The Death Instinct (15 page)

    Drobac tried to fight, but it was no contest. Younger beat him and beat him and kept beating him until the bones of his nose, his jaw and even his eye sockets all gave way.

    'O'Neill - who's that?' Littlemore asked Officer Roederheusen on a street corner near the Morgan Bank.

    'That's him over there, sir. He's been waiting all morning. He says he got a warning about the bomb too.'

    'Bring him over. Then go find the mailman who picks up at Cedar and Broadway. And not next week. I want that mailman in my office tomorrow morning, got that?'

    'But tomorrow's Saturday,' said Roederheusen.

    'What about it?' asked Littlemore.

    'Nothing, sir.' Roederheusen crossed the street and returned with a man barely over five feet in height, with a waistline of approximately the same size and whose arms, as he walked, moved like those of a toy soldier. 'Sorry you had to wait, Mr O'Neill,' said Littlemore. 'You have some information for me?'

    'Yeah - it was last Thursday, see,' said O'Neill. 'Or else Friday. No, Thursday.'

    'Just tell me what happened,' said Littlemore.

    'I'm on the train from Jersey, like every morning. This guy, he gets on at Manhattan Transfer and we get to talking. Friendly-like.'

    'Describe him,' said Littlemore.

    'Nice-looking,' said O'Neill. 'About forty, forty-two, maybe. Never saw him on the train before. Six-footer. Athletic type. Blond. Educated. Tennis racket.'

    'Tennis racket?' asked Littlemore.

    'Yeah, he was carrying a tennis racket. Anyways, we're in the Hudson Tube, see, and he asks me where I work. I tell him 61 Broadway. He says he works on the same block, at some kind of embassy or something, and we keep talking, this and that, you know, and then he leans over and whispers to me, "Keep away from Wall Street until after the sixteenth.'"

    'He said the sixteenth?' asked Littlemore. 'You're sure?'

    'Oh yeah. He says it a couple of times. I ask him what he's talking about. He says he works on the sly for the Secret Service and his job is to run down anarchists. Then he goes, "They have 60,000 pounds of explosives and they're going to blow it up." He meant it too. You could tell. It was him, wasn't it, detective? It was Fischer?'

    'What did you do?'

    'I stayed away from Wall Street on the sixteenth, that's what I did.'

    Three Woolworth security personnel, when at last they arrived, tore Younger from the bloodied man and put him -Younger - in handcuffs.

    They were not impressed by Younger's claim that the victim of his assault had killed the girl who had just fallen to her death. No one else had seen the murder, and Younger conceded that he hadn't actually witnessed the deed. The guards were equally unmoved by Younger's assertion that the man had kidnapped a different girl the night before - a girl who was still standing outside on the observation deck. On the whole, they seemed to think he was raving.

    Colette and Luc were brought forward. Without allowing Younger to speak, the guards asked Colette if she recognized the unconscious man whom Younger had beaten almost to death. She said no. Drobac's gashed face was in fact quite unrecognizable.

    'Your husband says this man kidnapped you yesterday,' said one of the guards.

    'He's not my husband,' said Colette.

    'You lying SOB,' the other security officer remarked.

    'I didn't say I was her husband,' said Younger.

    Luc, tugging sedulously at Colette's sleeve, got her attention and made signs with his hands. She asked if he was certain; he nodded. 'It is the man who abducted us,' she said to the guards. 'My brother recognizes him.'

    The officers, dubious, asked how the boy knew.

    Luc made another sign. 'He just knows,' said Colette.

    This assertion somehow failed to allay the security officers' doubts. In the end, they took the bloodied man to a hospital - and Younger into custody.

    The Morgan Bank, open for business the day after the explosion, looked more like a hospital infirmary than a temple of high finance. Bandaged heads and patched eyes could be seen at every other desk. Clerks limped. Sling-armed men pecked one-handedly at adding machines. A watchman's face was so heavily wrapped that only his eyes and nose were visible.

