by Rhys Bowen
I was still incredulous that the journey would take so long. Almost eight hours across one state? You could travel the length and breadth of Ireland in that time! The carriage was full of jolly, noisy families, off for an outing. I felt like an outsider, my stomach clenched into a tight knot. I stared out of the window as the railway ran beside the Hudson River and passed high cliffs, then pretty hamlets with white wooden houses. There were pleasure boats going up and down the river and picnics in meadows. On any other occasion I would have enjoyed the views, but not today. It seemed that the whole world was in a jolly festive mood except me.
Was I really doing the right thing? Had I not somehow misinterpreted the odd snippets of information and ended up with the wrong end of the stick? I had been known to do that before. So what did I really know? I asked myself, as I closed my eyes and listened to the rhythmic puffing of the engine. I knew that Leon Czolgosz had killed Paddy and then tried to kill me. Those facts were definite. I'd have recognized those eyes anywhere. So the next question had to be why Leon had tried to kill us both. He knew or suspected that Paddy had found out something about him and he also suspected that Paddy had told me. It had to be something pretty important to make him try to kill two people to silence them, and to burn down a place to destroy evidence. I wondered again what I might have overlooked among those papers. Then I decided that Paddy was such a secretive, cautious man that he'd never have spelled out suspicions in black and white. What he knew or suspected had gone to the grave with him.
And I could only guess what that could be. He had told me with his dying breath that it was too big for him. No normal crime then. He handled those with ease, all the time. And I had witnessed Leon at the anarchists' meeting. Anarchists did terrible, violent things. Their aim was to topple governments, kill kings, disrupt societies…
And there was the exposition going on in Buffalo. Thousands of people would be there. It was too good an opportunity to miss for an anarchist. Somehow he was planning to disrupt the exposition.
The only question was whether Ryan was to be his partner in crime; Now that I had time to reflect, I still found it impossible to believe. Gay, debonair Ryan and violent, brooding Leon were chalk and cheese. How could they ever have decided to work together on anything? Unless, I thought, they were both under the spell of Emma Goldman and were doing her bidding. I remembered how Ryan had dropped everything and rushed to her summons that night. But she had told me that she no longer advocated violence. I shook my head in disbelief. I could not picture Ryan taking part in a violent plot or Paddy's killing or helping to orchestrate the attempt on my life. And yet Paddy had taken photos of the two of them together. RO with LC, equally dangerous in his mind. I shifted nervously in my seat. On this occasion I must not let my heart rule my head. Just because I thought of Ryan as my friend did not mean I would be safe when I reached Buffalo.
Now that I had eight hours to think, I realized that I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to Buffalo. In fact, as the miles rolled by, I became more and more convinced that I should have risked going to the police in New York, instead of trying to face Ryan—or worse still, Leon—alone. I could have gone over Sergeant Wolski's head But what could I have told the police? I had nothing to go on except that Leon Czolgosz had killed Paddy Riley and had tried to kill me. Only my word, however. No concrete proof except the photos, the words inPaddy's little book, and the drawing of a buffalo. Hardly enough evidence to make any policeman take my wild speculation seriously. And then there was Sergeant Wolski—if he, too, was involved somehow in this, he would make sure that I was not taken seriously. Or worse.
The journey seemed to go on forever. Farther down the car, a noisy group of young men were singing popular songs. “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,” sung in several different keys, filled the smoky air. At another time I would have enjoyed it. On this occasion I wanted peace and quiet and time to collect my racing thoughts. I walked down the car and out onto the little platform at the end. Green fields and white farmhouses flashed past us, reminding me painfully of another rail journey I had taken earlier that year, when I had fled from Ireland. Such a lot had happened since then. My previously quiet life had been turned upside down.
Would I go back again if I had the chance? I wondered. It wasn't hard to answer that one—there was no way I'd trade my present existence in New York for the dreary daily routine of Ballykillin. Even if my present life did have its risks, at least I knew I was living and breathing. And if only Daniel—-I stopped that train of thought in a hurry. There was no point in thinking of Daniel that way ever again. A shifting wind gust covered me with smoke from the engine and drove me inside again.
