Death Shall Overcome

by Emma Lathen

  Perhaps at this point the Sloan might produce some mindless helot to stammer out a few transparent evasions. It didn’t matter. At this peak of dramatic crescendo, possibly with a single basso intoning “Deep River,” he would signal the timing of the March on Wall Street for the day after tomorrow. Then there would be a powerful fade-out of his right profile looking firm and exalted. In fact, a good deal of Richard Simpson and precious little of anything else.

  It was not to be. Simpson, happily riding the crest of a situation created by others, failed to realize that the opposition had not yet begun to fight. Like many an agitator before him, he was about to learn that it can be difficult to control the powers one has unleashed and virtually impossible to upstage them.

  John Putnam Thatcher’s blood was up. The invasion of the Sloan had touched off emotions normally associated with the desecration of the home. Like a good general, he first planned his strategy. Then he alerted his intelligence, deployed his troops and summoned reinforcements. The nature of his tactics might have come as a surprise to an orthodox military mind, say, that of Hugh Waymark, last heard from in the clutches of the Committee to Clean Up Wall Street.

  Thatcher’s conference with Walter Bowman apprised him of the exact nature of Simpson’s forthcoming announcement. The trouble with contrived leaks is that anybody can get hold of them. Bowman’s information merely confirmed Thatcher’s intuitions.

  “And I think,” he declared, “I think we’re taking the right steps.”

  These steps were many. Workmen moved to the front lobby the giant television set in the Directors’ room used for closed-circuit communication with the Sloan’s scattered operations. It boasted a 36 inch screen. Meanwhile, the members of the Sloan Glee Club, together with their musical director, were hastily summoned from their desks and assembled on the balcony overlooking the lobby, where they were in the habit of serenading holiday crowds with Christmas carols during the yuletide season. They were not a group to be despised, as even the critic of The New York Times had admitted after their ambitious rendition of Handel’s Messiah.

  Messenger boys were returning from all the local bookstores with every available collection of Civil War songs. All employees had been given permission to join the festivities. And best of all, Tom Robichaux, the light of conversion beaming from his vagrant eye, was hurrying to the scene of battle.

  Thatcher’s aim was quite simple. The Sloan was going to steal Simpson’s thunder. The spirit of Mahatma Gandhi was going to be displaced by that of John Brown. People who got up at dawn to take the A train the length of Manhattan to Broadway and Nassau had feelings to rouse. What Julia Ward Howe had done for the Union, she could do again for the Sloan.

  A scant two minutes before Simpson’s arrival, Thatcher stepped into the lobby, flanked by his ADC’S. Summoning the press to him, he declared in stentorian tones that he was in momentary expectation of an important message from the Stock Exchange. A representative would be with them immediately. Then, dead on time, he wheeled to the doors and welcomed Richard Simpson with a ringing speech which placed the Sloan so far in the vanguard of the civil rights movement that it left Simpson looking like a Ku Klux Klansman. There was a tumultuous ovation from the lobby and then, as the CASH leader collected his scattered wits to reply, 700 voices thundered forth, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

  In the face of this welter of noise the television cameras, understandably enough, abandoned the principals and panned over the singers. There was much to reward any cameraman. The kneelers were singing with passion, their eyes lifted upward. And as the lens followed their gaze into the architectural heights of the lobby, it came to the glee club, equally exuberant, and being conducted with demonic energy. Pages fluttered as chorus after chorus unfolded. Then down came the camera to another enthralling scene. Tom Robichaux had come through the doors and, after taking in the picture before him, reverently removed his homburg to lay it across his breast while he stood at attention.

  Glory! Glory! Hall-e-lu-jah!

  Glory! Glory! Hall-e-lu-jah!

  His Truth goes marching on!

  With the last chorus echoing through the marble halls, Thatcher and Robichaux relentlessly advanced on the microphones, where Robichaux announced that the Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange would meet on Thursday morning to deliver its decision on the transfer of a seat to Edward J. Parry.

