The Death Instinct (34 page)

    'Do you know everything I say to Mr Houston?' asked Littlemore.

    'Pretty much. Walls have ears in this town, Littlemore. Got to know what the other guy knows if you want to stay ahead of him.'

    'We're not sure the Swedish ship has the stolen gold,' said Littlemore.

    'And Houston ain't going to lift a finger to find out, is he? Well, I am. I already talked to Baker, the Secretary of War. He'll speak with his old friend Daniels, the Navy Secretary. I'll have a couple of warships on that Swedish ocean liner within forty-eight hours. We'll know soon enough what she's carrying.'

    Littlemore chewed his toothpick. 'That's impressive, Mr Senator.'

    'We're the United goddamn States of America. What are we supposed to do after they bomb the crap out of us? Wring our hands? Turn the other cheek? Hope they just go away?' Fall signaled his driver and spat on the pavement, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. 'This damn Mexican situation's heating up. They're too greedy, these Mexicans. What do they want to take all our oil for? It's going to take some serious ambassadoring to keep Harding out of trouble.'

    'What will Harding want to do, sir?'

    'Whatever I tell him. 'The Senator stepped into his car. 'I'll let you know what we find on the Swede. Mrs Cross will give you a lift back. You should get to know her. Not as tough as she pretends.'

    'How long you been working for Senator Fall?' Littlemore asked Mrs Cross as she drove past row after row of the bunker-like, concrete, 'temporary' War and Navy buildings squatting on the Mall - temporary by official description, permanent by appearance.

    'A few years. I work for several of the senators. Mr Harding, for example.'

    'For Harding? Wow.'

    'I do quite a lot for Mr Harding. On loan from Senator Fall, of course.'

    'You could end up in the White House.'

    'I've ended up in the White House many times.'

    Littlemore thought that over. 'You got a first name, Mrs Cross?'

    'Grace.'

    'Nice name.'

    'It's a state I left long ago. Everyone leaves their home state when they come to Washington. Here we are. The Willard Hotel. Good night, New York.'

    The next morning, Littlemore received a telephone call in his closet- sized office at the United States Treasury. The operator informed him that New York City was calling. It turned out to be Officer Stankiewicz from police headquarters.

    'What is it, Stanky?' said Littlemore.

    'It's Fischer, Cap,' said Stankiewicz. 'He keeps calling and calling and sending wires for you. Says you're supposed to be getting him out of the sanitarium.'

    'Oh, for the love of Pete,' replied Littlemore.

    'He says you were going to talk with his brother-in-law - a guy named, what was it, Bishop or something? Anything you want me to do?'

    'Just ignore him. He'll stop.'

    'Okay. How's Washington?'

    'Wait a second,' said Littlemore. '"Bishop or something"? Did the name sound like Bishop, or did it remind you of Bishop?'

    'Yeah, Bishop or something.'

    'No, I'm asking you if - do me a favor. Go get Fischer's file. I'll hold.'

    A few minutes later, Stankiewicz was back on the line: 'Got it.'

    'Okay, find me the name of Fischer's brother-in-law,' said Littlemore. 'He's the guy who went to Canada and had Fischer locked up as a lunatic. His name should be on the Canadian papers.'

    'Okay, here it is: Pope. Robert Pope. That's why I thought Bishop.'

    'How do you like that?' said Littlemore. 'The Popes.'

    The Treasury's personnel department was located on the second floor. Littlemore was already familiar with it; he had been poring over personnel files for three weeks. 'Say, Molly,' he asked one of the girls in that office, 'is Treasury in charge of the Secret Service?'

    'Sure is,' said Molly. 'Why?'

    'A guy said that to me a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't believe him,' replied Littlemore. 'Seems he was right about a lot of things.'

    A few minutes later, Littlemore was upstairs in a filing room flipping through decades of United States Secret Service employment records. He knew in advance he would eventually find the name he was looking for, improbable though it was. And he did.

    The folder was virtually empty, containing only a bare indication of the year of hiring and the location of service. The year was 1916, the place New York City. After that, a few more dates were penciled in, terminating in late 1917.

    Littlemore dropped the manila folder on Secretary Houston's desk. 'It might have helped, sir,' said Littlemore, 'if you'd mentioned to me that the one man trying to warn people about the bombing was an employee of ours.'

    Houston reacted with astonishment.

    'You didn't know Ed Fischer was an agent?' asked Littlemore.

    'I had no idea. I told you - I only became Secretary in February of this year.'

    'How does somebody get to be an agent?'

    'The Director of the Secret Service makes those hires.'

    'Who's the director?'

    'Bill Moran.'

    'Can I talk to him?'

    Houston called for his secretary and ordered him to find Mr Moran. In the ensuing silence, Houston stood at a window, hands crossed behind his back, surveying the White House grounds. 'I won't miss this job, Littlemore. How am I supposed to balance an eight-billion-dollar budget with revenues of four billion? We live beyond our means. Neither a borrower nor a lender be - that's what my father told me. Now that's all I do - borrow and lend.'

    'You're not going to miss being a Cabinet member? You're on top of the world, Mr Houston.'

    'What, because I hosted a dinner for the British Ambassador last night? My wife likes that sort of thing. I can't stand it. Every word out of one's mouth a lie. Well, it will all be over in five months, when Harding takes office. I may resign sooner. Go abroad. Yes, I think I might.'

    Houston's secretary came back in with William Moran, head of the United States Secret Service. Mr Moran positively denied having hired Edwin Fischer. 'There - you see,' said Moran, looking at the file. 'Fischer was hired in 1916. I didn't take over until the next year.'

    'Who was the director before you?' asked Houston.

    'Flynn was.'

