132
Judge Styles kept to his word. He’d promised McBride to be done in forty-eight hours and he would be. He’d put in the kind of hours that would have exhausted a man twenty years younger. He worked hard, slept little, worked through the evidence.
And the evidence was dynamite!
Deep in the piles of facts and numbers, tax returns and accounting estimates, there emerged the picture of a criminal organisation so huge that even Bosse and McBride were taken aback. In his heart, Styles had no doubt that there was enough evidence to justify each one of the search warrants that the two taxmen had asked for. But the law isn’t about hearts and hunches. Both men knew that the warrants would be challenged in court, by expensive lawyers with ruthless clients. There were legal hoops to be jumped through and they had to be jumped right.
But Styles was a lawyer to his fingertips. He knew his procedures. He knew what would work and what wouldn’t. He read the documents, made summaries, dictated his notes with patient, unrelenting, forensic brilliance.
And once, just once, he’d gone home. He’d dropped straight into bed, slept for three hours, then woken up, exhausted but refreshed. He’d showered, dressed, and driven back the way he’d come.
McBride had begged the judge not to leave. Styles had insisted. Then McBride had begged Styles at least to be careful on his return. He told the judge to assume that he was being followed. He’d insisted that Styles take Jim Bosse to look out for him. And Styles agreed.
All the time the judge had been at home, even the three hours that he’d been lying in bed asleep, Jim Bosse – the taxman with a farmboy smile – had been patrolling the dark perimeters of the judge’s garden, with an ex-army revolver loosely holstered at his hip. Bosse never once closed his eyes. Though every bit as short of sleep as the rest of them, he’d stayed alert and watchful the entire time. And on the long and circuitous drive back to the warehouse, Bosse told the judge how to drive, when to accelerate hard, when to brake to a halt, when to feint left or right, when to double back on his tracks without warning. On two occasions, a car seemed to be following them for a short distance, but both times it moved away again just as Bosse had started to get uncomfortable. Aside from that, they saw nothing. It was just before dawn and not many people were around, not many cars. Bosse thought it had gone OK. He hoped.
133
A knock at the door.
It was dawn, or almost. A thin grey light tested the edges of Willard’s curtains. A thin grey light tested the edges of the hangover which was kicking like the hind legs of a mule.
He sat up in bed, unsure if he’d heard what he’d heard.
Then it came again. A small knock. Timid. The second knock even quieter than the first. The suite was large and the door was in the living room, so Willard could only just hear the sound at all.
Who the hell arrived anywhere at dawn? Who the hell knocked like that?
Willard moved in bed. His hangover caught him before he’d moved far. That was the trouble with Prohibition. You could pay top dollar for your hooch, but unless you were damn sure where the booze came from, you could still find yourself drinking something only one shade different from poison. Willard groaned and rolled over. He’d ignore the knock, whoever it came from.
But the person outside must have heard him move or groan.
Willard knew that because of the silence, the silence which was suddenly charged because it was shared. He became scared. What if McBride had beaten Roeder? If he had, then the person outside could easily be a federal agent.
His head told him that federal agents didn’t knock like pussycats, probably they didn’t even knock at all. But his heart wasn’t always connected to his head, and right now his heart was doing one-twenty beats to the minute. What if it wasn’t the cops, but one of Roeder’s men with an urgent message? Or the hotel bellhop, warning him to get the hell out?
Willard rolled out of his bed, scared white and cursing himself. He found a robe, pulled it on, got the sleeves muddled, set them right, tied the cord, entered the living room and went to the door. He stood with his hand on the handle, listening to the other person just outside. He remembered once being like this with Rosalind. The time she’d been in her Temperance Army uniform and had rung the bell outside his apartment door. The memory hurt. He swung down hard on the handle, yanked open the door.
It wasn’t cops. It wasn’t Roeder. It wasn’t the bellhop. It wasn’t Rosalind.
‘Gosh, Annie, gosh!’
She had her hand up ready to knock a third time. Then the door had opened so suddenly, that she almost fell into the space it left. She actually rocked forwards so that Willard had to put a hand out to steady her. She was so small, he thought, physically small, like a member of a species subtly but definitely different to the one Willard was a part of.
‘Sorry.’
She stepped back. She had a small travelling bag at her feet, small and cheap.
‘Annie…’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, it’s terribly early, isn’t it? I should have waited, I know. There was some problem with the train engine on the way down. We didn’t get in until very late. I didn’t want to come until later, only I was on my own, I didn’t know where to go…’
It wasn’t much of an explanation, really. Why had she come at all, was the question which needed answering, not why she had chosen to arrive at dawn. All the same, Willard thought of little Annie wandering the streets of Washington and he instinctively pulled her into the room.
‘That’s good. It’s fine. Don’t worry, I usually get up around now anyway,’ – a lie – ‘look, do sit down. No, take the chair or, no, I’m being silly, I’ve got a suite, we may as well go next door.’
He ushered Annie to one of the suite’s large, heavily cushioned sofas. It was just about light enough to be worth opening the curtains, but he didn’t want to, not yet. They sat down. Annie primly removed her little travelling cap and laid it down beside her. She smiled anxiously. He smiled back reassuringly.
‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘Oh, I don’t…’
She looked around, her eyes searching for a kitchen, or at least a kettle, but not finding one. Willard guessed this was probably her first time in a hotel room, let alone a suite as grand as this one. He picked up the phone and asked for room service.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked her. ‘You must be famished. It’s hungry work travelling, I don’t know why.’ He was connected to room service. ‘Breakfast for two please, something hot, plenty of coffee – fruit, Annie? Do you like fruit? – Yes, and some fruit, please, whatever you’ve got.’
The guy on the other end of the phone knew Willard a little – or at least, he’d sold him some booze – and allowed himself to smirk.
‘You got company, sir? Sure. You want anything with your breakfast? Anything to drink?’
‘No, no, no. Just breakfast, right away, please.’
Willard hung up. Something in him softened at the sight of Annie. She loved him, of course. He knew that. Perhaps he’d known it for a long time, but during their phone conversations of the last few days, it had become obvious to them both, a knowledge shared though unspoken.
And it was more than love. She loved him, but she also adored him, did so knowing, as Rosalind had never known, about his weaknesses as well as his strengths. She’d known his impatience, his tantrums, his petulance, his vanity. She knew the dark secret of the people he worked for. She knew that he worked for Powell Lambert not because he was obliged to but because he chose to. And still she loved him. Still adored him.
He smiled at her with his eyes. He’d be gentle with her. Even if he slept with her, he’d be careful of her feelings afterwards.
‘You haven’t exactly told me why you came,’ he said gently.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Not at all. I’m pleased.’
‘I came because… I don’t know. The office, Wall Street, it’s all upside down. They’ve sent everyone home. Almost everyone, anyway. Befo
re we went, we had to get all our papers together. Lots of it was taken away. I think they mean to burn it.’ She looked nervous. Her hand found her hat, touching it as though to reassure herself that she could leave quickly if she needed to. ‘Is it …? I mean, I guess it’s because…?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, Annie. They’re worried about the feds. There’s a possibility – a very, very small one – that the Firm could be in trouble. Ted Powell is taking every precaution necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘I see.’
Annie’s eyes blinked. One second they were wide and worried, but perfectly clear. The next moment, they were full of tears and crying hard, though soundlessly. Willard realised she was worried about his safety, but not only that. She was worried for herself too. He actually had to repress a smile at the thought of the feds taking an interest in little Annie Hooper. He waited until her tears were over, then passed her a handkerchief.
‘Sorry. I’m being silly. I didn’t know where to go. I was scared.’
‘You don’t need to be. But I’m pleased you came.’
Breakfast arrived. Annie was hungry, but she was more tired than hungry. She ate some fruit, started on some eggs and bacon, but didn’t get far. She yawned. The yawn made the little freckles on her cheeks bunch up, then relax. Her light brown hair was very fine and had got a little rumpled on her journey. She kept smoothing it into place with her fingers. Willard got up, smiling. He kissed her full on the top of her head. Her hair felt very warm, very soft, very clean.
‘You finish that later,’ he said. ‘Right now, I’m going to put you to bed.’
134
The tall windows were griddled by little iron panes. When the first sunshine of the day came down across the Potomac it sketched those panes one by one across the board floor, the wooden tables, the bare brick wall. Styles had a slice of bread in one hand, a cup of coffee in another. His eyes were hooded, almost closed, but his voice and mind were as clear as polished glass.
‘You were retained by Robert Mason on what date?’
Abe had his back against one hoop-backed chair, his legs stretched out across two others. In that last, crazy flight from Jacksonville, he had brought nothing with him except the clothes he stood up in. So, slightly incongruously, he wore flying boots, some borrowed flannel trousers, his own white shirt, open at the neck, and his flying jacket unfastened. This was the final stage of Styles’ examination of the evidence: the opportunity to interrogate the principal witness. Styles had already had Abe confirm his identity, his war record, his haul of medals, including his Congressional Medal of Honour. The facts were already well-known to Styles, but his interrogation placed the whole thing on record, transcribed verbatim by a pair of stenographers beside him.
Abe lit a cigarette as he answered Styles’ question. ‘I was retained on 1 August 1926.’
‘And the nature of your arrangement?’
‘Mason paid me four hundred dollars a week to fly goods for him, Havana to Miami, six days a week.’
‘The nature of those goods?’
‘Primarily alcohol, but other items too. Gold watches, jewellery, cash and securities, other high-value items.’
‘To your knowledge, was the importation of those other items ever declared to the United States Customs authorities?’
‘I am certain that they were not so declared.’
‘And the volumes of alcohol transported by you during that period?’
Abe answered with precision.
The two men had entered a kind of intuitive double-act. Styles already knew all the answers. Abe already knew all the questions. The only purpose of the conversation was to have itself put on record, one more defence against the legal challenges that would lie on down the road. McBride was close by, his prosecutorial mind rejoicing in the accumulation of destructive evidence. Jim Bosse was over by the door on the main staircase, listening out and smoking.
Then suddenly, he stiffened.
