The Anarchist

by John Smolens

  Now the president finished his speech and the crowd burst into cheers. McKinley seemed genuinely surprised by the response. He bowed repeatedly, a gesture that was formal, yet humble and appreciative. He raised his arm and waved back at the crowd, and it was this simple gesture that seemed to elevate the noise until it swelled through the Triumphal Causeway in waves, Americans cheering their president, who waved back as though he were greeting old friends. A woman standing in front of Hyde wept with joy.

  Hyde lowered his binoculars and watched the president leave the stage with his entourage. The crowd shifted and re-formed itself, and quickly an avenue was created, allowing the president’s carriage to move slowly down the causeway. Hyde looked through the binoculars again, and suddenly he saw Czolgosz, standing not five yards from the carriage. His head seemed to float on a sea of humanity—but while there were expressions of adoration around him, his face remained stony and unmoved.

  As McKinley’s carriage continued on through the parting crowd, Czolgosz was pushed farther behind, and finally he began to make his way in the other direction, toward the Lincoln Avenue gate.

  Hyde ran down the steps and pushed through the crowd. He could no longer see Czolgosz, but he kept moving toward Lincoln Avenue. Finally, he reached the gate, and through the wrought-iron bars saw Czolgosz walking down the wide boulevard. Hyde followed, weaving around groups of strollers and vendors’ carts, and just avoiding being run down by bicyclists.

  Then Czolgosz, not twenty yards ahead, looked over his shoulder and saw Hyde. He turned and began to run. Hyde skirted a large group of children, who were singing “God Bless America,” and then he broke into a run. Czolgosz wasn’t that fast; his shoulders heaved, and Hyde realized that it was his breathing—his catarrh caused him to slow and gasp for breath. Hyde was gaining, and when he was within a few feet, Czolgosz turned and looked back—his blond hair was matted against his forehead, and he appeared out of breath. He jammed his right hand into his coat pocket, and raised his arm. Hyde could see the end of the gun barrel pressing against the corduroy fabric of Czolgosz’s coat, and he stopped. People brushed by them, laughing and talking loudly.

  Hyde moved forward, raising his arms in front of himself involuntarily. Czolgosz extended his arm, but he was gasping for breath and seemed to have difficulty taking aim.

  There was a sound to Hyde’s left and he turned his head to see a boy on a bicycle coming straight toward him. The boy was looking at Czolgosz and must have noticed the gun because he yelled just as his bicycle slammed into Hyde. They both fell to the pavement with the bicycle, and all around them there were exclamations from men and women. When he rolled onto his side, Hyde saw the boy, lying on the ground beneath the enormous front wheel of his bicycle, crying in pain.

  A small crowd gathered around, tending to the boy, who began to scream when he realized that the rim was warped, the spokes bent, the tire deflated.

  Someone helped Hyde to his feet—it was Miles. The other Pinkerton, Rawley, arrived, out of breath from forcing his way through the crowd. “You saw him,” he gasped. “You saw Czolgosz?”

  Hyde touched the side of his head and blood came off on his fingers. The Pinkertons were speaking to him but their voices seemed distant. White streaks shot across his vision. He gazed down Lincoln Avenue; it was full of people, most walking away from the exposition, some waiting for the trolley. There was no sign of Czolgosz.

  IT was late afternoon when the president’s entourage finally returned to the Milburn house. Everyone was quite done in from the sun and heat, but there was also a muted sense of jubilation: the president’s speech had been a spectacular success.

  Only George Cortelyou seemed unaffected by the mood of the house, and when he found Rixey in the dining room, where a substantial buffet had been laid out, he whispered, “I wonder if you might accompany me to my next meeting. It concerns the president’s security.” Before Rixey could answer, Cortelyou tucked his leather-bound folder—which was seldom out of reach—under his arm and started briskly down the hallway toward the back of the house. “No, it’s not the Secret Service,” Cortelyou said over his shoulder. “Their job is to escort the president, and indeed they did a splendid job this afternoon.”

