Sí, Mama,” he replied.
She tugged him toward the living room, tapping the sofa as she sat.
The boy nestled into the plump cushion at his mother’s side. His feet failed to reach the floor.
Grazie,” she said.
“Thank you,” the boy replied in singsong, his accent thick.
Sì, por favore.”
“Yes, please,” he recited.
Non, por favore.
Ah, Mama Arresto “ he whined, jutting his bottom lip, thrusting his hand in the air. “Sì, non. Non, sì. No, yes. Sono parlaro inglese—”
She grabbed his earlobe. “You listen to me,” she said in rapid Italian. “This man … You know where he’s bringing you, this man? You think there you walk around like they dragged you out of the straw?”
Straw?
L’America,” she said, letting go.
Sì, Mama,
Dovete essere il la cosa migliore?”
“Be the best,” Mauro replied dutifully.
Ah.” She nodded in triumph.
The man bought, separately, red ink and a set of rubber stamps. Last night, after rinsing the black dye from his hair, he pressed the same message onto five sheets of coarse paper
Rimember
We will not tolerate
any longer
Free the political
Prisoner or it will be
Sure death for all of you
American Anarchist
fighters
It had cost him fifty dollars and the price of a meal at the Hotel Marguery to learn from a postal inspector the precise language the anarchists employed in previous threats. During the supper, the man told him of the troubled tennis pro Fischer and his postcards bearing predictions of doom.
Now, as dawn beckoned, the man whose hair was once again lighter than the color of straw, folded the sheets of paper and slipped them into an inside pocket of a blue suit that had once belonged to his late father, a builder of solid repute, a diminutive man who had been as dedicated and self-effacing as his wife was disdainful and superior.
As he examined the tiny room, the man thought of the after-event and the comeback of those who had been humbled. To no one, he said, “Eager to blame and thus they will, and it will be those whose culpability best serves their interests. For they know only of opportunity.”
He packed the ink and stamps into a brown paper bag and deposited them in a trash bin a block south of the offices of La Questione Sociale
As he crossed a dim, litter-strewn alley on his return to Essex Street, he repeated what he had said, adding, “But in their heart of hearts, they will know they have been taken down.”
Mauro was studying his parade of ants on the brownstone steps when the man emerged precisely at 8 o’clock.
“Ready for adventure, Mauro?” he asked, and offered the boy his hand.
“Good morning,” Mauro said, as instructed.
“Let us proceed then, shall we?”
The man brought a finger to the brim of his boater when Mauro’s mother came into view.
“Thank you,” she said, her hands anxiously clasping the fleur-de-lis pickets of the wrought-iron gate. “Thank you very much. Thank you.”
“Yes, this will be a day to remember,” said the man. “A day for the ages.”
She didn’t fully understand, but when he looked to the September sky, she did too. It was flawless, the lightest blue with downy clouds.
Ciao, Mama,” Mauro said, his voice cracking with sudden nerves.
“Be a good boy,” she replied in Italian, and then repeated what she had told him last night and again this morning. “Listen to the man.”
Clasping her hands in front of her breasts, she watched as they walked along Essex Street, her son skipping to match the man’s confident stride.
Mauro opened and closed the stable door, and was engulfed quickly by overwhelming scents and unexpected heat. He stayed close to the entryway, taking sips of cool air as he peered through the vertical space between the red doors.
Though the snorting horses behind him seemed mam-moth and mice scurried near his freshly polished shoes, the boy was more baffled than frightened. His mother had told him of streets of gold, towers that kissed the sky, and the world’s smartest men. Now he wondered if he had misunderstood.
As Mauro watched, the man emerged in green overalls from a barn on the other side of the narrow thoroughfare, dragging an old rack wagon, its yellow bed enclosed by poles and rails covered by ragtag canvas. The man grunted as he brought the wagon to a halt, then chucked the wheel against the curb.
