Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

by Jack Martin

  “Very good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, a glorious day, and I need to get enough rest to be at my best.”

  Bierce had heard enough. He began the slow shuffle back to the room through which he had entered. The dangerous walk was uneventful, except at one point where an agitated female voice whispered, “Ronnie! Wake up! I tell you there’s a man at the window!”

  A muffled male voice replied, “I’m not telling you again, woman! Shut up and go to sleep!

  Dr. Carl Weiss stood in front of his bathroom mirror, carefully inspecting his suit and tie, brushing away the few traces of lint. He looked down at his black oxfords, and confirmed that they were polished to a bright shine. Then he looked himself straight in the face. His eyes, always intense, now looked like burning coals in the center of black pits. That saddened him. He knew he would probably be dead within twenty-four hours, but he did not want his remains to look as if they belonged to a slovenly, wild-eyed anarchist. He was the son-in-law of the great Judge Pavy, a man he genuinely admired, and did not wish to embarrass more than necessary. Pavy was a good man, a great man, the greatest he had ever personally known.

  Nonetheless, the Judge had not seen with his own eyes the refugees from Nazi Germany, pouring over the border into Austria, only to find the Austrians being infected with the virus of Nazism. After Agent Bierce had left, the Judge mentioned that his friends had heard rumors that Long would be making an announcement the next day from the capital building in Baton Rouge. Pavy groused that it was probably about some new plan to loot the state, or steal from the rich to give to the voters. In a flash of intuition, Weiss knew what the announcement would be, and knew that action must be taken immediately—before it was too late.

  “Long might not end up as bad as that jumped-up corporal,” Weiss said to his reflection, “but he might be even worse and that chance cannot be taken. The Judge will never be brought to understand that the freedom of the entire nation is hanging by a thread. This is the only way.” He reached into an inner pocket of his coat, and withdrew a compact Colt .32 automatic. He looked at it for nearly a minute, marveling at how small the sleek, blue-black weapon looked. He snapped the slide to bring a cartridge up from the magazine to the barrel, then returned the Colt to his coat pocket.

  As quietly as possible, Weiss turned out the bathroom light, opened the door, and moved into the bedroom, lit only by a dim nightlight. Walking ever so softly, he went over to the cradle that held his sleeping son and kissed him on the top of his head. He wanted very much to do the same to his wife, but Yvonne was sleeping restlessly, turning from side to side, and he dared not wake her. She knew him inside out. If she woke, she would know what he intended, and would do all she could to stop him. So he walked softly to the door of the bedroom, opened it and involuntarily extended a trembling hand toward his wife, barely stifling a sob. Then he left, trying to think only of the long drive to Baton Rouge, and failing.

  Flashing his badge while at the same time laying a ten dollar bill on the counter, Bierce obtained Noyes’ room number from the ogle-eyed night clerk. As he was about to turn away, the German marched up to the counter, slapped some currency down to pay for his bill, and imperiously demanded that a cab be summoned immediately. Bierce debated with himself whether to arrest the German, but decided that Noyes was the more important figure. Therefore, he ignored von Papen and walked toward the elevators. Passing them, he entered the stairwell. He did not wish to be noticed and remembered by one of the elevator operators. Besides, he realized that the exhaustion he had felt earlier in the day was completely gone, and now, he felt the need to burn off some energy.

  He ran effortlessly up the ten flights to Noyes’ floor, scarcely breaking a sweat. Quiet as a mouse, he approached the door to Noyes’ room. Placing his ear against the flimsy wood, he heard the sound of running water. Knowing that Noyes would be occupied in the bathroom, Bierce brought out his lock pick, and within moments had gained entry to the room. Softly closing the door to the hall, he drew his .45 Colt and silently waited.

  A toilet flushed noisily in the bathroom. Moments later, the sound of water running in a sink replaced it. Bierce waited. Finally, the door to the bathroom opened and out stepped Noyes, drying his hands with a small towel, humming a happy tune. The large, plump man took two clumsy steps back as he caught sight of Bierce and his automatic, but he immediately regained his cynical good humor.

