The Last Drive

by Rex Stout

  Thus James developed a personality that deserved to be called the very flower, the last expression, of indifference. He was not exactly melancholy; his real lack was enthusiasm, not interest. Still, it cannot be denied that gradually he began to look and act more like a monk and less like a man than is allowable in one who is expected to perpetuate a name and an enterprise.

  After this explanation, you will easily understand why Hamlin Senior felt a positive thrill when his son came to the breakfast table six mornings in succession with a springy step and a bright eye, and eagerly devoured all the newspapers in sight before he would even so much as look at his grapefruit and jelly. Clearly, there was something in the wind. The first morning, Hamlin Senior had thought little of it; it might be a murder, a race—any one of those passing sensations that are dished up for the daily entertainment of the people. On the second morning he was mildly curious, and on the third he decided that it was unquestionably a divorce, and that James had made a somewhat late discovery of the fact of sex. But divorce suits rarely last six days, and by this time the elder Hamlin was frankly astonished.

  As James sat reading the Morning News, an expression of firmness came over his face. Hamlin Senior eyed him silently. The young man turned to the editorial page, glanced over it for a minute, then carefully folded the paper and laid it beside his plate. Then he arose, placed his hands, palms down, on the table after the manner of an orator, and said in an impressive tone:

  “Father, I’ve decided to enter politics.”

  Hamlin Senior sat up straight in his chair, while the Morning Clarion fluttered from his hand to the floor. “Good God!” he exclaimed weakly.

  James, not heeding the interruption, continued:

  “Of course it is unnecessary for me to state on which side I intend to align myself. I shall be the champion of the people—the downtrodden masses—and against the base conspiracy of the bosses, of which I have been reading. The time has come when the predatory interests—“

  Hamlin Senior waved a hand for silence. “James,” he said, “as a father, it is my duty to tell you that you’re a blamed fool. Predatory jackrabbits! What do you know about politics?”

  “Enough,” said James, with the air of a statesman who is considering the advisability of entering upon a dangerous war. “I assure you, enough. It is no wonder the people have been powerless to assert and maintain their rights, lacking, as they do, an able champion. I intend,” he glared at his father, “I intend that they shall no longer be without one.”

  “And you, I suppose, are it?” asked his father.

  James, being dreadfully in earnest, ignored the sarcasm. “If I am honored by being chosen as their leader, I shall not flinch,” he said resolutely. “The industrial pirates must be shown that it is the people who rule. Of course, I make no allusion to your personal—er—record.”

  “Thank you. And what is your present ambition?”

  “I shall begin in my own district, where I shall organize the masses. Reform, like charity, begins at home.”

  “I see. And what about the—er—the sinews?”

  “Oh, as to that,” said James loftily, “I shall of course expect your financial assistance.”

  “Of course,” said the elder Hamlin, rising from his chair and starting to leave the room. “Of course—I don’t think. Your damned insolence is really admirable. If you think that I—that you—if you think—” He was still spluttering with wrath when the door closed after him, leaving James standing in a Bismarckian attitude which was still very grand and solemn, despite the fact that his only audience was a mangled grapefruit and an empty chair.

  The scene between father and son was in itself really unimportant. It has been recounted in order to show the depth and strength of James’ purpose, in which he could not be made to falter even by the stern refusal of an angry parent. He knew very well that the people were being exploited by selfish interests—as who does not—and he knew also that the people, being honest, needed only honest leaders. And modest as he was, he felt pretty well assured that he could select one of the chosen without straying far afield.

  He was going, he told himself, to build his campaign on the inherent good sense of the people. His disinterestednesss was really astonishing. He not only said that he wanted nothing for himself—he meant it; or at least he believed that he meant it, which is perhaps as near as a human is ever allowed to approach godliness. But the wonderful thing about it is that, for all his high-flown generalities, he kept his personal aspirations strictly within the limits of common sense.

  In the course of the following week, James suffered from a series of shocks, minor, but still distressing. His was a fastidious nature, and he really had no idea that anyone but rogues could frequent some of the places into which he was led by his search for the people. The people, he found, were unbelievably elusive. In the first place, they were hard to find; and in the second, they seemed more inclined to laugh at than to listen to an exposition of their woes. Some of them even went so far as to deny that they had any.

  It was about a week after the commencement of activities, in the back room of Doherty’s saloon, that James met Shorty Benson. Here, at last, he found some encouragement. Shorty listened to him with flattering attention, the while he consumed uncounted schooners of beer.

  “Well,” said he, when James paused for a breath, “that sounds mighty interestin’. You made no mistake comin’ to me. And what do you want? Th’ assembly?”

  James was almost angry. “No!” he shouted. “Good God! Why does everybody think I want something? I want you to understand once for all, Mr. Benson, that I am in this fight for the people! I want nothing! Assembly! Bah!”

