The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel

by William L. DeAndrea

  Muldoon could stay under water, but not for long, and, soaked and heavy as his clothes would be, he would be at Baxter’s mercy if he tried to climb out. While he was there, though, Muldoon saw the dynamite, attached to the wall in a dull red mass, like a thousand insect eggs.

  Then Baxter had seen whatever he had seen, and Muldoon had gotten to work. He climbed out of the water, flopping to the walkway like a dead fish. Then he had run, dripping, to the glowing end of the fuse. There were only a very, very few feet of it to go before it dipped underwater and got to the first cluster of deadly eggs. Muldoon knew that if he didn’t stop the first, he needn’t worry about any others.

  But he couldn’t get at the fuse—his waterlogged fingers couldn’t get into the crevice and pry it loose. He watched the fuse shorten, chased the little spot of fire down the crack with his eyes, and went mad with frustration because he could do nothing. If only he had something to pry it out with, a pencil; a pin.

  He had a pin! It had just been returned to him that evening, at Headquarters. His shield. That square piece of tin that said he was a Police Officer. The one he’d worked so hard to get.

  Muldoon tore open his soggy jacket and detached his badge of office. He almost dropped it when he heard another explosion, though this time from farther away, followed by horrified shouts and screams.

  He scrambled down some two feet past the burning part, and started digging at the fuse with the pin of the shield. Behind him, he heard Baxter’s voice yelling above all the other noise, “No! No! Not you!” and was afraid the game was up. He took a worried look over his shoulder, but the butler turned madman was still staring over the parapet.

  Muldoon gasped with relief as he freed a little loop of fuse from the crack in the rock. That was when Baxter saw him.

  Baxter couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t happening. How often could Muldoon do this? Snarling like an animal, Baxter ran to the attack.

  Muldoon was concentrating so deeply on pulling up more of the fuse so he could somehow sever it that Baxter was almost upon him before he realized it. Muldoon managed to raise an arm to shunt Baxter’s blow from his head to his back, then made the smartest move of his life.

  It was something Muldoon had seen Listerdale do during the attack in the alley that afternoon; perhaps it was jiu-jitsu judo, Muldoon didn’t know. What he did was ignore his instinct, the instinct that told him to stand and put up his dukes—there was no time for that.

  Instead, Muldoon remained on his knees, and reached down, not up. He grasped Baxter’s left ankle in his right hand, then pushed sharply and suddenly against the tall man’s left knee with the heel of his other hand. The move sent Baxter staggering backward.

  If he hadn’t been wounded, Baxter might have been able to regain his balance. As it was, pain and weakness had affected his coordination; he was unable to find the strength to pull his body upright.

  Baxter staggered backward across the width of the walkway, to the low parapet, and over. He was too surprised even to scream. He landed across a curb on Forty-second Street, broke his back, and died. Still clutched in his left hand were two unexploded sticks of dynamite.

  Muldoon stared for a second at the spot where Baxter had gone over, shocked that the final confrontation had been so easy. He shook his head, then turned back to his work.

  The fuse had burned past his loop. He would have to start all over.

  By an act of will, Muldoon forced himself to be calm. There was a good foot and a half of fuse above water level, and another foot or so below. He gave himself a chance, but a small one—at least he knew what to do now.

  In seconds, he had a new loop. He folded it (taking care to keep the ends separated with a finger, so that the fire couldn’t jump across) then sawed at the top of the loop with his shield.

  The spark started to burn his hand, but Muldoon kept sawing away. Sweat was now mingled with the reservoir water that dripped from his body. He had next to nothing to call a loop, now, and he wouldn’t get another chance. Then he sawed through. The live part fell to the rock. Muldoon stood and covered it with the sole of his boot until it fizzled itself out.

  Then he dropped back to his knees, picked up his shield, and kissed it. Then he raised it high above his head, and watched it shine against the sky like a new square star.

  He heard voices; footsteps. He stood again, his instincts back in command, ready to face a new enemy. He relaxed. Police officers, they were, led by a charging, grinning Theodore Roosevelt. Muldoon was all set to salute; instead the Commissioner crushed him in a joyous bear hug. “Well done, my boy,” he piped. “A bully job!”