  Throwing the towel back into the bathroom, he smiled and said, “Well, well, if it isn’t Agent Bierce. It is indeed a small world. We haven’t met since that day in court when I showed what a neurotic madman that fool Wilmarth was.”

  “You and I both know Wilmarth told the truth on the stand. It was the abuse and drugs you inflicted on him that turned an inoffensive scholar into a quivering wreck of a man. You and I both know that you, or your group, murdered a respected farmer, and quite possibly others.”

  “A judge and jury decided otherwise, Agent Bierce. I am an innocent, respected attorney, with friends in the highest places of government. The matter is settled. So, what brings you to my room?”

  “I overheard your discussions with Senator Long, along with his brother and the German, and I am arresting you for treason. Your only hope of avoiding the chair is to testify against Senator Long.”

  Noyes looked shocked, but not for long. “I utterly deny any such discussions.”

  “I can testify they took place.”

  “Really? Tell me, Agent Bierce, did you obtain a warrant for your spying on me? Let me remind you that under the Supreme Court’s exclusionary rule, evidence of conversations taken without a warrant is not admissible in a court of law. Do you have any other evidence of these so-called discussions? Do you? I can tell from your silence that you do not.”

  Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, Bierce’s pale blue eyes had acquired a strange, glowing intensity. “Nonetheless, I am arresting you and taking you to jail.”

  “Agent Bierce, really. I would be out in as long as it would take to wire certain friends in Massachusetts. There would never be a trial. I will guarantee that your persistent attempts to have me convicted of murder, attempts that were rejected by a jury of my peers, were signs of derangement on your part, of paranoid delusions. I nearly had your badge the last time you tried this. Rest assured I will get it this time. In fact, I believe I will sue for damages. You will be eating out of trash bins before I am finished with you.” Noyes took his jacket from the bed, put it on, and straightened his tie. “Shall we go? This will be fun.”

  In a motion so fast it seemed a blur, Bierce brought the barrel of his heavy automatic crashing down on Noyes’ head. The Bostonian fell to his knees, too stunned to even cry out. Quickly holstering his gun, Bierce grabbed the semi-conscious Noyes under the armpits, dragged him to the open window, and stuffed him through it. Noyes came to enough to utter an agonized scream, which ended with a wet crunch as he hit the pavement ten stories below.

  Bierce glanced out the window, his face expressionless, and then muttered, “You were right. There will be no trial.” He then quietly left the room. No one was in the hall to see him in the stairwell as he went to his own room to pack his few belongings and check out before the Roosevelt was crawling with local police.

  Through an open window two stories above Noyes room, a woman’s voice exclaimed “Ronnie! I heard a man scream!”

  “For the last time, SHUT UP woman, and go to sleep!”

  The procession consisted of five vehicles: four police cars, two in front, two in the rear, sirens blaring, filled with heavily armed state police. The fifth car was a large open Packard, with a driver and bodyguard in the front seat. Senator Long, Governor O.K. King, Earl Long, and the Senator’s beloved son Russell, current star football player at Louisiana State University, were all crowded in the back. The convoy of vehicles rolled up to the capitol building in Baton Rouge, while the crowds, who had been waiting for hours, went wild. As the men exited the car,
uniformed officers cleared a path for them. The Senator bound up the steps, followed by his excited brother and son. Governor King, a willing tool of the Long machine, was excited as well, but his bulk and incipient heart disease dictated a more stately ascension on the capital’s steps. At the top stood two separate groups of the National Guard, strictly at attention, Thompson submachine guns ported across their burly chests. The Long party inserted themselves between the two groups.

  Russell Long leaned over to Earl Long and virtually shouted in his ear, “Uncle, look at this! Where did they all come from?”

  “Our boys have been rounding up the faithful since late last night, nephew.”

  “But do they know he’s going to announce he’s running for President? I thought that was a secret.”

  “It is, although many of them probably have guessed. But for most, all they needed to know is that your dad wanted them to come. They love him. And he loves them. Look at him, and look at the crowd!”

