“I was still trying after I left,” Roscoe went on. “I come across Willie Du Pré in the street, grabbed him, and done horrible things to him, but he still couldn’t tell me nothing about the Rabbi or about Cleo.”
“It’s a shame,” Muldoon said.
“Yeah,” Roscoe agreed. “One thing you’ll be glad, though. I sort of pushed Tommy Alb’s nose off center for him. He ain’t gonna be so pretty in the future.”
“That’s enough, Roscoe,” Roosevelt commanded. The one-eyed man was smiling at the memory, admiring it, Muldoon thought, exactly the way Mrs. Herkimer had admired the works of art the other day at the gallery.
The express whizzed by again, but this time it stopped. The gallery. The works of art. Angels. Ankhs.
“Cleo,” Muldoon said.
“Yes, Muldoon?” the Commissioner barked anxiously. “What is it?”
“I know who it is.”
“Who? I shall order the search for him immediately!”
Muldoon laughed. “You already have, sir. I’ve been doin’ the searchin’. Only Cleo isn’t a him. It’s Cleopatra, I’ll wager. It’s the woman we’re lookin’ for. It’s the Pink Angel.”
II.
Muldoon walked the familiar streets of Mackerelville for hours searching for Brian O’Leary. The boy had, since Saturday last, taken Mr. Roosevelt at his word and visited him at Mulberry Street once or twice.
The Commissioner remembered the boy’s home address. Muldoon had gone there. The dark windowless flat he’d found, and the drunk and the shrew inside, were all Muldoon needed to tell him why Brian O’Leary spent most of his time on the streets.
The boy’s name had come up as the solution to a problem. Cleo had to be found. As Mr. Roosevelt had pointed out, now that they had a name for her, the searching would go that much more easily.
But not for the police. It pained Muldoon to have to insist on that, but he was adamant. “Look, Mr. Roosevelt,” he’d said, “I don’t like this sneakin’ around any more than you do. But the fact is there for all to see: Captain Herkimer met me searchin’ for Cleo that afternoon, and before the day was out, I was tossed in the drink like I was personally chummin’ for sharks.”
Roosevelt had to face the truth, though it irritated him. He mumbled something about keeping closer eye on Captain Herkimer.
So the police were to be left out. How to find the woman’s trail?
Surprisingly enough, it was Roscoe who inspired the idea. Roscoe had a taste for sensational literature (acquired in prison) that was the rival of Muldoon’s own. While the patrolman and the Commissioner discussed the problem, the ex-pugilist wondered aloud what Mr. Sherlock Holmes would do in a situation like this.
Muldoon (and Mr. Roosevelt too, if the truth be known) gave out with a cry of astonishment. It was obvious what the hero of Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective romances would do.
So Muldoon strolled the streets of the neighborhood where he had grown to manhood, looking for the newsboy who counted Mr. Roosevelt his friend.
He found him at twilight in the midst of a game of hide-and-seek. The boy was so intent on the game, he never noticed Muldoon standing near home base until he’d “tap-tapped” everyone from his hiding place.
“You’ve got the makin’s of a good detective,” Muldoon told him. “I never thought you’d find the one under the ash-pile.”
“Ahh, that’s Filthy Larry. He always hides under the ash-pile.” He regarded Muldoon. “Ain’t I met you before, Mister?”
“You have. The same time night you met Mr. Roosevelt.”
The boy brushed red hair from his eyes, and narrowed them at the officer. “Mulroy, ain’t it?”
“Muldoon.”
“I ain’t done nothing,” Brian said quickly.
“I ain’t sayin’ you did. I’m just a messenger. I’ve got a note here for you from Mr. Roosevelt.”
The boy took it, after wiping his dirty hands on his knickers. He studied the note. “Uses a lot of big words, don’t he?”
“I’ll explain anything you can’t understand,” Muldoon said.
“Who’s this Doyle fellow? He the one lives on Delancey Street?”
“He’s an Englishman. We’re goin’ to borrow an idea he wrote in a book. You ought to read one sometime.”
