The Death Instinct

by Jed Rubenfeld

  Harding's appeal to women was not a matter of speculation. It was established fact. He had a loyal wife of sixty-one, a longtime mistress of forty-seven, another mistress of thirty, and a flame of twenty-four still head over heels in love. 'It's a good thing I'm not a woman,' Harding liked to quip. 'I can never say no.' Harding's record of political accomplishment may have been thin, but with silver hair and dashing smile, with dark eyebrows, commanding eyes, and a strong chin, he was undoubtedly a presidential-looking man.

  Yet the steam had gone out of the campaign locomotive. Unease hung too palpably wherever crowds gathered. Arrests and deportations went on, yet the terrorist attack remained unsolved. Men in power — rich men, governors, and senators — demanded remobilization. Newspapers demanded war. The cloud of smoke and flaming dust that blotted the sun from Wall Street on September sixteenth had not dissipated. Its pall had spread over the entire nation.

  On September 27, the day Younger and Colette left for Europe, papers around the country reported that the Soviet dictator, V. I. Lenin, had infiltrated the United States with clandestine agents to foment labor unrest, terror, and revolution. In Boston the cab drivers struck, and there was a run on the banks. In Alabama, soldiers with machine guns prevented a miners' strike. The third most popular presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, was an unabashed socialist, but at least he was in prison, having dared in 1918 to question the necessity of the war. Through it all, Prohibition parched the workingman's throat, and the still-resounding echoes of September sixteenth made people hurry as they walked out of doors in the great cities. The country was holding its breath — and didn't even know what for.

  On Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, the Littlemores were enjoying a late-evening quarrel. It had begun in their kitchen and ended up in the street. The outdoor venue was more favorable to Mr Littlemore; inside, it had become increasingly difficult for him to duck the objects thrown in his direction — not very heavy ones, mostly, and not very accurately — by Mrs Littlemore.

  Betty had not shared her husband's excitement at the prospect of moving to Washington, DC, where Littlemore had agreed to take a job with the Treasury Department. They had children in school, she pointed out. They had family in New York. Her mother and brother lived in New York. All their friends lived in New York. How could they just pick up and leave?

  Littlemore did not try, after a time, to answer these questions. He just scraped the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk until his wife fell silent. 'I'm sorry, Betty,' he said at last. 'I should have talked to you first.'

  'You really want it, don't you?' she asked.

  'Been hoping for this kind of break my whole life,' he said.

  She handed him a folded piece of paper from her pocket. 'It came today,' she said. 'It says how much we'd have to pay for Lily's operation.'

  Lily, the Littlemores' one-and-a-half-year-old, had been born with a slight but complete atresia of her external auditory canals. In other words, at the center of her tiny, pretty, and seemingly healthy ears, where the aperture ought to have been, there was instead a membrane and probably, below it, a bone. The toddler responded well to sound, but if she was ever to hear and speak properly, she would have to have surgery — and soon. The surgery in turn required a specialist. The specialist required money.

  'Two thousand dollars?' said Littlemore. 'To make a little opening?'

  'Two thousand for each ear,' answered Betty.

  Littlemore reread the letter: his wife was right, as usual. 'That settles it,' he said. 'I've got to take the Treasury job. It pays almost double what I'm making now.'

  'Jimmy,' said Betty. 'It's just the opposite. We'll never have four thousand dollars, wherever you work. We're going to have to put her in a special school. They say we have to start using sign language with her right now. They got a school for that on Tenth Street. Free. It's the only one in the country.'

  Littlemore frowned. He looked up and down Fourteenth Street — at the fine large buildings on the corners of the avenues, and at the plainer, smaller, walk-ups between them, in one of which was his own apartment. 'Okay,' he said. 'I'll turn the job down.'

  Winning an argument invariably had a palliative effect on Betty Littlemore, who at once took her husband's side. 'Maybe we wouldn't have to move,' she said.

  'That's right,' replied Littlemore hopefully. 'A lot of the investigating is going to be up here in New York anyway.'