  Muldoon began to weep.

  SUNDAY

  the thirtieth of August, 1896, and beyond

  I.

  CLOCKS AROUND THE CITY were striking one. A hansom cab driver (and still another honest one) was taking Mr. Roosevelt, Muldoon, and Hiram Listerdale back through Muldoon’s old beat. The late-Saturday, early-Sunday walkers were at it again, just as they had been a week ago. It had been a long week.

  Muldoon snorted. Tonight alone had held enough for any one week a man might care to live through. It hadn’t ended with Baxter’s death, by any means; Muldoon had retrieved his revolver; Roosevelt had arranged for Daisy and the rifle he had borrowed to be returned to the police stable. The dead and wounded had been carted away; Tommy Alb was treated at the hospital, then taken to the nearest precinct for questioning. He talked freely and in detail about what he had done, and about what the Sperling gang in general had done, but none of the real, inside stuff, such as where the Rabbi might be found.

  Roscoe was going to be all right, to Muldoon’s great relief; so was Cleo. There had been an emotional farewell when Cleo had to be left at the hospital overnight to have her burns attended to.

  A search of Hand’s mansion and grounds had turned up no more dynamite; apparently, Baxter had died holding the last two sticks. An investigation was under way to see who might have sold it to him.

  The Reverend Lewis Burley, his daughter Essie May, and William Jennings Bryan had been told of Hand’s death, but nothing more. Essie May had had hysterics; her father and Bryan had comforted her. At this moment, Bryan was making a statement to the press to the effect that the death of T. Avery Hand had been a great blow to his campaign, and therefore to all the working people of America, but that he would struggle on to victory, and so forth.

  Katie and Maureen Muldoon (and Brigid, who had joined them at Mrs. Sturdevant’s after she finished work), had yet to be told. That’s where they were bound now.

  The building came into view. Muldoon sighed. “It feels funny comin’ back here to where it started, now that it’s over with. More or less, anyway. The blasted Rabbi is still runnin’ around loose, as far as we know.”

  “So you no longer think Captain Herkimer is the Rabbi?” the Commissioner wanted to know.

  “Herkimer?” Listerdale sounded surprised.

  “Just an idea I had. No, Herkimer can’t be. You heard the lieutenant, didn’t you, sir? Herkimer was busy leadin’ a raid on a bawdy house while Crandall was bein’ killed. There was no way he could have done it. I just wish I’d known that before.” There was silence for a while, then Muldoon said. “Commissioner, I’m sorry about what I did before. Cryin’ all over your shoulder that way in front of the men.”

  Roosevelt’s moustache fluttered. “Ha! I daresay it was a breach of decorum on my part to have embraced you. No harm done.”

  Listerdale smiled at the young officer. “If it’s any consolation, I fear that if I learned that I had been kneeling on enough dynamite to level a forest, and it had gotten to within—what did the engineer say? Fifty seconds of going off?”

  “Fifteen seconds,” Muldoon corrected. He had to wipe his brow just thinking of it.

  “Goodness. Well, as I say, if that’s what I had learned, I expect I should burst into tears, too.”

  Muldoon laughed. “Commissioner, I want to thank you again for comin’ all this way for me to
tell me sisters you’re puttin’ me up for the night.”

  “Not at all, Muldoon. And this way, we are able to give Mr. Listerdale a ride home as well. By the way, Listerdale, do you happen to have a telephone in the Emporium?”

  “Yes, I do. The carriage trade, you know.”

  “If it won’t inconvenience you too much, may I use it?”

  Listerdale shrugged. “No inconvenience. I have to go through the store to get to my rooms, anyway.”

  “Good, good. You don’t mind a slight delay, do you, Muldoon?”

  Muldoon did mind, but he thought it would be ungracious to say so. Roosevelt commanded the driver to go on past Mrs. Sturdevant’s, and proceed to Listerdale’s Literary Emporium.

  Listerdale unlocked the store’s back door (the one Muldoon had burst through), lit the gas, and showed the Commissioner the phone. Roosevelt soon made a connection with Police Headquarters.

