American Lightning

by Howard Blum

  What Raymond could not know or appreciate was all the trouble D.W. had had during the shooting of the movie with Blanche. The attraction that had once existed between the director and his star had disappeared. They no longer felt any ease in each other’s presence. She treated D.W. with a feisty belligerence, and the director, with a shrewd resignation, exploited her roiling temperament. He had her play herself. The spunky heroine he captured on the screen was a bristling continuation of her off-camera demeanor. So D.W. was satisfied. He could deal with Blanche to his own advantage.

  Linda, however, was proving to be more problematic. She was in the process of filing for separation from D.W., but that did not prevent her from hanging around the set and taking bitter measure of both D.W. and his star. Jealous, she went around the Alex each evening and always managed to share a catty word about the woman she suspected had taken her husband away from her. Years later she would still be seething: “The outdoor life of the West had plumped up the fair Blanche . . . Why wouldn’t Blanche have plumped up when she arrived on location with a bag of cream puffs nearly every day and her grandmother got up at odd hours of the night to fry her bacon sandwiches? She soon filled out every wrinkle of the home-made looking tweed suit she had worn on her arrival in Los Angeles.”

  By the time the movie was in the can, D.W. had no patience for either of them. He had come to California to make movies. He had lots of ideas, and he wasn’t going to be sidetracked by a difficult star or a jealous wife. Anyway, there were plenty of other actresses to occupy his thoughts. The crew had even started calling him “Mr. Heinz” when he was out of earshot; D.W. had, they playfully calculated, “57 varieties” of women hanging around on and off the set.

  Also unknown to Raymond at the time, the meeting at the movie theater had come about because of woman trouble, too. The man McGraw was with was J.J. McNamara, the secretary-treasurer of the union. And J.J. had fled from his office because he didn’t want Mary Dye to see him speaking with McGraw.

  Mary was a stenographer for the union, a pretty blue-eyed small-town Ohio girl, and she had fallen hard for J.J. For a while J.J. had been quite happy with the situation. He had even found Mary a room in the North Street boardinghouse where he lived. Conveniently, a single door separated their two adjoining rooms.

  But, life imitating melodrama, complications soon entangled their romance. Mary began to feel unsure of J.J.’s intentions. With her mounting insecurity, she grew possessive. She was not above telling friends that they had sneaked off to Cincinnati and gotten married, or that the baby in a photograph was their son rather than her brother. These fabrications made their way back to J.J., and he fumed.

  Yet he knew Mary had reason to doubt him. J.J. had become smitten with their landlady, and she with him. They talked to each other about love and held hands. When union business took him out of Indianapolis, he now wrote ardent, heartfelt letters to his landlady, not to Mary.

  Making love to two women living under the same roof was, J.J. realized, a volatile situation. It was as if he were caught up in the complicated plot of a movie showing at the Orpheum—D.W. Griffith had made a film called The Sorrows of the Unfaithful. But J.J. quickly came to appreciate that he was facing a larger and very real danger. He worked with Mary. She knew a great deal about what the union was doing. He was not sure about the extent of her knowledge, but a small incident had recently left him rumbling with apprehension. Mary had opened his office mail and found a newspaper clipping about a dynamiting.

  “Oh,” she said, “what do you think? They have blown up that scab job.” She waved the clipping at him.

  Was Mary trying to tell him something? J.J. worried. Was she threatening him?

  Whatever her ploy, J.J. decided he had had enough. He was determined to end the romance. She would have to leave the boardinghouse. And he would not work in the union office when she was around. McGraw had been scheduled to meet him at the office; it was too late to do anything about that. But he would not speak to him there. Not while Mary was around.

  When McGraw appeared, J.J. quickly hustled him off. On the street, his only plan was to lead McGraw away from Mary or anyone else who might be watching. He had no destination in mind. When they turned a corner, he saw the huge stone pharaohs guarding the entrance to the Orpheum. That’d be as good a place as any, he decided at once. They could talk, and in the dark no one would notice them. Besides, he still remembered A Corner in Wheat and how much the film had impressed and excited him.