  “Then who are they?” Though Rixey was considerably taller, he had to make an effort to keep pace with Cortelyou.

  “A captain from the Buffalo police, a Pinkerton detective I know from their Washington office, and one of his informers.”

  Cortelyou opened a door and entered a sunroom on the south side of the house. There were large potted plants and wicker furniture covered with cushions decorated with a bright floral pattern. The ceramic tile floor made every sound echo, especially the crackling wicker as three men stood to greet Cortelyou and Rixey.

  “Gentlemen,” Cortelyou said, shaking hands. “This is the president’s physician, Dr. Rixey. And this is Captain Savin and Detective Norris. And?” He looked at the third man, the youngest of them.

  “This is Hyde, Moses Hyde,” Detective Norris said. “I thought it would be wise for you to hear what he has to say.” “Indeed,” Cortelyou said.

  Hyde was quietly nervous, clearly unaccustomed to such company. His clothes were worn and ill fitting, and Rixey noticed what appeared to be a sizable lump on the side of his head.

  They all sat in their chairs, and once settled everyone seemed afraid to move for fear of making the wicker creak.

  Savin lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray on the table next to his chair. “The speech went well,” he said, almost as a formality. His suit was tailored, his oiled hair tight to his skull.

  “The president attracted a remarkable crowd,” Cortelyou said. “It was estimated at more than fifty thousand. Dr. Rixey here has been urging us to cancel all of the president’s public appearances. He believes these crowds are too large.”

  “The size of the crowd has nothing to do with the size of the threat.” The Pinkerton detective, Norris, leaned forward, his chair groaning, and spoke to Rixey. “You might be wise to do just that, Doctor.” Creases from his hat appeared to have been permanently impressed into the side of his head. He lacked Savin’s polish, and there was something unsettling about his bulging eyes; they possessed a hint of humor, as though the detective thought it absurd that five men, responsible in various ways for the safety of the president of the United States, should be lounging in the warmth and comfort of this sun-drenched room.

  “The president has a full schedule, tonight and tomorrow, before he leaves for Washington,” Cortelyou said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had more security people surrounding him. We even brought you out here, Mr. Norris.”

  “I hope it’s enough,” Norris said.

  “What are you suggesting, Mr. Norris?” Cortelyou asked.

  “I’m suggesting that you pack McKinley on the Presidential Special and get him back to Washington in the dark of night. Lock him up in the Executive Mansion and give him very limited access to newspaper reporters. In fact, you might line his office with lead, too.”

  “Bulletproof?” Cortelyou asked.

  “I was thinking more along the line of bombs,” Norris said.

  Cortelyou shifted so that his chair creaked in disapproval. “During the last election the president conducted much of his campaign from the front porch of his house in Canton. Anyone—not just reporters—was welcome to gather on his front lawn and ask him about his policies regarding Cuba, the Philippines, the gold standard. He is determined to continue that method on through his second term of office. Nobody’s going to ‘pack’ the president anywhere.”

  Norris sat back in his chair; he had had his say.

  “That’s why you’re here,” Cortelyou said. “We require the best security.”

  “Thank you,” Norris said.

  Cortelyou leaned toward Rixey and said, “A year ago I received a letter from a man claiming that he was part of an anarchist group that was planning to assassinate the president. He listed five names, al
l of them Italian. The Secret Service wasn’t getting anywhere with it, so I contacted the Pinkertons and Norris was instrumental in finding one of the men who was already in Washington.”

  “How?” Rixey asked.

  “I run spies, Doctor,” Norris said. “Informants, like Hyde here.” He gestured toward Hyde, as though he were evidence of a rare, seldom-captured species. “They can be our best defense against something like these anarchists.”

  “This is why I requested that Norris come to Buffalo weeks ago,” Cortelyou said, “to work with Captain Savin so that we might learn of any plots before the president arrived.”

