The Titanic Plan (41 page)

Archie didn’t say anything. The living room
did
look great.

It took Archie two more days to regain his strength. Henry continued to wait on him hand and foot. In a way, he became to Archie what Archie was to the President – an ever-present, dependable Man Friday who was always anticipating every need before the need even occurred. Archie began to grow attached even as he was suspicious of the baby-faced youngster who pushed his way into Archie’s life.

“
Henry,” Archie said over breakfast. “What do you plan to do now? You can’t stay here indefinitely.”

“
Why not?” Henry replied, scooping a healthy serving of eggs and bacon onto Archie’s plate.

“
Well, that wouldn’t be practical. Don’t you have parents?

“
No, sir, I don’t got none of those things.”

“
Relatives? A home?”

“
I was left at the orphanage when I was a baby and ran away when they started beatin’ me.”

“
How long ago was that?”

“
I was eleven, so that woulda been four years ago.”

“
And where have you lived since?”

“
Streets. Alleys. Subway stations,” Henry shrugged.

Archie couldn’t quite believe that Henry would answer in such a nonchalant way. “How did you eat?”

“
Thievin’ mostly. Took food from markets and pushcarts. And I pickpocketed too. I’m a champeen pickpocketer. That’s how I met Mick. I tried liftin’ his wallet and damn if he didn’t grab my hand when it was in his pocket. I don’t know how he felt it, no one ever does. So’s he turns around and snatches my arm and sez real fierce, ‘What the hell ya doin, kid?’ and I thought he was gonna hit me so I started bawlin’ and tell him I’m hungry and instead of givin’ me a smack he takes me to his place and gives me a whole chicken to chow on and sez he wants to make me his assistant and I sez ‘Why?’ and he sez, ‘cause you’re sneaky and clever and I need a sneaky and clever assistant.’ Now I don’t trust him one bit ‘cause I’m familiar with perverts on the street, but he kept on bein’ nice to me and I figured, well, I’ll stay as long as he keeps feedin’ me. And he kept feedin’ me…” Henry stopped and sniffed back a tear. “He jus’ kept on feedin’ me and I jus’ never left.”

Archie reached out and touched the boy’s shoulder in a tender, paternal gesture. “Thank you, Captain. You knew Mick. You understand.”

“
I’m not sure I understand everything. The last time I saw you, you were in jail for Mick’s murder. You told me you had nothing to do with it. Did they let you out?”

“
Not exactly…” Henry hemmed, then told Archie about his ordeal in
Sing Sing
. Archie listened somberly and it quickly became apparent that the boy was a criminal fugitive. “You must turn yourself in,” Archie stated after Henry finished.

“
Are you outta your mind?!” Henry howled.

“
No. I will help you get a good lawyer. America has a fair system. If what you tell me is true, you will find justice.”

“
The same way Mick found justice?” Henry said sharply. The words hit Archie like a slap across the face. “Well, Captain,” Henry pressed. “
Did
he find justice?”

Archie looked away. “Alright Henry, you can stay here for a while. Until we figure out a better solution.”

CHAPTER 44

I
n Lawrence, Massachusetts, the mill worker’s strike was taking on the grim routine of entrenched warfare. To Big Bill Haywood, the Lawrence strike represented the archetypal struggle of the working class. The mill strikers were a collection of immigrant groups that embodied Haywood’s vision of an egalitarian army that could fight the elite ruling class. For Haywood, the ballot box was too slow a means of revolution. Here, in Lawrence, his philosophy of direct action was being played out on a grand scale. Haywood was as inspired by the strikers as they were by his presence. To keep their spirits up in the second hard month of the walkout, the strikers started singing. There was song everywhere – on the picket lines, in the streets, in the homes, in the union meetings. One reporter wrote, “The tired, gray crowds ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills had waked and opened their mouths to sing.”

Despite the spirit of solidarity among the now 23,000 mill workers on strike, there was no movement on either side. Haywood was looking for a new tactic to shake things up. The spark came from a group of Italian Socialists. They told Haywood that strikers in Europe would often send their children to relatives and friends in other cities to protect them from the harsh and often violent strike environment. For Haywood, the idea was ingenious, not only for its practicality, but for propaganda benefits.

On February 11, 1912, 119 children, ages 4 to 14, were taken on a train to New York City. A cheering crowd of 5,000 met them at Grand Central Station. Doctors examined the children and declared that they suffered from malnutrition. Pictures of the children going into exile were run in newspapers and magazines from coast to coast. Thousands of people across the country were wiring Haywood to take in the children. The sympathetic publicity that was generated was more than Haywood ever dreamed of.

Fighting back, the mill owners threatened to have the parents of the children refugees arrested for child neglect. To prevent parents from sending any more children away, the state militia encircled the Lawrence train depot. On February 24th, Haywood countered by having a group of Quakers escort 200 children from Lawrence to their new, temporary homes. The Quakers, parents and children arrived at the station that was now in complete military lockdown. As the children and mothers approached the trains, amid teary farewells and long embraces, the police attacked. A Quaker woman later testified to Congress, “The police closed in on us with their clubs, beating right and left with no thought of the children, who were then in desperate danger of being trampled to death. The mothers and children were thus hurled into a mass and dragged into a military truck and even then, clubbed, irrespective of the cries of the panic stricken children.”