With one elastic movement he took the cigarette from his mouth, threw it to the floor and trod it out. For one brief second, he stood at the door, his fingertips pressed against it as though they were some kind of listening device, then he stepped quickly back. He whistled twice. The hum of business in the room was instantly silenced. Everyone looked up. Unholstering his gun, Bosse moved quickly to a position sheltered by the swing of the door. He held the gun out with both hands, his knees bent and legs apart.
For a second, everything was silent.
Then everyone heard it. Steps moving rapidly up the concrete staircase. Bodies fanning out just the other side of the door. The sudden silence seemed loaded down with threat, as though a wild animal were moving outside.
The only person who moved at all was Abe.
Moving as though he were a dancer running through long-choreographed movements, he snatched up a carton of documents – Powell Lambert financial documents, which were on record in a dozen other locations – and threw the contents in a wide semicircle across the floor. McBride and the judge stared at him, uncomprehending. Still not losing a moment, Abe snatched up the little Primus stove they’d been using to brew coffee. The tank was still half-full and there was a flask of further fuel if needed. Abe took both. As he moved, he spoke to the taxman and the judge. ‘Get all the papers out of the window. And meantime, get everyone back through there. Call the fire service as soon as you find a phone.’
He jabbed his hand behind him, to the wall furthest from Jim Bosse, where there was a small wooden door leading to a second staircase. There was no exit from the building that way, but there was access into the main tobacco warehouse and a ramshackle collection of offices and outbuildings. The complex was large enough and crowded enough that at least some people would be able to find hiding places from even a large team of searchers. As the two men began hurling boxes of papers out of the window, there was the sudden bellow of gunfire.
Jim Bosse, at his post by the door, had watched the handle begin to turn. As it did so, he leaped forward and pumped three bullets at chest height through the wooden door. There was nothing. No cry. No muffled groan. No sound of a body slumping to the floor. Just a tiny pause, before a torrent of automatic gunfire ripped through the woodwork, almost sawing the door in half horizontally. Jim Bosse, somehow, had managed to leap back in time, but there were screams from elsewhere in the room.
Following Abe’s urgent signals, most of the lawyers and accountants and secretaries had begun piling out through the rear door. Abe guessed that the screams were mostly of fear, not of pain, but he didn’t spare the time to look. Instead, he just ran down the line of strewn paper pouring kerosene over it. Behind him, McBride, together with a couple of helpers, was beginning to hurl the other boxes of evidence out of the window. They emptied the boxes as they threw, making sure that the precious papers were scattered over as wide an area as possible. It wasn’t a windy morning, but there was enough breeze to send the papers rustling and fluttering across the dirty Tarmac. The first few pages began to fall into the Potomac, where they lay, as though flattened by a smoothing iron, moving slowly downstream on the turbid current.
There was more shooting at the door.
As the first boot began to smash the collapsing door away, Bosse fired again and again. He probably scored a hit with every shot, but if so it was a brief victory. There was another smashing hail of gunfire. Bosse was physically lifted on the stream of bullets, was carried backwards, was deposited on the floor, a smashed, bloody, unrecognisable thing.
Abe put a match to his papers. Flame rippled along the paper ring. Smoke and flame filled the air. The room was now divided in two. The door and the broken shape of Jim Bosse was on one side. The rest of the room lay on the other. Box after box of papers was hurtling outside, but there wasn’t much left to go. The room was mostly clear of people now. Abe wanted the judge and McBride to get the hell out. Abe began throwing chairs and tables onto the flames.
But he was out of time. Men were now pouring through th
e door into the room. Around half of the men carried Tommy guns. The rest all carried handguns of some description. But the wall of flame was right in their faces. Their onward surge through the door had brought them directly into the heat and smoke of the blaze. The open windows at one end and the smashed-open door at the other end of the room formed a perfect tunnel for a draught, which fanned the heat and smoke in the direction of the attackers.
More people fled through the door at the back.
But, as Abe had known, the flames would be a diversion and a delay, little more. On the far side of the blaze, a short man, with the unmistakable authority of a leader, took stock of the situation, then gestured forwards. His men collected themselves and ran forwards through the smoke. A Tommy gun jabbed into Abe’s ribs and threw him against the wall. Abe looked around to check who had managed to get away. Nearly everyone was the answer. The judge had made it out. It was only Abe himself, Jim McBride and two of the accountants who hadn’t got out in time. The four of them were backed up against the open windows, by the low table that held the coffee pot.
The short man’s face flickered with a smile. Abe guessed that he was the chief of Powell Lambert’s peculiarly nasty police. Putting two and two together from some of the financial documents they’d been studying, Abe guessed him to be the ‘Vice President of Insurance’, Dorcan Roeder. Roeder sent half a dozen of his men off through the back door to go and search for the escapees in the warehouse. He sent another two men downstairs to start collecting up the paper which was blowing about on the asphalt outside. Abe felt a tiny, temporary jab of triumph. Picking the paper up from outside would take a lot more than two men, but, with his force as divided as it was, Roeder couldn’t yet afford to send more. The insurance man’s eyes blinked at the eddying smoke. Then he put his revolver away in his pocket and approached his prisoners.
‘Judge Styles?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.
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