  Savin exhaled blue smoke upward into a shaft of sunlight. “We have an enormous population of Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Russians—they’re pouring into the city. They have no money, most speak little or no English, and they’re all looking for work. They’re ill fed, poorly clothed, in the winter they’re cold, they’re sickly throughout the year. The women who can’t find work in factories walk the streets, and the men—they spend what they have on the women and in saloons. Would some of them like to kill the president? Absolutely. There are groups all over the city—socialist, communist, anarchist, whatever. We hear of plots all the time, but it’s like trying to hold water in your palm.”

  Hyde seemed distracted; he was gazing down at the floor tiles, as though trying to figure something out.

  “Detective Norris,” Rixey said, “you have not just one spy, but a network here in Buffalo?”

  “I do.” He leaned forward in his chair again. “Captain Savin has helped me set it up, and I think we’ve identified some potentially dangerous individuals.”

  “What do you do with these individuals?” Rixey asked.

  For a moment, the doctor thought that Norris was going to laugh, but he then settled a cold stare on the space between them. “What I’d like to do is kill them. And the rest of the lot I’d load into ships and send back to where they came from—but that, of course, is a policy decision I cannot make.” Cortelyou was about to speak, but Norris continued, his voice measured and forceful. “I’ll give you one example. Hyde has identified a man who came here from Cleveland. He’s a Pole and has been in contact with the likes of Emma Goldman. His behavior, according to Hyde, suggests that he’s quite capable of attempting to kill the president. But he has done no wrong, broken no law. And even though Captain Savin has sent word of him out to the police throughout Buffalo, the fact is nobody knows what this man looks like, other than the most general description.”

  “Interestingly,” Savin added, “there was an announcement in the recent issue of Free Society that describes a man who might be spying on the anarchists. Some of the description matches what little we do know about this Czolgosz.”

  “What I suspect it means,” Norris said, “is that now that they’ve sent their man on his mission they want to sever all ties with him.”

  “And nobody really knows what he looks like,” Cortelyou said.

  Rixey turned to Hyde. “Except for you.”

  The young man appeared surprised to have been addressed directly. He was gathering the nerve to speak, when Norris said, “That’s correct, Doctor: except for my informant.”

  Rixey nodded, and looked at Hyde again. “Where is this man?”

  Norris sat back, glaring at Rixey; the doctor ignored him.

  “I’m not sure where he is right now, Doctor,” Hyde said. “But he was at the exposition during the president’s speech today.” “You saw him?” Rixey asked.

  “From a distance—through a pair of binoculars,” Hyde said. “He got fairly close to the president’s carriage, but the crowd was too … I followed him, but I couldn’t reach him. He was armed.”

  “Armed?” Cortelyou said.

  “Yes, sir,” Hyde said. “He had a pistol.”

  “You saw it?” Cortelyou asked.

  “He aimed it at me,” Hyde said. “I followed him through the crowd.” The young man lowered his eyes, and it seemed he was unable to continue.

  “Well?” Cortelyou said.

  Norris cleared his throat. “Hyde says he was hit by a boy on a bicycle, and when he looked up the man was gone.”

  Cortelyou studied Hyde for a moment. “A bicycle?”

  “The gun,” Rixey said. “Did he take aim at the president?”

  Hyde glanced at Norris, as though seeking permission to speak, and then he said, “I didn’t see that, sir. He was in the crowd and I couldn’t tell.”

  For a moment, Cortelyou scribbled rapidly on the notepad in his leather-bound folder, and when he closed the folder on his knee everyone understood what it meant. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said as he replaced the cap on his fountain pen and tucked it inside his suit coat. “Please keep us notified of any further developments.”

  They all stood up and moved toward the door, passing in and out of wide bars of sunlight angling down from the tall windows. Cortelyou walked ahead with Savin and Norris, and Rixey fell in next to Hyde. From the side, the doctor could see the considerable lump above and behind the young man’s right ear, which was encrusted with black dried blood. “That looks nasty,” he said. “It really should be cleaned properly.”

  “I’m all right, sir.”

