“What?”
“But you’re not, are you?”
Jack started to reach under his jacket, but then remembered he was unarmed. “I know all about you, Forty-Two, Wade Farrington. You’ve been working for Bill Haywood.”
“She’s his spy. Caught red handed. That cunt right there. Or are you too thick to know it? Just looking to cock her?”
“Shut your mouth!” Jack yelled.
“Hate to disappoint you, but everybody’s already been there.”
“Goddamn you.” Jack started to rush Farrington but was drawn short by the pistol in his face. “I know who she is,” said Jack.
“You think so?” asked Farrington. “You know she’s Haywood’s?”
“I do,” said Jack.
“So are you!” Carla yelled at Farrington.
“I’ll kill you,” he snarled at her. “I will.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Followed you two.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?” asked Jack.
“Chief doesn’t trust you fraternizing with the enemy.”
“Seems you’re the enemy,” said Jack, his eyes scanning without moving, searching for some sort of weapon, some advantage.
“Yes, he is,” she said. “A jealous schoolboy.”
Farrington moved his aim back to Carla, chuckling. “No, now I see it. You’re a double. You’re a Pink spying on Haywood. Turn-coating on everyone.”
“You’re talking about you, or me?” asked Carla. “I’m confused.”
Jack shook his head. “Put the gun down.”
Farrington ignored him, his fury rising. “Both of you. I should shoot both of you. Right here. No one would know different. They’d never know it was me. Just two dead spies for Haywood and McParland. And you, bitch, you’d get what you deserve.”
Seeing Carla clasp a scrap of wood behind her back, Jack spoke loudly, pulling Farrington’s attention. “Maybe I’m wrong, Forty-Two. I don’t think you have the wood to be a Wobbly spy.” He hoped Carla noticed that he was giving her an opportunity.
Farrington spun toward Jack, scoffing, “I’m Agent Farrington, not Forty-Two. Besides, what do you know? You don’t know me.”
“You’re no murderer, that’s for sure. I—”
Wheeling the board through the air like a bat, Carla smacked Farrington’s head. He collapsed and pulled the trigger on the way down, the bullet ripping through a wall stud. Jack was on Farrington immediately, pounding his face. The pistol came loose, and a moment later both men found themselves looking into its barrel, the grip in Carla’s shaking hands. “Get up, Wade,” she demanded.
Jack stood first. “I’d do what she says.”
Farrington rose, his face bloody. “Wop bitch. What are you gonna do?”
“Turn you in,” she replied. “But”—she tilted her head in mock contemplation—“would that be to the Pinks or to the Federation? Mr. McParland will hang you. Mr. Haywood will shoot you. What do you think, Jack?”
“I’ll take him to Chief Mc—”
“Goddamn you!” Farrington bellowed, rushing her. She pulled the trigger. The .44 caliber bullet shredded his chest. He buckled, falling off the partial subflooring, down through the second floor, to the first floor where he crashed with a walloping thump. Then came silence, save the ringing from the crack of the gun.
Carla turned, trembling, gun pointed down. “Oh no! Oh God. I shot him! Oh no,” she exclaimed, her voice shrill and scared.
“It’s alright,” said Jack, taking the pistol from her and peering over the construction barrier to see Farrington’s body far below.
“I killed him,” she said, collapsing to the floor.
Jack came to her. “It’ll be alright.”
“Will you help me?”
“Of course.” His mind was flying into action. “Don’t worry.”
<><><>
– 28 –
WEDNESDAY
February 27, 1907
“What’s this?” asked Neva, opening a thick, red leather-bound ledger book. She sat in a cane-back chair, her disheveled blonde tresses draping her bare shoulders and the top of her lace-trimmed camisole. The book was in front of her, lying on a marble-topped vanity that supported a beveled mirror bearing her morning image. A supply of correspondence paper was also on the vanity, each adorned with a bronze lithograph of a tall, narrow building, below which was printed: The Metropole Hotel, Denver, Colorado. George was in his BVD undershorts and undershirt, standing at the window seat, overlooking the low roofs and high floors beyond.
He glanced at her. “The accounts. The last two years.”
“Federation books?”
“A copy of them.”
“A copy?” she mused. “That must have been a lot of work, to make a copy like this.” She flipped the green-lined pages bursting with hand-written entries. “I don’t know how to read this.”
“Please keep it in a safe place. You don’t need to understand it.”
“Why am I keeping it?” She plopped the cover closed.
“Insurance, I suppose. If he thinks I’m on his scent, he’s likely to fire me. Then he’ll either try to change the books, or keep them and blame me. Either way, that copy is my proof, my exoneration, as it were.”
“I won’t lose you,” she said, trying to sound certain.
“That’s right, darling, you won’t.”
“You know what I mean.” She sniffed. “I can’t let that happen. Those people—they blindly believe anything he says. Just anything. It’s frightening.”
“I have the truth. We can—”
“The truth?” she asked, her voice pinching as she regarded George through the mirror. She turned to him. “The truth—from the treasurer who’s having an affair with the president’s wife? That man is going to be believed? Him saying the husband is stealing money? The truth won’t matter to those people, George.”
