Herkimer is being watched, under the same condition as Hand. If Herkimer makes a move from his house, the news will come through on the telegraph or telephone.”
“Telephone!” Muldoon shouted.
“What?”
“Telephone! That’s what we forgot. What we’re not doin’. Hand doesn’t have to go out to speak to the Rabbi. Hand has a telephone and Cleo heard the Rabbi callin’ him—the Rabbi could have one too! He could just call him up, and a bunch of men will have missed a night’s sleep for nothin’.”
“Blast it, you’re right! I think you may have been wrong about the Lord’s intentions for you. But what are we going to do? We can’t listen in on Hand’s phone conversations.”
“Maybe we can!” Muldoon was eager and excited. He explained how his sister Brigid worked for the telephone company, but more important, her beau Claude worked there as an engineer. If Hand’s phone calls could be listened to, Claude would know how to do it.
“Bully, Muldoon! But there’s no time to waste. You must go to the Bell Company immediately. I’ll wait here. This is fine, Muldoon. I’m proud of you.”
Muldoon beamed, and shuffled his feet.
“Well, don’t stand there basking in it, Officer. Get going!”
XI.
Officer Carl Weiss relieved his predecessor on post outside the Muldoon flat on Avenue A. He knocked on the door, told the two ladies and the one young girl inside that he was there, then stood staunchly out in the hall, watching for whatever.
It had been understanding of the first guy to fill in for him until sundown. It was Officer Weiss’s understanding that Mr. Roosevelt had assigned him personally to this duty. He wondered what was up.
The last time the Commissioner had personally assigned Carl Weiss to anything was last year, when that cocker of an antisemite preacher had come over from Germany (and I finally learned why Papa left, he thought) to preach a crusade against Jews, that’s what he said, a crusade. A lot of leaders of the community wanted Roosevelt to keep the guy from speaking, or at least deny him police protection so that the guys from the cigar-makers’ union could get a fair shot at him, but Roosevelt had said he couldn’t do that. Instead, he combed the force for Jews, took about forty of them, placed them under the command of a Jew sergeant, and assigned them to protect him.
Weiss smiled to remember how ridiculous the guy had looked, speaking his garbage under the active protection of forty armed Jews. Roosevelt had a lot between his ears all right.
Still, the scuttlebutt also had it that Roosevelt was closing an investigation on a Rabbi. That wasn’t too nice to hear. Still, duty was duty. Weiss guarded the door, but he still wondered what the women inside had to do with anything.
The women inside, as Muldoon had predicted, were gradually beginning to acknowledge one another, with Cleo following Katie’s lead.
Katie, on her part, felt much too good to be angry at anyone, and it was only stubbornness that kept her aloof. Still, when she saw how neat and polite her guest was, it was hard to think of her as a tramp. And then, Dennis had mentioned to her that this Cleo girl had been led into sin when she was too young to know any better.
Katie took a quick look at the clock in the parlor. Hiram should be here any time now. He was going to ask her to marry him tonight. That is, he had asked her last night, but tonight she could say yes, now that he’d gotten Dennis’s consent. Honestly, sometimes Hiram had no idea of the rules and proprieties of anything.
She’d go crazy waiting. Maureen had her nose buried in another one of those plays, and was lost to this world. Katie had to talk to somebody.
So she spoke to Cleo. “I’m sorry,” Katie said, wiping her hands on her apron, “for the way I acted this mornin’. Me experience of the world has been severely limited, and sometimes I forget it can be any other way than the way I been taught.”
The young woman smiled brightly. “Thank you, Miss Muldoon. I know it’s difficult for someone to barge in
unannounced the way I did.”
“Oh, think nothin’ of it,” Katie replied. The conversation lagged; the clock on the mantel ticked.
Finally, Katie slapped her knee, looked across at her guest on the sofa, and said, “How would you like to learn about the makin’ of real Irish soda bread?”
Cleo laughed, and said she’d be delighted. Katie found an extra apron for her, and together they went into the kitchen.
The first thing Cleo learned was how to sift. It seemed to her that everything that went into Irish soda bread had to be sifted, at least twice, with the possible exception of the raisins. And there was something about the domestic work that helped conversation. After talking about Dennis (they both agreed he was wonderful, though Katie had a few reservations) and about Brian O’Leary (they agreed he was a scamp), Katie quite naturally asked Cleo about her life, and Cleo just as naturally told her. The women had discovered they were born to be friends.
