The Death Instinct

Littlemore did: 'Didn't have a lawyer fancy enough to get a meeting with the Mayor.'

'That's the way of the world,' said the Commissioner.

'Give me a few weeks, sir. I'll nail him.'

'A few weeks?' said Hylan. 'An outrage. I won't tolerate it. I've always stood up for the common man against the interests. There's only one true threat to this Republic — the international bankers, the moneymen, like a giant octopus spreading their slimy legs over all our cities. As long as I'm Mayor, the interests won't rule this city. The common man will have his rights.'

His back to Hylan, Commissioner Enright rolled his eyes. 'I'm sorry to say it, Littlemore,' said Enright, 'but your conduct merits an immediate suspension. Releasing from jail a personal friend charged with attempted murder. Imprisoning his victim without probable cause. Really. You should know better.' The Commissioner was one of those men who, when standing, like to bob up and down on the balls of their feet, hands behind the back. 'However, Mr McAdoo happened to be in my office at the very same time Mayor Hylan came in. As fate would have it, McAdoo was also speaking to me about you. He gave me this.' The Commissioner picked up from his desk several pieces of typed stationery. 'It's a copy of a letter delivered today to President Wilson and every member of his Cabinet in Washington, DC. The letter is from Senator Fall of New Mexico. Do you know Senator Fall?'

'No, sir.'

'A very powerful man,' said Enright. 'He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will soon be Secretary of State, in all likelihood, under Mr Harding.'

'What's that got to do with me, sir?' asked Littlemore.

'Can you enlighten Captain Littlemore, McAdoo?' said Enright.

'Certainly,' said McAdoo, putting his fingertips together. His calm demeanor, smooth-backed hair, fine features, and long elegant face contrasted sharply with the uncombed, frowning, and overanxious Mayor. McAdoo spoke with a distinctly Eastern, well-educated accent, with only the occasional twang giving away his Tennessee roots. 'Fall's a fire-breather — and a very effective one. He's been denouncing us — the Wilson Administration, that is — for our failure to respond to the outrage on Wall Street. Fall says that an attack of this magnitude can only have been organized and carried out by a foreign power intent on our destruction — a reference, I assume, to Lenin and his Bolsheviks. He says the bombing was an act of war plainly targeting one of America's most important financial houses, while we in the Administration, far from preparing for war, proclaim that it was the work of a few disorganized Italian malcontents. And then, Captain Littlemore, Senator Fall names you.'

'Me?'

'You. He says that the New York Police Captain closest to the investigation — naming you personally — has in private advised Mr Thomas Lamont of J. P. Morgan and Company that the evidence refutes Flynn's theory of the case and demonstrates a purposeful attack against the Morgan firm.'

'I didn't say demonstrates. I said it was a possibility.'

'You are to be congratulated, Captain Littlemore,' said McAdoo.

'I am?'

'Yes. I share Senator Fall's views in every respect.'

'If you'll excuse me, Mr McAdoo,' said Littlemore, 'I don't get it. I thought Senator Fall was criticizing President Wilson, and I thought you were the President's man.'

'I don't know if I'm his man, Captain,' said McAdoo, 'but I'm certainly in his camp. The President wants this bombing solved. That's all he wants. And he doesn't, to speak frankly, have perfect confidence in Chief Flynn. Flynn works for Attorney General Palmer; together they see a cabal of Italian and Hebrew anarchists lurking everywhere, or at least so they want our citizens to believe. If you, Captain Littlemore, are willing to pursue avenues that Flynn can't or won't, the President is entirely in favor. Many of us agree with Senator Fall that this attack was of a magnitude too great for a handful of impoverished anarchists.'

'Whoever did it wasn't impoverished — I'm pretty sure about that,' said Littlemore.

'Why?' asked Commissioner Enright.

'The horseshoe, sir,' said Littlemore. 'It was brand-new. You could tell from the union mark on it. Shoeing a horse isn't cheap. Nobody poor would ever put brand-new shoes on a horse they're about to blow to pieces. I'd say these guys had plenty of cash behind them.'

'Excellent, Captain,' replied Enright. 'That's how a detective does his job.'

'Making it more likely,' said McAdoo, 'that a foreign power was behind this outrage. If that's true, it must come out, and the enemy must be made to feel the full force of American might. Commissioner, your Captain can't be fired — or suspended. It would look as if we feared war and feared the truth. They would say we'd deliberately eliminated the one man daring to ask what enemy of this country might have massacred our people and attacked our finances. Fall would undoubtedly cast it in that light, and the story would run in every newspaper in the country.'

'I make the decisions in this city,' said the Mayor.

'To be sure, Hylan, to be sure,' replied McAdoo. 'I wouldn't dream of interfering. Nor would I hesitate to urge the Attorney General to revisit your statements in opposition to the late war. The Sedition Act is still in force, I believe.'

Hylan looked stricken. 'I don't care about your Littlemore. Let him stay on. Just give me Smith.'

'And I don't care about your Smith,' said McAdoo. 'Let him go free.'

'I don't know what's wrong with me,' said Enright. 'I seem to be the only one who cares about both Captain Littlemore and Mr Smith. I'm not going to suspend Littlemore — '

'Good,' said McAdoo.

'And I'm not going to release Mr Smith,' said Enright.

'What?' said Hylan.

'You have until Monday, Captain,' replied Enright.

'I'm sorry?' asked Littlemore.

'To obtain probable cause against Smith, if that's in fact his name.'

'But today's Friday, Mr Enright,' said Littlemore.

'And you've had Mr Smith in jail since last Friday, when he should have been in a hospital. By Monday you will have had ten days to collect evidence against him, Littlemore, which is more than adequate. Either you come up with hard evidence by Monday, or you let him go. Will that do, Hylan?'

'That'll do,' grumbled the Mayor.

'That will be all, Captain,' said Enright.

Younger tried to write a letter to Colette, seated at his hotel room desk. How could she love a convicted criminal so devoted to the German cause that he had volunteered to serve in its army? There had to be some reality to love — surely. If a girl loved a man who wasn't the man she thought he was, she didn't really love him — did she?

But perhaps Hans Gruber wasn't the man Younger thought he was. Why shouldn't Gruber be the sweet, devout, ailing soul that Colette remembered? Yes, he was in prison for assault on an innocent victim, but his imprisonment might be a mistake. Younger himself had been jailed for assault only last week. Worse, much worse: Didn't Gruber deserve Colette more than Younger did? Gruber had instantly seen what Younger had taken years to grasp — that his life would be void and dull and pointless and black without her.

The letter he was trying to write, offering Colette reasons not to go to Europe, failed to flow trippingly off his pen. He started, stopped, and started again, crumpling sheets of hotel stationery and throwing them into a wastebasket. Eventually he pulled them out and burned them, one by one, in an ashtray. It had come to him that, with Freud having agreed to treat Luc, Colette would never be dissuaded from going to Vienna.

Younger packed his bags.

Littlemore reexamined the evidence seized from Colette's and Luc's kidnappers. He combed through every item, turned inside out every article of clothing. He looked for laundry marks, for threads of hair, for anything that would connect the jailed man, Drobac, to the kidnapping. All to no avail.