The Titanic Plan (47 page)

“
What’s that?” Archie asked, pointing to a small group of people who were standing near the ruins of a large brick platform.

“
Ah, yes. That is the Rosta. It is where the great orators would give magnificent speeches to the citizens of Rome.” The gathering – no more than 20 men and women – were listening to a disheveled old man in a stained toga.

“
What’s going on?” Archie asked.

“
Ignore it,” Alberto sniffed. “He’s just a bum trying to get the tourists to give him money.”

The old man raised his voice; his words boomed through the mist.

“
This old man recites famous Roman speeches and thinks tourists will be interested. But he has such a bad accent, no one understands what he says.”

Despite his accent, the man’s speaking style was mesmerizing. Everything was done with a grand, magnificent flair. He waved his arms, shouted his words, twisted his face, pounded his fists.

“
I want to hear him,” Archie said.

“
No you don’t,” Alberto quickly replied.

“
Yes, I do,” Archie snapped back. “I don’t need to hear about murder and blood anymore. I want something that will inspire me, not disgust me.” He made his way across a pathway to the back edge of the crowd. Henry followed, then Alberto.

“
Look at his toga,” Alberto muttered disdainfully, pointing to the toga’s bottom edge, which was dirty and frayed. “No respectable Roman would ever wear a toga like that.”

The old man suddenly picked out Archie and broke into fractured English, “You travel far to hear Rome’s great words.”

“
Yes,” Archie answered, looking into the man’s wrinkled face. “How did you know?”

“
Because only tourists would listen to him,” Alberto whispered, standing directly behind Archie.

The man just grinned, revealing a mouth of black, decaying teeth. “I speak English. Okay? What you want to hear? 500 lira, you get speech of Mark Anthony.”

“
Time for lunch,” Alberto whispered to Archie.

“
What else?” Archie called to the old man.

“
Let’s see, let’s see…in English…” the man clasped his head between his hands and rubbed his temples, trying to coax his brain into action. “Hannibal to his soldiers. Powerful, powerful words.”

“
No,” Archie said. “What else?”

The old man squinted hard. “Oh, a good one! How about Cicero revealing the conspiracy against the Republic?”

The name “Cicero” stuck something in Archie. Someone, somewhere had mentioned Cicero. Archie struggled to remember. “What’s the speech about?” Archie asked Alberto.

“
Cicero uncovered a plot to destroy the Republic and told it to the people of Rome,” Alberto answered, showing off his tour guide knowledge.

It was Mick, Archie remembered, the last night they were together. Mick had mentioned Cicero, but Archie couldn’t remember how or why. “Yes. That one,” Archie shouted to the old man.

“
Difficult. 750 lira,” the old man bargained.

“
Fine. 750. Cicero,” Archie agreed.

The old man closed his eyes and lowered his head as if to commune with the spirits of great Roman orators past. After a moment he snapped his head up and bellowed: “When, O Catilina, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?”

For all his showy eloquence, the old man hadn’t really grasped English. The speech came out a jumble of heavily accented words that hardly made sense. “What’s he saying?” Archie asked Alberto.

“
Cicero, he say that there is a conspiracy in the land,” Alberto explained. “He say that unless Catilina and the other conspirators are caught and punished, the Republic will be in mortal danger of destruction.”

“
Catilina?” Archie asked, remembering Mick had mentioned that name as well.

“
Si.
You know Catilina?”

Before Archie could answer, the old man thundered, “O ye immortal Gods, where on earth are we? In what city are we living? What constitution is ours? They are here, here among us, men who meditate my death, and the death of all of us, and the destruction of this city, and of the whole world.”

“
Did this stop them?” Archie asked Alberto.

“
What stopped who?”

“
This speech. Did Cicero’s speech stop the conspirators?”

“
For a while. Catilina was executed. But a few years later Julius Caesar comes along and declares himself emperor and poof, the Republic goes up in smoke anyway. Cicero is assassinated and his head is stuck on a pole. Right there,” Alberto pointed to the far side of the platform. “Right on the Rosta, where he delivered this speech. And they pull out his tongue and defile it with a dagger –
una bella linguetta
, the most wonderful tongue in all the history of Rome. You see, even when there is something to inspire you about Rome, it all comes back to blood. Fountains of blood.”

For the rest of the tour, through the
Circus Maximus
and down into the Christian catacombs, Archie couldn’t stop thinking of the old man delivering Cicero’s speech. Coincidence, Archie wondered, or was it something else? So that evening, Archie returned to the Roman Forum by himself. The fog had thickened. The once great center of civilization was unguarded and empty. The Rosta looked different in the murky darkness. Without the old man’s grand oratory, it seemed small. Inconsequential. Just a decrepit platform that traveled the eons, deaf and dumb to the greatness that strode atop it. Archie sat on an iron bench and stared at the old stones. He closed his eyes and imagined himself sitting in that exact spot almost 2000 years earlier, during the reign of Caesar. In his mind’s eye, the fog disappeared. He felt sunlight on his skin and imagined the sounds of a bustling city around him. Children were playing. Horses clomped over the stone streets, pulling wagons and chariots. Lovers strolled holding hands. Merchants shouted from shop stalls. This spot bustled with life. All roads
did
lead to Rome. “What do you want me to do, Mick?” Archie asked aloud, as if he could bridge the valley of death.

