by John Jakes
The boy thought Gideon looked strange and wild. He spoke almost incoherently, as if he’d lost his mind. In a way, he had.
iv
“Out of town?” Theo Payne exclaimed later that morning. “At a time like this?”
Gideon stood beside Payne’s desk at the Union. “I’ll keep in touch by telegraph. Bradwell said there is absolutely nothing I can do here.”
The editor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to Chicago, aren’t you?”
Gideon didn’t answer.
“There’s nothing you can do out there, either. I’ve followed the dispatches Sal Brown sent back. I know you think that bastard on the W and P was responsible for wrecking your house—”
“And for Margaret. And now Julia. And for the death of a boy named Torvald Ericsson. And for God knows how many more that he’s starved or cheated into ruin. Competitors, employees—”
“You thought you could get at him through that name your daughter heard. What was it? Huxtable?”
“Hubble. One of his attorneys.”
“It hasn’t proved out, has it?”
Gideon shook his head.
“You’ve got to be realistic, Gideon. In this country—in every country and every era—certain men are virtually untouchable. Their power, or their money and those they can hire with it, put them above the law. It shouldn’t be so, but it is. It’s the way of the world. In the United States we seem to be going through a long period of just that sort of thing. We’ll either rise up against it, and curb it as best we can, or the rot that it’s generating will spread and destroy everything that’s admirable about this country. In any case, it isn’t just your crusade.”
Gideon didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Payne exclaimed, “you’ve run into a man who’s above the law! Why waste your time with him? You’ll only make yourself feel worse. You’ll find the lawyers are no better in Chicago, and can do no more than lawyers right here. Courtleigh probably owns or can buy most of the Chicago police department, too. What can you possibly do?”
“I don’t know,” Gideon lied. “Search for new evidence, maybe—”
Payne shivered. “That isn’t what you plan at all.”
Gideon looked away. The little man began to plead.
“For God’s sake listen to me, Gideon. Don’t let one rash act eradicate everything you’ve become. Don’t reduce yourself to his level. Remember who you are. Remember the family you represent. Don’t let the Kents be accused of conducting their affairs the way Courtleigh conducts his.”
Gideon seemed oblivious. “Take care of the paper, Theo. You don’t need me to run it. You never did. But I do thank you for all you taught me. Maybe I’ve done a little good in the last few years.”
“And you can do a great deal more if you don’t allow yourself to be driven into—”
Gideon had already turned and walked out.
Payne shivered a second time, upset by the rage he’d sensed in the younger man, and by the finality of his remarks. It all implied something he didn’t want to think about, but found he couldn’t avoid.
At least not until he yanked the drawer of his desk open and reached inside.
v
In a dingy little gun shop on the Bowery, Gideon stood for a long time studying the contents of the fly-specked display case. Finally he pointed.
“I’d like to see that one.”
The shopkeeper opened the back of the case. “Are you sure? This is a LeMat. It’s twelve to fifteen years old, manufactured in France, and imported mostly by the Rebs during—”
“I know what it is and who used it.”
“Yes, sir, all right—anything you say.”
Gideon examined the mechanism. Despite the revolver’s age, it was in excellent working order. He laid it on the glass. “I want two dozen rounds of ammunition to go with it.”
“Right away.”
The revolver seemed the natural choice since the last handgun he’d owned had been the LeMat he lost the night of the Chicago fire. A LeMat went all the way back to the very beginning of his trouble with Tom Courtleigh.
Gideon put the box of ammunition in his valise, laid the wrapped revolver on top and secured the clasps. He had a sad, sinking feeling as he paid for his purchases. He was sorry it had come to this. But Sime Strelnik had been more realistic than he. Strelnik had predicted long ago that he would deal with the bosses this way, out of frustration and despair—even though Strelnik had never guessed Gideon’s motive would be so personal.