Though there were no deaths, the attack horrified the nation. Respectable citizens from all walks of life denounced the “brutally repressive police action.” Congress voted to hold immediate hearings.

Just as the hearings were getting underway in Washington D.C., the mill owners, recognizing that they had been outmaneuvered by Bill Haywood, opened negotiations. A 5 percent wage increase was offered. Now empowered, the strikers rejected it. It took ten more days of hard bargaining, but an agreement was finally hammered out, with workers getting up to a 25 percent wage increase. It was a triumph for the strikers. After a ratification vote was taken at the Lawrence Common, several strikers climbed onto the bandstand and handed Haywood a bouquet of roses. The entire auditorium, thousands of working men and women, spontaneously broke into singing
The Internationale
:

Arise, you prisoners of starvation!

Arise, you wretched of the earth!

For justice thunders condemnation:

A better world’s in birth

Tears filled Bill Haywood’s eyes. It seemed to him that the spark had been lit. His revolution was finally at hand and ready to burst into flame. And he held the torch.

CHAPTER 45

T
he area just east of the President’s office, which would one day become the Rose Garden, was, in 1912, where the White House laundry was hung to dry. Walking down the West Colonnade to the Oval Office, Archie was heartened by the wet clothes flapping on the laundry lines – it sounded like applause welcoming him back to work.

“
Hello, Major. We missed you,” Charles Hilles, Taft’s secretary said when Archie stepped into his office. “How are you feeling?”

“
About as good as a man could feel who’s been on a week-long furlough in Hell. Is the President in?”

“
He is, but he’s in a meeting,” Hilles said. “Why don’t you go relax and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

The waiting room was just across the hall from the Oval Office. It was a dark chamber, painted in deep blue with red leather chairs pushed against the walls. Archie settled in a plush chair and lit a cigarette. He hadn’t had one during the entire time he was sick. He drew the smoke in slowly, expecting the calming moment that always accompanies the first drag. But the tobacco tasted strange. Bitter. He snuffed it out then leaned back to relax. He noticed the paint along the ceiling molding was starting to peel. The room’s clock ticked loudly. Then a peculiar sensation came over him – an electric chill that started at the base of his spine and spread through his entire body. He grew disconcerted. Archie was not a particularly religious man and premonitions were not in his realm of reality. Yet, having spent many evenings in society drawing rooms listening to discussions of “messages from beyond,” he knew that what he was experiencing carried all the characteristics of the supernatural.

Then, just as suddenly as it came, the icy shiver left. Archie tried to rationalize it. Perhaps it had something to do with his illness, a lingering sensitivity. Nothing more. Still, that didn’t explain the deep emotion that accompanied the physical sensation. And while the jolt of the premonition had left, a strong, unexplainable feeling of dread continued to persist in its afterglow. Though he was a natural skeptic, a thought crept into Archie’s head that he was being sent some sort of supernatural message. Maybe the spirit of a long departed President was paying a visit to the waiting room. Rumors of Presidential ghosts walking the old halls abounded with the White House staff. Or perhaps it was Mick signaling from across the valley of death.

“
Major Butt!” a voice interrupted his reverie. Archie turned his head, expecting to see the large, genial figure of President Taft beckoning him into the Oval Office. Instead, there was a scrawny little man standing in the doorway. “Finch,” Archie said, and then stood up. “You’ll excuse me, but I have a meeting with the President.” Archie tried to brush past Finch.

“
No,” Finch said firmly, grabbing Archie’s arm. “You have a meeting with me first.”

“
Let go of me, sir!”

“
I just got out of
my
meeting with the President,” Finch said. “I’m going to be briefing him every week. We’ve decided it’s important for the security of our nation.”

“
Thank you for the information. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go and offer my advice to the President.”

Archie took a step away when Finch called after him. “You’ve been harboring a federal fugitive, Major. You must turn him in.”

Archie stopped and turned back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
Of course you do.”

“
Mr. Finch, I am a bachelor who lives alone. I often have guests in my home. Perhaps your spies have mistaken one of my guests as a fugitive.”

“
No, our information is not mistaken. We know the boy is there. You’re committing a crime. And if you don’t rectify it, well, let’s just say, it will be rectified for you.”

“
You can’t blackmail me, Finch.”

“
Listen, Archie,” Finch said, changing to a friendly tone. “The boy is a conniving, lying murderer who opened a gas line and blew your dear friend to bloody bits.”

“
Do you have a shred of evidence that would make me believe you?”

“
How about a signed confession?” Finch smugly said, then snatched a single sheet of paper from his coat pocket and handed it to Archie. The typewritten confession began “I, Henry Kosinski do knowingly and truthfully confess to having committed the murder of Michael Shaughnessy…” The details of the confession filled the densely packed page and ended with a shaky, child-like scrawl at the bottom:
Henry Kosinski
.

“
The United States government does not send its citizens to Sing Sing without a justifiable reason. I’m holding you responsible for returning the boy to federal custody,” Finch said, then whirled and strutted away.

“
Don’t you want the confession?” Archie waved the paper after Finch.