“Who’s everyone?”
“Uh, my housekeeper . . .”
“And your Jewess?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“How is she? I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Her wound is healing remarkably quickly. But she takes terrible risks.”
“She’s not alone. You seem to be recruiting all your female admirers in your conspiracies.”
He shrugged. “Women make the best conspirators.”
“No. We’re just smarter than men.”
“I’m beginning to agree. Still, I wish I could spare you involvement.”
“Why? Do you think Miriam Herzberg is the only woman who wishes to right a wrong? That one has to preach from street corners to announce one’s commitment to decency?”
“No, I don’t think that at all.”
“Good, because I’m no preacher.”
Noah grinned. After a moment, Maribeth grinned as well.
“All right. Maybe I am. And yes, I suppose it’s true. I’m jealous of her, and not just because you find her irresistible.”
“But—”
“Please, Noah. And I can hardly blame you. I find her sort of irresistible as well. I can’t say I agree with everything she does, but at least she’s doing and not simply primping or serving tea . . .”
“That hardly describes you, Maribeth.”
“Doesn’t it? Discussing Gainsborough’s brushstrokes doesn’t foster social justice. Well, I’ll be doing now.”
“You don’t have to compete with Miriam Herzberg, Maribeth. Certainly not on my account.”
“It’s not on your account. Now let’s go. Jamie is waiting for us.”
“Was it difficult getting him to agree?”
“Not in the least. He harrumphed for ten minutes and absolutely refused to help. He asked me what I took him for. I assume the question was rhetorical.”
“How did you change his mind?”
“I told him I might be indiscreet about some of his indiscretions. Jamie is very impatient for success and doesn’t always adhere strictly to the proper etiquette of his profession, such as it is. Then he feels the need to brag about what he considers cleverness but others would consider violations of trust.”
“Would you really have informed on your own brother?”
Maribeth smiled. “Well, Noah Whitestone, you’ll never know, will you? Nor will he.”
The offices of the First Mercantile Bank fanned out from a central corridor past the public area inside the filigreed brass double doors at the entrance. The trust department, in which Jamie toiled with a constant eye on the vice president’s office in the corner, was on the right, the last turn before the two unsmiling guards at either side of a gleaming white marble staircase that led to the executive offices on the second floor. But Homer Dansfield and his immediate circle never climbed those stairs. A small custom electric elevator designed by Rudolf Eickemeyer himself had been installed at the rear of the staircase six years before, its use restricted to the five top executives and customers of the bank deemed of sufficient importance to rate mechanical conveyance. It was Jamie’s great dream to one day ride that elevator.
The loan department was to the left of the corridor, about halfway down from the entrance. The files, Jamie had told Maribeth, were housed in a room just off a conference room, in which a huge mahogany table, sixteen chairs, and full bar were placed to ensure that those most in the bank’s debt could discuss rates of interest in comfort.
About ten yards from the door, Maribeth stopped. “You wait here,” she said.
“I will not,” Noah snapped. “Do you think I’m letting you go in there alone?”
“You don’t have much choice, Noah. Have you forgotten?” She gestured to his attire.
He had forgotten. The plan had been for him and Jamie to look through the files while Maribeth waited in the trust department, but that was no longer possible. But if Maribeth was caught, particularly because she was trying to live up to Miriam . . . Before he could say anything, however, she was through the door. Noah followed quickly but remained in the public area where tellers’ cages lined either side of the aisle.
Maribeth walked past the tellers’ windows, spoke briefly to the guard, then was allowed to pass through the trust department door. Noah made a show of withdrawing a deposit record under the askance gaze of the guards—not too many laborers had accounts at First Mercantile. A few seconds later, he saw Jamie and Maribeth emerge and walk across the hall. Maribeth was as relaxed as if she were strolling through the Botanical Gardens, but Jamie could not have appeared more furtive. He glanced about constantly, and his head seemed almost pulled into his body, like some overstuffed turtle. When they disappeared through the door, Noah felt himself break into a sweat.