  In the end, it was decided that Littlemore would put it to Secretary Houston that he would need to split his time between New York and Washington. Houston turned out to be extremely accommodating. In Washington, Littlemore would have an office in the Treasury Department. In Manhattan, he would work out of the Sub-Treasury on Wall Street. The federal government would even pay for his train travel.

  A man exiting Union Station in the District of Columbia — the largest railway station in the world when it opened, with marble floors and gold leaf dripping from its barrel-vaulted ceiling a hundred feet high — found himself, on a Sunday evening in October 1920, in a raw, vast, undeveloped plaza, with a fountain plunked down in the center and a few cars meandering dustily around it, unhindered by lanes or any law-like regularities of direction. Men were playing baseball on an adjacent weedy field. Across the plaza squatted a few dozen temporary dormitories, thrown up hastily during the war.

  The effect was of leaving civilization for a wilderness outpost. Three blocks away stood the nation's Capitol, its dome tinted crimson in the failing sun — another monumental structure surrounded by an expanse of unbuilt land.

  Jimmy Littlemore looked at the Capitol with a sense of awe, a suitcase in one hand and a briefcase in the other. It was his first time in Washington. He had a New Yorker's expectation that a throng of taxicabs would be jostling outside the station's doors, vying for passengers. There wasn't a single one.

  As Littlemore was wondering how he would get to his hotel, he noticed a black car parked a short distance away, with a tall blonde woman leaning against one of its doors, smoking through a long cigarette holder. She was about thirty, dressed in business attire including a tightly fitted skirt, and exceptionally good-looking. When she saw the detective, she began walking his way, her gait attracting the attention of every man she passed.

  'James Littlemore, I presume?' she said. 'From New York?'

  'That's me,' said Littlemore.

  'You look just the way they described you,' replied the blonde woman.

  'How did they describe me?'

  'Wet behind the ears. You're late. You kept me waiting almost an hour.'

  'And you would be?'

  'I work for Senator Fall. The Senator would like to see you tomorrow in his office. At four o'clock sharp.'

  'Is that right?'

  'That's right. Good luck, New York.' While they were speaking, her car had rolled up next to them. The chauffeur scurried out and opened a door for her. She climbed in, her long legs showing for a moment before they swung inside the car.

  'Say, ma'am,' said Littlemore through the open window. 'Think you might give me a lift to my hotel?'

  'Where are you staying?' she asked.

  'The Willard?'

  'Very nice.'

  'Secretary Houston's picking up the tab.'

  ' Very nice.' She signaled the driver, who started the engine.

  'What about that ride, ma'am?' asked Littlemore.

  'Sorry — not in my job description.'

  The car drove off, sending up a swirl of burnt orange dust that settled on Littlemore's suit. He shook his head and inquired of a couple of gentlemen nearby if they knew the Willard Hotel. One of them pointed in a westerly direction. Littlemore set off toward the setting sun, which cast a long shadow behind him.

  The next morning, Secretary Houston personally pinned the badge and administered the oath that made Littlemore a Special Agent of the United States Treasury. They were in the most luxurious office that Littlemore had ever seen — Houston's own office in the Treasury
Building. Gilt-framed mirrors surmounted burnished marble fireplaces. Velvet-roped draperies hung at the windows. The ceiling was painted in a celestial theme.

  'Where we stand, Lincoln stood,' said Houston, 'consulting his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase.'

  When instructed to swear to uphold the laws of the United States, Littlemore asked if he could make an exception in the case of the Volstead Act — the law mandating Prohibition — which Secretary

  Houston did not find amusing. When taking the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, Littlemores voice caught. He wished his father could have been there.

  'Let me show you around, Special Agent Littlemore,' said Houston.

  The divisions of the United States Treasury were surprisingly extensive. Houston pointed out with pride his gigantic bureau of internal revenue, his anti-counterfeiting unit, his bureau of engraving and printing, his bureau of alcohol enforcement, and, finally, an elegant spacious marble hall with a row of tellers along one wall, each behind an iron-grilled window. 'This is where the Treasury pays money on demand to anyone presenting a valid note. We call it the Cash Room. Show me all the money you have in your pockets, Littlemore.'