  “Brian? Why aren’t you asleep? Is Officer Bourke there? Ha! Let me speak to him. Bourke. That matter I mentioned when I called you from the hospital?” This was news to Muldoon—he hadn’t known Roosevelt had made a call from the hospital. “Have you ... ? Good. Yes, right away.” He gave Listerdale’s address, then hung up.

  “They have an important paper for me at Headquarters. I took the liberty of telling them to bring it here. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I had planned to go to bed,” said Listerdale, “but if it’s important ...”

  “It is very important.”

  “Then I suggest we wait in my quarters.” Listerdale led them up the stairs to his sitting room.

  “Spartan quarters,” Roosevelt said.

  “You have been here before, Mr. Roosevelt, just last week.”

  “Yes, I have. We spoke about your acquaintance with Mr. Crandall.”

  “I seem to recall our talking about the next volume of your book. We discussed that, too.”

  “Oh, that’s right, we did. But I’m more interested in the matter of paper.”

  Muldoon was puzzled. “Newspapers, sir?”

  “No, Muldoon, but that is an interesting point, isn’t it? How important paper has been in this affair. The two newspapers Crandall was involved with; the fatal bill of sale for a poor young woman who has suffered enough; even the ballots that will be cast in November will be of paper. And here’s something you haven’t been told: Cleo heard the killer gain entry to Crandall’s room by saying he had ‘the paper.’ Cleo, incidentally, also heard the so-called ‘Rabbi’—which is a slur, I believe, on an honorable title and a great people—confess to Hand that he had committed the crime. Cleo distinctly heard Crandall offer to pay the visitor for the paper.

  “That bothered me, you know. It didn’t seem to fit. The only paper I had heard of was that bill of sale, and Crandall—as unlikely as he would be to sell the thing that kept the object of obsession close to him—was more likely to be selling it than buying it. Doesn’t it seem that way to you, Muldoon?”

  “Yes, sir, I said so at the time.” There was a strange intensity in the Commissioner’s voice. Muldoon wondered what was up. To look at Listerdale, you might have thought Mr. Roosevelt were humming “Daisy Bell.”

  “Baxter was an Anarchist, you know, Listerdale,” Roosevelt said.

  “Well, I thought he must be some kind of radical, with the bombs and all. A Red, perhaps.”

  “Another piece of paper we found, in Baxter’s room in Hand’s mansion. It was grease-stained, but readable. It was in code, but some anarchist slogans and the word ‘Rabbi’ were child’s play to decipher.

  “You know, Muldoon,” Roosevelt said, “of all criminals, it strikes me that the anarchist is the worst, for besides his savagery, he must be either a fool, or a vicious hypocrite.”

  “Why do you say that?” Listerdale might have been questioning a student during a discussion in his class.

  “I say it,” Roosevelt replied, “because even a fool must realize that man cannot exist in a vacuum of power. If anarchy ever triumphs, the triumph will last only a moment; it will be immediately replaced by despotism.”

  “And what have we now?’ Listerdale wanted to know. “Aren’t the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Hands despot enough for you?”

  The Commissioner hissed. “I have no stomach for this. Muldoon, draw your weapon.”

  “Beg your pardon, sir?”

  “That’s an order. Muldoon, draw your weapon.”

  Muldoon knew he’d done it, because he saw the revolver in his hand.

  “Cover him.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Roosevelt, you can’t be sayin’ ...”

  “Yes, I can. Cover that man, I say. Yes, Muldoon. I am sorry for you, and sorrier still for your sister. Hiram Listerdale killed Crandall and Mrs. Le Clerc. Listerdale was the superior to whom Baxter reported. He was probably the brain behind the Mansion Burglars, as well. Hiram Listerdale is the Rabbi.”

  II.

  Muldoon wanted to shoot someone, whether himself, Listerdale, or the Commissioner, he didn’t know.

  The two men were staring at each other. Muldoon looked from side to side.

  Listerdale broke the silence. “You have no evidence, Mr. Roosevelt.” Muldoon looked at him, and knew. He fought to keep his eyes clear of tears.

  “Ha! I am quite aware of that, Listerdale. Is Listerdale your true name?”

  “It is. I have used others.”