Noah laboriously wrote on the deposit record with one of the three pens left on the counter for customers’ use. He made a show of dipping the pen into the inkwell excessively, then made to mumble a curse at a blot. He crumpled the deposit slip and threw it in the trash. Maribeth and Jamie had not emerged. Noah withdrew another slip and again wrote slowly. The door to the loan department remained closed.
Suddenly, a portly man of about fifty wearing a dark-blue suit emerged from an office on the right and hurried across the hall the toward the door where Maribeth and Jamie had slipped inside.
They’d been found out. Or would be. Noah tried to decide what to do. He certainly wasn’t going to overpower a roomful of bankers and guards. A diversion. Kick up enough of a rumpus that everyone would turn their attention to him? Yes. It might be their only chance. The portly man was at the door.
Noah lifted his hand to knock over the inkwell. As he did, the door opened and Maribeth and Jamie emerged. Jamie and the portly man spoke for a second or two, then the man ducked inside the room.
Noah put his arm down, just before he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see a guard glowering at him.
“You got business here, bud?”
“Uh, I was thinking of opening an account.”
“With what? Yer shoes?” The guard clapped a beefy hand on Noah’s shoulder. Maribeth walked past them toward the front door, never giving him a glance. “G’wan,” the guard growled. “Git outta here.” The guard turned toward the door, his hand never leaving Noah’s shoulder. The man’s fingers dug in and felt as if they would be imprinted there. Walking stiff armed, the guard bum-rushed Noah until they were at the front door, then with a short flick, sent Noah off into the street. Making a show of wiping his hands, the guard turned on his heel and went back inside.
Maribeth was waiting up the street, her hand in front of her mouth, little crinkles in the corners of her eyes.
“Not a word,” Noah muttered, but Maribeth giggled anyway.
They went to Trinity Church on Broadway and sat on a bench in the courtyard that faced away from the street. Maribeth retrieved three handwritten pages from her bag. “Jamie got cold feet about taking the actual files. He made me copy the names instead. That’s why we took so long. It turned out to be the right thing, actually. Someone came afterward looking for the same file.”
“Yes, I saw him. Who was he?”
“I’m not certain. But he was senior to Jamie. I could tell by Jamie’s obsequiousness.”
“The wind must be up. If you hadn’t gotten to these when you had, they’d have disappeared into someone’s desk, where I’m confident they reside now.” Noah glanced at the notes, written in Maribeth’s flowing script. He scarcely breathed as his finger moved down the list.
“They’re all here,” he said finally.
“Not quite all,” Maribeth replied.
Noah stood to leave. Maribeth rose from the bench as well, but Noah put up his hand. “It isn’t a good idea to be seen with me in public, even dressed like this. Even if the people on this list don’t know that I’ve got it, they’re certainly aware that I’m getting closer. They will be even more desperate to prevent any of what I’ve learned from being m
ade public.” He folded the papers and handed them back to her. “If anything happens, I trust you to use these properly. The material at McKee’s as well.”
Maribeth nodded. “When will I hear from you?”
“I’ll get word to you tonight. I promise.”
“And now?”
“I’ve got to pay my respects.”
“You’re going to Mauritz Herzberg’s funeral, aren’t you? I’m coming along.”
“You certainly are not.”
“Why? Are you trying to keep your women separate?”
“She is not my woman. And you can’t go for the same reason I couldn’t go to Jamie’s office.” She began to protest, but he put up his hand. “It’s much more important that you remain safe. Once you become publicly involved, you’re lost to me as a resource.”
“Well, we couldn’t have that now, could we?”
THIRTY-THREE
DAY 8. WEDNESDAY, 9/27—NOON
The coachman refused to enter Beth Olam Cemetery. He stared at the tall, wrought-iron gate flanked by two pillars with the strange six-pointed stars as if Semitic phantoms would tear at his soul if he crossed the threshold. Noah handed the man two bits and alit. A swarm of mourners, their backs to the entrance, was visible on a rise about fifty yards away. The actual burial seemed to be on the other side of the hill. The sound of chanting, rhythmic and mysterious, guttural and ancient, cut through the wind.
