Bristling, Byrnes lit into him. “You’re lecturing me about Wall Street, boyo? If you want to know something, the Whyos have their own broker.”
“Is that for attribution?”
Byrnes growled in the back of his throat. Max held his fierce gaze. Then the detective threw his head back and laughed. “You sonofabitch, Greengrass, you print that, I’ll skin you alive.”
“I guess that’s a no-no. Well, when you chat with Mr. MacNamara, ask him if he remembers shooting an insurance agent named Martin Mourtone at Stephenson’s. Jog his memory.” He didn’t know where his newfound calm was coming from. Maybe he didn’t care what happened to him any more. Maybe he’d filled his quota of dread.
“What the hell do you know about that?”
“I saw the fella. Martin Mourtone. Insurance agent. Somebody misplaced the back of his head.”
“Never heard a word about it.”
“Yeah, well, the body got up and walked away. Just as a favor, put it to Abie.”
“What’s his reason, MacNamara?”
“Mourtone found out about the buyback routine. An African named Harry Granger set up a meeting at Stephenson’s so MacNamara could do the deed. Granger’s the Negro who ended up in pieces in a barrel, so I guess they didn’t trust him to keep his trap shut. Remember that one?”
“That rings a bell.”
“Ask him about that escapade, too. I’ve got another question. Do you think they were using more than one insurance company?”
“You’re a little bulldog, ain’t you? As a matter of fact, they squeezed ‘em all every which way. As many settlements as they could get. All they need’s a sawbones to pronounce. We’ve got his name, too. Old rummy. A Dr. Slurry. Now there’s a business with a future,” Byrnes added thoughtfully.
“Jesus, you think somebody else will try it?”
“Unless the companies stop issuing those policies. What’re the chances of that? I made some inquiries. Since the eighties they’ve been raking it in. Twenty-five percent of the policies they write are on kids under ten.”
“How much can they make on policies that sell for a few cents a week?”
“More than a few cents when they’re issuing over a million policies. Some reformers tried to outlaw it in Massachusetts. England, too. Creates a bit of an incentive, don’t it?”
“When can I get my interviews? I’ll need the coroner’s report, too.” “Sure, sure. As soon as we can make them available.” “By the way. Who were the policies payable to? Did you check that out?” Byrnes’s answer came a heartbeat too late. “Ah, this Edwards far as I know. She was working for her own pocket.”
Keeping his own counsel, Max let this assertion pass.
chapter forty-one
As it turned out, Joseph MacNamara’s jaw had broken itself in several places. Under treatment at Bellevue, he wasn’t moving his mouth too freely. Mrs. Edwards had been spirited away overnight, and none of the court officers seemed to know where she had gone. Only Marianne Granger, unable to make bail, remained locked in the Tombs.
A pot-bellied guard led Max over the Bridge of Sighs and into the prison proper. Packed holding tanks lined the first corridor. A man was singing an air involving County Cork until an intimate friend began to choke him during the refrain. Another inmate bemoaned his fate. “Sonofabitch Cleveland,” he reasoned. “He got it in for me.”
“You putchyerself in here, birdbrain,” another prisoner hooted.
Max followed the guard to a lower level. The air grew colder, and the bricks were prickled with moisture. In the muffled silence, he heard his own shuffling and sucking for breath, inmates muttering and snoring. When the turnkey reached an iron gate, he called for the next booly dog. Holding a guttering candle aloft, this putty-nosed creature drew him deeper into an airless passage.
Huddled in the corner of her cell, Marianne Granger stared back at them. Tense. Watchful. When the flickering light fell on her, she seemed to withdraw into the wall itself. He had steeled himself against his own rage—wasn’t he face to face with the fiend who had tried to kill him?—but instead the sight of the frightened African filled him with pity. Who knew how many kidney punches and well-placed knuckles had been applied to her during questioning?
“Lookit that. Her own digs. This nigger, she’s got the pull.”
“Were you holding the other woman here?”