He rubbed his almost bald head, causing wisps of hair to stand in static protest.
Neva looked back to the mirror and lifted her chin, examining it. “He needs to go … away.”
“Maybe it’s me who should go.”
“No, don’t say that! Don’t ever say that to me again.”
“All right,” he groused, watching her in the mirror.
After a long moment, she whispered, “He’s a monstrous man.”
“Did something happen?” he asked, seeing a further darkness in her expression. “Something else?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened?” he persisted, moving to the window seat.
She gave a resigned huff. “How do you always know?”
“I know you.” He shrugged. “You watch the birds; I watch you.”
“What happens when you stop?”
“I won’t.”
“No?”
“No,” he said. “What’s going on? Something new happened.”
She leaned close to her image, applying cream with her fingertips. She glanced at him, and then back into the mirror. The Bible verse, That which is crooked cannot be made straight, came to her mind. She looked again at George, his absorbing eyes formidable. He would wait her out. She would have to say it. Finally, she stiffened, murmuring, “He told her he loves her.”
George rubbed an eye, sniffed, and squinted. “What of it?”
“He shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?” He stood, his jawline becoming visible through his pink cheeks. “Why does it matter what that man, that monstrous man as you call him, says to that dodgy girl?”
“My sister.”
“I don’t get it,” he huffed, going into motion.
“Stop pacing.”
He turned around, pinning her with his gaze.
“Please,” she added. “Please stop
pacing like that.”
He sat on the bed. “She’s your sister, of course. But you must see this is a difficult situation. Difficult is hardly the word for it.”
Neva twisted in her chair to face him, her arm draped across its back. “I know,” she whispered, compelling herself to be gentler.
“It’s very hard for me,” he added.
She gave a strained smile. “What do you want, darling?”
He held his gaze on her. “You. To be with you. Just you. Just you and me. Imagine what that’d be: a life together—just you and me. Not Bill. Not Winnie. I mean not—not Winnie like this.” He scooted closer to her and took her hand. “That’s what I want.”
With the pad of her thumb, she wiped a tear from her eye, and then one from his cheek. “Me too. I want that too.”
“So, how can we?”
“I don’t know.”
George sighed. “As you said, he needs to go away.”
Neva didn’t blink. “If they find him guilty, in Boise, then—”
“They’ll hang him.” His eyebrows rose as he shook his head.
“He did it, you know. He—” When he looked at her, she completed the thought. “He had that governor murdered.”
“You know that?”
“I know it.”
“Did he say that?”
She shrugged. “I just know it.”
George lay back on the bed and examined the tin-tiled ceiling. “We can’t make a difference in that.”
“I was thinking of talking to that detective.”
“James McParland?” He sat up. “You can’t, darling. If you were seen, it would— I don’t know, but you can’t.”
“What else is there?” She glanced at the ledger book.
He saw where she was looking. “Maybe. I don’t know. I could take it to the union directly—to the thirty or so local chapters.” Both sat quietly until George spoke again. “I wonder what Bill would do, if they turned on him—the chapter presidents.”
“He’d take me and the girls to Chicago. And Winnie, of course.”
“I don’t think so. There’d be no place he could go—not in the United States. Least not any union city.”
“He loves Russia. I don’t know why he doesn’t just …” A vision landed in her mind: Bill at the railing on a departing ship—not waiving.
“I don’t think so,” said George.
“The Federation could ban him. But the Socialist wouldn’t.”
“Our socialists?” he asked. “In America? No, Debs wouldn’t take Bill. Both of them can’t fit under one red flag.”
Neva screwed up her lips in thought. “Would that man—Trotty something—would he want him?”
“Trotty? In Russia? That’s not his name, but I know who you mean. No, probably not. I don’t know.” His mind drifted. “Trotsky, that’s his name. This whole matter is speculation. I could try to foment a rebellion against Bill, to drive him out of office. But, as you said, is not likely.” George paused, exhaling hard. “Regardless, you’re not going to Russia.”
“No! I certainly would not ... no ... and you know why?”
“You don’t like those poofy fur hats?”
“No, I like those fine,” she said with a smile. “No.” She lifted his hand to kiss it. “It’s because you wouldn’t be there. That’s why.”
<><><>
– 29 –
FRIDAY
March 1, 1907
On the first day of March 1907, Agent Farrington’s rigid body was fished from the frigid Boise River, a tributary of the Snake River, now a brawling flow of new snowmelt. By noon, the body was packed in ice, loaded on a train, and was bound for burial in Anderson, Indiana.
Four days earlier, someone had noticed a lone palomino near the college. The shivering horse seemed abandoned, though it was tacked and carrying an oddly scoped M1903 Springfield rifle. Informed of the mystery, McParland arrived and took possession of both horse and rifle, and found blood on the first floor of the building under construction. Connecting the origin of his new chalkboard with the location of the blood, he questioned Jack.