The man approached the stable, mopping his brow. Mauro retreated, backing into a weather-beaten barrel, blinking in the sudden wash of light.
“Come,” the man said to the boy as he marched past.
With Mauro lingering behind him, the man deftly harnessed a dark bay mare, affixing blinders the old horse accepted without protest.
Responding to a clicking sound the man made with his mouth, the horse left its station, albeit without enthusiasm, its long tail hanging limply.
“Follow and shut all doors,” the man said, as he tugged on a strap, leading the animal toward fresh air.
As Mauro reached up to close the stable, he tried to make the same clicking sound, but could not. He shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
The horse in place across the shaded lane, the man beckoned Mauro to the rear of the wagon where he pulled back a canvas flap.
Mauro saw a simple wooden crate. It was tied with thick hemp to the wagon’s frame.
“You know what we have there?” the man asked, gesturing with his head.
Mauro looked up at him.
“A gift,” he said. “A gift that you will present. You.”
“Yes,” the boy said.
Without warning, the man lifted Mauro under his arms and hoisted him into the wagon.
Mauro hunched to avoid the rail above his head. Now sawdust covered the tops of his shoes and clung to his knee socks.
“You sit here,” the man said, tapping the tattered rear panel, “and you watch the world go by.”
The boy’s expression was blank.
The man trotted to the barn to remove his overalls.
Mauro’s mother looked at the clock above the stove and permitted herself a little grin: At this moment, her son was becoming a part of America. Her husband would have been proud; a big, gap-toothed smile beneath his walrus mustache, thumbs hooked under his suspenders against his barrel chest.
The aroma of sugar and almonds rose from the oven. The were to serve as an expression of her gratitude for the man who had taken her son to Wall Street. She saw herself handing the pyramid of cookies to him upon their return. Perhaps he would have a story of her son’s—
She realized she did not know his name.
Certain he hadn’t introduced himself, she tried to recall if she had seen an errant piece of mail addressed to him. But he hadn’t received any mail, as far as she knew.
A rush of worry brushed her heart. Wiping her damp hands on her apron, she was suddenly desperate for any source of his identity. His shirts bore the Arrow label, a popular brand among the men whose clothes she laundered, so that was of no—
Then she remembered the slip of paper she had found in his pocket. The Morgan Bank, it read. The Morgan Bank of 23 Wall Street She sighed in relief. The man was known to the people of the great Morgan Bank.
L’ America, she thought as she returned to work, her mind floating toward ease.
At that very moment, the man delivered the old mare and wagon to Wall Street east of Broad, at the center of the Morgan Building.
“Mauro,” said the man, as he crawled beneath the canvas hood, having placed the last of the stamped notes in the postal box at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. “Come here, boy. Quickly.”
Mauro watched while the man removed the top and side slats of the wooden crate to reveal a device made of Bessemer steel. It resembled a torpedo. A red
wire protruded from a vein in its casing.
“Mauro, sit here,” the man said. “That’s right. On top. That’s it …”
The boy eased himself atop the device, straddling it as if he were riding a horse.
“This is simple, son,” the man said. “In a minute or so, you will hear a church bell. Do you understand? A bell.”
The man looked into the boy’s round eyes.
“Yes,” the boy said. “A bell. A church bell.”
“Good, good,” the man replied, tapping the boy’s bare leg. “When the bell strikes 12, you pull this cable.”
The man made a gesture with his empty hand.
“Twelve bells and you pull the cable. Understand? Twelve, pull.”
Mauro said yes.
“Say it, please.”
“Twelve, pull.” His voice all but squeaked.
As he edged toward the rear of the truck, the man glanced at his father’s pocket watch. Reaching for the canvas flap, he said, “Do your best, Mauro.”
Mauro smiled. Twelve and pull, he thought. Church bells
The Trinity Church bell struck 1.
Immediately, people began to pour from the Morgan Building, the Assay Office, the Sub-Treasury, the New York Stock Exchange, and scores of other buildings in the vicinity, moving toward restaurants and lunch counters.