  It’s doubtful, however, that J.J. found much to enjoy in The Lonedale Operator. The unyielding, determined heroine might very well have been too reminiscent of Mary.

  When they left the Orpheum, the two men went off in separate directions. Raymond stayed with McGraw. He did not know the identity of the handsome man, but he assumed that could be routinely discovered. Apparently he worked for the union; it wouldn’t be hard to connect a name with a face. Raymond wondered what the two had been discussing, but he tried to put that sort of conjecture out of his mind. There would be time to discover that, too. For the present, he had only one task: follow McGraw.

  McGraw boarded a train to Chicago, and Raymond found a seat in the same car. When he climbed onto a streetcar outside the Chicago station, Raymond hesitated. Then he hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to follow the streetcar.

  McGraw got out at South Sangamon Street, and Raymond watched him walk to a small red painted house, number 414. A woman greeted him at the door, and two small children ran up to him, pulling and hugging. McGraw had come home.

  It did not take much detective work for Raymond to discover that McGraw’s real name was Ortie McManigal. He did not know how McManigal fit into the L.A. bombing. Or what role the handsome union man had in all of this. But it was with great pride that he telegraphed all he had learned to his father. As the operator clicked the key, Raymond felt as if each new clipped, staccato burst was building toward his redemption.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ______________________

  THEY WAITED, AND they watched. It was tedious work, each day a long, monotonous repeat of the one that had preceded it. Billy had left for Chicago immediately after receiving his son’s telegram. Even before he learned about McManigal, he had begun to reconsider the likelihood of finding Caplan and Schmitty in the colony; apparently they had gone to ground, and he now suspected it might be a while before they resurfaced. Nothing would be accomplished by his remaining in Tacoma.

  Once in Chicago, Billy took charge of the surveillance operation. It was an odd, troubling case. He did not know if he was following a new trail or turning into another dead end. Never before had he invested so much time and resources into an investigation, only to still be challenged by so many unanswered questions. Caplan and Morris had vanished. Bryce, too, was nowhere to be found. And no less perplexing, Billy had no idea how he fit into the plot.Was Bryce the ringleader? A go-between? A bomber? McManigal was another question mark. He could be traced to Peoria, but there was no evidence he had been in Los Angeles. And what had he been doing in Indianapolis?

  His contact there had been identified as J.J. McNamara, the union leader; Billy, being cautious, had ordered that J.J. be tailed, too. It seemed unlikely, though, that McNamara had any involvement in this case. Still, McManigal’s meeting up with McNamara struck the detective as curious. Ortie McManigal wasn’t a union man; he didn’t even have a job, unless showing up at the corner saloon each day could be counted as work. He didn’t seem like the sort that J.J.—a lawyer, a literary critic, and even a bit of a poet in addition to being a union officer, Billy had learned—would look to for friendship. What was the connection between the two men? Billy had no answers. All he could do was wait and see where McManigal would lead them.

  A week passed, and then Billy got the break he had been hoping for. Of course, at the time he did not know its significance. In fact, he came very close to ignoring it.

  William Deane, an agent in the Chicago office, called to report that Subje
ct 1—as the Burns operatives now referred to Ortie McManigal—was on the move. Deane and his partner, Robert Kaiser, had been watching McManigal for the past three days. In that time the subject’s only excursions had been his daily stroll to the corner bar. But a little past two that afternoon, he had walked out of his home wearing corduroy trousers, a long black jacket, and a soft black felt hat. In his hand he carried a gun bag; judging by its size and shape, it contained two, possibly three, shotguns.

  He’s in a real hurry, Deane reported to his boss. Seems to be on his way to the station, probably rushing to catch a train. My guess, he’s going hunting. Want us to stick with him?

