The Death Instinct

by Jed Rubenfeld

  'I'll find a car,' said Littlemore, sprinting away. Within a minute, a dozen soldiers were running down Wall Street toward Trinity Church, where the bodies of Brighton and Samuels lay bleeding, and Littlemore had returned in Secretary Houston's Packard. Younger made Colette get inside.

  'But they're only scratches,' she protested.

  'We're going to a hospital,' said Younger, lowering himself next to her in the backseat.

  She looked at him and smiled. 'All right. If you think we should.'

  'Which hospital, Doc?' asked Littlemore, behind the wheel.

  'Washington Square,' said Younger. 'Wait — I thought you were going to stop a war tonight. Did you?'

  'Not yet,' answered Littlemore.

  'Well, go stop it.' The two men looked at each other. 'Someone else can drive. She'll be all right. Go.'

  'Thanks,' said Littlemore, who persuaded Houston's chauffeur to drive the car.

  As they set off, Colette rested her head on Younger's shoulder. She didn't see him wince. 'It's finally over, isn't it?' she asked.

  'Yes,' he answered. 'I think it is.'

  It wasn't until Younger had failed to respond to the next several things she said that she noticed his closed eyes and touched the back of his shirt and felt it dampening with blood. Colette screamed at the driver to hurry.

  At Grand Central Terminal, under the celestial ceiling of the main concourse, Littlemore found Officer Stankiewicz in plain clothes, together with Edwin Fischer, waiting for him at the round central information booth, which was capped by a gold sphere with clocks on all four sides. Littlemore shook hands with Stankiewicz, thanking him for doing unofficial duty. 'Everything okay?' asked Littlemore.

  'So far, so good,' said Stankiewicz.

  'Anybody make you?' asked Littlemore.

  'Hard to tell up here, Cap. Too many people.'

  Littlemore nodded. The station was bustling with the comers and goers of a Saturday night in New York City. A constant din of loudspeaker crackle filled the concourse with announcements of train numbers, destinations, and tracks.

  'Okay, Stanky,' said Littlemore, 'you're going to Commissioner Enright's place. He's expecting you. Here's the address. And bust it; there's no time to lose. When you get back, meet me downstairs exactly where I showed you. Fischer, you're coming with me.'

  Littlemore glanced around the concourse, then tapped his knuckles on the information counter. The attendant, whom the detective greeted by name, shuffled to a gate and let Littlemore and Fischer in.

  'Why are we going in the information booth?' asked Fischer. 'Are we looking for information?'

  'We're going down to the lower level. If they've got people watching the stairs and ramps, they won't see us.'

  In the center of the round booth was a gold pillar with a sliding door, which Littlemore opened. The detective cleared away boxes of old schedules, revealing a narrow spiral staircase.

  'A hidden stairwell,' said Fischer. 'I didn't know this was here.'

  'You're in for a lot of surprises tonight,' replied Littlemore.

  The spiral stairs led past a landing littered with empty liquor bottles. When they arrived at the bottom, they were behind another, smaller information window. Littlemore opened it and joined the throng of passengers in Grand Central's lower level. He led Fischer to an intersection of two broad and crowded corridors, where Officer Roederheusen, also in plain clothes, was waiting in an inconspicuous corner under a tiled, vaulted ceiling. Across the gallery was the Oyster Bar.

  'They still in there?' Littlemore asked.

  'Yes, sir,' said Roederheusen. 'Still eating.'

  'Anybody see you?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Good job,' said Littlemore. 'Fischer, you and I are going to wait here until the Commissioner comes. Spanky, you go down to Washington Square Hospital on Ninth and see how Miss Rousseau's doing. Just stay put there unless Doc Younger needs anything, in which case you get it for him.'

  Twenty minutes later, Stankiewicz returned with Commissioner Enright.

  'This had better be good, Littlemore,' said Enright.

  'It will be, Commissioner,' replied Littlemore. 'Stand right here, sir. Keep an ear to the wall. You too, Fischer, just like we talked about. Don't move.'

  'An ear to the wall?' repeated Enright indignantly.

  'Yes, sir. Keep your ear right here.'

  The detective crossed the lower-level concourse, wending through the crush of bustling passengers, many of them carrying on in extraordinarily loud voices, as New Yorkers like to do. When he got to the Oyster Bar's entrance, he turned around, confirming that he could no longer see Enright, Roederheusen, or Fischer, who, on the other side of the wide and busy gallery, must have been almost a hundred feet away. Littlemore ducked into the restaurant.