  Russell did as he was told. He looked at his father who was holding his arms high above his head, eyes shining with excitement, looking down at the crowd. The senator’s love for his followers was transparently sincere. The crowd yelled and cheered, looking at their savior with adoration and hope: adoration for what he had already done for them, hope for the more he would do in the future.

  At the edge of the crowd nearest to the soaring monument that was the Louisiana Capital, stood an expressionless Harry Bierce. As he scanned the crowd, he shook his head ever so slightly. Although his face did not reflect it, his thoughts were melancholy. He understood how the people would be grateful for the services Long had brought, services denied them by a corrupt ruling elite, but he was depressed by the thought that the people were trading away their freedoms—freedoms unique in the history of the world—for bread and fishes.

  Senator Long ceremoniously made quieting motions with his hands. Amazingly, the crowd quieted like a switch had been thrown. A soldier scurried up and placed a clumsy-looking microphone before the senator. Long tapped on the microphone, and was answered by multiple taps from loudspeakers on the tops of various trucks placed on the edges of the crowd.

  Without preamble, he began to speak, “My friends, today I bring you great news! As you all know, I have gone to Washington City to persuade our President and Congress to enact the “Share the Wealth” program that I announced earlier this year. Well, that has not worked as well as I had hoped. No sir, it has not. Congress has been bought and paid for by Wall Street, my friends, bought and paid for! The bankers! The moneylenders!”

  “The Jews!” came scattered yells from the crowd. Long frowned for an instant, but then continued.

  “My friends, the religion of these people does not matter. What matters is what is being done to hold down the good, hard-working Christian people of this nation. These Wall Street people, these Rockefellers, Morgans, Carnegies, and Mellons aim to keep you all down my friends, all down! Even our President, Mr. Roosevelt, is afraid of them!

  “Now, you may wonder how, with all of that, I can dare say that I bring you good news?

  “Well, I can! Today, my dear friends, I announce my campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1936!”

  The crowd went insane with joy—yelling, cheering, many shedding tears of happiness. Hope was palpable, like a viscous thing permeating everything. Long allowed this to go on for ten minutes before gesturing for quiet.

  “Yes friends, I am going to take the movement we began here in Louisiana to the other forty-seven states. I will show the poor, the downtrodden, those without hope, those from Maine to California, that they can believe in this country again. I will take the nomination from the weakling Roosevelt, who has proven so unable to resist Wall Street. I will sweep into Washington City with a mandate from the people of this country, and I will make Congress obey that mandate, by any means necessary. I will see to it that the ‘Share the Wealth’ program is immediately implemented.”

  Bierce listened as Long recited the same ‘Every Man a King’ speech he’d given previously. Taking away from the rich to give to the poor. Handing annual stipends to each and every family, a reduced workweek, picking the best to go to college on the government’s dime. Ridiculous, thought Bierce. No, he corrected himself, Socialism. But not Roosevelt’s socialism. This was something altogether different.

  Finally completely his speech, Long asked the crowed, “Now, my friends, do you think that this would make every man in this country a king?”

  “YES!” screamed the crowd hysterically. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the LSU marching band and a chorus appeared on the steps, and began performing “Every Man a King.” The crowd joined into the lyrics with unmusical, but enthusiastic yells.

  Harry Bierce for the first time understood how it must have felt for Cicero, that devout supporter of the Roman Republic, to watch Julius Caesar address the crowds, and have them respond with unthinking adoration, throwing their freedoms down at the feet of the Great Man. As he turned away with disgust, he spotted a lean, well-dressed man walking quickly toward the unguarded side entrance of the Capitol building. Bierce recognized the man instantly as Dr. Weiss, son-in-law to Judge Pavy, intense hater of Huey Long and all of his works. In a burst of intuition, he realized what the intense young man intended. Weaving through the cheering people at the edge of the crowd, Bierce began running faster than an observer would have thought possible.