On the steps of the Sub-Treasury Building, hidden behind a column adjacent to the base of a bronze statue of George Washington, stood the man with hair lighter than the color of straw, a smirk affixed to his face.
Beneath him, the Street continued to fill with people. Taxis were unable to move, and horns began to blare.
The bell struck 3.
Swelling with confidence, the man thought, There is no system, no institution, greater than the marshaled thoughts of a singular man in the pursuit of Right.
The bell tolled again and again, soon to 7, 8, 9 …
And now Justice shall be done.
The church bell struck 11. The man put the tips of his forefingers in his ears, closed his eyes, and, in preparation for the colossal explosion, hunched into his body.
But there was no explosion.
All was as it had been.
The Morgan Building was not destroyed. The executives therein had not been killed.
The unsavory crowd of co-conspirators to the folly of Wall Street continued to surge from buildings, many bypassing his horse and wagon. These included the postal inspector who had sold him information crucial to his deceit, and the German who had been vital to the construction of the bomb. He had agreed to meet them at the entrance to the Morgan Building precisely at noon.
Stunned, the man hurried down the steps.
Mauro wiped his nose with the handkerchief his mother had given him, and he struggled to return it to his back pocket. Doing so, he looked between his legs at the device, which rested on a bed of sawdust. He had been thinking of the sound of the horse as it trod cobblestone, and of the magnificent bridge that, an hour or so ago, had been high as the moon above his head.
The bells had stopped.
Dodici? he thought, having lost count.
Could have been twelve.
He shrugged. He was hungry and, in the fog of his mind, reasoned the man would not return until his chore was complete.
He looked at the red cable in his hand and gave it a hardy tug.
He was instantly blown to atoms.
A yellow-green mushroom cloud rose in his stead.
The wagon was obliterated, and the bay mare flew into the air. It landed, dead and disemboweled, in the center of the Wall and Broad streets intersection, at least fifty feet to the west
A block away, the Broadway trolley line leaped its tracks, pinning a messenger boy beneath its wheels.
The iron bars that defended the Assay Office bowed inward.
Shrapnel more deadly than a thousand machine-gun bursts propelled forcefully in every direction. The bomb had contained thirty pounds of TNT packed beneath approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of sash weights, pieces of which landed as far away as the Trinity Church grave-yard.
Riders emerging from the IRT station were greeted with a spray of viscera, and a human leg and foot landed in their midst.
A woman’s severed head, hat still in place, stuck momentarily to the façade of the Morgan Building, where blood was splattered to a height of a dozen feet.
Glass and stone rained from buildings within a half-mile radius of the blast site. The windows of the New York Stock Exchange were destroyed, and several employees therein were shredded to ribbons. The American flag flying above its entrance caught fire, as did awnings throughout the district, several as high as twelve stories above ground.
Ambulance surgeons arrived to find bodies of the dead and dying strewn about. Blood pools reflected the midday
Fifteen people were killed instantly. Among them was the man with hair lighter than the color of straw, who was caught full in the chest by the force of the blast.
Others died within the hour, victims of the whirling, white-hot steel bits. Thomas Joyce, Morgan’s chief clerk, was violated by shards of glass from the building’s cathedral windows. He was the only Morgan employee to perish, though the first floor of the building was wrecked.
Upon hearing a report that the Assay Office and Sub-Treasury had been attacked, the men of the Twenty-Third Infantry stationed on Governors Island were rushed by ferry to the Battery, from there they marched in double-time to the district, bayonets fixed.
When they arrived, they reported a stench in the air that recalled the battlefields of France. Burlap sacks placed the blood-soaked bodies could not contain the smell of death.
The streets were swept clean overnight, as Sanitation Department employees helped police comb for clues, as well as matter to aid in the identification of victims. The smallest body parts were gathered in wax paper.