  Billy considered. The last time he had sent his men out into the woods, they had spent months in the Home Colony only to return empty-handed. Odds were that this would play out that way, too. Teams of men, weeks of time, and no results. He also had another concern—money. He was now financing the investigation with borrowed funds, and there was no guarantee of reimbursement. Maybe he should let McManigal go. He’d pick up the surveillance when McManigal returned to Chicago; running the operation in the city would certainly be easier and less expensive.

  But what if the hunting trip was a pretense? What if he had another bomb, not shotguns, in the case? Or perhaps McManigal planned to meet someone. Another contact could mean another lead.

  Billy could feel the impatience building at the other end of the telephone line. A decision had to be made, but he would not be rushed. Billy finally instructed, Stick with him. You and Kaiser. Don’t lose sight of him, and don’t let him get on to you.

  Deane stood at one end of the platform, Kaiser at the other. Both men had their eyes on McManigal. When the 3:55 arrived, he didn’t board. He waited, head twisting about from time to time, the anxious movements of a man trying to see if he was being watched. Deane nodded in the direction of his partner. It was a signal to step back; the last thing we want is to get made. Kaiser obeyed.

  The two detectives, then, were not in a good position to take a close look at the man who got off the train and greeted McManigal. He wore a dark corduroy suit; hunting clothes, they assumed. And he had a lighter-colored corduroy hat pulled down low on his forehead, as if deliberately to obscure his face. The two men shook hands, not formally, but the way old friends greet each other after a long time apart. The new arrival immediately became Subject 2 in the watchers’ minds.

  It was a hasty reunion. Deane and Kaiser saw their two subjects quickly break off their conversation. Bags in hand, they were now hurrying to catch a train boarding at the other side of the station. The detectives held back for a moment, giving the two hunters a good lead, and then they followed.

  Deane and Kaiser found seats two cars down from the subjects. Moments later the train lurched forward. The two operatives had no idea where they were heading, but they also knew it didn’t matter. Wherever the two subjects went, they would follow.

  When the conductor came by, they bought tickets to the end of the line. Conover, Wisconsin, the conductor announced as he told them the price, and they dug into their pockets. God’s country, he added. The last of the great outdoors.

  Looking back at the operation, Billy would readily acknowledge the obstacles his men faced. “It would be harder to find more seclusion than in the wilds of the Wisconsin in winter,” he observed. Snow dusted the tall evergreens. Deer ran in swift herds through the deep forest. A high winter sun glared down on Pioneer Lake. At night the heavens were a dome of stars. It was the perfect place to hide out.

  Subject 1 and Subject 2 made their camp close to the shore of Pioneer Lake, two and a half miles east of the road leading into Conover. The detectives, however, did not rush to begin their surveillance. Burns Agency rules prevailed: Create your cover; get used to the fit; and when you’re comfortable with the new role you’ve invented, then go operational.

  So Deane and Kaiser settled in. They bought fur caps, snowshoes, laced boots, and long wool coats. They registered for hunting licenses and considered several rifles until they decided on .303 Savages. A story to explain their continued presence in the Wisconsin woods took shape: They were in the mining business, waiting for some heavy equipment to be shipped from back east. In the meantime, they were killing time by hunting. They rented a cabin in town, close to the general store, so that if they happened to run into the two subjects, it’d be the most natural thing in the world; and it was also near the train station so that no one could arrive or depart without their noticing.

  Still, Billy worried. The task of shadowing men in the camp was not an easy one, he knew. Deane and Kaiser were also wary. Even the best cover could only stretch so far. If they were spotted too often in the woods surrounding Pioneer Lake, the subjects would certainly grow suspicious. But the way it worked out, the prey came to them.

  One afternoon there was a knock on the cabin door. It was McManigal, and he was very upset. His friend, he explained, had wandered off from camp last night. He wondered if they had seen him. Deane and Kaiser hadn’t, but they quickly offered to help with the search.