Just before eight o'clock that evening, the train puffed its way into Buffalo station. Crowds streamed from the train, all seemingly with a purpose and direction in mind. I wasn't sure where to go next. I came out of the station into a street positively milling with people. The bookingoffice clerk hadn't been exaggerating. Half the world had gone to Buffalo today! Sidewalk caf6s were full and the air resounded with competing strains of music—the string quartet at the fancy restaurant across the street being drowned out by the oompah band at a German biergarten. And to add to the cacophony, street vendors pushed their barrows through the crowd, shouting out their wares in a variety of accents: hot pretzels, only a nickel; ice cream, best Italian ice cream; lemonade, cotton candy, souvenirs … my head swam from the noise and bustle.
I stood beside a pillar and tried to get my thoughts in order. It was almost dark and it occurred to me that maybe I should find a place to sleep before I did anything else, but I decided that I shouldn't put off what I came to do any longer. This was something I shouldn't tackle alone, so I couldn't put off finding Ryan either. The logical thing to do would be to find a police station and tell them everything. Then it would be up to them. If Ryan was truly innocent he could go back to his play, and I could take the next train home with a clear conscience. I set off to find the nearest policeman, to ask for directions to police headquarters. Then I'd find the theater. Ryan would surely be there now, putting the final touches to his play.
I hadn't realized it until now, but Buffalo was a big city. Streets faded into darkness in all directions, trolley cars clanged past and tall buildings, just as imposing as those in New York, rose all around me. I wandered aimlessly until I came to the crossroads of two major thoroughfares. The sign on the corner said Main Street. At least I now knew I was in the center of town. As I stood waiting to cross, I saw a great glow in the sky, as if the sun had not set at all, but now resided just beyond those tall buildings. My first thought was that it was a huge fire, and waited for the sound of fire engines racing to the scene. Then, as I watched in awe, I saw a great beam, like a giant lighthouse, cut across the sky, lighting even the very clouds. Suddenly it dawned on me that this must be the famous exposition, illuminated with its thousands of electric lights. I had a longing to rush to see it for myself, and had to remind myself of my immediate and unpleasant duty.
I spotted a policeman on horseback coming down the boulevard toward me. I was about to cross the street when I spied the Pfeiflfer Theater. A man was standing on a ladder, putting the sign on the marquee. “Opening tomorrow night: Special pre-New York showing.‘Friends and Neighbors,’ by the Internationally Acclaimed Playwright, Mr. Ryan O'Hare.”
I stood there staring at that theater, in one last turmoil of indecision. It would be so much easier to turn over my information to the police, but I just couldn't bring myself to betray Ryan before I had a chance to talk to him. Maybe this was foolhardy, but I still couldn't equate the Ryan I knew with a ruthless anarchist. It made even less sense that he would be planning a deadly attack on the very eve of the opening of his new play.
I made up my mind and picked up my skirts to cross the street. I was going to risk that encounter. And what better place to confront him than surrounded by his company? There would be safety in numbers. If my suspicions were in any way confirmed by hi
s reactions, all I had to do was to ask one of his company to accompany me to the police station. I had nothing to worry about.
The front doors of the theater were shut but I went around to the side and found the stage door ajar. The doorman tried to stop me but I told him I'd come from New York with an important message for Mr. O'Hare.
“I wouldn't interrupt him now, miss,” the little old man said. “They're in the middle of the final dress rehearsal.”
“Don't worry, I'll wait for the right moment,” I said and walked past him before he could come out of his cubbyhole and stop me. I made my way past dressing rooms and props closets to the stage. This time the stage was ablaze with light. The actors were in full costume and makeup and their words echoed down the hallway toward me. I could see shadowy figures standing behind the curtains, but there was no sign of Ryan, so I slipped through the stage door out into the theater. In the darkness I could make out several dim shapes sitting a few rows back from the orchestra pit. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness I recognized Ryan's riot of curly hair among them. I heard the breath of relief escape from my lips. He was here and he wasn't alone. I wouldn't be in danger while other people were around. I hesitated in the shadows, my heart beating so loudly that I felt sure it could be heard over the actors' voices. A funny line was delivered onstage and the row of people in the audience laughed. I could see Ryan's white teeth as he too laughed at his own joke.
