The Death Instinct (2 page)

    'Shall I tell him?' he asked Colette. To their right rose up incomprehensibly tall skyscrapers. To their left, the Brooklyn Bridge soared over the Hudson.

    'No, I will,' said Colette. 'I'm sorry to take so much of your time, Jimmy. I should have told you already.'

    'I got all the time in the world, Miss,' said Littlemore.

    'Well, it's probably nothing, but last night a girl came to our hotel looking for me. We were out, so she left a note. Here it is.' Colette produced a crumpled scrap of paper from her purse. The paper bore a hand-written message, hastily scrawled:

    Please I need to see you. They know you're right. I'll come back tomorrow morning at seven-thirty. Please can you help me.

    Amelia

    'She never came back,' added Colette.

    'You know this Amelia?' asked Littlemore, turning the note over, but finding nothing on its opposite side.

    'No.'

    '"They know you're right"?' said Littlemore. 'About what?'

    'I can't imagine,' said Colette.

    'There's something else,' said Younger.

    'Yes, it's what she put inside the note that worries us,' said Colette, fishing through her purse. She handed the detective a wad of white cotton.

    Littlemore pulled the threads apart. Buried within the cotton ball was a tooth - a small, shiny human molar.

    A fusillade of obscenities interrupted them. The cause was a parade on Liberty Street, which had halted traffic. All of the marchers were black. The men wore their Sunday best - a tattered best, their sleeves too short - although it was midweek. Skinny children tripped barefoot among their parents. Most were singing; their hymnal rose above the bystanders' taunts and motorists' ire.

    'Hold your horses,' said a uniformed officer, barely more than a boy, to one fulminating driver.

    Littlemore, excusing himself, approached the officer. 'What are you doing here, Boyle?'

    'Captain Hamilton sent us, sir,' said Boyle, 'because of the nigger parade.'

    'Who's patrolling the Exchange?' asked Littlemore.

    'Nobody. We're all up here. Shall I break up this march, sir? Looks like there's going to be trouble.'

    'Let me think,' said Littlemore, scratching his head. 'What would you do on St. Paddy's Day if some blacks were causing trouble? Break up the parade?'

    'I'd break up the blacks, sir. Break 'em up good.'

    'That's a boy. You do the same here.'

    'Yes, sir. All right, you lot,' Officer Boyle yelled to the marchers in front of him, pulling out his nightstick, 'get off the streets, all of you.'

'Boyle!'
said Littlemore.

    'Sir?'

    'Not the blacks.'

    'But you said-'

    'You break up the troublemakers, not the marchers. Let cars through every two minutes. These people have a right to parade just like anybody else.'

    'Yes sir.'

    Littlemore returned to Younger and Colette. 'Okay, the tooth is a little strange,' he said. 'Why would someone leave you a tooth?'

    'I have no idea.'

    They continued downtown. Littlemore held the tooth up in the sunlight, rotated it. 'Clean. Good condition. Why?' He looked at the slip of paper again. 'The note doesn't have your name on it, Miss. Maybe it wasn't meant for you.'

    'The clerk said the girl asked for Miss Colette Rousseau,' replied Younger.

    'Could be somebody with a similar last name,' suggested Littlemore. 'The Commodore's a big hotel. Any dentists there?'

    'In the hotel?' said Colette.

    'How did you know we were at the Commodore?' asked Younger.

    'Hotel matches. You lit your cigarette with them.'

    'Those awful matches,' replied Colette. 'Luc is sure to be playing with them right now. Luc is my little brother. He's ten. Stratham gives him matches as toys.'

    'The boy took apart hand grenades in the war,' Younger said to Colette. 'He'll be fine.'

    'My oldest is ten - Jimmy Junior, we call him,' said Littlemore. 'Are your parents here too?'

    'No, we're by ourselves,' she answered. 'We lost our family in the war.'

    They were entering the Financial District, with its granite facades and dizzying towers. Curbside traders in three-piece suits auctioned securities outside in the September sun.