  'Let's see. I got a three-cent nickel, a couple of dimes, and a fin.'

  'Only the coins are money. Your five-dollar bill is not.'

  'It's a fake?' asked Littlemore.

  'Not fake, but not money. It's merely a note. A promise. You'll find the promise in the small print on the reverse, between Columbus and the Pilgrims. Read it — where it says "redeemable."'

  '"This note,'" Littlemore read the inscription, '"is redeemable in gold on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.'"

  'Without those words,' said Houston, 'that note would be worthless paper. No shop owner would accept it. No bank would credit it. A five-dollar bill is a promise made by the United States to pay five dollars in gold to anyone presenting that note here in the United States Treasury in Washington, DC. Hence the Cash Room.'

  'Not too many people cashing in,' said Littlemore. Only two customers were transacting business with the tellers.

  'Which is as it should be.' Houston began walking again, leading Littlemore into a long corridor. 'No one has any reason to cash in — so long as everyone believes he can. But imagine if people began to fear we didn't have enough gold to pay off our notes. Do we have enough, do you suppose?'

  'Don't we?'

  'If all United States monetary obligations were called at once, the government would be as helpless and ruined as any bank in the middle of a panic. The system works on confidence. Picture a trickle of worried people coming here to cash in their notes. Picture the trickle turning into a crowd. Picture the crowd turning into a nation, stampeding to get their money before the nation's metal was exhausted. The government would have to declare bankruptcy. Lending would freeze. Factories would shut down. The entire economy would stop. What would happen next is anyone's guess. Possibly the states would revert to their former condition of autonomy.'

  'I see why you want to keep a lid on the robbery, Mr Houston.'

  'My point exactly. Here we are — this will be your office, Littlemore. Small, but you have your own telephone and access to all files of course. Here's the key to your desk. In it you'll find documents concerning the transfer of the gold from the Sub-Treasury in Manhattan to the Assay Office next door — how the bridge was built, who was involved, how it was planned, and so on. It's for you alone. Understood?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Littlemore.

  Houston lowered his voice: 'And I want a complete report on your meeting this afternoon with Senator Fall. Remember, Littlemore, you're my man in Washington, not his.'

  On his way to the Senate Office Building that afternoon, Littlemore treated himself to a look at the Washington Monument. Adjacent to that great and solemn obelisk, he found to his surprise that the city had installed its Public Baths. From there Littlemore continued on the Mall — a straight, grassy, wide-open promenade dotted with important, majestic structures — toward the Capitol. He imagined lords and ladies strolling at a leisurely pace, with small dogs on leashes trotting behind them; in fact the Mall was empty.

  At the corner of First and B Street — the address of the Senate Office Building — Littlemore saw only a small nondescript hotel at the weedy edges of the Capitol grounds. The detective was untroubled. He knew that in Washington's paradoxical cartography, there would be four different intersections where First Street meets B Street — each on a different side of the Capitol. Littlemore turned south and presently came to another corner of First and B. Here he found only a row of tumbledown wooden-frame houses, one attached to the next, with a dirt road in front of them. Garbage filled the road; flies attacked the garbage, and a whiff of unprocessed sewage sang in the nostrils. Negroes sat on the house porches. Not one white man, other than Littlemore, was to be seen. Mosquitoes abounded. Littlemore clapped one of the pests dead, near his face. When he separated his palms, he had framed between his hands the grand dome of the United States Capitol.

  It was a good thing Littlemore had left the Treasury at three o'clock. He finally entered the rotunda of the Senate Office Building — which was three stories high, ringed by Corinthian columns, every wall gleaming with white marble and limestone, suffused with natural light from the glazed oculus at the apex of the richly coffered dome — at two minutes to four, just on time.

  Albert B. Fall, United States Senator from New Mexico, was a hale man of sixty, tall and hard-drinking, with a drooping Western mustache white with age. Outdoors, he liked to sport a big-rimmed Western hat, mismatching his three-piece Eastern bow-tied suit. His chambers were lavish. When Littlemore was shown in, the Senator was working on his putting stroke, aiming golf balls at an empty milk bottle at least thirty feet away. The Senator's shots were missing badly.