“Go on, get it over with,” I told myself, but I couldn't make my feet move. I might have become fond of Ryan, but I was equally aware of how little I knew about the man behind that well-polished, amusing facade. Oh, well, there was no sense in standing here worrying. I had come to see him, and see him I was going to. I waited until a scene came to its end, then I moved out of the shadows and slid into the row of seats beside him. Ryan looked up, startled.
“Molly, what on earth—? Lovely surprise, but why didn't you tell me you were going to be in Buffalo?”
“I came to see you, Ryan,” I whispered. “We have to talk. It's important.”
He put his finger to his lips. “Only one more scene in Act One and they'll take a ten-minute break then,” he whispered.
We sat. I was conscious of his presence close beside me. I tried to follow the play, I tried to laugh at the funny lines, as Ryan and the gentlemen around him were doing, but my mouth and throat were dry and my face felt frozen into a mask. Now I was here, I wished with all my heart that I hadn't come. I wished I could be anywhere else in the world than here about to confront Ryan.
“You'll be sorry for this,” the actress onstage said. “By God, you'll be sorry!” and she stalked offstage as the curtain came down.
To my relief the house lights came up. Ryan turned to me and gave me a beaming smile. “I realize I am completely irresistible, my darling Molly, but surely chasing me to Buffalo is going just a teeny bit too far.”
“Ryan, I'm afraid it's not funny,” I whispered. “I must talk to you about something very important.”
The man beside Ryan got up. “I'm just going to stretch my legs and have a puff at my pipe,” he said. “Great stuff so far, O'Hare.”
I hoped that the other men wouldn't follow suit.
Ryan was looking at me with amused interest. “Don't tell me that George at O'Connor's sent you after me because I haven't paid my bar bill?” The same old Ryan, flippant and amusing. I glanced across to see if those other men were listening, but they were talking together.
“I'm not sure where to start,” I whispered. “I want to know about you and someone called Czolgosz.”
“Leon?” He looked surprised but still amused. “My dear, that was all over ages ago.”
“Over?”
He leaned closer to me. “We had a very brief fling last year. I got bored. I usually do. I met Angus. Leon went home to Cleveland. End of story.”
“Not quite end of story,” I said. “He came back here this summer, didn't he? You met him at O'Connor's.”
“Have you been spying on me?” Ryan was still smiling. “Don't tell me you are jealous!” He glanced around and suddenly grabbed me by the arm. “I think that maybe you and I should carry on this conversation somewhere a little more private.” He steered me out of the row of seats and up the steps toward the stage door. “The provinces tend to be—uh—rather narrow-minded, shall we say,” he muttered in my ear. “Those men are reporters. Any hint of scandal and I shall be doomed, my dear.”
Before I could do anything sensible to react, he hustled me before him through another door. It was a room with a couple of aged couches and a table littered with halfdrunk cups of coffee. The door clanged shut behind us. I was alone with Ryan O'Hare, whether I wanted it or not.
“Now then,” he said. “What is this very important thing you have to tell me about Leon? Is he back in town looking for me and pining again? He's not saying slanderous things about me, is he?”
I had no choice but to tell him the truth. “Leon is a very dangerous man,” I said.
A smile crossed his face. “Leon dangerous? Deluded yes, but—”
“I work—used to work for a private detective. He was killed—I'm certain he was murdered by your friend Leon.”
Before Ryan could say anything, I opened my purse and produced the postcard, now pasted together. “I went to the boardinghouse where he had been staying and I found this in his wastebasket. He was going to send it to you, but obviously changed his mind.”
Ryan examined the postcard and the smile faded. “Oh, God,” he said quietly.
“Do you know what he means?”