    'I'm sorry, Miss,' said Littlemore. 'About your family.'

    'It's nothing special,' she said. 'Many families were lost. My brother and I were lucky to survive.'

    Littlemore glanced at Younger, who felt the glance but didn't acknowledge it. Younger knew what Littlemore was wondering - how losing your family could be nothing special - but Littlemore hadn't seen the war. They walked on in silence, each pursuing his or her own reflections, as a result of which none of them heard the creature coming up from behind. Even Colette was unaware until she felt the hot breath on her neck. She recoiled and cried out in alarm.

    It was a horse, an old bay mare, snorting hard from the weight of a dilapidated, overloaded wooden cart she towed behind her. Colette, relieved and contrite, reached out and crumpled one of the horse's ears. The mare flapped her nostrils appreciatively. Her driver hissed, stinging the horse's flank with a crop. Colette yanked her hand away. The burlap- covered wagon clacked past them on the cobblestones of Nassau Street.

    'May I ask you a question?' asked Littlemore.

    'Of course,' said Colette.

    'Who in New York knows where you're staying?'

    'No one.'

    'What about the old lady you two visited this morning? The one with all the cats, who likes to hug people?'

    'Mrs Meloney?' said Colette. 'No, I didn't tell her which hotel-'

    'How could you possibly have known that?' interrupted Younger, adding to Colette: 'I never told him about Mrs Meloney.'

    They were approaching the intersection of Nassau, Broad, and Wall Streets - the financial center of New York City, arguably of the world.

    'Kind of obvious, actually,' said Littlemore. 'You both have cat fur on your shoes, and in your case, Doc, on your pant cuffs. Different kinds of cat fur. So right away I know you both went some place this morning with a lot of cats. But the Miss also has two long, gray hairs on her shoulder - human hair. So I'm figuring the cats belonged to an old lady, and you two paid a call on her this morning, and the lady must be the hugging kind, because that's how-'

    'All right, all right,' said Younger.

    In front of the Morgan Bank, the horse-drawn wagon came to a halt. The bells of Trinity Church began to boom, and the streets began to fill with thousands of office workers released from confinement for their precious hour of lunch.

    'Anyway,' Littlemore resumed, 'I'd say the strong odds are that Amelia was looking for somebody else, and the clerk mixed it up.'

    Horns began honking angrily behind the parked horse cart, the pilot of which had disappeared. On the steps of the Treasury, a redheaded woman stood alone, head wrapped in a kerchief, surveying the crowd with a keen but composed gaze.

    'Sounds like she might be in some trouble though,' Littlemore went on. 'Mind if I keep the tooth?'

    'Please,' said Colette.

    Littlemore dropped the cotton wad into his breast pocket. On Wall Street, behind the horse-drawn wagon, a stout cab driver exited his vehicle, arms upraised in righteous appeal.

    'Amazing,' said Younger, 'how nothing's changed here. Europe returned to the Dark Ages, but in America time went on holiday.'

    The bells of Trinity Church continued to peal. A hundred and fifty feet in front of Younger, the cab driver heard an odd noise coming from the burlap-covered wagon, and a cold light came to the eyes of the redheaded woman on the steps of the Treasury. She had seen Colette; she descended the stairs. People unconsciously made way for her.

    'I'd say the opposite,' replied Littlemore. 'Everything's different. The whole city's on edge.'

    'Why?' asked Colette.

    Younger no longer heard them. He was suddenly in France, not New York, trying to save the life of a one-armed soldier in a trench filled knee-high with freezing water, as the piercing, rising, fatal cry of incoming shells filled the air.

    'You know,' said Littlemore, 'no jobs, everybody's broke, people getting evicted, strikes, riots - then they throw in Prohibition.'

    Younger looked at Colette and Littlemore; they didn't hear the shriek of artillery. No one heard it.

    'Prohibition,' repeated Littlemore. 'That's got to be the worst thing anybody ever did to this country.'