  'Special Agent James Littlemore,' declared Senator Fall without interrupting his practice. He had a large voice — the kind that could carry from an open-air rostrum or fill a legislative chamber. 'Glad to meet you, son. Heard a lot about you. What do you make of Washington?'

  'Big offices, sir.'

  'Big men get big offices. That's how it works. What's on your mind, boy?'

  Littlemore was about to mention that the Senator had asked to see him, not the reverse, but the question turned out to be rhetorical.

  'I'll tell you what's on your mind,' said Senator Fall. 'You're thinking why does this senator in this big office want to see me.'

  'That's about right.'

  'I'll tell you why. I want you to keep me posted on your investigation.'

  Littlemore opened his mouth to answer.

  'Don't you say anything, son,' interrupted Fall. 'I ain't put a question yet. I know what you'd say anyway. You'd say, "I'm sorry, Mr Senator, hut the investigation is confidential. You'll have to take that up with Secretary Milksop — I mean Houston.'"

  There was silence in the room as Senator Fall lined up another putting stroke.

  'Ain't I right?' said Fall.

  'Am I supposed to answer now?' asked Littlemore.

  'I'm right,' said Fall, slapping his golf ball a foot past the milk bottle into a bookcase. 'Damnation. That's it. I've had enough of this fool game. I don't play golf. Harding plays golf, so I figured I ought to give it a go. Well, he'll just have to play by himself. Mrs Cross? Get your pretty self in here.'

  A door at the far end of the room opened. A tall blonde woman entered — the same attractive woman who had met Littlemore at Union Station the day before.

  'Take this damn thing,' said the Senator, handing the woman his putter. 'And fix us a couple of drinks.'

  'Yes, Mr Senator,' said Mrs Cross without a glance at Littlemore.

  'So how's it feel 'to be a special agent, Special Agent Littlemore?' asked Fall, taking a seat behind his desk. 'Must feel pretty special.'

  L
ittlemore wasn't sure how ironical this remark was intended to be. 'It's all right,' he said.

  'Shouldn't be all right.' Fall leaned back in his reclining leather chair. 'Man of your age and your abilities shouldn't be content to be an agent. Got to think big. Look at that jackass Flynn. You're just as good as he is. Why shouldn't you be the director of the Bureau?'

  'Whiskey, Mr Littlemore?' asked Mrs Cross.

  'No, thank you, ma'am.'

  Fall raised his eyebrows: 'You ain't dry?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Glad to hear it. Mrs Cross, give the man some whiskey. I got to tell you, Littlemore, becoming a Treasury Agent ain't the way to investigate an act of war.'

  'I don't believe the bombing was an act of war, Mr Senator.'

  Fall shook his head. 'Maybe it's because you back down, Littlemore. Maybe that's why you haven't made more of yourself. Men who back down don't rise up. Simple rule. Never fails. You were the only one to tell the truth about this bombing. You told Tom Lamont that the Morgan Bank was the terrorists' target. He didn't want to hear it, but you told him. Lamont was impressed; told me all about it. And Lamont ain't impressed by most. But all of a sudden you got religion. You dropped Lamont and hitched yourself up to Secretary Milksop instead. I wonder what made you change your tune.'

  Mrs Cross handed a tumbler of whiskey to Senator Fall and offered another to Littlemore on a silver tray. He didn't take it. Into the Senator's glass of whiskey she poured a dollop of milk straight from a bottle.

  'For the stomach,' explained Senator Fall. 'One thing I hate to see is a good man back down. Knuckle under to the people at the top. Been fighting it my whole life. Take a seat, for Christ's sake.'

  Littlemore remained standing. 'Does every senator keep a firearm in his office, Mr Fall?'

  'What's that?'

  'You've got a pistol in your second drawer.'

  Fall crossed his arms, then smiled broadly. 'Now how'd you know that? Mrs Cross, did you tell Agent Littlemore about my gun?'

  'Would I do something like that, Mr Senator?' asked Mrs Cross.

  'You surely would.'

  'Well, I didn't.'