“That high-hat bitch? They bailed her out jack flash. All’s I got for you is the nignog. Wanna go back?”
“No, no. I have candles. Just let me in.”
He dropped a few coins into the turnkey’s hand and swung the cell door open. Once inside, he settled himself on the plain plank bed, lit the wick on a fresh candle and opened his parcel. “Would you like something to eat? Ham? Cheese? Some fresh fruit? I’ve got bread and two beers, too.”
“What you doin’ here? I thought you was … Oh, Lord.”
“Just doing my job. For the paper.”
“I didn’t hit you, mister. It were MacNamara. He the one. Not me.”
“I know that,” he lied, trying to soothe her. “Drink?” He groped in his pocket, produced a church key and popped a bottle.
She snatched it and took a long pull. “They gonna shoot me with the electricity? My lord, I’m thirsty.” She took another swig. He passed her a hunk of bread. “Lemme see some of that ham you got. You know what they feed you?”
“I’ve got a good idea.”
“Them little white worms in everything.” She tore into his offerings, devouring the meat and cheese first.
“I can help you.”
“Reporter cain’t do nothin’.”
“I can tell people your side.”
“Black got no side. They put the whole thing on me. Harry and me, we jus’ try to feed our family.”
“Wasn’t it MacNamara’s idea?”
She let go a derisive laugh. “Joseph? Half he nose gone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He a Duster. All they cares about’s snortin’ up. He mind, I’ll bet it got a hole in it. That what they sayin’? That Joseph the one? They try to put it on him and me? You’ll put it in your paper? The way it really happen?”
“That’s what I get paid for.”
“I never done it my own self. They jus’ uses me to dig the hole…. You write that. They the ones who … oh, Lord, they goin’ tie me to that chair. They says you hair catch on fire, when you in that chair you spit out the electric.” Her voice quavered, but she fought back her tears. “I’m feared, mister. What my kids gonna do, they momma die like that?”
Now her tears came sudden and unrestrained. She gripped his arm so hard he recoiled, but she wouldn’t let go. He dug for his handkerchief and waited for her to stop shaking. For a long time they sat in silence.
“You think you c’n help. You ain’t fibbin’?”
“I can put it in the paper so everybody knows.” He waited until she blew her nose again. “So who thought up the insurance fraud?”
“They ever kills a lady with the shock?”
“If I can get your story out….”
“Electric expensive. Maybe they don’t wanna waste it on no black bitch.” Her sly joke took him aback. He’d never realized Africans had such a bitter sense of humor. “Got that other one?”
He passed her the second beer, she took a long swallow and fell quiet. Sensing he shouldn’t press too hard, Max waited. In a distant cell, a woman wailed, a high-pitched, looping cry that sounded barely human. In a ragged chorus, curses resounded through the lockup.
“It happen by accident,” Marianne said finally. “Harry find a litde momma at a house on Sullivan, she cain’t pay the ten cent. They a lotta them, first they buy the policy, parade aroun’ like they doin’ the right thing,” she added with scorn.
“He was selling policies in a brothel?”
“Why not? They the girl got the coin. Half of ‘em droppin’ baby and then they go runnin’ off. Money go to French dress, the gin bottle. T
hen they fly the coop.”
“So Harry bought the policies back?”
“Nah, he jus’ tell the lady, Mrs. Edwards, about this girl Ruthie. Black girl from Camden. How she stop payin’ the ten cent.”
“Where did he meet Mrs. Edwards?”
“Mrs. Edwards in there collectin’ the rent and preachin’ to the girl. Tellin’ ’em how they dirty and all.”
For a moment he sat there, stunned. Weems was railing against parlor houses while the church pocketed profits from the same source. The hypocrisy was almost too raw, yet it had the ring of truth. Why did he cringe in disbelief then?
“And what did she say?”
“She know about Ruthie ‘cause Ruthie stop paying the lady takin’ care of her kid, too. Mrs. Edwards, she know everybody in the building. Madame. Baby lady. Ruthie got kick out, she cain’t pay nobody.”