Ryan sighed. “He took it rather hard when I left him— they usually do. He told me he'd do something to make me notice him. Then he launched into this grand plan to do something spectacular at the exposition. He tried to persuade me to be his partner in crime. I laughed, I'm afraid. Leon always had big ideas, but I thought he was all talk. He was melodramatic to the point of being boring.”
“He's in Buffalo,” I said. “He left his lodgings and asked the landlady for a railway timetable. He looked up trains to Buffalo.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” It was the first time I'd heard an Irish expression escape from his lips.
“What do you think he was planning to do?” I asked.
“I really don't know. He lived in a fantasy world, actually, and talked a lot of nonsense.” He pushed back his hair in a gesture of futility. “Lucky he wasn't here today, wasn't it? The President toured the exposition and then went out to the new power plant at Niagara Falls. Leon was all for assassinating heads of state.”
“We should go to the police,” I said.
“It might be the wisest thing.” He leaned back against the peeling paint of the wall. “This would happen when I have my opening night tomorrow.”
A thought struck me. “You don't think he might try to disrupt your opening night?”
Ryan looked startled. “Now that's a thought. Punish me by bombing my theater? Yes, I suppose that could be why he's here.”
“Then we must go to the police right away.”
“The problem is, what can they do? Do you know how many people are in this town? Leon could be wearing a disguise, have registered in a hotel under a false name— there is no way they'll find him if he doesn't want to be found.”
“But we must stop him, Ryan. He killed my employer. He tried to kill me.”
“Tried to kill you? When?” Ryan gave me a startled look.
“A few nights ago. He broke into the house and came at me with a knife.”
“Act Two, beginners on stage in two minutes,” came the call down the hallway. Ryan moved toward the door. “I have to go back. The second act is starting.” He took my arm again. “Come on. We'll go looking for him tomorrow,” he said as he led me back to our seats. “If he knows I'm in town, it's just possible that he will be tailing me. We'll lure him to us and make him see reason.”
I watched the second act feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. Ryan was
not involved in the plot himself. He was going to make everything all right.
“Where are you staying tonight?” he whispered as the curtain fell. I told him I hadn't found a hotel room yet. He shook his head.‘There's no point in trying to find a bed in the city. Every hotel and boardinghouse is chockablock full. Half my crew are slumming in the green room. You'd better join them.”
So I spent the night in the theater green room, lying on old cloths that smelled of paint. Again safety in numbers, I told myself, even though I had nothing to fear.
In the morning I waited impatiently while Ryan went through last-minute instructions in the theater, then talked to a bevy of news reporters waiting for him outside. It was past noon by the time we joined the human tide heading toward the main gates of the exposition. Then we had to wait in the hot sun as the line inched forward toward the turnstiles. Ryan paid for both of us, the turnstile swung and we were through.
I had been concentrating so hard on my task that I hadn't given much thought to the exposition itself. But as we passed through the entrance gates and crossed a beautiful lake by means of a triumphal causeway, I caught my first glimpse of that majestic tower rising at the end of a wide boulevard. It was like a tower from a fairy tale, and I let out a gasp.
“If you think it's impressive in the daytime, you should see it at night,” Ryan said, smiling at my excited face. “That whole tower is one mass of electric lights. And a great beam at the top of it. You can see it shining out for miles away.”
“I saw it last night,” I said. “It lit up the whole sky. I've never imagined anything as magical as this in my entire life. This is how I pictured Rome and Florence and Paris all rolled into one.”
We were swept by the human tide up the grand esplanade, lined with columns and dotted with fountains. Each fountain was grander than the one in Central Park. Elegant Spanish or Renaissance-style buildings stood on either side. Some of them had great domes, some of them were adorned with Greek pillars. I'd have loved to see inside each of them, but we were borne forward by the surge around us toward the tower, and by a sense of urgency. A brass band was playing on an outdoor stage. Flags of all nations fluttered in the morning breeze. Even the signs were intriguing, TO THE PLANTATION, TO THE AFRICAN VILLAGE, TO THE WILD WEST SHOW, TO THE TEMPLE OF SCIENCE. How wonderful it would have been to be a visitor here, with time to explore and no worries.