  This news had two happy results. It sent the entire financial press scampering from the scene to attack the President of the Exchange in his lair, and it cut the ground from under Simpson. By the time he could get to the microphones to paralyze his listeners with a call to the great March on Thursday, he sounded like a man determined to have his March whether or not there was any reason for it. As he incoherently accused the Exchange of deliberately undermining his schedule, he sounded neither firm nor exalted. He sounded petulant.

  Thatcher let him maunder on until the conductor reclaimed the attention of his chorus. Then, to a telling accompaniment of “We Are Coming, Father Abraham,” Thatcher really let himself go. In rip-roaring accents he reminded the kneelers, the television audience and most of Exchange Place of the gigantic rally at Madison Square Garden the next evening for all March sympathizers.

  “And we of the Sloan, including our president Bradford Withers, will join with you—and Edward Parry—for this occasion!”

  Ovation!

  The proceedings were then brought to a climax by a final anthem. Emotions had reached new heights. The elevators, the halls, the stairways were crowded with employees joining in. If that fire-proof, water-proof, earthquake-proof building had any rafters, they rang as never before. Not until he saw the young woman teller from Commercial Deposits openly laughing at him did Thatcher realize he himself was singing. Like many a farmboy from New Hampshire in 1862, he could not resist the “Battle Cry.”

  We will rally from the hillside,

  We will rally from the plains,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  We will fill the vacant ranks

  With a million free men more,

  SHOUTING THE BAT-TLE CRY OF FREE-DOM!

  With the Sloan achieving the spiritual renaissance that figured so largely in the supper conversation at Lincoln Center, with sandwich boards demanding “Justice!” in the corridors of Stanton Carruthers’ law firm, and a hootenanny in progress at Waymark & Sims, the Committee of Three found it difficult to select an unobtrusive site for the deliberations which would produce the press release being promised to the Wall Street Journal at this very moment by Francis Devane. They had long since become resigned to their hoodoo impact on their surroundings. No normal commercial establishment could be expected to welcome them with open arms.

  These considerations, plus the prevailing atmosphere of insanity which was beginning to topple strong minds, explained why, although the blustering November afternoon had ominous gray skies overhead and a brisk breeze whipping in from the northeast, Thatcher and his colleagues were assembled on the pitching deck of the Staten Island ferry plowing their way endlessly back and forth across New York Harbor. Nor were they united by any common reaction to their plight.

  Thatcher himself was so uplifted by the success of his give-’em-hell tactics that morning that he could have taken an entire armada in his stride. Repressing a tendency to burst into “Anchors Aweigh,” he buoyantly reminded his companions that he had a great deal to do. He still had to see Edward Parry, check Bradford Withers’ speech so that it was foolproof, absolutely foolproof, and, as a concession to Francis Devane, invite Lee Clark to join the Sloan and Schuyler & Schuyler in appearing at the March on Wall Street Rally.

  “Let’s get down to business,” he urged.

  But Hugh Waymark wasn’t going to do anything until he had relieved himself of his accumulated grievances.

  “That Committee to Clean Up Wall Street,” he sputtered angrily, “it was all a fraud.”

  Thatcher pointed out that it didn’t matter what they we
re. The only reason for speaking to them was to prevent uncontrolled action.

  “You don’t understand. They didn’t care about Parry. They were nothing but . . .” He cast around wildly for the mot juste. “Nothing but nonbelligerents. In fact, civilians,” he concluded, much as Rommel or Montgomery might have described a stray Bedouin wandering over the fields of Alamein to a water hole.

  “But I thought they wanted to clean up Wall Street,” objected Carruthers, emerging briefly from his reverie.

  “They mean it. Literally. They want trees on the sidewalks and a flower box in every window.” Waymark’s voice rose in scornful mimicry. “A sapling now will provide shade and spiritual comfort to future generations.” He resumed his normal tones. “It seems there’s some sort of a deal you can set up with the Department of Sanitation. They provide the tree and care for it during the first year. Then it’s yours. Not a bad idea, really. I wouldn’t mind having one in front of my place uptown. But is now the time for that sort of thing?”