    In front of the Morgan Bank, a curious taxi driver drew back one corner of moth-eaten burlap. The redheaded woman, who had just strode past him, stopped, puzzled. The pupils of her pale blue irises dilated as she looked back at the cab driver, who whispered, 'Lord have mercy.'

    'Down,' said Younger as he pulled an uncomprehending Littlemore and Colette to their knees.

    Wall Street exploded.

Chapter Two

    Younger, a man who had witnessed the bombardment at Chateau-Thierry, had never heard a detonation like it. It was literally deafening: immediately after the concussion, there was no sound in the world.

    A blue-black cloud of iron and smoke, ominous and pulsing, filled the plaza. Nothing else was visible. There was no way to know what had happened to the human beings within.

    From this heavy cloud burst an automobile - a taxicab. Not, however, on the street. The vehicle was airborne.

    Younger, from his knees, saw the cab shoot from the cloud of smoke like a shell from a howitzer - and freeze, impossibly, in midair. For a single instant, in perfect silence, the vehicle was suspended twenty feet above the earth, immobile. Then its flight resumed, but slowly now, impossibly slowly, as if the explosion had drained not only sound from the world but speed as well. Everything Younger saw, he saw moving at a fraction of its true velocity. Overhead, the taxi tumbled end over end, gently, silently, aimed directly at Younger, Littlemore, and Colette, growing increasingly huge as it came.

    Just then Littlemore and Colette were blown onto their backs by the concussive pressure from the blast. Only Younger, between them, who knew the burst of air pressure was coming and had braced himself for it, remained upright, watching the devastation unfold and the tumbling taxi descend upon them. Somewhere, as if from a distance, he heard Littlemore's voice yelling at him to get down, but Younger only cocked his head as the vehicle passed no more than a few inches above him. Behind him the taxi - without haste or sound - made a gentle landfall, skidding, flipping, embracing a metal lamppost, and bursting into flame.

    Next, shrapnel. Iron fragments tore slowly through the air, leaving turbulent currents visible behind them, as if underwater. Younger saw the metal projectiles, red hot, softly destroying push carts, rippling human bodies with infinite patience. Knowing such things cannot be seen by the human eye, he saw them all.

    The dark smoke cloud in the plaza was rising now, the color of thunder. It rose and rose, a hundred feet high, blooming and mushrooming as it ascended, blocking the sun. Fires burned inside it and at its edges.

    Beneath the smoke, the street reappeared. Engulfed in darkness, though it was noon. And snowing. How snowing? The month, Younger asked himself, what month again?

    Not snow: glass. Every window in every building was shattering up to twenty-five stories above, precipitating a snow shower of glass, in tiny bits and jagged shards. Falling softly on overturned cars. On little bundles of clay and flame, which had been men and women seconds before. On people still standing, whose clothing or hair was on fire, and on others, hundreds of others, struggling to get away, colliding, bleeding. Mouths open. Trying to scream, but mute. And barely moving: in the dream-like decelerated world that Younger saw, human motion was excruciating, as if shoes were glued to molten pavement.

    All at once, the dense burning cloud overhead blew apart like an enormous firework. Dust and debris still occluded the air, but the glass storm ended. Sound and movement returned to the world.

    As they got to their feet, Littlemore spat a broken toothpick out of his mouth, surveying the chaos. 'Can you help me, Doc?'

    Younger nodded. He turned to Colette, a question in his eyes. She nodded as well. To Littlemore, Younger said, 'Let's go.'

    The three thrust themselves into the stupefied crowd.

    At the heart of the carnage, bodies lay everywhere, this way and that, without order or logic. Gritty dust and bits of smoldering paper wafted everywhere. People were streaming and stumbling out from the buildings, coughing, badly burned. From every direction came screams, cries for help and a strange hissing - super-heated metal beginning to cool.

    'Jesus mother of Mary,' said Littlemore.

    Younger crouched beside what looked like a young woman kneeling in prayer; a pair of scissors lay beside her. Younger tried to speak with her but failed. Colette cried out: the woman had no head.