He ordered the driver of his waiting hack to stop by the hospital. The hack stayed at the curb while he went inside. There was no change in Julia’s condition. He knew from the eyes of the orderly to whom he spoke that those working on the ward expected her to die.
So nothing mattered any longer. Nothing but settling accounts the only way left to him—the way Courtleigh had always settled his. What happened afterward—arrest, trial, imprisonment, execution—was of no importance.
He climbed back into the hack and two hours later was aboard a westbound train.
Chapter XIII
The Law and the Lawless
i
AT A STATION midway across Indiana, Gideon left the train and sent a telegraph message to the Union. He asked that someone learn Julia’s condition and wire the information to him in care of the central Western Union office in Chicago.
The train pulled into the city an hour and a half later. Gideon checked into the new Palmer House, flung his valise on the bed and washed his haggard face. He was exhausted. He’d spent the entire journey wide awake. He just couldn’t sleep when he was traveling. Someday he should try to teach himself to—
Someday? A humorless smile wrenched his mouth. There weren’t any more somedays.
He unpacked and loaded the LeMat. He studied the revolver for several minutes, turning it one way and then another in his hand so as to see it from different perspectives. What he planned to do was wrong. Absolutely wrong. It made him no better than Courtleigh. But he had no intention of canceling his plans.
He shoved the LeMat into the waistband of his trousers, between his shirt and waistcoat, and buttoned the latter.
With his frock coat on, there was a detectable bulge, but only a very slight one.
It was a mild August morning. With an unsmiling face, he moved through the pleasant bustle of the rebuilt downtown to the telegraph office. He stopped outside. He almost didn’t want to receive a message. He knew what it would say.
Finally he went in. The clerk at the counter said, “No, Mr. Kent, nothing for you. But we’ve received no messages from the East for the last three or four hours. Sometimes storms knock down the wires and cause delays in transmission.”
For an instant Gideon was both disappointed and relieved. The clerk went on, “The trouble’s usually located and repaired fairly quickly. Perhaps if you drop back in an hour or so—”
“No,” Gideon said with a slight shake of his head, “that will be too late.”
ii
Thomas Courtleigh’s office was located on the top floor of the new Wisconsin and Prairie Building two blocks below the river on Michigan Avenue. Gideon rode up in an ornate elevator cage and stepped off in a gloomy corridor.
To his left, at the corridor’s end, he saw heavy doors with elaborately etched inserts of frosted glass. One door carried the word GENERAL in gold leaf. The other said OFFICES.
He walked slowly, passing the closed door of what appeared to be a service closet or work room. On the other side of the door, a man was coughing. It had a consumptive sound.
He passed through the main doors to a reception area and was directed down a hall to a similar but smaller area which could only be reached by the route he was taking; thus it had a certain privacy. The small anteroom held two cluttered desks at which a pair of clerks—one in his thirties, one bald and much older—faced one another. On a bench against the far wall lounged a burly young fellow in a garish plaid suit. He had a derby perched on his knee
and a Police Gazette in hands covered with an assortment of cheap, bright rings. The lump of a bolstered pistol was unmistakable on his left side.
Gideon gave his name to the senior clerk. He said he wished to see the president.
There was no response to the name, and a dubious one to his request. Would Mr. Kent state his business? He would not. Well, the bald man would take a card into the sanctum—he pointed to the heavy scrolled doors of dark wood—but he didn’t hold out much hope.
Gideon produced a card, and the clerk’s reaction was pronounced. Evidently the New York Union was well known at W & P headquarters, even if Gideon was not.
The clerk handled the card as if it were soiled. “You’ll have to allow Mr. Freeman to search you,” he told Gideon while starting for the double doors. “It’s a policy we have been forced to institute since demonstrators broke in here—no doubt encouraged by radicals like you.”
With that parting shot, the clerk vanished. The burly young man stepped to Gideon’s side. “Raise your arms over your head.”