  No one could say that the Committee of Three wasn’t learning about life, thought Thatcher. He had found out all about the prizes won by the Katonah dump, and Waymark would soon be tending an infant oak in Sutton Place. But perhaps the strangest result of their flight to the sea was to be found in Stanton Carruthers. He was standing by the rail, inhaling deeply.

  “Haven’t been on this ferry in years,” he said expansively. “Really it’s a great place to get away.” He gazed yearningly at the Statue of Liberty in a posture suggestive of the newly arrived immigrant, one leap ahead of the Gestapo.

  “Yes, yes,” said Thatcher impatiently.

  But Carruthers also had things to get off his chest. He told them in loving detail about his little ketch at the Greenwich Yacht Club, lamented Vin McCullough’s sale of a fine schooner consequent upon this removal to the city, and said that young men today were faddists. Always taking things up, and then dropping them. One year it’s sailing, and the next year it’s birdwatching. Sad, sad. No stamina, no fixity of purpose. For those with the sea in their veins . . .

  In the end Thatcher wrote the release himself.

  Francis Devane no doubt meant well when he suggested that inviting Lee Clark to join the Sloan and Edward Parry on the rally dais would be both courteous and politic. Clark didn’t see things that way at all.

  “It’s an insult, that’s what it is,” he growled at Thatcher.

  “Oh, come now. The Board of Governors knows that this has been a hardship on Clovis Greene. This would give your firm an opportunity to publicize your connection with the Black community.”

  “Connection!” Clark twisted his knuckles until they cracked. “We’re just another victim. Schuyler & Schuyler is responsible for this whole mess and they’re reaping a damn big profit!”

  Thatcher was not going to indulge in meaningless platitudes.

  “They certainly hope to do so. But Devane thought you might be able to stem the wave of withdrawals with a personal appearance. We all know that you can’t recoup your losses completely.”

  “You can say that again. But you don’t understand what the damage has been so far. Look, we’ve picked up a couple of clients from Schuyler & Schuyler. Some of their Southern customers who dropped McCullough when they heard the news. Well, they’ve had to wait two weeks for their portfolios. And you know why? Because they’re so busy over there handling the new business. We’ve lost over five hundred accounts. So what do you think a little speech from me is going to accomplish?”

  Possibly losing another five hundred, Thatcher yearned to say. Instead he repeated the invitation.

  Clark showed his teeth in an unpleasant smile.

  “Oh no. Nat Schuyler and I are going to have a reckoning. And that reckoning doesn’t include smoking any peace pipes in front of all of Harlem.”

  Thatcher had saved his conference with Edward Parry for last, because he expected it to be the least taxing of his many duties that day. But there he neglected to reckon with the eddies of passion swirling through the corridors of Schuyler & Schuyler. The first thing he heard as he stationed himself before the receptionist was the voice of Dean Caldwell, raised somewhere in the nether regions to a shrill yell of defiance.

  “So you think you can throw me out and wash your hands of me! Well, you’ve got another think coming!”

  Dim, inaudible rumbling intervened. They did not sound particularly placatory. The receptionist, Thatcher noted disapprovingly, did not measure up to Miss Corsa’s high standards of indifference. Visibly nervous, she asked Thatcher to take a seat.

  “I don’t know whether Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Parry are free right now,” she babbled distractedly, giving Thatcher a good idea of the identity of the disputants.

  “I haven’t gone through all this to be given the boot for some nigga! You can’t get away with this!”

  The voices were coming nearer. Evidently the disturbance was roiling its way to the exit. A good thing in many ways, but Thatcher could find it in his heart to wish that his own movements had detained him from the house of Schuyler for another 15 minutes.

  Caldwell burst through a door into the reception room. He came backward, whether because he was turning to yell at his companions or because he was being hustled along, Thatcher could not tell. Ed Parry and Nat Schuyler were right behind.

  “You planned it, the three of you!” shrieked Caldwell. “You and Art Foote and this colored boy. You ganged up on me. That’s what you were after all along, to get rid of me!”

