by Jim Musgrave
Seth sprang up and gave me a brisk hand salute. “At your order, sir!” he said.
“At ease, Corporal,” I told him.
He dropped his arms to his sides and looked calmly up at me.
“Where were you on the night your father was taken?” I asked.
“I was invisible,” he said.
“How were you invisible? What made you disappear?”
“Father taught me how. He showed me one time. Just before Mother and her friend came into the room. Father took my hand, and then he got down on his hands and knees. He crawled under the bed inside Mother’s room. We were both down there in the dark, and he told me that he is one of Adam’s sons. My mother is a daughter of Lilith. He also told me that he and I are known as mazikeen or shedeem. We can change into any being we want to change into, and we can even become invisible. He said mother comes to other men in their sleep and steals their seed. He said we were going to become invisible to listen to mother and her lover. We could then put a curse on her friend and then they would leave.”
Bessie Mergenthaler was transfixed by her son, and she stared at him as if he were from another world.
“So you became invisible that night in the hospital? You got under the bed so the men could not see you?”
“Yes,” said Seth. “I knew father wanted to go with them. Or else he would have changed into a monster and killed them both.”
“Both? There were two men there to take your father? What did they look like, my boy?” I tried to make my voice as calm as I could so as not to jar him from his memory.
“One was tall and had only one eye. The other made bumpety noises on the floor. I saw his bump.”
“He had no foot on his leg, only a bump?”
“Correct. He walked with the bump hitting on the floor. It was scary, but I knew they couldn’t see me.”
“Your father agreed to go with them?”
“Father fell asleep when they touched his arm with the needle. I got that needle too when I was sick! It hurts! But Father just fell asleep, and they put him on a roller bed and took him out of the room.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Bessie screamed.
For the first time, Seth showed panic on his face. “We can’t. Father said we can never talk about what happens under the bed. We would then lose our powers! We are mazikeen! And you are Lilith! You must repent, woman! Get on your knees and ask for God’s forgiveness!”
I was powerless at that moment. I had no reason to disbelieve what the boy had described to me. It seemed fantastic, and yet it made a lot of good sense. Seth had formed a magical connection with his father who was spying on his wife. They both took on this mythical identity from their Jewish folklore, and it helped them cope with what was happening in the cruel reality of infidelity and kidnapping.
I watched, with sadness, as Bessie Mergenthaler got down on her knees, crying as she did so. All of the arrogance of a moment before seemed to be pouring out of her as little Seth came over to her stooped-over, black form and put his two tiny hands upon her raven hair. “Just learn to disappear, Mother, and they won’t hurt you,” he said, stroking her hair softly as he did so.
I left them to their own devices because I now needed to see what Dr. Jonathan Letterman knew about these two men that Seth had described. I wanted specific information before I traveled down to Memphis into the racist pit of hell itself.
* * *
Dr. Jonathan Letterman was in his hotel room when I arrived. The Essex was a Parisian-style hotel with lavish furnishings and servants running around at the patrons’ beck and call. There were golden staircases leading up to the suites on each level of the hotel and even the spittoons were gold. It was obvious that Dr. Letterman was getting some money from someone to pay for such extravagance.
I knocked twice before he came to the door. He was in his shirtsleeves, and he seemed a bit surprised to see me; yet he motioned for me to enter. “O’Malley? To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I have some questions to ask. They came to me in light of some recent information I was able to obtain concerning the kidnapping of Dr. Mergenthaler. I would appreciate your cooperation.”
“Certainly. Come in. Do you want a drink? I was just going to have a toddy,” he said, walking over to a silver tray heaped high with a variety of whiskeys, liqueurs and hors devours.
The room was lavish and filled with original paintings of the French countryside in the time of Louis XIV, and velvet furniture consisting of a long red couch and matching chair and a mantelpiece with roaring yellow and orange flames in the fireplace beneath it.
Letterman poured himself a drink and walked over to the couch to sit. He held the drink loosely in his right hand, using his left hand to twirl the ends of his mustache. I sat down on the chair and faced him.
“Why did you have an affair with Missus Mergenthaler? Don’t deny it because both she and Dr. Jacobi have confessed that they knew of your indiscretion with her.” I watched him closely for a reaction. He seemed strangely distracted.
“Do you honestly believe you can stop the movement?” he asked, as if what he was saying had an omnipotent meaning.
“Movement? What do you mean? How does this have anything to do with your illicit affair with a married woman?”
“The movement is bigger than all of us. I will do anything to further its cause. When I was out west, I saw savages who would kill the husbands of peaceful settlers in Kansas, and then kidnap their wives from their homes and slaughter their children before their eyes. The slaves came from these same kinds of savage roots in Africa. Were you aware of that fact? They would sell each other into slavery for profit. The movement wants to put a stop to this savagery for all time. That’s why it’s bigger than all of us.”
Letterman had a far-away look in his eyes. His voice sounded distant and reverential. If I closed my eyes, I could hear Father Ryan preaching to us in church. I suddenly realized this man had succumbed to some inner demon that had persuaded him of a philosophy that explained a vicious meaning to it all. It must be the same demon I was going to be chasing down in Memphis, but I wanted to be certain.