    Littlemore battled farther into the crowd, searching for something. Younger and Colette followed. Suddenly they came upon an open space, a vacant circle of pavement so hot that no one entered it. At their feet was a crater-like depression, fifteen feet in diameter, blackened, shiny, smoking, without crack or fissure. Part of a horse's torn-off cloven hoof was visible, its red-glowing shoe fused between two stones.

    Doctor and detective looked at one another. Colette gripped Younger's arm. A pair of wild eyes stared up at her from the pavement: it was the severed head of the decapitated woman, lying in a pool not of blood but of red hair.

    Far too many people were now packed into the plaza. Thousands were trying to flee, but thousands more were converging on Wall Street to see what had happened. Rumors of another explosion momentarily gripped a corner of the crowd on Nassau Street, causing a panic that trampled dead and wounded alike.

    Littlemore climbed onto an overturned motorcar at the corner of Wall and Broad. This gave him a good four or five feet above the crowd surrounding the vehicle. He called out, asking for attention. He said the words
police
and
captain
over and over. The strength and clarity of his voice surprised Younger, but it was to no avail.

    Littlemore fired his gun above his head. By the fifth shot, he had the crowd's attention. To Younger's eyes, the people looked more frightened than anything else. 'Listen to me,' shouted Littlemore after identifying himself once again, his voice reassuring in the midst of havoc. 'It's all over now. Do you hear me? It's all over. There's nothing to be afraid of. If you or someone you're with needs a doctor, stay put. I've got a doctor with me. We'll get you taken care of. Now, I want all the policemen here to come forward.'

    There was no response.

    Under his breath, Littlemore berated Captain Hamilton for ordering his officers on parade duty. 'All right,' he said out loud, 'what about soldiers? Any veterans here?'

    'I served, Captain,' a youngster piped out.

    'Good lad,' said Littlemore. 'Anybody else? If you served in the war, step forward.'

    On all sides of Littlemore, the crowd rippled as men came forward.

    'Give 'em room - step back if you didn't serve,' shouted Littlemore, atop his car. Then he added quietly, 'Well, I'll be.'

    More than four hundred veterans were mustering to attention.

    Littlemore called out to Younger: 'Could you use some men, Doc?'

    'Twenty,' returned Younger. 'Thirty if you can spare them.'

    Littlemore, commanding his companies, quickly restored order. He cleared the plaza and secured the perimeter, forming a wall of men with instructions to let people out but no gawkers in. Within minutes fire trucks and wagons from the Water Department began to arrive. Littlemore cleared a path for them. Flames were shooting out of windows fourteen stories overhead.

    Next came the ambulances and police divisions - fifteen hundred officers in all. Littlemore stationed men at the entrances of every building. From an alleyway next to the Treasury Building, too narrow for the fire trucks, dark smoke poured out, together with the smell of burning wood and something fouler. Littlemore fought his way in, past a blown-out wrought-iron gate, ignoring the shouts of the firemen, looking for survivors. He didn't find any. Instead, in the thick smoke, he saw a great fiery mound of crackling wood. Everything metal pulsed scarlet: the iron gate, ripped from its hinges; a manhole cover; and the copper badge pinned to a corpse lying among the burning timber.

    The corpse was a man's. Its right side was utterly unharmed. Its left was charred black, skinless, eyeless, smoldering.

    Littlemore looked at the half-man's half-face. The one good eye and half a mouth were peaceful; they reminded him unaccountably of himself. The man's glowing badge indicated that he had been a Treasury officer. Something glinted and steamed in his incinerated hand: it was an ingot of gold, clutched by blackened and smoking fingers.

    Younger used his squadron to take charge of the casualties, dead and alive. The walls of the Morgan Bank became his morgue. Younger had to tell the ex-soldiers not to pile the dead in a shapeless heap, but to line them up in even rows, dozen after dozen.

    With supplies from a local pharmacy, Colette threw together a temporary dressing station and surgery inside Trinity Church. Shirtsleeves rolled, Younger did what he could, assisted both by Colette and a volunteer Red Cross nurse. He cleaned and stitched; set a bone or two; extracted metal - from one man's thigh, another's stomach.