“I’m too busy with my papers. It says here you’re supposed to give me a dollar.”
“Understood that part all right, didn’t you? You only get the dollar if you take the job.” Muldoon reached into his pocket. “Well, boy, what is it? Are you willin’ to serve as Captain of the Mulberry Street Irregulars?”
Brian made a face. “What are you talking about? We ain’t nowhere near Mulberry Street. And as for the other part, if that nasty cod liver oil they make us take in school don’t keep us reg—”
“Never mind,” Muldoon interrupted. That was what came of trying to deal with illiterates. “Just do what it says in the letter. Get a bunch of your hoodlum newsboy friends together, and tell Mr. Roosevelt and me where to find this Cleo woman. Will you do that?”
“Sure, for Mr. Roosevelt, I will.”
“Good.”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “Gimme the dollar.”
III.
Thursday night—servants’ night off. Peter Baxter and a companion walked slowly along a city street.
The voices came loudly through the ground-floor window. “A dollar and forty cents? For a little scrap of rag!”
“It’s genuine silk, Harry!”
“Dammit, Marie, do you know how long I have to work to earn a dollar and forty cents?”
“It’s not like I spend it every day.” The woman was near tears. “My sister is getting married. I’m matron of honor. I have to look respectable.”
“Oh, so now we’re not respectable, is that it?”
“Harry, you are so ... ooh!”
“Genuine silk. I suppose you’ll be wanting diamonds next, or a kerosene stove. Well, wool, glass, and coal is all we can afford, Marie!”
Silence, then a quiet, “I know.”
“What—why, I ought to belt you!”
“If you do, Harry, I warn you, don’t go to sleep when I’m around. Or so help me I’ll take a knife and—”
Peter Baxter and his companion walked by the window, the angry voices receding into inaudibility behind them.
“Damn the rich,” Baxter said. “Damn them for keeping the poor poor, and even more for dangling their riches before them.”
“Not in public,” his companion, the individual known to T. Avery Hand as “Rabbi” hissed. “How many times must I tell you?”
The two stepped inside a building, then a room. A make-up kit lay on a mirrored vanity that was the most expensive thing there.
“Better lock that away,” Baxter said. He rubbed one of his smooth ears.
“I intended to.” The Rabbi locked the make-up kit in a drawer. “You know, Peter,” the Rabbi said, “I’ve been thinking that it might be more advantageous to our cause to wait.”
Baxter sat on a windowsill and snorted. “We’ve waited long enough. What we’ve done in this country is nothing to what they’ve done in London, Paris, Vienna, or St. Petersburg. They’ve come near to killing kings. We can be expected to do no less.”
“There is more to life than killing, Peter.”
“Not for capitalists. Not for kings.”
“We could control a king!”
“What are you talking about? We have no interest in controlling a government. ‘Government is the yoke of Slavery on the neck of Mankind.’ You yourself made me see that.”
His companion smiled sadly at him. “And you learned well, didn’t you? But look, Peter, my friend and comrade, how this all has grown. We put you in with Hand to tell us how to retrieve the riches he has stolen from the poor, just as we did with the others.
“But Hand has turned to politics, and worked his way into the confidence of that imposter Bryan. Bryan is coming back to the city. Vulnerable. And Franklyn and Libstein
and you and I evolved the plan for this great gesture.”
Baxter bit his tongue. If the Movement didn’t frown so on personal glory, he would have pointed out that the plan was his. He was the one with the opportunity, and he was the one with the expertise.
“It will be a master stroke,” he said. “It will show the slave masters that they can’t escape justice, even in their mansions.”
“It’s a good plan,” the Rabbi said. “Haven’t I worked for it? Didn’t I kill Crandall to make sure Hand stayed high in Bryan’s regard until he could come here? Haven’t I put fear into Hand’s heart, to keep him in line?”
“Look here,” Baxter said. If the other could break the rules, so could he. “You killed Crandall, but you took no notice of the woman.”
“Who would have thought the fool would keep her in his own flat? I told you immediately when I saw her leave the building.”