Blood was dispatched by water hose to the nearest sewer, and men took steel wool to the remnant stains.
Well before sunrise, large sheets of canvas were stretched over the glassless windows at the Morgan Building. Similarly, bunting covered the broken windows at the Stock Exchange.
Both institutions opened promptly at 9 o’clock, the appointed time. Many employees arrived dressed in bandages.
The infernal machine had exploded at one minute past noon, and the banks and exchanges regularly closed at 3 o’clock, so the terrorizing demonstration had caused only a three-hour delay in the transaction of the district’s vital business.
* * *
Edwin P. Fischer, a former championship tennis player, was arrested in Hamilton, Ontario. He was said to have predicted the bombing in a series of postcards sent to various officials of government.
Mr. Fischer’s brother-in-law, Robert A. Pope, said Mr. Fischer was not involved in the attack, but had known of them via “mental telepathy.”
Arrangements were made for Mr. Fischer’s immediate transport to New York City for questioning. The police were well aware of his erratic behavior. He had fled north to avoid being committed to an insane asylum, as per his family’s wishes.
When Mr. Fischer arrived from Canada at the Grand Center Terminal, he was wearing two business suits, one atop the other, over tennis whites, on the chance that a game might opportune.
That evening, The News, which, as “New York’s Picture Newspaper,” was obligated to publish several gruesome photos of the aftermath of the attack, announced in its headlines that Wall St. Ignored Warnings. Another read, Trace Crank in Bomb Outrage. On its front page, the latter featured a photo of the troubled Mr. Fischer.
Entering the terminus of the Hudson Tubes on Church Street, the waiter T.J. O’Neal Jr. of Nutley, New Jersey accepted a copy of the paper from a newsy, but did not look at it until he had boarded the train. Then, to no one, he said, “That’s not him. That’s not Fischer.”
The waiter reported immediately to the Old Slip police station. His statement was added to the mountain of testimony the poli
ce had already compiled, much of which only served to confuse the inquiry.
The Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Morgan’s men had already decided the attack was the work of anarchists. But the New York Police Department did not agree, at least not yet. They stood by the statement that had been given to the Evening Post: “It may have been the work of a single criminal lunatic mind spurred on to its fiendish act by we know not what influence.”
The carcass of the horse provided the clue of greatest value, and through unmitigated industry, the police identified John L. Haggerty of Finnegan & Kyle, 82 New Chambers Street, as the man who had shod it.
A taciturn man with wire spectacles and the requisite sinewy arms, Mr. Haggerty took pride in the belief he could identify any horse he’d ever shod. The condition of a horse’s hoof, he said, was as distinct as a human fingerprint.
He watched while a policeman unwrapped a length of canvas containing part of a horse’s foreleg, including the hoof and shoe.
“Dark bay mare. Ten years old if a day,” Mr. Haggerty said, as he ran a calloused finger across the mark of the International Union of Journeymen Horseshoers. “Stood right for shoeing.”
“When?”
“No more than two weeks ago.”
He could not, however, identify the mare’s owner.
“Never look at them,” he said plainly.
Business on Wall Street closed at noon on Saturdays, marking the customary half-holiday. By 1 o’clock, thousands after thousands arrived in the district to see the site of the carnage, jamming the streets, their solemnity in stark contrast to the panic and horror of those who had been subject to the terrorizing demonstration two days ago. Women dabbed away tears as men removed their hats in silent tribute to the dead. Other visitors pointed to the hole in the surface of Wall Street and the chips in the Morgan Building façade, even as workers replaced the cathedral windows.
From the crowd emerged a panic-stricken Italian woman, her olive visage an expression of unadulterated agony, her eyes ringed red and swollen. Dressed in black from head to heel, she clawed at passersby and pleaded for help in finding her
At her side was Mr. Piatti, the vice principal of the boy’s school. Sobbing, he was too aggrieved for purpose.
Wall Street Noir Page 6