“Do you think the President is behind this movement, as you call it? President Johnson is from Tennessee. Is he not? Bessie told me you were quite certain Johnson and Grant were going to put a stop to the Africanization of America. How was the kidnapping of Dr. Mergenthaler a part of this movement?”
Letterman stood up with his drink and sighed deeply. “I’m afraid you have to leave, Mister O’Malley. I am departing on the evening train for California. Aren’t the railroads miraculous? Soon I will be in my beloved San Francisco, dipping my tired feet in the bay.”
I moved fast, before Letterman could react. I sprang upon him like a panther. With my left hand, I took hold of his right arm and twisted it behind his back. With my right hand, I held my knife to his throat.
“What are their names? The one with the patch over his eye, and the other one, the one who lost his foot. The child saw them in the room, so all I need are their names. If you don’t give them up, I swear, you will wear a red bracelet around your neck for the rest of your life. Or, if I slip, you just might die by this savage’s knife. My, my, I am a true poet.”
I could see a thin veil of perspiration form on his forehead, and his eyes squinted at me in fear. “I don’t know who they are. We each do our job without question and we never communicate to each other. You should know, O’Malley. Without military secrecy there can be no element of surprise.” He tried to smile, but his lips formed into a sweaty grimace.
I believed him. I also understood the code of these rogues. They were deep into secrecy because that allowed the myth to pervade their culture of hate and fear. Smart men like Letterman believed the myth because the President of the United States had spoken about the problem of the Negroes in the South. General Grant was also the author of Order 11. The myth was secure, and yet I knew there were men in the front lines who were going to do somethin
g beyond the pale of humanity.
I let go of Dr. Letterman. He shook my arm off and pointed to the door. “Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. “You have no shred of evidence on me, and I will be leaving tonight, so I never want to see you again.”
He was right. I was not a policeman, and I had no authority to arrest him. All I had were intuitions and logical deductions with which to attempt to put this puzzle all together. However, he had given me a bigger picture to gaze at as I walked back to my apartment on 42nd Street.
If Letterman were the inside man, then this kidnapping had been arranged right around the time he was hired at the hospital. From the records, I knew Letterman was discharged in late ’65, and he began his job at Mt. Sinai in early ’66. That gave them a little over a month to plan the kidnapping and recruit Letterman into their cause. How many other fragile veterans had succumbed to this so-called “movement”?
As I rounded the corner, I saw a strange sight. A line of men was being marched down into the sewers beneath Manhattan Island. These sewers were built as a reaction to a report that was recently written about the unhealthy conditions in the streets.
The streets were unclean; manure heaps containing thousands of tons, occupied piers and vacant lots; sewers were obstructed; houses were crowded, and badly ventilated, and poorly lighted; privies were unconnected with the sewers and overflowing; stables and yards were filled with stagnant water, and many dark and damp cellars were inhabited. The streets were obstructed, and the wharves and piers were filthy and dangerous from dilapidation; cattle were driven through the streets at all hours of the day in large numbers, and endangering the lives of the people.
The sewers were managed by Tammany Hall and The Ring. As I followed these men down into the darkness, I felt uneasy. It was as if I were descending into the subconscious of New York City. What lay beneath must be the filthiest and most diseased activities to take place on this earth. As I walked backward down the ladder into the darkness, I kept thinking about the recruiting lines of immigrants. These men I was following must be more of these immigrants. Perhaps they were working in the sewers at half wages. The rest of their pay, of course, went to The Ring.
At the bottom of the ladder I heard voices coming from down the brick-lined tunnel under the street. I walked slowly after these sounds. I remembered the sewers I had entered on the night Dr. Mergenthaler was kidnapped. That was where they took him after they entered through the hospital’s walls. Could these men be the same ones who came for Arthur Mergenthaler?
As I reached the end of the long dark tunnel, the odors were overpowering. The glittering light from the gas lanterns cast an ominous spell all around me. The flickering shadows revealed rats streaking along the sides of the tunnel just above the water line. The water was filled with all kinds of diseased waste and carrion. The squishing sound of my shoes made my stomach lurch in disgust.
Finally, I neared the end of the tunnel. Up ahead, about 100 yards away, I could the last of the men climbing up the ladder to street level. I hurried my pace so as to be there before they disappeared.
I climbed the ladder as quickly as I could. As I pushed open the manhole cover, I could see a horse-drawn cart parked on the side of the road. The side of the cart read: The American Emigrant Company. The men were being packed inside the back of the cart. They were all sitting wordlessly and staring straight ahead. One of the company officials was reading out a roster of names.
“Goldfarb!”
“Yah!”
“Kronosky!”
“Da!”
As the Jewish names were called out, the seated men responded. After all the men were accounted for, the driver snapped his whip, and the four-horse cart moved forward into the twilight of evening.