Noah walked up the path toward the place of interment, past row after row of graves, most topped with the same six-pointed star, others with two hinged tablets with rounded tops festooned with the odd, exotic characters of the Hebrew alphabet. When he reached the edge of the crowd on the back side of the rise, he looked for men who didn’t belong. It wasn’t hard to spot the coppers salted among the Jews.
The chanting continued, stopped, then began again. What bizarre rituals these people had. After a few moments, he succeeded in working his way sufficiently through the throng to reach the top of the rise. He halted, stunned.
The gravesite was still at least fifteen yards away. He had been aware that both Mauritz and his magazine had many admirers but had been unprepared to encounter a crowd that radiated out into the other rows of graves in every direction almost as far as he could see. Five hundred men and women—possibly as many as one thousand—of every age and, surprisingly, every economic stratum, stood in the cool overcast to pay last respects to Mauritz Herzberg.
In the hub, a rabbi stood at the coffin, a plain pine box, unfinished and unstained. Did Mauritz Herzberg choose such a lack of adornment as a statement to egalitarianism, or was plain pine mandated by his religion? The rabbi was a large man, with an enormous, untrimmed beard, dark, dappled with gray. He had large, sad eyes that angled downward from the bridge of his nose, as if the burdens of history’s oppressed now resided in him alone. A skullcap was perched on a mane of graying hair, and his shoulders were wrapped in a long white shawl.
At his side was a group of men, mostly young, dressed in the manner Noah recognized as that of the Hebrew ultra-devout. Long black coats, wide-brimmed black felt hats, yellowing white shirts, black trousers and shoes. Each had a full beard and a set of side curls set behind his ears. A prayer book was open in front of the rabbi, and he rocked each time he read from it.
The knots of coppers thickened closer to the gravesite, but neither McCluskey nor his henchmen were among them. Had TR actually kept his word?
After the coffin had been lowered into the ground, some in the crowd moved forward to form a line to drop a small shovelful of dirt into the hole. This seemed to be a sign of affection and respect. Noah looked about, wondering where Miriam was hiding herself. She would certainly at some point join the ritual.
Oh no.
Across the way, moving to the front of the crowd, wearing a black dress, her head covered in a black shawl, was the distinctly un-Semitic figure of Mrs. Jensen. Next to her was a young man. He was dressed in a long black coat, a wide black hat, and a full beard. The “young man” was slight, with dark skin. He wore thick glasses. Apparently, during her visit to Heinemann’s, Mrs. Jensen had not restricted her purchases to Noah’s disguise. How could Miriam have thought she would fool anyone with this insane charade? Noah wanted to run across and grab her. “No stranger to conspiracy,” she had said. Idiocy.
Each of Herzberg’s intimates stood for a moment in silent contemplation before passing the shovel to another. Eventually, Mrs. Jensen stepped forward. Mrs. Jensen was apparently to be Miriam’s surrogate. She tossed the small amount of earth, then stood back and, incongruously, crossed herself. Noah found the gesture shocking, but neither the rabbi nor the other mourners seemed to mind.
Then, astoundingly, Mrs. Jensen’s companion stepped forward. Miriam in that silly disguise. She accepted the shovel from Mrs. Jensen, tossed some dirt, and mouthed what seemed to be “Goodbye, Papa” through the thick stage beard.
As soon as she was done, the two women turned and began to make their way back through the crowd. The rabbi asked that a space be cleared for them. The coppers began to move as well.
About five yards from the gravesite the coppers moved in, five surrounding Miriam and Mrs. Jensen, not letting them move. As if he were a wraith, McCluskey materialized and stood in front of them. He mouthed something Noah couldn’t hear to which Mrs. Jensen replied angrily, “How dare you?” McCluskey brushed her aside, then with a backhand swipe, knocked the hat off Miriam’s head.
McCluskey’s jaw literally dropped. He stood gaping at a figure who, other than the side curls, had hair that was cropped nearly to the skull. He reached tentatively forward and tugged at the beard. A yell of protest. Then a torrent of epithets. From a young man.