“You should have thought it. She could have been fatal to our plan. But I tracked her down, and I brought her back.”
The Rabbi patted the servant on the shoulder. “You’ve done well, as always, Peter. Perhaps we don’t say these things as often as we should.
“But that wasn’t the point. Don’t you see that the document Hand gave Crandall, the document we now possess, puts Hand in our power for as long as it serves the purpose of humanity to keep him there? If Bryan wins, Hand becomes Secretary of the Treasury; and since we control Hand, that puts us in command of the loot of the capitalists. We can build schools, decent housing—yes, and libraries as well.”
Baxter smiled.
“We can use the power of the currency to bring the capitalists to their knees,” the Rabbi went on, “first in this country, then in others. We could—”
“Rule the world?” Baxter interrupted. “Is that what you were going to say, Teacher? Power? Command? Strange words, my friend, from the person whose lips taught me the truth of things in the first place. Wasn’t it you who said, ‘Power is a powerful drug, and those who taste of it are soon little better than madmen’?
“Why this sudden tenderness toward the Enemy? You know as well as I do that Hand is better dead, Bryan is better dead. They will all have their finest hour as corpses. And it will happen like a bolt of lightning striking them down, turning the stolen palace into a mausoleum. The world,” he concluded, his eyes bright, “will never forget.”
“Peter, please try to take a longer view. Don’t you see how we could—”
“Yes, we could, but the People will. When they see what we’ve done, they will take their freedom. They will know how.”
“Faith.”
“Have you lost yours? Perhaps we should put the matter to the Committee, Franklyn and Libstein and the rest. Perhaps they will see fit to make a change.”
“Perhaps. But until a change is made, I am still the one who was chosen to lead this mission. Pray remember that.”
Baxter was silent. His companion took that for consent. “Very well. I will consult the others. I’ll wire Franklyn and Libstein in Philadelphia immediately I finish dinner. In the meantime, Peter, the plan will proceed. What are we to do with this woman Cleo?”
“What do you mean?”
“She saw the dynamite?”
“Well, yes. But she took it for candles. She had no idea what we mean to do. And I’ve made sure she won’t talk.”
“How? With threats? Threats only work with a woman so long. She is dangerous, Peter. I’m afraid you must kill her.” The Rabbi’s voice was sad, but resigned.
Baxter choked. “I—I disagree,” he said.
“Why this sudden tenderness?” was the mocking reply.
“Nonsense,” Baxter said through clenched teeth. The Committee must definitely hear of this behavior. No one, not even an old, dear friend like his companion, could endanger the Movement with so cavalier an attitude.
“Hand is unstable enough,” Baxter explained. “Of all the trappings of his wealth, he values this ... this whore the most highly.” He had to pause a moment to regain his temper. He hated that woman, because the only thing worse than the capitalists were those who indulged them in their corrupt pleasures.
“And Hand is afraid,” he went on. “Your melodramatic visit—”
“It was necessary.”
“Necessary or not, has made Hand fearful and wary. If the woman dies, he will not be able to function. He could no longer deceive his fiancée. The wedding would be postponed, perhaps canceled. Bryan wouldn’t come.”
“Enough, Peter, enough. You convince me. Let her live.”
Baxter was astonished, and somewhat annoyed, at his own relief. “Besides,” his companion went on, “if the council decides your course of action is best, she is very likely to die with the rest of them.”
THURSDAY
the twenty-seventh of August, 1896
I.
BEFORE MULDOON’S ARRIVAL AT the Christian Fellowship last Saturday night, Theodore Roosevelt had told the boys a tale of a man lost in the Bad Lands without food or water, and how he had been pointed in the direction of both by one tiny paw-print.
The name “Cleo,” young Brian O’Leary reflected, had apparently done the same. He was proud of himself for accomplishing what the grown men could not. He had picked up the trail of the Pink Angel.
Brian O’Leary knew every newsboy in New York, having tangled with a significant number of them. He had fought (literally) his way up to a choice corner on Wall Street, and he stood always ready to defend it.