  He found them at a table covered with nacreous and crustacean remains: Senator Fall, Mrs Cross, and William McAdoo, the former Treasury Secretary who was now a lawyer. No bottles were visible, but it was clear from the Senator's exuberance that considerable drink had been consumed with the repast.

  'Agent Littlemore!' cried Fall. 'Savior of his country. Exposer of corruption. You've missed dinner. You've missed great tidings. You've

  — you look ridiculous, son. What have you been doing, spelunking?'

  'I need to talk to you, Mr Fall,' said Littlemore.

  'Talk away. I think you're getting cold feet, boy, I really do.'

  'Can we speak alone, Mr Senator?' replied Littlemore, still standing.

  'Anything you want to say to me, Littlemore, you can say in front of my friends.'

  'Not this.'

  Fall was irritated, but he stood up. 'All right. I'm coming. But first give me one more dose of that dark medicine, woman.'

  Mrs Cross inconspicuously removed a flask from her purse and put a splash into Senator Fall's glass. She topped off Mr McAdoo's as well. 'Whiskey, Agent Littlemore?' she asked.

  The detective shook his head and, after Fall had downed his drink, led the Senator out of the crowded restaurant. He stopped at a discreet spot against the wall in the terminal concourse, a few feet from the doors of the Oyster Bar. 'I know who stole the gold, Mr Fall,' said Littlemore.

  'The Mexicans,' replied Fall. 'You already figured that out.'

  'Not the Mexicans, sir.'

  'Houston?'

  'It was Lamont,' said Littlemore.

  'Impossible.'

  'I saw the gold tonight. In the basement of the Morgan Bank.'

  'Keep your voice down,' whispered Fall. 'You tell anybody yet?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Littlemore quietly.

  'Who?'

  'You.'

  'Apart from me, goddamn it,' said Fall.

  'You mean Mr Houston?'

  'Yes — did you tell Houston?'

  'I came straight here, Mr Fall.'

  'Good. Let's keep a lid on this, Littlemore. Don't want to cause a panic. Tell you what: Just leave it to me. I'll make sure the right people find out.'

  'Got you, Mr Fall. Keep a lid on it. But somebody better talk to Mr Lamont right away.'

  'Don't you worry, son — I'll talk to him.'

  'What'll you say?' asked Littlemore.

  'I'll tell him — why, I'll tell him-' Fall had difficulty finishing the sentence. 'Damn it, you're the one who said I should talk to him.'

  'I figured you'd want to tip him off,' said Littlemore.

  Fall didn't flinch. 'What did you say?'

  'You know when I knew, Senator Fall? It was when you told me that you and Mr McAdoo always have dinner at the Oyster Bar. I realized that Ed Fischer was in Grand Central when you two met here a few months ago, after the Democratic Convention. A lot of people think Fischer's crazy, but everything I heard him say turned out to be true.'

  'Are you drunk, Littlemore?'

  'Then I saw the whole thing. Finding those Mexican documents was way too easy. Torres's apartment — it was a fake, wasn't it? A setup. That's why you had Mrs Cross come with me — to make sure I'd find th
e hole in the wall where the documents were hidden. What a sucker I was. Sure, a Mexican envoy is going to bring incriminating documents with him from Mexico in a cardboard tube — nothing else, no files, no suitcases, barely any clothes, just those documents — and then leave them for me in an open wall safe after I knock on his apartment door. Torres wasn't really a Mexican envoy at all, was he? You invented him. That's why Obregon denied the guy's existence.'

  Fall took out a cigar. 'You're all twisted up, son. Not thinking straight.'

  'From the very start,' said Littlemore, 'Lamont tried to put me onto Mexico. Every time I talked to him, something having to do with Mexico would come up. I just didn't see it. Same with you, Mr Fall. You pretended you thought the Russians were behind it, but you were steering me to Mexico the whole time. Brighton was in on it too, wasn't he? You and he staged that scene in your office for my benefit, when he was complaining about the Mexicans seizing his oil wells. Then Lamont calls me again and conveniently mentions that Mexican

  Independence Day is in the middle of September. You were doing the same thing with Flynn, sending him hints about Sacco and Vanzetti, hoping he'd put together their Mexico connection, but he never did. So you had to make me think I'd found proof — the documents in Torres's wall. But they're all fakes. Forgeries.'