    'Look,' Colette said to Younger at one point, while helping him operate on a man whose bleeding the nurse had not been able to stop. She was referring to an indistinct motion beneath Younger's operating table. 'He's hurt.'

    Younger glanced down. A bedraggled terrier, with a little gray beard, was wandering at their feet.

    'Tell him to wait his turn like anybody else,' said Younger.

    When Colette's silence became conspicuous, Younger looked up from his work: she was dressing the terrier's foreleg.

    'What are you doing?' he asked.

    Several hundred people sat or lay on the pews of Trinity Church, with blackened faces or bleeding limbs, waiting for an ambulance or medical attention. 'It will only take a minute,' said Colette.

    It took five.

    'There,' she said, turning the terrier loose. 'All done.'

    In mid-afternoon, Littlemore sat at a long table erected in the middle of the plaza, the air still thick with dust and smoke, taking statements from eyewitnesses. Two of his uniformed officers - Stankiewicz and Roederheusen - interrupted him. 'Hey, Cap,' said the former, 'they won't let us into the Treasury.'

    Littlemore had instructed his men to inspect the surrounding buildings for people too injured or too dead to get out. 'Who won't?' asked Littlemore.

    'Army, sir,' answered Roederheusen, pointing to the Treasury Building, on the steps of which some two hundred armed United States infantrymen had taken up positions. Another company was advancing from the south with fixed bayonets, boots trooping rhythmically on the pavement of Wall Street.

    The detective whistled. 'Where'd they come from?'

    'Can they order us around, Cap?' asked Stankiewicz, demonstrating a grievance by tipping back the shiny visor of his cap and sticking his chin out.

    'Stanky got in a fight, sir,' said Roederheusen.

    'It wasn't my fault,' protested Stankiewicz. 'I told the colonel we had to inspect the buildings, and he says, "Step back, civilian," so I says, "Who you calling civilian - I'm NYPD," and he says, "I said step back, civilian, or I'll make you step back," and then this soldier pokes his bayonet right in my chest, so I go for my gun-'

    'You did not,' said Littlemore. 'Tell me you didn't draw on a colonel in the United States army.'

    'I didn't draw, Cap. I just kinda showed 'em the heater - pulled back my jacket, like you taught us to. Next thing I know, a half-dozen of them are all around me with their bayonets.'

    'What happened?' asked Littlemore.

    'They made Stanky get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, sir,' said Roederheusen. 'They took his gun.'

    'For Pete's sake, Stanky,' said Littlemore. 'How about you, Lederhosen? They take your gun too?'

    'It's Roederheusen, sir,' said Roederheusen.

    'They took his too,' said Stankiewicz.

    'And I didn't even do anything,' said Roederheusen.

    Littlemore shook his head. He handed them a stack of blank index cards. 'I'll get your guns back later. Meantime here's what you do. We need a casualty list. I want a separate card for every person. Get names, ages, occupations, addresses, whatever you-'

    'Littlemore?' shouted a man's authoritative voice from across the street. 'Come over here, Captain. I need to speak with you.'

    The voice belonged to Richard Enright, Commissioner of the New York Police Department. Littlemore trotted across the street, joining a group of four older gentlemen on the sidewalk.

    'Captain Littlemore, you know the Mayor, of course,' said Commissioner Enright, introducing Littlemore to John F. Hylan, Mayor of New York City. Hylan's straggly, oily hair was parted in the middle; his small eyes bespoke considerable distress but no great intellectual ability. The Commissioner presented Littlemore to the other two men as well: 'This is Mr McAdoo, who will be reporting to President Wilson in Washington, and this is Mr Lamont, of J. P. Morgan and Company. Are you sure you're all right, Lamont?'

    'The window shattered right in front of us,' answered that gentleman, a diminutive well-dressed man with a nasty cut on one arm and a staggered, uncomprehending expression on his otherwise bland face. 'We might have been killed. How could this happen?'

    'What
did
happen?' Mayor Hylan asked Littlemore.