“Backed out of the brothel?”
“Yeah, so Harry start to think. He do all kind of number in his head, and he say if somebody buy back the policy from Ruthie for less, everybody be better off. Put that in the paper, mister. It were to help a poor girl.”
For a humanitarian, Marianne Granger had quite a lot of blood on her hands, but he let her self-serving claim pass. Was it possible that a Negro had thought up such a perverse scheme? And if so, wasn’t it proof that the black race was equal to the rest of mankind? “And Harry made some money too, didn’t he?”
“Sure. He keep collectin’ the premium from the lady who buy back the policy. Harry say the Jew, the white man, they make money outta paper. Why not the black man? But it were only to help,” she insisted.
“So Ruthie’s baby passed away and Mrs. Edwards collected, right?”
“Yeah. She buy more policy then. She after Harry to tell her about all the jazzin’ momma don’t pay. They happy to sell. They ain’t eatin they own self. Mrs. Edwards a religious lady, she doin’ a good deed she say.”
“Was Harry the only one who found … ah … clients for her?”
“Nah, once she figure it out, she ask all the baby lady, do they have any with the policy. She take ‘em from Harry when he find ‘em, but she go out on her own. She take rent at a lotta buildin’, and the girl, they droppin’ ’em every which way.”
“And Harry told Martin about the buybacks?”
“Yeah. He say they should do the same thing the lady doin’, but Martin, he don’t want to buy ‘em back. He say it look like they helpin’ but maybe they hurtin’. Speculatin’ like that.”
“The odds were good, though, weren’t they? Don’t a fair number die anyway?”
“They mostly weak, they mother don’t have the good milk. Harry say ‘Why not pay the girl and collect our own self?’ But Martin, he don’t like that idea.”
“Do you have any idea who might have killed your husband?”
“We was goin’ good, he don’t have no enemy. Everybody like Harry. But he carry aroun’ too much cash after he collect…. Some nigger probably cut him.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her own friends didn’t want Harry talking, any more than Martin. If MacNamara himself didn’t do Harry up, another Hudson Duster had.
“Mrs. Edwards said it was for charity?”
“She give it to the church, she say. Girl in her buildin’ droppin every day, and she got buildin’ all over town.”
“And there are baby farmers in a lot of them?”
“Litde ones every which place. Gots to have the ladies take care of’em.”
“I see. Who cashed the policies? Edwards?”
“They make like the church cash ‘em. Girl sign over to the church. Harry say nobody ask no question if it be the church.”
“You saw the Reverend Weems come around?”
“That skinny teeth man? Yeah, he tell us how we doin’ God’s work ‘n’all. The lady, they believes him, too. They do the business one, two, three.”
“They smothered them, didn’t they?”
“They the one who do it,” Marianne responded. “Not me. I gots children of my own. They use the handkerchief and stuff.”
“And then you took them downtown to bury in that warehouse?”
“They gots other basement, too. Other tenement.”
“Can you tell me which ones?”
“There one on Desbrosses, and two on Greenwich I knows of. They got dirt basements. They fills ‘em up.”
He flinched at the specter of these hidden Potter’s Fields, but they were a natural outgrowth of the business, weren’t they? Efficient depositories that completed the transactions.
“Were they all in abandoned buildings like the one on Schermerhorn? Do you know any addresses?”
“I don’t exactly know no number, but nobody live in ‘em. Yeah, they abandon.”
He didn’t know if she would understand his next question. “Did they ever talk about science?”
“I don’t know nuffin’ about no science.” She hesitated. “Sometime they talk about blood… . You know, weak blood, strong blood. Maybe they know what they talkin’ about.”
“Whose blood?”
“People blood. Like they makin’ a mule or somethin.”
Christian purity and the Reverend Weems’s modem thinking dovetailed in a way, didn’t they? How convenient that progressive science and spiritual ideals came together so neatly.
“Did they talk about the Immigration Restriction League?”
“Some society they work for. They has these preachers talk at they house.”
“Did the Reverend Weems give talks over there?”