  Fall lit his cigar, taking his time. He glanced left and right and spoke almost inaudibly: 'The Mexicans bombed us, Littlemore. Massacred us. You're the one who figured it out. Let's say those documents are fake. Let's just say. If that's what Wilson and his Secretary of War needed to see the light and send in the troops, that's the way it had to be.'

  'Except the Mexicans weren't behind the bombing,' said Littlemore.

  'What are you talking about?'

  'You were behind it.'

  Fall blew a cloud of smoke over Littlemore's head. 'You think I bombed Wall Street — killed all those people — to steal a little gold from the Treasury? You're out of your mind, boy. No one will believe you.'

  'The gold was icing,' said Littlemore. 'The cake was war. Invading Mexico, getting rid of Obregon, installing your own man as president, taking the oil fields. That would have been worth maybe half a billion dollars to your pal Brighton. And a few hundred million more to Lamont. And who knows how much to you.'

  'That's big crazy talk, boy. You could get in trouble talking big and crazy like that.'

  'You're making a war for their oil.'

  'Their oil?' Fall hissed. 'That's our oil you're talking about. We bought it, we paid for it, and now a bunch of Reds are trying to steal it. You think the Mexican people like being ordered around by a gang of God-hating, gun-toting bandits? The Mexicans'll thank us. They'll cheer our boys when we march into Mexico City.'

  'Sure they will,' said Littlemore. 'They love the US of A., just like you do.'

  At that moment Mr McAdoo came out of the restaurant, along with Mrs Cross, who was carrying Senator Fall's overcoat.

  'What's going on, Fall?' asked McAdoo. 'Is there a problem, Mr Littlemore?'

  'No problem. Senator Fall and I were just talking about how you and he planned the Wall Street bombing.'

  'I beg your pardon?' said McAdoo.

  'You were the one who knew about the gold,' Littlemore said to McAdoo. 'You were Secretary of the Treasury in 1917 — before you started working for Brighton. You knew exactly how and when the gold would be moved. You knew Riggs. You probably had him transferred from Washington to New York.'

  'Don't answer him, Mac,' said Fall. 'Ignorant talk — that's all it is.'

  'Answer him?' said McAdoo. 'I would sue him for slander if it weren't so palpably risible.'

  'How much did they promise you?' Littlemore asked McAdoo. 'Or were you just getting back at Wilson?'

  McAdoo bristled. 'Why would I want to "get back" at my own father-in-law?'

  'Maybe because he took the nomination from you?' answered Littlemore. 'You were going to be the next president of the United States. Must have been so close you could taste it. But Wilson took it away. All because you married his little girl, thinking it was your ticket to the White House. Kind of backfired, that move. Wilson stayed a step ahead of you all the way, didn't he?'

  'Let it go,' Fall said to McAdoo. 'He's just baiting you.'

  'Woodrow Wilson,' replied McAdoo, 'will go down in history as a president so bedazzled with his role as Europe's peacemaker that he didn't see the war being made against us by our neighbor to the south — the first president since 1812 to permit an attack on American soil.'

  'Sure, if only there had been an attack,' said Littlemore. 'But there wasn't. You just made it look that way. You figured you'd hire some men to bomb Wall Street, make it look like the Mexicans did it, rustle up a little war — and come out a billion dollars richer. Lamont owns the land across from the Treasury Building. He digs a tunnel to the one spot where the gold is vulnerable while it's being moved — the overhead bridge between the two buildings. Then on September sixteenth, Mexican Independence Day, you pulled the trigger. You covered your tracks too. Nobody knew. But you made one mistake. You were overheard by Ed Fischer.'

  Fall laughed out loud. Then the Senator spoke more quietly: 'That's your evidence? We were overheard by a certified lunatic? I hate to break it to you, son, but I never talk anywhere I can be overheard.'

  'You've talked here before. In this corner. Outside the Oyster Bar.'

  'How would you know?' replied the Senator. 'And what if I have? Nobody can hear us.'

  'Ed Fischer can,' said Littlemore. Lowering his voice to the quietest whisper, the detective added: 'Come on out, Fischer. Tell Mr Fall whether you can hear him.'

  'Indeed I can!' cried Edwin Fischer's voice from across the crowded gallery. Soon they could see him practically bounding through the crowd. 'It's just like before,' he said jauntily when he reached them. 'The same voices — out of the air!'