    'Flynn?' repeated Littlemore. 'Not Big Bill Flynn?'

    'Sure,' said Moran. 'Before he became Chief of the Bureau, Bill Flynn was head of the Secret Service.'

    On November 2, 1920, having run full tilt through the vast, echoing Union Station to make his train, Littlemore settled into his seat, breathing hard, and realized that it was Election Day. He further realized that he wouldn't be voting. His train would arrive in Manhattan well after the polls had closed. The thought caused him a surprisingly sharp pang of disappointment.

    As the train passed one small town after another, Littlemore felt an inexplicable sympathy: with the small frame houses, with the smoke rising from their chimneys, with the little piles of firewood stacked outside, residue of a man's labor - sympathy with all the quiet, hard, uncounted lives of which no stories would ever be written. Then Littlemore imagined the citizenry in each of these towns lining up to vote for their country's leaders. It filled him with pride - and with a sense of estrangement at missing it for the first time. But then Littlemore was not even certain he was entitled to vote. Technically he might now be a resident of the District of Columbia, and Washingtonians did not vote for the nation's president.

    Not that his vote mattered. That was the oddity of democracy: nothing mattered more than voting, and voting didn't matter. In any event, Warren Harding, the Republican, was certain to win; the Democratic candidate, James Cox, had about as much chance as Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate, who was still in prison. Which meant that Secretary Houston, a Democrat, would not be a secretary much longer, while the Republican Senator Fall would soon be Secretary of State.

    Women all across America celebrated on that November Tuesday, when for the first time they exercised the national suffrage. At many polling booths, men stepped aside to make way for the womenfolk as an act of courtesy, but the women wouldn't have it, insisting on taking their place in line and waiting as long as the men had to. Back home in their kitchens and parlors, they gathered in little groups, treating themselves to sparkling cider, a lawful substitute for prohibited champagne.

    Blacks were not received quite so chivalrously at the polls; nor did the revelry subsequent to their voting have the same genteel character. When, for example, two black men had the temerity to exercise their suffrage in Ocoee, Florida, the Ku Klux Klan decided to set an example. Two black churches were sacked, a black neighborhood was burned to the ground, and some thirty or sixty black people were killed, one of them strung up a telephone pole and hanged by the neck.

    But the country elected itself a new president, and there was great festivity and a galvanization of energies throughout the land.

    Back in New York, the next day, Littlemore paid another visit to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's temporary field offices at the Astor Hotel.

    'Look what the cat drug in,' said Bill Flynn, Chief of the Bureau. 'It's Littleboy.'

    'I need to ask you some questions, Flynn. About Ed Fischer.'

    Flynn addressed the two large, dark-suited men who, as always, stood on either side of his desk. 'A New York cop wants to ask
me
questions? Is this jerk-off looking to get his head busted in?'

    'Hey jerk-off,' inquired one of Flynn’s deputies, 'are you looking to get your head busted in?'

    Littlemore displayed his United States Treasury badge.

    'Let me see that,' said Flynn. He inspected the badge. 'World's going down the toilet, that's all I got to say.' He threw the badge onto the floor at Littlemore's feet. 'Too bad I don't answer to T-men.'

    'You'll answer to me, Flynn.' Littlemore handed him a letter, signed by Secretary David Houston of the United States Treasury, instructing Flynn to respond fully to any questions Special Agent Littlemore might ask concerning Flynn s tenure as Director of the Secret Service. Flynn read the letter, then let it too fall to the floor.

    'I got news for you, hotshot,' he said. 'I don't take orders from Secretary Houston either. I take my orders from General Palmer. Get out of here.'

    Littlemore took another letter from his pocket. This one was signed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

    'Son of a bitch,' said Flynn. He spoke to his deputies again: 'Okay, you boys clear out.'

    'Have one of them pick up my badge first,' replied Littlemore.

    'What are you goons standing around for?' Flynn said to his deputies. 'Pick up the man's badge.'

    'Okay, so I hired him,' Flynn acknowledged several minutes later. 'So what? The guy was a nut-ball.'

    'How'd you meet him?'

    Big Bill Flynn, whose barrel chest and gut didn't need any additional fortification, unwrapped a red-and-white-striped candy from the bowl of treats that sat on his desk. 'Fischer starts sending letters to Wilson in 1916, okay? Your usual anti-war garbage. But there's something funny about them, like he knew the President personally. So I send a couple of my boys to check him out and tell him to knock it off if he doesn't want to end up in jail. You know.'

    'Sure.'

    'So my boys tell me the guy is soft in the head, but he works for the French in one of their outfits.'

    'The French High Mission.'

    'That's it - leave it to the Frogs to hire a nut-ball, huh?' Flynn's torso heaved with mirth at his riposte.

    'Only a moron would hire a nut-ball,' agreed Littlemore.

    'Yeah, that's a good one, only a moron would-' Flynn interrupted himself, comprehension dawning. 'Why, I ought to-'

    'How'd you get involved?'

    Flynn grumbled, but continued: 'When I heard where Fischer worked, I figured it couldn't hurt to have somebody planted in French governmentary circles. So I played the guy, buttered him up, told him he could be an agent for the Secret Service. Told him he was a spy. You know, the whole drill. When I took over the Bureau, I kept him on the string. But the guy was cracked. I never got anything from him. Saw him no more than half a dozen times. Total waste.'

    'Where would you meet him?' asked Littlemore.

    'Why?'

    'Just answer the question, Flynn.'

    'Here in New York. Train station.'

    'When was the last time?'

    'This summer. June or July. After the Convention. General Palmer sent McAdoo to meet with some Republicans at Grand Central to see if they could work something out. Fischer was totally off the deep end. Never saw him again.'