“Oh, you poor, poor, child,” Katie said. “Can you ever be forgivin’ me for the way I treated you today?”
“I’ve forgiven you already. Let’s not talk of it any more, all right? I think these are ready. Is the oven hot enough?”
Katie licked the first and second fingers of her left hand, then touched them to the black metal of the stove. She seemed to like the sound of the hissing noise she heard. “Just right,” she said. With a master’s eye, she surveyed the loaves Cleo had prepared. “Make the next batch a little bigger. These will come out a mite flat. No matter, the eatin’s the same.” Katie opened the door and popped them in the oven.
About halfway through the next batch, in the middle of an animated discussion on ways to keep feathers on hats from fading, Katie burst in with, “You know, darlin’, I’m thirty-one years old and I don’t know the first thing about ...” she blushed to hear herself, but completed her thought. “... About pleasin’ a man.”
Cleo smiled. “Judging from the way I saw Mr. Listerdale looking at you today, I think you please him very well.” Cleo had met Listerdale when Dennis and he had returned from their walk. He seemed nice, but very quiet.
“I don’t mean that,” Katie said. “I mean, well, pleasin’ a man as is me husband.”
“Oh,” Cleo said. “Oh.” She’d better think for a while before she answered this one. Cleo knew all about pleasing a man, ways Katie would never even hear of, if she were lucky. And then again, maybe Cleo knew nothing. Maybe it was something completely different with a man you loved.
Maybe ... Cleo sniffed. “Katie, can the bread be burning?”
“Naw,” Katie said, “it’s way too soon for that.” Then Katie sniffed. She made a puzzled face, and opened the oven door. “No, the bread’s doin’ wonderfully.” Still the smell was in the air.
Suddenly, there was a knocking on the door, and Officer Weiss poked his head in. “Ladies, I’m afraid there’s a fire in the building. Come with me, please.”
Katie went and got Maureen out of her room, and the three females went down the front stairs to the street. Officer Weiss stayed a moment in the corridor, blowing his whistle and knocking on doors, telling people to leave, then he followed.
From a beat-up carriage across the street, Tommy Alb watched attentively. If Muldoon wouldn’t come out again, by God, he’d burn him out. There was the girl. And, what the ... was Muldoon back in uniform? No, he wasn’t Muldoon. What was that damn cop doing there so soon, anyway. Nobody’s even called the Fire Department, yet. Where the hell was Muldoon?
Tommy forced himself to be calm. Every time he got excited, his damaged face began to throb as though it were about to burst. All right. Muldoon got away again. For now. Revenge got better the longer you waited to have it. Like cheese.
If Tommy wanted Eagle Jack’s business, he’d have to start acting more like a businessman. He’d do what he could to win back some customer goodwill. He waited for his chance.
It wasn’t too long in coming. Tommy hadn’t spared the kerosene when he was soaking the back of that building; soon, flames were leaping out all over it.
Carl Weiss was torn between his duty to watch the women and his duty to make sure everyone had gotten safely out of the tenement. The dilemma ended when a woman started to cry that Granddad was still inside. Weiss told the women to wait, then dashed inside the building.
Tommy Alb saw his chance. He dashed from the carriage, grabbed Cleo around the face, stifling her scream, and dragged her to the vehicle. An accomplice on the trap cracked the whip, and the horse took off.
Suddenly, it dawned on Katie Muldoon what had happened. No one could stifle Katie’s scream.
XII.
The next time I have a big idea, Muldoon thought, I’ll have one that isn’t so blasted boring. He yawned. Apparently, Hand had spoken to everyone he wanted to speak to before Claude could be convinced to do whatever it was he had to do to wire things up for Muldoon to hear. It was against the rules, Claude had said. It was an invasion of Mr. Hand’s privacy.
“For cryin’ out loud,” Muldoon had exploded. “What’s a man need with privacy unless he’s got somethin’ he wants hid?”
Claude hadn’t been able to argue with that, so he got busy and fixed Muldoon up in a closet with a lot of things that clicked. It wasn’t a comfortable closet, because it was too narrow to sit down in, and too low to stand straight in. The ear phone was a trial, too—it had been designed for a woman’s head, not his.