  'What on earth?' said McAdoo. 'What is this?'

  Fall looked at Fischer as if he were a species of exotic bird that ought to be exterminated. 'Is this your idea of a joke, Littlemore?'

  'I don't think Commissioner Enright finds it funny, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore as Fischer was followed by Enright and Stankiewicz. 'Commissioner Enright, could you hear the Senator and Mr McAdoo talking just now?'

  'Every word,' said Enright.

  'Stanky — did you hear them?'

  'Sure did, Cap.'

  'Eddie?'

  '"I hate to break it to you, son,'" quoted Fischer, imitating Fall's Western twang, '"but I never talk anywhere I can be overheard.'"

  'Good gracious,' said Mrs Cross. 'They really could hear you.'

  'It's a trick,' said Fall, looking up at the ceiling and down to the floor. 'You got a wire here somewhere. It's a policeman's trick.'

  'No wire, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore. 'It is a neat trick though. We detectives discovered it a couple of years ago, after the Terminal opened. If you stand right where we're standing now, just outside the Oyster Bar, folks on the exact opposite side of the hall can hear everything you say, loud and clear, even if you whisper and even if there's a crowd in between. I asked Fischer earlier today if that's where voices came to him.'

  'It was my favorite place,' declared Fischer. 'I used to hear so much out of the air.'

  'You and Mr McAdoo,' said Littlemore, 'had dinner here in July. Big Bill Flynn was with you. Flynn met Fischer that night — here in Grand Central. Afterward, Fischer came down to his spot over there and listened. The two of you must have been on your way out of the restaurant. You stopped. You whispered, positive that nobody could hear you. But you were wrong.'

  'The Treasury owed me millions,' McAdoo protested. 'That's all I ever said. It was a purely hypothetical-'

  'Shut up, Mac,' interrupted Fall sharply. His countenance softened into a broad smile: 'Mr Fischer, I don't believe I've had the pleasure. You're the tennis champion, am I right? Heard a lot of fine things about you. Albert Fall's the name. You ever been introduced to me, son? Or to Mr McAdoo here?
'

  'Never,' replied Fischer, sticking out his hand, 'but I'm delighted to make your acquaintance.'

  The Senator didn't shake Fischer's hand: 'Then you can't be sure it was us you heard back in July — especially if the voices you heard were whispering.'

  'I didn't say I was sure,' replied Fischer candidly. 'But your voices certainly sound similar.'

  Fall laughed again. 'Congratulations,' he said to Littlemore. 'Your evidence is a lunatic who never saw us before but thinks maybe possibly he heard voices similar to ours whispering something last summer. You couldn't indict a flea with that evidence. Mac, Mrs Cross — time to go.'

  'If I'd been trying to indict you, Fall,' replied Littlemore. 'I would have waited and brought you down when I had more. Instead I just blew my whole case against you.'

  As Mrs Cross draped his overcoat on him, Fall asked, 'And why would you do that?'

  'Because I need something from you.'

  The Senator chuckled: 'Boy, are you ever mixed up. In future, when you want something from me, I'd recommend you try a different tactic.'

  'Really?' said Littlemore. 'I got two witnesses here, one of whom is the Commissioner of the New York Police Department, who will confirm that Fischer could hear you and Mr McAdoo from all the way across the hall and that Fischer recognized your voices as the ones he heard talking about the Wall Street bombing three months before it happened. Not enough to convict, but plenty enough for a newspaper. Especially when people start looking into your Mexican documents. It'll take a while to prove the forgery, but we will. You'll deny you knew they were forged, but my witnesses will tell the papers they heard you say you didn't care if the documents were forged or not. How do you figure the headlines will read? Senator Fall Takes Country to War on Tissue of Lies?'

  Fall didn't reply.

  'That kind of story could put a serious crimp in a man's legal career, Mr McAdoo,' Littlemore continued. 'Not to mention his getting back into politics.'

  'Let's hear what the detective wants,' said McAdoo.

  'Meantime,' continued Littlemore, 'those three senators and Mr Houston — the ones who, according to your forged documents, were taking bribes from the Mexican government — I'm guessing they won't let you off the hook so easy, Mr Senator. When they find out what you did, they'll want to hold hearings or something, won't they? With all that going on, I can't see President Harding naming you to his Cabinet. Can you, Mrs Cross?'