The rabbi had by then pushed his way through. He began to scream at McCluskey and the other coppers in a mixture of English and some incomprehensible tongue. He gestured wildly and at one point seemed as if he might strike one of them. Members of the crowd began to gather around. The police glanced at the gathering knot of angry mourners with obvious distress.
The rabbi, still yelling, began to make backhand motions, gesturing for the interlopers to leave. The coppers looked to McCluskey. Hundreds were standing in angry silence, watching the scene play out.
McCluskey looked at Mrs. Jensen and a slow smile crossed his face. He nodded as if to say he’d remember her, then he and the other coppers began to slowly back away. With every step they took, the crowd sullenly matched it. A few minutes later, the entire police contingent had disappeared over the rise.
Another young man in the garb of the devout then stepped forward and dropped some dirt onto the casket. This young man bore a remarkable similarity to Mrs. Jensen’s companion. Noah worked his way toward him. The young man had blended into the group of similarly dressed mourners who had stood at the rabbi’s side during the ceremony. As Noah came upon them, they closed ranks and stared at him threateningly.
“It’s all right,” Miriam said. “That’s no copper.” She smiled through the beard. “He’s a friend.”
The men allowed Noah to pass, but one of them whispered in Miriam’s ear. She nodded. It was time, certainly, for her to leave.
“Very deft,” Noah said. “I shave a beard and you grow one.”
She fingered the horse hair. “I don’t know how anyone can stand these. Mrs. Jensen was superb, was she not?”
“She shows additional talents with every passing day.”
Miriam tugged at the edge of the beard and slowly peeled it away. It came off with a raspy sound, but she grimaced only slightly. She removed the hat and shook out her hair. Noah was again struck at how astonishingly beautiful she was. He felt a wave of lust and hated himself for it. But self-loathing did little to diminish the feeling.
“Don’t you think McCluskey might still be lurking about?” he asked, desperate to say something.
“No. He’ll have slunk away by now. In any event, I’ve got friends watching.”
“Where did the rabbi find Mrs. J
ensen’s companion? I thought it was you in a bad disguise.”
“That was the idea. His name is David Rubenstein. He was the most like me physically of all the students in the seminary. They don’t usually involve themselves in such intrigues, but they made an exception today. Rabbi Ben Eleazer violated the funerary laws to allow me to mourn my father. He didn’t end with Psalm 91, the mourners didn’t form two lines for the family . . . me . . . to walk through, and we didn’t wash our hands afterward. I was surprised he was willing to do all that, but he said that God loved my father and so did he. Each would be willing to bend the rules for a great man.”
“Your father was a man who elicited great passion one way or another. Perhaps that’s a sign of greatness in itself.”
“Greatness lies in persuading others to work for good.”
Noah thought of Abel. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“And your venture this morning?”
“Not as conclusive as I would have liked. But I’m off to see if I can remedy that.”
“Can I help? I’ll come along if you like.”
If he liked. . . . But he shook his head. “Thank you, Miriam, but this is something I want to do alone.”
THIRTY-FOUR
DAY 8. WEDNESDAY, 9/27—1 P.M.
So now, finally, inevitably, to Frias. A careful and clever man. Two traits that, with luck, might just prove his undoing.
If Frias was presented with a list of American investors in the Bayer Company’s Heroin venture, he would think only to save his own skin. Of that, Noah was convinced. He wouldn’t stop to find out that Noah did not actually possess documentary evidence but merely names, illicitly obtained, scrawled on a piece of paper. He would leap at the opportunity to claim he had been hoodwinked by the Germans into believing the drug was safe—likely a half-truth anyway. Noah could then present Frias’s mea culpa to TR, and the web he had fallen into could finally be disentangled.
There had been a line of hansoms in front of the cemetery, but by the time Noah arrived, only one remained. He hurried toward the door only to have another man, well dressed and in his thirties, beat him to it. Noah looked up the street, but no other cab was in sight. He was trying to decide whether to wait or walk toward Jamaica Avenue when he saw the other man walking away. The cabbie had refused him for some reason.
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