  “That’s enough, Caldwell,” said Nat Schuyler sharply. “You’re hysterical and you’re upset. I have some sympathy with you. But if you’re not out of this door in two minutes, I’m going to call the police.”

  Schuyler paid no attention to the other occupants of the room. Nor was he making any attempt to hide the fact that his lapels and shirt collar were rucked up, as if violent hands had been laid on them.

  For a moment Caldwell glowered silently at him but, as Parry stepped forward and Schuyler turned to the woman at the switchboard, the Southerner suddenly let out his breath and his shoulders sagged.

  “All right, all right,” he muttered, stumbling toward the door.

  But with his hand on the doorknob he seemed to recover some of his defiance. He turned for one parting shot.

  “But you haven’t heard the last of this. I’ve got plenty of friends, and I’m not taking this lying down!

  The door banged behind him.

  The woman at the switchboard kept her hand on the dial, unwilling to recognize that the crisis was over. Parry and Schuyler looked at each other helplessly. Then Nat became aware of Thatcher’s presence.

  “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly, as if embarrassed at a display of emotion unseemly for a brokerage house. “I have to get cleaned up. You can probably figure out what happened, Thatcher. Anyway, Ed’ll tell you all about it. You’ll have to excuse me. In spite of everything, I can’t help feeling sorry for that boy.”

  Then, moving very slowly, but still erectly, he left the room.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Whew!” breathed Parry at length. He took out a gleaming white handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Sally, we’ll be in my office. Send us some coffee, will you? And find out if there’s anything Mr. Schuyler wants.”

  He ushered Thatcher back into what had once been Ambrose Schuyler’s office. There were lines of worry around his eyes. “I hope all of this isn’t doing Nat any harm. He’s not a youngster, you know.”

  “Did Caldwell attack him?” asked Thatcher bluntly.

  Parry shied at the word. “Well, the boy jumped him,” he admitted unhappily. “I pulled him off. Nat fired him.”

  “Under the circumstances, that can scarcely have come as a surprise to Caldwell.”

  “You’d think so. But then you weren’t here. I could swear that he was completely taken aback. It sounds impossible, but I don’t think he expected Nat would. I guess he thought he was indispensable.” Parry shook his he
ad. “He went berserk. As if the whole world had suddenly turned upside down.”

  Thatcher tut-tutted sympathetically, recalling Walter Bowman’s opinions of Caldwell’s self-esteem.

  “Maybe he’ll calm down once the shock has worn off,” he suggested.

  Parry looked dubious. “I’ve been hearing a lot about him lately. You know, when I first agreed to join the firm, the people I saw were Nat and Art Foote. I worked out the deal with Nat and did a lot of office work with Art Foote. He spent most of his time here filling me in on the house’s business. It’s only recently I’ve gotten to know Vin McCullough and this Caldwell kid. Vin and lots of others have let me in on how Caldwell feels. I don’t think it’s going to die down. In fact, it seems to be growing stronger and stronger.”

  Here was more confirmation of the police view as expounded by Paul Jackson. Look at Schuyler & Schuyler, they said. These were the people who knew about Art Foote’s drinking habits. These were the people who had something really riding on Edward Parry’s admission to the firm.

  And, it developed, these were the people who thought in terms of assault and inciting others to assault.

  It was an effort to return to business.

  “Now, about the rally,” he began.

  “Oh my God!” said Edward Parry from the heart.

  Chapter 18

  Hasten the Time Appointed

  24 HOURS later, John Thatcher recalled this comment.

  “Where to?” asked the cabby.

  “Madison Square Garden,” said Thatcher. One thing, and one thing alone, could be said for his current peripatetic rounds; he was revisiting many New York City landmarks. After all, how many years was it since he had last taken the Staten Island ferry? Or been to Madison Square Garden? He remembered the long count, but nothing since. Probably it was time that he revisited Madison Square Garden.

  At this point reality broke in. Were there any solid reason for a return trip to Madison Square Garden, a hockey game would be infinitely preferable to a CASH March on Wall Street Eve Rally.