  They found Sullivan—the name of Subject 2, the detectives learned—sleeping in a chair in the front room of Steinmetz’s boardinghouse. It had been quite a night. Sullivan had already been drinking when he arrived at Steinmetz’s, but that didn’t stop him from ordering new rounds. He was a mean drunk. A fight broke out with a man named Smiley. Steinmetz tried to stop it and wound up with a cut ear. When Mrs. Steinmetz rushed to her husband, she caught a punch to the jaw. Sullivan had his pistol out and began making threats. But before a bad night could turn worse, Sullivan lay down on the kitchen floor and fell peacefully asleep. By the time McManigal and his two new friends had found him, he had somehow managed to make his way to the chair in the front room.

  Deane and Kaiser helped a grateful McManigal get his buddy back to their lakeside camp. Why don’t you stay for dinner? McManigal asked. And so, as Billy noted with pride as well as a bit of amazement, “the roping of the two subjects was now well under way. Instead of seeking acquaintance with them they were hunting us up.”

  It was a dangerous business. Sullivan was a man of skittish, volatile moods. He’d good-naturedly buy drinks for people he fought with the night before, only to wind up brawling with them again. Or he’d be flirting with the Steinmetzes’ teenage daughters, taking liberties with his words and his hands that seemed destined to have unfortunate consequences. Another concern was Sullivan’s melancholy. He confided to Deane and Kaiser that “all I’ve done for a month is worry.” Half the time, he said, he didn’t know what he was worried about, but still the anxiety was grinding away at him. “I’ve lost ten pounds over the past month,” he told them. He didn’t feel like eating, only drinking. And all that time Deane and Kaiser had to be alert. A slight suspicion, and things could turn very nasty. The men they were roping packed rifles and Colt pistols and knew how to use them. A gun battle with the two subjects would be a fight for their lives.

  But the roping went well. And as the two detectives spent time at the Pioneer Lake camp, a thought took shape in their minds. Sullivan had grown a blond mustache and side whiskers and had lost weight, but he couldn’t change his distinctive Roman nose. Or his height and age. The two men kept looking at him, and they grew more and more convinced: Sullivan sure fit the description of J. B. Bryce.

  We need a photograph, Billy decided after he received his operatives’ report. We need positive identification.

  So the two detectives asked their two new friends to pose in front of Deane’s camera; they wanted a souvenir of their time in the Wisconsin woods. But Sullivan wouldn’t cooperate. He hated photos, he explained. Deane and Kaiser were reluctant to press him; all they needed was for Sullivan to start thinking about why they wanted this photo. Suit yourself, he was told.

  But after Sullivan shot a stag with a fine set of antlers, they tried again. This time vanity won out, and he agreed to pose with his deer. Only as Deane snapped the shutter, Sullivan abruptly moved his head. Whe
n the photograph was developed, his face was a blur.

  The fact that Sullivan refused to be photographed only increased Billy’s interest. He was determined to get a photo. It was too risky, he decided, to try to sneak a shot; if Sullivan caught on, he’d run and they might never find him. Yet there had to be a way to get him to pose.

  Resolute, Billy locked himself in his office and began rereading the reports his operatives had filed. He was looking for a clue, something that would help him come up with a ruse. “Sullivan is a great ladies’ man and is trying hard to win the two girls here,” he read. There were more than two dozen reports, but this was a common theme. Billy thought about it. He realized he had found Sullivan’s weakness.

  Getting the Steinmetzes’ girls to cooperate was the tricky part, but when Deane offered them five dollars to help pull a fast one on Sullivan, they were quick to agree.

  I just want something to remember you by, the older girl begged.

  Let me sit on your knee, her sister suggested.

  And Sullivan was only too glad to pose with them. He had his arm around one girl, the other sister perched on his knee, and a wolfish smile on his face. He was in no hurry. Deane could take all the photographs he wanted, and he did.

  Within a week, a photograph of the smiling Sullivan was shown to the salesman at the Giant Powder Works in San Francisco. And to the landlady at the house where Caplan had rented a room. And to Waggoner, the explosives instructor in Seattle. All three agreed: The man in the photograph was J. B. Bryce.