All in all then, it was a relief when Claude summoned him from the closet. “Brigid told me to get you,” he said. The thing Muldoon liked best about Claude was that he did whatever Brigid told him.
“Here,” Muldoon said, handing him the head phone. “You listen to this while I’m gone.” He made his escape before the young engineer could protest.
Muldoon skirted the wide floor of the main switchboard room. That was the province of the supervisor, who flitted from board to board on her roller skates, without ever giving any hint she thought that was fun. She had forbidden everything Muldoon had done in that building, and he had only managed to bring it off with an official manner and the showing of his shield. Mr. Roosevelt had somehow managed to get it back for him today.
The officer joined his sister at her board. “It’s Katie,” Brigid said. “I can’t make out what she’s tryin’ to say.”
Muldoon took the ear phone. “Katie?”
“Dennis? What are you doin’ there?” Confusion and pique had made her comprehensible. “Do you know how much time I’ve been wastin’ tryin’ to find you? The police never heard of you, if you listen to them. I only called Brigid because I don’t know what else to do.”
“Well, you’ve found me now. What’s the matter?”
“A fire! Someone doused the back of our buildin’ with kerosene and lit a fire! And in the confusion, somebody got Cleo!”
Muldoon was sick. “Got her? What do you mean?”
“Took her away, Dennis! And the poor thing was standin’ right next to me, but I never noticed until it was too late!”
“Katie, where are you?”
“God preserve me, I’m in a low dive called Frenchy’s. They use the telephone for bettin’ ...”
“Frenchy’s? What in blazes are you doin’ there? That’s in the middle of me old beat.” A horrible thought occurred to Muldoon. “Listen, you haven’t got Maureen in that place with you, have you?”
“Now what are you takin’ me for, Dennis Muldoon? Of course not. Maureen is with Mrs. Sturdevant in her flat. Hiram arranged it.”
“Listerdale?”
“He was comin’ to call on me, to ... Well, anyway, he seen me there, cryin’ me fool eyes out over Cleo, and says it looks like dirty work to him, and he’s gonna get me and Maureen out of danger. So he asks Mrs. Sturdevant will she put us up, and she agreed. Then he went back to see if he could do anything with the fire, help out with the victims.”
“He’s a brick,” Muldoon said. “Now listen to me; Listerdale did exactly the right thing. So you just go back to
Mrs. Sturdevant’s and stay put. Don’t go runnin’ off after Listerdale. He’s a fellow as can take care of himself. Promise me, now.”
Katie was reluctant, but she agreed. Muldoon told Brigid to break the connection and put through a call to the Commissioner.
“Yes?” Roosevelt barked.
“Somethin’s happened,” Muldoon said.
“Hand has called someone?”
“No, sir, but—” Muldoon was distracted by a noise at the Commissioner’s end. “What is Brian O’Leary doin’ there, for cryin’ out loud?”
“His mother locked him out again. She’s thrown out Brian’s father as well. Blast it, what has happened, Muldoon?”
Muldoon told him.
“It makes no sense at all, Muldoon, you realize that.”
“Yes sir. But you did mention the other day we were dealing with lunatics, sir.”
“I am sorry about this, Muldoon.”
“They’ll get the fire out, sir. It’s been a wet summer, the water pressure in the hydrants should be up near full pressure. The r—”
“The reservoir is full! Twenty mill gals! Twenty million gallons! We have them now, Muldoon, we know their plot!”
“We do?”
“Yes, by jingo, we do. Muldoon, meet me in front of Hand’s mansion as soon as possible.”
Muldoon scratched his head. “If you say so, sir.”
“I have said so!”
“Yes, sir!” When Roosevelt used that tone, Muldoon ran.
Claude saw him running. He shouted after Muldoon, but Muldoon just waved. Claude never got a chance to tell him that someone had tried to use the phone at Hand’s mansion. Oh, well, he thought, the calls were never completed. Couldn’t have been anything too important.
XIII.
The fire was out—the Fire Department had done a cracker-jack job. Listerdale wondered if there was anything he could do about, well, about anything. He hadn’t been much help here, but at least he had been here. People had seen him. His clothes smelled of smoke.
The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel Page 27