  “I’m sure I’ve heard of a few of them. No, I admit I have no evidence, as yet. But one of my men is coming here with a search warrant. Is that bill of sale, that piece of yellow paper Muldoon saw in your safe, still there? I suspect it is. You probably planned to destroy it after the reservoir blew up tomorrow. With Hand dead, you needed no more hold over him.”

  Muldoon saw Listerdale’s jaw quiver. “Ha!” Roosevelt exclaimed, pressing his advantage. “It’s a shame we can’t have Roscoe here to crack that safe for us, isn’t it, Muldoon? Well, we’ll get it open just the same.

  “And your make-up kit. Muldoon told me fascinating things about theatrical make-up. Was the Rabbi created each time in this room, or in your bedroom? Probably the bedroom. Have you a lighted mirror? Even if you have gotten rid of your kit—ha! See him wince, Muldoon? He still has it. But even if he hadn’t, the police chemist could find traces of spirit-gum or ether somewhere in that room.

  “Come, Listerdale. You are trapped. Why draw it out? I brought the subject out into the open, because I found I have been right all my life in loathing deception. You hate it less, but then, you’ve been doing it longer. Why don’t you tell me what I need to know?”

  “Very well.” Listerdale sighed a very tired, very heavy sigh. “If I may ask you a question.”

  I’m going to kill him, Muldoon thought. He tightened his grip on his revolver.

  “I may refuse to answer it.”

  Listerdale made a magnanimous gesture. It was almost as if he were happy he’d been found out. Or at least relieved.

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me. When did you know?”

  “Know? Of a certainty? Just these last few seconds, with your implied confession. I ask you now formally, with Muldoon as a witness: Did you kill those people?”

  “Oh, yes, I did, of course. I would like to say, sir, that if I had been the vicious monster you describe, Muldoon would be dead at this moment, as would Cleo. I expressly forbade Hand to have Muldoon killed—I couldn’t help it if my orders weren’t followed. How could I?” Listerdale’s appeal seemed sincere, like a man arguing a summons. “This has all been very upsetting to me.”

  I’m going to kill him, Muldoon thought.

  “But what I’d like to know is, when did you suspect me? Seriously.”

  “Just before Hand died. When Baxter looked down into the group consisting of you, Cleo, Hand, Herkimer, and the patrolman. He yelled ‘The sentence is death.’ What a peculiar thing to say, I thought later. I happened to see and hear this, because I was expecting reinforcements to the Fifth Avenue side of the structure, and was lo
oking for them around the corner.

  “‘The sentence is death.’ Considering he expected us all to die in a matter of minutes, it was incredible. But his anger, I think, pointed me in the right direction. In the ranks of Anarchism, as in the ranks of the Black Hand, or the Ku Klux Klan, or any clandestine criminal band, the sentence is death for treason, and for very little else. They may kill innocent victims by the score, but they only pass sentence on their own kind. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.

  “Well, who could have betrayed him? Cleo was a victim, Herkimer a dupe, the policeman an unknown. That left Hand or you, Mr. Listerdale. That was settled when Hand picked up the dynamite and was killed, and Muldoon has told us that Baxter, in his insanity, screamed, ‘No, not you.’

  “This is not evidence, of course. Not even a clue, strictly speaking. But it got me wondering about you. Ha! Day by day, since we made each other’s acquaintance, I have become aware of more and more extraordinary things about you. The most extraordinary occurred tonight—you rush to a fire, and to a dangerous police operation. Why had you been there? Why did Baxter recognize you? If you were not the Rabbi, what could you have been? His schoolmaster, perhaps?”

  Listerdale chuckled. “As a matter of fact I was. I was very fond of Peter, at one time.”

  “Why did you go to Hand’s mansion, Listerdale?”

  Listerdale’s chuckling stopped. “I went because I was worried about Muldoon.”

  Muldoon’s voice was filled with disgust. “You were what?”

  Listerdale continued speaking to the Commissioner. “I have fallen in love with Kathleen Muldoon, Mr. Roosevelt. She is everything good about the common man and woman of the world-kind, loving, and strong. She—”

  Muldoon stood up. “Better leave, Mr. Roosevelt. I’m goin’ to kill him, and you don’t want to be involved.”

  “Sit down, Muldoon, and don’t be so melodramatic. There are procedures that must be followed. Sit!”