  Rixey hesitated at the door, causing Hyde to stop and look at him uncertainly. “No, it might get infected and that could lead to all sorts of problems. Let me take a minute to clean it.” When they were all out in the hallway, Rixey said, “You gentlemen go on. I’m going to take a minute with Hyde here.”

  Cortelyou nodded agreement, Savin seemed uninterested, and Norris looked perturbed. Clearly, there was something coarse, shrewd, and even brutal about the man. “Well, we can’t wait,” Norris said. “Other appointments, you know. You meet me, Hyde, tomorrow morning at the usual place.” He didn’t wait for a reply but followed the others down the hallway to the front vestibule.

  Rixey led Hyde up the back stairs to the bedroom he’d been using since the president’s entourage had arrived at the Milburn residence. “Here, please have a seat,” he said, pulling the desk chair closer to the window.

  Reluctantly, Hyde sat down and watched as Rixey made preparations at the desk: pouring water from a pitcher into a porcelain pan and opening his medical kit, a leather bag with a frayed handle. “I’ve been telling myself I should get a new bag for years, Moses, but somehow I just never get around to it.”

  Hyde turned his head and stared out the window toward the carriage house; small talk didn’t seem to put him at ease. “People just call me Hyde.”

  “Your parents must be very religious to name you—”

  “It was the nuns,” he said quickly. “The nuns in the orphanage gave me my name.”

  “I see.” Rixey soaked a cloth in the water, and then began to gently daub at the encrusted wound. “It looks like some hair has already been cut away,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who did that?”

  “A woman I know.”

  “Did she put anything on it? Iodine, disinfectant?”

  “She didn’t have any.”

  “I see. Well, I do.”

  Slowly the water broke down the encrusted blood, revealing a deep, crescent-shaped gouge in his skin. Most patients would have pulled away or at least winced, but Hyde only continued to stare out the window. “This is quite nasty,” Rixey said.

  “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “With the woman?”

  “It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “I see—”

  “No, I don’t think you do, sir.”

  After a moment’s hesitation Rixey took a jar of ointment from his bag and began to spread it over the wound. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to pry.”

  There was a nervous tension in the young man’s face, and he seemed both undecided and angry. “The woman, she cleaned it as best she could, but she had no medicine.”

  “Your girl, perhaps?”

  “Not exactly. She’s a prost
itute, and the misunderstanding—if you want to call it that—was with this man that wants to kill the president.”

  “He got away because of some bicycle mishap?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s how you got this cut?”

  “No. Not exactly. It was earlier—it’s not important, not now.”

  “Tell me something.” Rixey waited until Hyde looked up at him. “Norris says you’re an informant. Obviously, it’s dangerous. Why? Why do you do it?”

  “I get paid,” Hyde said. “I get paid, and Norris said I might get to join the Pinkertons.” He began to turn his head away, but he looked back up at Rixey. His eyes were different now, not angry but vulnerable and sincere, like a child’s. “But I don’t trust Norris, not one bit. Or Savin either. You can’t trust any of them.” He seemed at a loss for words suddenly and looked as though he regretted having spoken at all. But then he went on, speaking with vehemence now. “But, you see, somebody’s got to stop Czolgosz. He wants to shoot the president—I know it. He’s an anarchist and he feels it’s his duty.” Hyde looked down, appearing weary and exhausted.

  “So you’ve made it your duty, too,” Rixey said.

  “I suppose I have,” he said regretfully. “Besides, I know what he looks like.”

  As Rixey put the lid on the jar of ointment, he said, “To do this sort of thing, it takes fortitude, a rare kind of fortitude.” There was a notepad next to the telephone on the desk; he picked up a pencil and scribbled the phone number on it. He tore the page off and handed it and the jar of ointment to Hyde. “If I can help you—perhaps look at this wound again—you can always call me here at the Milburn house.”

  Hyde stared at the jar and slip of paper a moment, and then he took the jar and stuffed it in his coat pocket. “Thank you, but I will not use this.” As he placed the slip of paper on the desk, he smiled, revealing some embarrassment. “The truth is, sir, I have never used a telephone.”