Growing tense, Gideon obeyed. The bodyguard patted him here and there while speaking to the other clerk. “When’s Kane coming back? I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”
“Where the hell is he, coughing his guts out again? I don’t like working around a man who’s that sick.” He finished the search and stepped back. “Nothing on him.”
Gideon made an effort to keep his breathing calm. One of the heavy doors opened. The bald clerk emerged, looking astonished.
“Mr. Courtleigh will see you immediately.”
Gideon smiled, but there was no mirth in the bright blue eye. Its cool ferocity made the bald clerk step aside.
“I thought he would,” Gideon murmured, and reached for the ornate gold doorknob.
iii
The office was huge and impressive. It occupied more than half of the frontage of the top floor. The view was splendid from the row of tall windows to the left of the massive walnut desk where Thomas Courtleigh sat. The sun sparkled on the whitecapped lake. There were scraps of sail visible near the shore—pleasure craft—and a dozen or more lake steamers spread out from the mouth of the Chicago River to the horizon.
Yet the office itself seemed incapable of absorbing much of the outside light, and the moment Gideon heard the doors click shut behind him, the subterranean feeling only increased. The place was joyless and dark. Perhaps because of the heavy wood tones of the ponderous furniture, the wainscoting, the ornately carved fireplace and the chimney piece. The walls were hung with idealized oil paintings of W. & P rolling stock, and with trophies of hunting expeditions. Directly behind Courtleigh, huge stuffed heads of a bison and a big-horned buck deer jutted out. Glassy eyes lent the heads an aura of sinister life.
The furnishings definitely contributed to the cheerless atmosphere but so did the two unsmiling men staring at Gideon. One was an obese young fellow, a stranger. Gideon had anticipated at least one bodyguard outside, but he’d hoped the president would be alone in his private office, though of course he’d known there was no way to assure it.
Well, even with all the restrictions, he would do what he’d planned. The fat employee would be no problem. He looked soft and weak.
Thomas Courtleigh tented his fingers. “I’m genuinely astonished, Kent. I never imagined you’d have the audacity to call here.”
Courtleigh’s auburn hair showed gray streaks now. Wrinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes. A pronounced paunch bulged the front of his waistcoat and trousers. He’d been working in his shirtsleeves when Gideon came in, and somehow he looked as old and tired as Gideon felt.
“To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?” Courtleigh’s hazel eyes were unreadable. “Surely you didn’t travel all the way to Chicago merely to speak to me.”
“But I did.”
“Oh?” That one syllable carried an edge of mild surprise, the beginnings of worry, alarm. Gideon laughed silently as he stood before the desk strewn with ledgers and memoranda.
“I’m a little surprised you’d admit me to this office, Courtleigh.”
“Mr. Courtleigh thought it might be amusing.”
The wheezy voice brought Gideon’s head around. He’d turned his back on the obese young man who overflowed a chair between two windows. Now he gave the man a closer inspection.
The man’s clothing was rumpled and duty. His left lapel bore specks of food, and one or two were tangled in his silky mustache. His goatee needed combing. All the hair on the lower part of his face heightened the nakedness of his skull.
Though the young man had truculent eyes, Gideon still didn’t think he’d cause much trouble. The guard was the problem. He’d have to strike quickly, before the man could be summoned.
Sure enough, what he’d hoped for was right in front of him. A blade for opening correspondence. It lay within easy reach. The point wasn’t as sharp as that of a regular knife. But if driven with sufficient force, Gideon was sure it could pierce the skin, and kill.
Sweat began to gather on Gideon’s forehead. Courtleigh raised a hand. “No, no, Lorenzo—”
Lorenzo? Lorenzo Hubble?
“Those who oppose the formation of capital and the rights of property owners—the very foundations of this country—can’t be considered even remotely amusing. They’re dangerous. Mr. Kent is dangerous. He’s a radical. A Marxist—”
“Or so you’d like everyone to believe,” Gideon said.