A loud bump, more like a metallic
click
, snapped Archie out of his fantasy. He opened his eyes. The streets of Imperial Rome vanished. The multitudes disappeared. There was only stillness. Darkness. But then, behind him, came what sounded like footsteps crunching over pebbles. Archie whipped his head around and caught sight of something big, though he wasn’t sure what, moving quickly through the fog and gone in a split second. Too large for a cat, it was more like a bear – a massive beast – skulking away. Archie opened his ears, straining to listen for any other sound. There was nothing. He sat quietly on the bench for over an hour, waiting – for a sign, a message, an answer – while a layer of dew built up on his shoulders.

CHAPTER 51

T
he next morning a telegram was slipped under Archie’s door. He rolled out of bed to pick it up. It was from Morgan and typically direct: “
AT GRAND HOTEL PLAZA STOP YOU HAVE SOMETHING FOR ME STOP PLEASE DELIVER TODAY
.
”

Archie had almost forgotten his promise to play delivery boy for Belle. He went to his steamer trunk and burrowed through several layers of clothes as if mining for buried treasure. When he dug the chest out and examined it closely, the burnished bronze box did indeed seem like a treasure chest. It was exquisitely crafted, inlaid with pearls and cut stones in an intricate Oriental mosaic. The small gold padlock that clipped the box shut seemed to be an exquisite antique as well. On an impulse, Archie tugged at the lock. It may have been old, but it held tight.

That afternoon Archie took a taxi along the Via Del Corso. The
Grand Hotel Plaza
loomed over the bustling district like a medieval citadel built exclusively for the lords of the land. Archie entered the imposing building through a revolving door. The lobby dripped of old world elegance – a plush wonderland of red velvet chairs, ornate crystal chandeliers, stained glass skylights, grand sweeping stairways and several striking sculpted marble lions. Guests serenely sauntered about in their elegant suits and jeweled dresses. “
Buon giorno,
” Archie said to the slick haired clerk behind the front desk, “I would like you to ring Mr. Morgan’s suite.”

“
And what might be the reason for me to do so?” the clerk sniffed with an affected attitude.

“
I am Major Archibald Butt. Mr. Morgan is expecting me.”

“
You are a military man? You do not wear a uniform.”

“
I am the Chief Military Aide to the President of the United States.”

“
You are associated with the American President?”

“
That is correct,” Archie said.

“
I would have never guessed that,” the clerk replied. “I will see if he is in.” The clerk walked into the switchboard room behind the desk. After a minute, he returned shaking his head. “Mr. Morgan is not in. So sorry. Was that to be left for him?” The clerk pointed to the chest Archie was holding under his arm.

“
I’ll wait for him in the bar. Please inform him when he returns.”

The hotel bar appeared to be empty. It was siesta time, mid-afternoon when most everything shuts down. Archie searched for the bartender and finally found him hunched near the end of the curved bar, puffing a cigarette. “Excuse me,” Archie waved. “I would like a
caffe
.” The bartender grunted then carefully balanced his cigarette on the bar’s edge and went to the espresso machine. Archie sat on a barstool and surveyed the room – it was as elegant as the rest of the hotel, with mahogany-paneled walls, gold-leaf cornices, tapestry wall hangings, and private booths. Over the steaming hiss of the espresso machine, Archie thought he heard voices. But the bar was empty. When the bartender turned the machine off, the voices became clearer. They were coming from a private booth in the far corner of the room. It sounded like English. The booth’s curtain was drawn, but not completely closed. Curious, Archie angled himself so he could peer through a slit. He caught sight of a sliver of a face. From what he saw – a hint of white hair, a red, mottled cheek – he guessed it to be an older man. There seemed to be a commotion inside the booth. The curtain rustled and whipped open for a flash, providing a tantalizing peek but nothing more. Archie glimpsed another fragment of the man’s face – a crimson lump of irregular flesh, a mound of flaming boils and purple veins. There was only one person in the world that owned such unfortunate facial features: J. Pierpont Morgan. As hard as he tried, Archie couldn’t angle himself to see who else was in the booth. He pondered whether he should just go up to the booth and announce himself. Morgan did summon him to the hotel, after all. He took a step in that direction when the voices behind the curtain rose, heated and angry. There was shuffling, then the curtain slipped open. Morgan slid out first. He looked sour, as if he had a bad case of indigestion. He was followed by a massive man who towered over Morgan. The man’s face was also grim and didn’t hide his disdain. If Archie didn’t see it for himself, he never would have believed what he was witnessing: clasping hands in a quick handshake with the most powerful capitalist in the world was Morgan’s sworn enemy, Big Bill Haywood. That these bitter antagonists of iron wills and oversized egos would co-exist in the same room, much less in an enclosed saloon booth, was unimaginable.

“
I trust you’ll hold up your end, sir,” Archie heard Morgan say.

“
Don’t worry, I’m good for it,” Haywood grumbled then tugged his wide-brimmed black hat down to his eyebrows and hustled toward the rear door. Morgan barked to the bartender, “Fifth floor penthouse. Put it on my bill,” then walked into the lobby. Archie lingered. He should have followed Morgan; he had the chest to deliver. But the sight of Haywood turned everything topsy-turvy. He could see Morgan later, Archie reasoned. Now he had to go after the one man who might explain the unexplainable scene.