Jack recounted the events, including where he and Carla had ditched Farrington alongside the river. It was an accurate retelling, though he claimed to have pulled the trigger, not Carla—a deviation McParland seemed to accept, if not fully believe. Certain that the chief would send a Pinkerton to retrieve the body, Jack was surprised when a passerby discovered it four days later, simply floating by.
Now Jack was in McParland’s office, along with three other agents, each in their almost-matching Pinkerton attire, each holding a drawing of Steve Adams. One of them, Iain Lennox, a massive Scotsman whom Jack had never seen before, was talking with the chief about having won a caber-tossing match—something Jack knew nothing about. The other two were the Polk brothers whom Jack recognized from his early Pinkerton days in St. Louis. As they hadn’t been subsequently posted in Denver, Jack didn’t really know them—though one, Peter Polk, had been with him in the governor’s bloody, snowy yard two months earlier.
McParland stood before the large green chalkboard now covered in white words, symbols, and lines. At the top were three names in capital letters: HAYWOOD at the very top, with scratchy white marks down to ORCHARD and ADAMS. “These two,” McParland said, pointing to the lower two names, “are who we need in order to get him.” He tapped the chalk hard on the name HAYWOOD. “Thanks to Agent Garrett, we have this one,” he said, drawing an X through ORCHARD. Pivoting, he motioned to the drawings in the men’s hands. “So now, you four, go bring me this vermin.” Rotating back to the board, he drew an angry circle around ADAMS.
“Aye, Chief,” they replied together.
“We lost him in San Francisco,” McParland continued. “But maybe he’s still there. On Haywood’s orders, this Adams fellow is tracking a man named James Branson, one of our client’s men. Adams has gone there to kill the man. Your first order of business is to capture Adams—but do what you can to save Branson. The Federation already took the man’s hand, up at Bunker Hill, so maybe you can save his life.” After seeing Jack nod, the chief detective skated his gaze across the other three. “Agent Garrett is in command on this. Meet up with our two agents there in San Francisco. They lost Adams, but you can not. You must do better. That’ll make you six. He’ll only be one. Bring him to Silver City—the Silver City here in Idaho. I’ll get him from you there. But do not bring me a corpse. Bring him alive. Understood?”
As the four acknowledged the order, Jack noticed the M1903 rifle on McParland’s desk.
“Take that with you,” McParland said quietly to Jack. “That scope’s daffy, but the gun’s good.” He turned to address the room. “Gentlemen, Adams is a mad dog, a thoughtless, ruthless killer like none you’ve ever encountered or will again, God willing. So keep yourselves armed, your weapons loaded. Travel light and fast. Operate incognito, under cover. Do what you must. Stay vigilant for one another. Stay ready. Protect each other. Avoid local law. And do not—under any circumstances—kill Adams. He’s as a vile a son of a bitch as ever was, but he’s our son of a bitch. He belongs to us now. He’s the witness we must have. So I need him alive.”
Confirmation all around.
“That brings me to Captain Swain. He’ll be there—watch for him. He’s in Mr. Haywood’s employ, so he means to kill Adams before the rat can testify. I don’t care for Swain, but he’s fast and accurate. He’s smart. He used to be one of us. He knows how we work.” McParland lowered his chin for a moment, letting a thought move by, as if letting a train pass. Then he smoothed his mustache, and resumed, “Don’t underestimate him. Swain knows that country better than any of you ever will. And if Swain gets to Adams—and Adams doesn’t kill him first, which is possible—then Adams will vanish. He’ll rot out in the desert or up in the Sierra Nevadas. We’ll never find him. Do not let that happ
en. Would any of you know Swain if you saw him? Would you, Agent Garrett?”
“I believe so,” Jack lied. He’d just been put in charge—the last thing he wanted was to now admit ignorance.
“Good,” continued McParland. “You’ve been given as many of the details as we know about Steve Adams. It’s all written on the back of those drawings.”
The four flipped their papers with concurrent crinkles.
“Names. Addresses. Relations. The code terms to use. And the telephone numbers to reach me, though best you telegraph.” McParland watched the young men peruse the information. “Go then,” he said. “Give me daily reports. Be smart. Be careful. I want all of you coming home to your mommas—as well as your girlfriends, or your sheep”—they laughed—“all safe and sound.”
“Aye, Chief,” said the Polks and Iain as they departed.
Jack stayed back. “May I ask—”
“Yes?” McParland lit his pipe.
“Seeing how, last month, you had assigned me to infiltrate—”
“What of it?”
“Well, Sir, you’re sending me after Adams before I can—”
“And?”
“I can’t rightly do both things in two places.”
McParland palmed the air. “Last month you weren’t a murderer.”
The word froze Jack. “No, Sir. Understood.”
“Speaking of killers, we’ll keep Miss Capone here. We’ll keep an eye on her. But it’s best you get out of Boise for a while.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Now, that may be why I’m sending you, but it’s not why I’m giving you operational command.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “Sir?”
“You’ve got a solid head on you, superior instincts. And that piece of bad business with Farrington—I was impressed with how you handled it. How you protected Miss Capone.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Command means you’re responsible not just in the aftermath, protecting your team. But in the moment. And before the moment. In fact, long before the moment ever comes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
American Red Page 25