“Yes, there you’ve hit it.” Courtleigh smiled. “It doesn’t really matter whether you are a Marxist—it only matters that the public is convinced you are. If the allegation’s repeated often enough, the public will eventually believe it. As you may have guessed, I and certain of my friends are dedicated to that process of repetition—”
He frowned because Gideon was ignoring his little speech, and staring at the obese man. Sounding pettish all at once, Courtleigh said, “Mr. Kent, Mr. Hubble. One of our attorneys.” Another smile, nasty. “And not in great favor around here at the moment.”
Gideon nodded. “I know the name.”
Hubble’s tiny eyes blinked. “You do?”
“My daughter heard it the night of July twenty-second. From one of the men who broke into my house and killed my wife. The man said he’d received his instructions from someone named Hubble.”
The obese man shot a worried look at his employer, then blustered, “What kind of ridiculous charge are you making, Kent? Do you think I’m the only man in America with that name? You said July twenty-second? The weekend of the strike? I was right here in—”
“Chicago,” Gideon finished. “I’ve already checked into that story. But I don’t believe it.” He swung back to the desk. “Because I know how Mr. Courtleigh has felt about me all these years. He destroyed my house. Endangered my children. Caused my wife’s death and probably the death of another mutual acquaintance who’s lying in a hospital in mortal danger right this moment. Oh—and we mustn’t forget the thugs sent to Pittsburgh. That’s quite a list, isn’t it? But it’s nothing more or less than what you promised six years ago. I never thought you’d carry through on those promises, but you did. Sick man that you are, you did—and you’ve covered your tracks so you can’t be touched. Not unless someone’s willing to settle with you on a personal basis.”
“Settle?” The word had a dry, papery sound.
“Settle,” Gideon said, pronouncing it very clearly. He was trembling now. “And pay the consequences afterward. I’m willing.”
Courtleigh seemed to lose confidence and shrink back against his chair. He tried to smile, but it was a mere twitching of the lips. “Surely this is a joke—”
“After all those things you did to me and my loved ones? Hardly.”
“Lorenzo, you’d better get Freeman or Kane—”
The fat man struggled out of his chair, took a step. “He can’t be armed, Mr. Courtleigh. They wouldn’t have permitted him to come in if—”
&nb
sp; “That’s right,” Gideon broke in. “I’m not armed. I had a gun when I started out this morning. I took it back to my hotel and left it there. I wish I could say I did it because I was high minded. I wish I could say I did it because I came to my senses and realized violence only begets more of the same. Unfortunately none of that’s true. I just recalled that I’d heard you employ guards here, and I knew I’d never be allowed in this office if they discovered the revolver.”
He fought to keep his glance off the filigreed hilt of the letter opener. He judged the distance. If Courtleigh remained in his chair for a few seconds, he could reach him, drive that dull point into his throat.
Gideon’s head hurt. His right eye was blurring a little. He felt he was being swept down some long chute and couldn’t stop himself.
Hubble took another step. His left hand slipped up over his paunch to unbutton his stained coat. Gideon saw Courtleigh glance toward the lawyer, but because of the eye patch, he couldn’t see Hubble himself.
“And I wanted very much to meet you face-to-face,” he went on. “I wanted to see whether you’d hide behind your money and your authority even here, and deny you were responsible for all those things.”
“Deny it?” Slam. Courtleigh’s fist struck the desk suddenly. Papers slipped to the carpet; a ledger thumped. He jumped to his feet. “I would never deny that in this office. You and I go all the way back to Sidney Florian. You cost me the life of a valuable man, and then you cost me the health and sanity of the woman I married, and finally you cost me Gwen herself. Deny what I did? Of course I won’t, you bastard. You deserved every bit of it. And more!”
The words hung echoing between them. Gideon dared not glance down at the letter opener for fear Courtleigh would sense his purpose, and snatch the weapon out of his reach. But pressure was building a terrible ache in his forehead. In his imagination he saw Theo Payne accusing him with his eyes.