  Senator Long had quieted the crowd once again. “Now my friends, you must excuse me. There are still officials in Louisiana who oppose your will. One of them is the tool of the Wall Street financiers, Judge Pavy. However, my friends I have yet more good news for you. As we speak, our friends in the legislature are voting to abolish the Judge’s district. He will no longer be able to hinder your progress and happiness. In fact, after I leave you, I am going to congratulate the legislature on their foresight. But remember, soon—very soon—every last man of you will be a king!” As Long and his party entered the Capitol, the band and chorus again struck up “Every Man a King” and the joyous crowd joined in at the top of their lungs.

  The smiling Huey Long entered the rotunda, flanked by his brother and Governor King, his son Russell right behind him. Behind Russell came two hulking bodyguards in plain clothes and two granite-faced state policeman. “Brother Earl,” Huey said to his brother, “this is the beginning of a great crusade! There will soon need to be a distribution of the pie.”

  “Pie?” asked a confused Earl Long.

  “Certainly. There is only so much pie. Those who join the crusade early will get big pieces of the pie. Those who join later will get small pieces of the pie. Those not joining at all, those like Judge Pavy, will get … good government!” Laughing at his own cynical joke, he turned to Governor King. “Let’s go into the chamber and meet the legislature. I need to determine who will be getting what slice of pie….”

  Huey Long’s voice trailed off. He stopped dead in his tracks. Before him stood an intense young man with glasses, pointing a small automatic pistol at him. Long did not recognize the young man. Without it really registering, Long heard rapid footfalls echoing down an adjacent marble corridor.

  Weiss fired twice. He would have emptied the magazine, but the casing of the second cartridge jammed the ejection port. As Senator Long screamed “Kill him! Kill him!” his four guards surged forward and cut Weiss down with one shot each. “Father!” screamed young Russell Long as the guards gathered around Weiss’s already dead body and emptied their weapons into it, two of them crying as they did so. The explosions of gunfire echoed and re-echoed through the marble corridors; bullets that had missed Weiss or passed through his body ricocheted everywhere. No one noticed Bierce’s arrival in the rotunda.

  The moment the shooting stopped, Harry Bierce advanced toward the corpse, shaking his head at the damage thirty high-caliber bullets could do to the human body. He then turned his head at the sound of the senator’s groaning. There was a small r
ift in Long’s shirtfront; blood was trickling out of it.

  As Russell continued shouting hysterically, Earl Long grabbed him by the shoulders. “Calm down!” he said. “It’s not that bad. It’s not bleeding much, and your dad’s still standing.” He then turned his attention to the guards. “Boys! Help me get Huey to the hospital!” Supporting the still-erect senator, the guards began walking him toward an emergency exit, followed closely by Earl and Russell. Governor King dithered, looking like a lost child. As policemen, reporters, and common citizens began to rush into the rotunda, Bierce took one last pitying look at Weiss’s body, then retreated along the route he had come.

  The next day, in a small hospital room Earl Long, Governor King, several top members of the Long organization and a frowning doctor gathered around the dying Huey Long. When he was first examined, the doctors were confident that the senator would recover from his wound; he was fully conscious, and even able to joke with his visitors. During the night, his blood pressure began a relentless fall, and the doctors had determined he had suffered severe, irreparable damage to a kidney. An operation to remove the kidney might have saved him, but by now he was so weakened, that the operation itself would probably do the job. Russell had broken down completely at the news, at which point, Earl kindly but firmly ordered him home. Earl himself had held his brother’s hand the entire night, feeling lost, so very lost, unable to imagine a future without his big brother.

  Now it was morning. The hospital was surrounded by thousands of citizens, strangely silent, simply waiting. Earl Long gave little thought to the crowds. All he could think of was the big brother who had sometimes slapped him around and mocked his slow mind, but who had protected him from bullies, inside his family and out, and, as an adult, guaranteed him a place at his side as Huey began his meteoric rise to power. Occasionally, he used his free hand to wipe tears from his eyes, which from time to time shone like those of a demented lunatic.