Somehow, I had the strangest feeling that I would see these men again. They had been herded below the city’s streets for a reason. Perhaps they were being sent on a secret mission, or maybe they were becoming soldiers in a new war out West. I doubted they were headed for anything good.
Now I needed to return to my abode to finish my packing. Becky and my father were waiting for me to take the train down to Memphis. This case was winding its way into a different kind of dark tunnel. This was a new tunnel where, at the end, everything was supposed to become clear to me through my investigative talents. Right then, however, it was all as clear as the walls of the sewers beneath my feet.
Chapter 11: The Movement
President Andrew Johnson, a former slave holder from Tennessee, supported state sovereignty in the South, and his plan was in effect when we traveled down to Memphis in late April, 1867. When Johnson’s plan was put into effect, many northerners were appalled by the results.
Former Confederate leaders were elected to high positions, and Black Codes drawn up by the new states severely restricted the freedom of the freedmen and seemed in some ways to continue slavery. Congress refused to accept the new southern governments, producing a showdown between Johnson and Congress that each side hoped would be settled by the November 1866 Congressional elections.
As we rode the rails down to Memphis our host, Anson Burlingame, gave us a summary of what to expect when we arrived.
“We have our headquarters outside Memphis near Collierville. Memphis has become an armed fortress with the Freedmen’s Bureau and Fort Pickering. The nigger soldiers patrol the streets, and all we have are our Irish police force. We keep sending new Irish immigrants down to Memphis to fortify the police, but we can’t keep up with the thousands of freed slaves coming into the city every day from the rural areas.”
Burlingame was wearing his traveling attire, a blue frock coat and pants, cravat, and his ever-present monocle. He kept bothering the conductor for time schedules to our next destination on the route, and I could see that this conductor was getting increasingly impatient with Burlingame’s impertinent attitude.
“When shall we obtain the instructions concerning your new invention? I should also want time to set-up my experiment.” I was using my new English accent. Becky and my father were seated behind us, watching the passing scenery. There was a constant buzz of conversations going on inside our club car, and I could smell the odor of the cigars and pipes wafting throughout.
“We’ve planned our meeting for April 30th. You can also stay in special quarters we have where you can set-up all your equipment without any trouble. We are really anxious to see what your serum can do, Doctor.”
“The effects are to be determined, Mister Burlingame. I tried to be clear that this was a test and that nothing can be guaranteed,” I said.
“Yes, we know all of that. We, too, are going to be experimenting with a new invention. It may be quite coincidental that we have met you at just such a time in our history. However, I believe it was meant for us to meet, as you will soon see.”
***
We arrived in Memphis the next day. The crowds of Negro freedmen could be seen living next to the Freedmen’s Bureau, a long collection of wooden buildings constructed barracks-style by the provisional Federal Government. They knew they would be safest if they lived near their “protectors,” so the majority of these folks had tent encampments strategically located near the federal officials.
There were many more rural freedmen living inside the city. The influx of these immigrants had caused Memphis to almost burst at its seams with these former slaves from the planters’ farms in the rest of Tennessee. They lived in run-down shacks in the poor section of the town, and there were even newly-built schools that allowed the children of these refugees to attend at the public expense. This was all part of the new Civil Rights law of the land, and you could see by the looks on their dark faces that they had a new-found pride, even though their poverty clung to them as if it were a disease they could not inoculate themselves against.
As we rode the carriage out of town to our destination of Collierville, Tennessee, we passed by Fort Pickering, which was a Federal installation with most of the troops inactive. President Johnson’s pol
icy of giving the local governments power seemed to affect the active Union contingent as well. They were all standing around smoking and playing cards on small tables as we drove past. If there were to be some kind of insurrection, I doubted these troops would be much use.
The roads were filled with a seemingly endless stream of former slaves, traipsing along with all their worldly possessions stuffed inside satchels, carts, and wheelbarrows. They would wave at us, as they certainly had the pride of becoming free human beings under the law, but I could sense in their gait a kind of timidity, as if they expected a whip to come slicing out of nowhere to crack against their backs. The institution of slavery had become a way of life for these people, most certainly, and the policies of the Johnson Administration had done little to give them much hope that conditions would change.
When we finally arrived at the Wainwright plantation in Collierville, Burlingame had convinced us that we were going to see a momentous event. “The movement has been waiting for a development like we have now in this country, and we are going to make the most of it. What you shall experience will mark the start of a new age in America, and I am certain it will spread throughout the world,” said the President of The American Emigrant Company.
“Look yonder,” said my father, pointing to a huge, colonial mansion next to a forest of willows and oaks. Behind this former slave owner’s house was a long row of rickety shacks. This was the housing for the field slaves.
Burlingame had his three assistants retrieve our belongings from the carriage and carry them to our quarters inside the stately mansion. I had not seen such finery since I interviewed tobacco millionaire, John Anderson, in his big estate in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Of course, both Becky and I had seen mansions like this during our campaign with Sherman across Georgia and throughout the South, but none of them had the royal aura of invincibility and Southern culture that this one had.