    'Mr Lamont will be with you in a moment,' said a receptionist to Littlemore.

    The J. P. Morgan Company was not an ordinary bank. The House of Morgan was a mover of international relations, a maker of history. It was Morgan that saved the United States from ruin in the gold panic of 1895 and again in the bank panic of 1907. It was Morgan that led a consortium of financiers to float a five-hundred-million- dollar loan to the Allies in the Great War, without which they almost certainly could not have won. The old titan J. Pierpont Morgan had died in 1913; his son Jack Jr, who didn't spend as much time at the bank as his father had, relied on one partner in the firm to manage the company's vast assets and worldwide financial interests. That partner was Thomas Lamont!

    Littlemore tipped his hat to the dozen uniformed policemen adding their bulk to the bank's security contingent. He also nodded imperceptibly to the additional half-dozen plainclothesmen scattered about the central atrium. Littlemore looked up at the dome far above, where scaffolding allowed workmen to reach its inner recesses. The resounding echo of hammers filled the air.

    Below the dome, Mr Lamont - slight, diminutive, expensively but conservatively dressed - was addressing some twenty other men, answering questions like a tour guide. He was the right sort of man to run the House of Morgan: a graduate of Philips Exeter Academy and of Harvard College, a man chosen by Washington to represent the United States at the Paris peace conference of 1919. He had thinning gray hair, large ears, and risk-averse gray-blue eyes. The twenty men whom he addressed were not tourists; they were a grand jury conducting a physical inspection of the effects of the bombing. Pointing up at the dome overhead, where massive cracks in the plaster could be seen, Lamont explained that a team of engineers had pronounced the dome safe and secure.

    'Let me add,' he said to the jurors and newsmen encircling him, 'how proud I am today of this firm. We are J. P. Morgan. We don't panic. We opened today at our usual hour, and rest assured, we will continue to do so.'

    Lamont shook hands with the jury foreman and ushered the group into the care of an associate. He approached the detective, introduced himself, and asked how he could help.

    'Sorry to take your time, Mr Lamont,' said Littlemore. 'It can't be easy for you.'

    'Not easy?' replied Lamont, whose normally bland countenance looked overburdened by responsibility. 'With Mr Morgan overseas, the duty of speaking to the families of the dead and wounded has fallen to me. I feel responsible for every one of them. Do you know that our dome very nearly fell? And the entire Exchange almost came down yesterday as well. We were a hair's breadth from complete catastrophe. Thousands would have died. Wall Street would have been ruined. I can't comprehend how this could have happened. If you could be brief, Captain, I'd appreciate it.'

    'Okay,' said Littlemore. 'I'd like to know who your enemies are.'

    'I'm sorry?'

    'Not yours personally. The company's.'

    'I don't think I understand,' said Lamont. 'Mr Flynn of the Bureau of Investigation assured me this morning that the explosion was not directed against the Morgan firm in particular.'

    'They left the bomb right outside your door, Mr Lamont. They almost brought your building down.'

    'That's not how Mr Flynn sees it.'

    'Those are facts, sir,' said Littlemore.

    'If I'm not mistaken, Captain, this whole tragedy might yet prove the result of an accident on a dynamite wagon. I will not be party to speculation that J. P. Morgan and Company is under attack.'

    'When was the last time you heard of a dynamite wagon loaded with a half ton of shrapnel?'

    'But who would attack a bank in such a way?' asked Lamont. 'Where is the profit in it? This firm comes to the assistance of people in need all over the world. Who would want to attack us?'

    'Let me put it this way, Mr Lamont. My men deal with murders of loan sharks all the time. Your business isn't too different - just bigger. What I always ask is who the shark's been leaning on to pay up. Or whether there's another shark in the water that might want a piece of the action.'

    'I see,' said Lamont.

    'If you'll forgive the comparison,' said Littlemore.

    'I don't,' said Lamont. 'This firm does not "lean on" its debtors, Captain.'

    'Sure you don't. And you don't have any enemies either, right? Only friends?'