“Him and his other preacher friend. They talk about it like I’m not there. Like I don’ understand nothin’. I know what they sayin’. Too many mick, too many dago, too many polack, you know.”
“I see. Didn’t Mrs. Edwards have any qualms?”
“Any what?”
“Misgivings.”
“Nah. She do it jes’ like they chicken. I seen it on a farm down South.”
“Did you tell the police about the League or Reverend Weems?”
“The superintendent, he come in here.”
“Byrnes?”
“Yeah, but he don’ listen. He say sign this paper.”
“And you told him about Reverend Weems.”
“So what?”
“It’s personal. Oh, one more thing. Were any of the infants white?”
“White? Sure they white. They Jew, dago, mick baby. A ‘course, nigger too.”
“I mean white-white.”
Her derisive laughter stopped his heart. “Mrs. Edwards, she don’t drop nones I knows of.”
After his articles on Holy Trinity’s real-estate empire ran their course, Belle took him to meet some people at the Henry Street Settlement House. The gathering included Belle’s mentor, Lillian Wald, the woman who had invented home nursing; Jane Farmer and Alice Montgomery, two humorless acolytes who reminded Max of nuns; an austere millionaire reformer, Mrs. Spencer-Morris; and Mr. Schiff, whose philanthropy drew on his banking fortune.
In other words, exactly the sort of assembly that made Max itch. For one thing, he sensed that his snappy yellow vest wasn’t going over well in this crowd. Yet somehow, by sheer accident, he’d earned a place among them. And he knew how much Belle wanted him to cooperate with these secular reformers. At least the Henry Street Settlement went light on Christian love, so he found he could bear its atmosphere. Up to a point.
They sat in a stark room and drank tasteless tea. At the head of the table, Mr. Schiff, a martinet not so different from Colonel Fisk, made a proposal: “I’ve been speaking to Mr. Gilder and we’re forming a committee. We’d like you to testify as to the conditions you’ve seen.”
“Your articles were a revelation,” Miss Wald put in.
“We’re looking into legislation to stop this despicable insurance business,” Mrs. Spencer-Morris added.
“I’ve seen a dozen of these hideous baby farms,” Miss Wald observed. “But I had no idea how organized they were.”
Max blushed. If only this crowd knew how much blood had been left on the newsroom floor, how much had been misrepresented, and how much of his story he’d been forced to slash before even a semblance of the truth was allowed to take shape on the page! He had to laugh. With their implacable naivete, Schiff, Wald, and Mrs. Spencer-Morris could never imagine his negotiations with the revered Police Superintendent Byrnes or his battles with Stan Parnell.
When he’d shoehorned Marianne Granger’s accusations into his first draft, his editor had jumped all over him. “You can’t build a case around one nigger lady’s accusations. Byrnes says she’s just trying to save her own skin and this MacNamara, he’s pleading out on the arson charge.”
“Did he admit to the murders?”
“What murders?”
“Mourtone and Granger.”
“Do you have wax in your ears? He pled out on arson. That’s it.”
“In return for his testimony.”
“Sure. He nailed Edwards and her friends. Byrnes tied it up with a bow.”
Max had dug in his heels. “Okay, forget Mourtone. You can’t cut the whole section on Weems and the immigrant angle.”
“Why not? Where are your sources? You don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“Okay, forget the League. I can draw the dots between Weems and the racket. We can get balance, Stan. Let me quote Granger and get Fisk to deny.”
“No can do. It’s bad enough I’ve got Mutual and Prudential burning my ear off. They say you’re going off half-cocked.”
“I quoted Gordon Lark from Accident and Life. Didn’t you see that?”
“Just forget about Weems. He’s dead and buried. The ladies are coughing it up. Why go out on a limb?”
For a day after that argument, Parnell had let Max languish on the space-rater’s bench without a single assignment. He’d pushed too hard. Two more days went by. Nothing. He was sure he was going to be eased out. He would have to make his case one last time.
The Midnight Band of Mercy Page 41