  “All right,” said Shorty, soothingly. “I know it ain’t much. But I thought for a starter—well, we’ll talk about that later. Now to get down to business. In the first place, my name ain’t Mr. Benson—it’s Shorty. In the second place, there’s only one guy that’ll cause us any trouble—and that’s Mike O’Toole. This district was mine till he butted in two years ago. Since then there’s been hell to pay. Last year he got me by three hundred.”

  A week previous such a statement of the case of the people would have filled James with grief and astonishment; but being hardened by a week of interviews, Shorty’s picturesque language brought only a mild grimace. He thoroughly intended to make drastic reform in this respect later, but wisely decided that for the present the best thing to do was to ignore it. He tried to keep his tone from showing disapproval as he said:

  “What we want to do is to let people understand that we are on their side. We are for the people.”

  “Right-o,” said Mr. Benson, into his schooner of beer.

  “And,” continued James, “in spite of their honesty, it must be admitted that they are ignorant. We must educate them.”

  “Educate hell!” roared Shorty, without thinking. Then, at the look of pained surprised on James’ face, he quickly recovered. “What I meant, Mr. Hamlin, was this: you can’t educate ’em. Me and Red Barber’s been tryin’ it for years. You got to lead ’em.”

  “Perhaps so,” James mused thoughtfully, “perhaps so. We’ll see about that later. And now, Mr.—er—Shorty, how can I get together a crowd of—say, five hundred—to talk to?”

  “You can’t,” said Shorty decisively.

  “Can’t?”

  “Not till they get to know you. Maybe not even then. First you got to get acquainted.”

  “But how?” said James helplessly. “I’ve been trying that for a week, and they don’t seem very anxious to—get acquainted.”

  “Sure, that’s where I’m the handy guy. Listen: come around with me for three days and nights, and you’ll call every mick and dago in the district by his first name. That’s the way to start. Are you on?”

  James was certainly becoming cosmopolitan. He held out his hand and grasped that of Mr. Benson firmly
as he said: “We’ll begin tomorrow, Shorty.”

  The ensuing ten days were hard ones. James spent them mostly in livery stables, saloons, and barber shops, and acquitted himself with a degree of aplomb and tact that was positively impressive. By the end of the week he was ordering beers by the dozen with a charm and frequency that won universal admiration. Shorty’s confidence rose by leaps and bounds, and even then found it difficult to keep pace with James’ enthusiasm; for James found a fresh stock with each new adherent. His father, who had at first considered the affair as one of James’ whims, to be dismissed under his frequent and inclusive term of “damned foolishness,” was surprised by this unexpected constancy into a donation to the campaign fund that was more than ample for present needs, and which bid fair to make every saloon-keeper in the district independently rich, and release the people forever from the degrading bonds of thirst.

  Still, without Shorty, success would have been impossible. With all the good-will in the world, James would have found it more than difficult to establish direct communication between his philosophic principles and the people’s practical desires; but with Shorty always at hand in the role of interpreter it was no task at all. True, if James could have heard Shorty’s popular translations of his dearest doctrines he would have been grieved and astonished; but he didn’t hear them, so there was no harm done.

  By the first of June Mike O’Toole was begging for mercy. His followers were deserting him in droves; literally by the dozen. His pleadings and promises were all in vain; the combination of James’ principles, Shorty’s diplomacy, and free beer was too much for him, and he was barely able to hold the fort—otherwise known as district organization headquarters—with a small band of personal friends and true believers. It began to be rumored in Fourteenth Street that he was done for, and the first week in June found him fighting desperately for a foothold where he had once been king.

  Despite this apparent success, however, James was far from satisfied. He was a good deal of a fool, but he saw plainly that his hold on the people was of too fluid a nature to be either sincere or enduring. He knew very well that the only right relation between the people and their leader is the ideal one which he had proposed to himself at the beginning of his career, and he knew how far short of that ideal he had fallen. This thought worried him considerably; he fell to thinking of what would have been Abraham Lincoln’s opinion of this compromise with the unrighteous powers; he even felt, as did Lady Macbeth, that he was permeated with the odor of his crime—only in his case it was nothing worse than beer. Studying the thing impartially, he was forced to admit that he had no reason to be proud of a victory won by such questionable tactics, and he resolved to purge his leadership of all taint at the earliest opportunity. He neglected, however, to say anything about it to Shorty.

  The opportunity was not long in coming. It was only a day or two later that Shorty arrived fifteen minutes later for a meeting at Doherty’s, with his face exhibiting the first sign of worry it had known for two weeks.

  “Mr. Hamlin,” he said, “it’s up to you. The boys are gettin’ restless. I’ve been waitin’ for you to speak, but I guess you’ve forgot. We can’t wait any longer. When’s the blowout?”

  Now, James knew very well what Shorty meant. But the increasing brusqueness of Shorty’s manner was beginning to disturb his dignity. Besides, being on the edge of the Rubicon, he hesitated.

  “Blowout? What do you mean?”

  “Why, the picnic,” said Shorty, surprised at this ignorance. “The annual. The boys are beginnin’ to ask questions about it, and I don’t know what to tell ’em.”