He had called on his acquaintances, and told them what to do. He had the information in five hours, and he still had thirty cents of the dollar Muldoon had given him, an amount some grown men couldn’t earn in a day. He’d saved the money through shrewd bargaining among his comrades.
With the homing instinct most street boys seem to develop, Brian found the Muldoon flat. He was admitted to the parlor, where Mr. Roosevelt, Muldoon, and some guy named Listerdale were talking.
“Ah, Brian,” the Commissioner said. “Have you news?”
“Yes, sir. Good news.” Muldoon’s sister, or wife, or something, a nice-smelling lady called Katie, brought Brian a glass of milk from the kitchen, asked him was he related to some O’Learys he’s never heard of, patted him on the head, then left.
“It was Stinky McGonigle told me what we wanted to find out, so I give him an extra nickel. He used to work the block where this Cle—”
Listerdale raised a hand to stop him. “Just a moment, young man, if you please.” He turned to the Commissioner. “Mr. Roosevelt, this seems to be police business, and I am not a policeman. Since I am here only because Officer Muldoon has honored me with the request to help him look after his sisters, perhaps I should pay them my respects in the kitchen, then see to my Emporium for the rest of the afternoon.”
Roosevelt chewed his moustache. “Yes, perhaps that would be best. Thank you, Listerdale.”
The balding man left. The Commissioner told Brian to go on.
“Who was that guy?” the newsboy wanted to know.
“A friend. You must learn, Brian, to follow orders immediately they are given. Now, give me your report.”
“Yes, sir.” Brian took a sip of milk, licked his lip, and began. “This Cleo you’re looking to find—I found out she’s a hooer. Why are you looking for a hooer? Ain’t you mar—”
“That’s pronounced hor, Brian,” Muldoon said hastily. “W-H-O-R-E.” Muldoon was probably the only Irishman in New York who pronounced that word properly—it was one of the marks of his education—but it wasn’t his intention to show off. He’d just said the first thing that popped into his mind, in order to drown the boy out. He shuddered to think what the proper Mr. Roosevelt would have made of the implication that the Commissioner desired to see Cleo in connection with her profession and not his.
Muldoon needn’t have worried. The word itself had been enough—the Commissioner doubtless hadn’t even heard the question. He hissed through his teeth and waved his finger at the boy. “Mast
er O’Leary, if one of my men dared use such a word to me in reporting, I would fire him on the spot! I only excuse you this time because of your youth and ignorance.
“But you, Muldoon, have no such excuse. Speaking such a word, even spelling it out! A police officer must be upright in appearance, behavior, and speech. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Muldoon hung his head. “I am, sir,” he said. “Would prostitute have been better?”
“It would not have been one particle better!” The Commissioner’s steam was way up, now. “Not in the presence of the boy!”
Muldoon was meek. “Harlot?” he asked in a small voice.
Roosevelt nodded grimly. “The word is in the Scriptures. I prefer, however, ‘lady of the evening.’ It isn’t nearly so coarse. You must strive to be a gentleman, Brian. Please remember that.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said. He went on with his report. “This Cleo is a lady of the evening,” he said. “She used to be the star trick at Madam Nanette’s cathouse on West Fifth.”
Muldoon worked on not laughing. There was a delay of several minutes while Mr. Roosevelt instructed Brian in the proper words to use in Society. In the interval, a great sadness had come over Muldoon. Cleo had used him. All that talk about her shame and her tears and all that. Shame my eye, he thought. Why, nakedness was probably her natural state!
He was still pondering that one when Mr. Roosevelt finished. “Boy,” Brian said, “this gentleman stuff isn’t easy, is it, Muldoon?”
Muldoon, still thinking of the woman, agreed. The boy resumed. He didn’t have to give them the background of Madam Nanette’s. Until a year ago, it had been the best-known bawdy house in the city. All the swells had gone there, and many an underpaid copper had supplemented his income with a little something at the back door.
Then, what with the reform administration coming in, Madam Nanette had decided to retire. She was old, and, thanks to Cleo and women like her, extremely rich.
The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel Page 17