    Lamont didn't answer.

    'You hedge your bets for a living, sir,' said Littlemore. 'Every banker does. I'm offering you a hedge. There's a chance the bombers are after your company. Maybe they were sending you a message. Maybe they'll send you another. Do you want to take that chance?'

    Lamont lowered his voice: 'No.'

    'I might just catch them if you put in a little time helping me out. That'd be a pretty big return for a small investment, Mr Lamont.'

    'It would indeed,' Lamont agreed. 'You are independent of Chief Flynn?'

    'I'm with the New York Police Department,' said Littlemore. 'We don't take our orders from Mr Flynn.'

    'Give the receptionist your card, Captain. You have a card?'

    'I've got a card.'

    'I'll consider what you've said.'

    Dusk had fallen when Littlemore arrived at Younger's detention cell.

    'Geez, Doc, you pulverized him,' said the detective, unlocking the barred door. 'He looks like a bulldozer ran over his face.'

    Younger put on his jacket and came out of the cell.

    'I bailed you,' said the detective. 'Smoke?'

    'Thanks,' said Younger. His shirt collar was loose, knuckles bruised. 'Did he get away?'

    'No,' replied Littlemore. 'I sent a couple of boys to the hospital as soon as I heard. When the doctors clear him, we'll put him behind bars. I've got him - for now.'

    The detective handed a large brown paper envelope to Younger, from which the latter shook out his necktie, watch, wallet, and other personal effects. 'For now?' he asked.

    'How do we prove he's Drobac? Even I can't identify the guy after what you did to his face. We're going to need a lot more before his trial rolls around. But that's okay. Trial won't be for another six months.'

    'I can identify him,' said Younger, putting on his watch.

    'Hate to tell you, but your say-so became a little less weighty when you got yourself charged with attempted murder.'

    Younger eyed the detective.

    'That's how the DA saw it,' said Littlemore. 'Assault with intent to kill. I was lucky to get you out. The judge wasn't going for it until I mentioned that you were a Harvard man. Harvard man and Harvard professor. And Roosevelt was your cousin. And you slept with Roosevelt's daughter. Okay, I didn't say that.'

    'As a matter of fact,' said Younger, looping his tie around his neck, 'I did intend to kill him.'

    'No, you didn't.'

    'Who does he say he is?'

    'Funny thing,' said Littlemore, 'but he's not talking. Seems his mouth is wired shut because somebody broke his jaw in three places. Boy, you better be right.'

    'It's Drobac. He was limping. He had marks on his face.'

    'Not proof.'

    'Can't you take his fingerprints?'

    'Did it,' said Littlemore. 'But they have to match something. We got no prints on the knives. No matching prints in the room downtown. No matching prints on the car. No prints at all on Colette's laboratory box. Nothing. He knew what he was doing.'

    Neither spoke.

    'Why would he come after us?' asked Younger.

    'Maybe he wanted to get rid of the people who can finger him.'

    'Where is she?' asked Younger, fastening his cufflinks.

    'The Miss? Giving her lecture.'

    'What?'

    'She wouldn't take no for an answer,' said Littlemore. 'Made me get all her samples out of the evidence locker.'

    That night A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General of the United States, arrived in Manhattan by special train from the nation's capital.

    A long black-and-gold car - a Packard Twin Six Imperial, the kind of car only very rich men could afford - was waiting for him outside Pennsylvania Station. Inside was a dapper gentleman who wore a top hat, with the points of his shirt collar up.

    The car took Palmer to the Treasury Building opposite the Morgan Bank on Wall Street. Soldiers, saluting, stepped aside as the two men ascended the marble stairs and passed through the massive portal. A half-hour later, Palmer and the well-dressed gentleman reappeared. The latter led the Attorney General around the colonnade to a narrow alleyway separating the Treasury from the adjacent Assay Building. The alleyway was barred by a tall wrought-iron gate, which had to be unlocked to let the Attorney General through.