  “Still I fail to understand you,” said James, with perverse pomposity. “Who is going to have this picnic?”

  “We are,” said Shorty, a little uneasily.

  “Ah!” said James, with uplifted eyebrows. “At last I perceive your meaning. But you are mistaken; you take too much for granted. We are not going to have any picnic.”

  Only those who have either studied or participated in New York politics can appreciate the awful significance, the incredible folly, of this statement. A king can easier rule without an army or a woman without her beauty than a district leader without his picnic. Shorty knew this, so it is no wonder that he leaped to his feet and roared:

  “Good God! Are you crazy?”

  “No,” said James, “I am not crazy. But I am through with pandering to the low appetites of the people. I was wrong ever to begin it. My true appeal is to the intellect, and not to the senses; and in the future, I shall make it there. I do not fear their disloyalty.”

  For a full minute Shorty was silent with horror and astonishment. Such sublime folly left him speechless. There was no doubt that James was in earnest. Never had he spoken with more firm decision. With a resolution born of despair, Shorty began to plead, cajole, and threaten; his eyes filled with tears; the foam on his schooner of beer was sadly melting away unnoticed. James was as immovable as the Rock of Ages, and refused to recede a step from his uncompromising position.

  Then, suddenly, James was struck with an idea. It was more than that; it was an inspiration. He revolved it slowly in his mind, while Shorty continued his gloomy prophecy of the political future of Mr. Hamlin, and then, having decided, held up his hand for silence.

  “Very well,” he said, “we’ll have the picnic.”

  “What!” gasped Shorty.

  “We’ll have the picnic,” James repeated.

  “Thank God!” said Shorty fervently. “And believe me, Mr. Hamlin, you won’t regret it.”

  “I don’t expect to,” said James shortly. “And now—”

  “First,” Shorty interrupted, “where’ll it be? There’s Hiebstein’s Casino, and Kelly’s Grove, and Murray’s Bay Park, and—”

  “That,” said James, “I’ll take care of myself. The only thing you need to be interested in is the inviting. I’ll attend to everything else. Tell them to meet me at Columbia Hall on—what’s the date?”

  “The twenty-second. Mike O’Toole pulls his off on the twenty-ninth—that’s a week from today.”

  “Just the thing. We’ll have ours on the same day. We’ll meet at Columbia Hall at 10 A.M. on Saturday the twenty-ninth.”

  “But—” Shorty hesitated.

  “Well?”

  “See here, Mr. Hamlin, why don’t you let me manage this for you? They’ll at least want to know where they’re goin’. And what’s the use of meetin’ in a hall? Why not at the ferry or the station? I tell you they won’t like it.”

  “Then they don’t need to come,” declared James.

  “Oh, they’ll come all right,” said Shorty. “But I hope to God you know what you’re doin’. It don’t look good to me.”

  James arose from his chair and looked down at Shorty. “See here,” he said, “I’m getting tired of your insolence. Kindly remember who I am. Now go and tell Dan Murphy that I want to see him here at once.” And Shorty went.

  By the following evening the district was in the midst of a hot discussion as to the probable plans for Hamlin’s first annual picnic. Shorty had been in error. It was the universal opinion that the element of uncertainty—almost mystery—was so far from being obnoxious that it was a positive attraction. Many were the conjectures, and they were as wild as they were numerous. Pink Russell declared that the whole district was to be taken in automobiles to Palisades Park, which was to be rented in its entirety for the day; but though this thrilling flight of imagination was heartily applauded, it was generally believed that Pink’s optimism was running away with him. Most of the guesses were much more modest, though all were agreed that, considering Mr. Hamlin’s well-known generosity, almost anything might happen.

  Mike O’Toole was in despair. He had decided to make one last grand effort to regain his supremacy, and his arrangements for June twenty-ninth has been advertised from one end of the district to the other as the
most elaborate and wonderful ever attempted in its history. And James, by arranging for his own outing on the same day, had killed Mike’s last hope and spiked his last gun.

  Shorty’s entreaties for details of James’ plans were in vain. If James had been trying to qualify for the title role in a clambake he couldn’t have been closer-mouthed. Shorty finally gave it up in despair and fell to organizing potato races and greased pig contests.

  By the morning of Saturday, June twenty-ninth, the tension had stretched almost to the breaking point. At half-past eight Columbia Hall was beginning to fill; by nine o’clock it was crowded. The air was full of suspense. Wild rumors flew around and evoked protests and applause in turn. Never before had the district been so much aroused; even the excitement of election day was nothing to this.

  In the past few days the district had become definitely divided into two groups. One of these declared Pelham Bay Park to be the destination; the other, College Point. Now the dispute waged hot and furious; bets were made at odds of two to one on College Point, it being the favorite; and Tim Dorgan and Ham Keefe even went so far as to necessitate their being carried into the street to end their argument, where Pelham Bay Park, represented by Dorgan, won by a knockout in the first minute. At half-past nine the door opened to admit Shorty.

  “Where is it?” yelled Dan Murphy. “Now open up, ye oyster!”