Assassin of Shadows

by Lawrence Goldstone

  “You’re certain you’re feeling well, Mr. George?”

  “Yes. It was nothing.”

  “It was hardly nothing.”

  Walter’s breathing returned to normal and once again, he realized how beautiful Natasha Kolodkin was. Far more so than he had thought when he had first seen her. “Do the sisters know of your . . .” He searched for a way to complete the sentence.

  “My political beliefs? My lack of, shall we say, piety? Yes, they know. But Sister Helena cares only for the children. She told me that as long as I do well by them, I am welcome in St. Catherine’s.”

  “Very ecumenical of her.”

  “You don’t think much of the sisters? Is that why . . .”

  “I grew up in one of those places.”

  “I see.”

  “I ran away.”

  “Were the sisters mean to you?”

  “No.” Then, before she could ask another question, “Miss Kolodkin, I need a more exact description of the two men who visited your sister.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The color of their eyes. Their hair. How they moved. Was there anything unusual about either of them? Any scars? Odd habits.”

  “No scars. But one of the men . . . not the one who played up to Esther . . . had a habit of twirling his key chain on his finger . . . you know, let it swing around until it was wound up one way, then swinging it back.”

  “That’s good. What I meant. Was there anything else? Any detail will help.”

  “You think you know who they are?”

  “No. But if I can get a more precise description, I may know where to look for them.”

  “You don’t think they were our people, do you? Who then?”

  “I’m not certain what to think. I’m trying to find out.”

  “I don’t understand something, Mr. George.”

  “What?”

  “Why would you go to all this trouble to prove Abe Isaak innocent? That’s what you would be doing, after all. Even more than that, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if the two men were merely posing as anarchists, they would likely be our enemies.”

  “I would simply like to know the truth.”

  “Wherever it leads?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, Mr. George. Would a picture of the men help?”

  “Of course. But where will you get a picture?”

  “I’ll draw you one. I teach the children art as well.”

  20

  Where you been?” Walter had left Harry word that he would meet him at their office on La Salle, but had not given any other information.

  “I was checking something out.” Walter stood just inside the door of the tiny private office Harry rated as head of the bureau. The other six members of the squad shared the slightly larger office out front. Since Wilkie came in, only the head office in Washington spent more than six bits a year on accoutrements.

  Harry leaned his chair back, balancing perfectly on the back legs. He tapped the fingers of his right hand on his thigh. “‘Checking something out?’ Kind of vague, isn’t it, Walter?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it yet. Give me a day or two.”

  “I don’t want to pull rank on you, Walter, but last time I looked, you worked for me.”

  “Don’t crowd me, Harry. I’ll tell you when I’m able.”

  “All right, Walter. But you’d better be able soon.” Harry stood and grabbed his skimmer from the hat rack. “Now come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To where we don’t belong.”

  A landau was waiting at the curb when Walter and Harry emerged, gleaming black with gold trim, much the same as Mark Hanna’s coach in Buffalo. The driver didn’t budge from his perch, but Harry gestured for them to get in.

  “You have a good a night at poker?” Walter asked.

  “It isn’t mine.”

  “Thanks, Harry. I would never have figured that out. Whose is it?’

  “Our host’s.”

  “And our host is meeting us where?”

  “You’ll see when we get there. Didn’t you just tell me not to crowd you?”

  The coach turned on 16th Street toward the lake and suddenly Walter knew their destination. “Prairie Avenue?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been summoned.”

  Prairie Avenue was the wealthiest street in Chicago, rivaling New York’s Fifth Avenue for sheer ostentation. After the Great Fire had devoured many of the city’s stateliest homes, many of Chicago’s Brahmins had moved to the near South Side to rebuild, settling near the lakefront. A six-block stretch of the avenue south of 16th Street was now Chicago’s millionaire’s row.

  As soon as they turned toward the lake from Wabash, Harry played tour guide. “See that one. That’s Amour, the meat packer. And there’s Marshall Field’s. That one across the street is Pullman.”

  Walter kept his mouth shut and let Harry have his fun, although he had been down this street before. One Sunday about three years ago, he had rented a hansom just to see where Chicago’s richest had dropped their roots. Amour, Pullman, Field, Kimball. The next day, Walter had gone to the library and looked them up. Each had been in his late twenties when the Civil War broke out, but not one of them had served a day in the army. They stayed home and amassed millions from war commerce while other, less enlightened Americans went off to places like Antietam and Chancellorsville and did the dying. Now Marshall Field lived in a mansion as big as his store and Phillip Pullman in one as long as one of his trains. Maybe the Reds had a point, after all.

  “We’re going to that one there,” Harry said, pointing to a massive, three-story brick building with a mansard roof, set back from the road and serviced by a hundred-foot circular driveway. “It’s Hawkesworth’s.”

  “The banker.” Anthony Hawkesworth, another of America’s tycoons born in the 1830s who avoided the army, was chairman of the board of the Merchants’ Bank of Chicago. He had his finger in almost as many pies as Morgan in New York, and had personally paid for an army of Pinkertons to break a potential strike at the stockyards three years before. William McKinley had paid a call of fealty to Hawkesworth before each of his campaigns for the presidency.

  The coach pulled up at the top of the circle and a Negro in black and gold livery opened the door. “You are expected, gentlemen,” he said standing aside, with an accent that was distinctly British.

  The front door was opened by another Negro servant and Walter and Harry were ushered into the most opulent hall Walter had ever seen. The ceiling was fifteen feet high. A crystal chandelier at least seven feet across hung from a recess in the center. The floor was tiled in white marble with veins of blue and green. Side tables of exotic wood set along the walls shone of highly polished lacquer, and the wallpaper was rich green silk. A tapestry depicting a medieval pastoral scene hung from a side wall.

  Walter felt foolish in his three-dollar work suit and dollar-fifty boots, but Harry seemed unconcerned at the contrast of his appearance with that of the room in which they stood. He looked around and grinned, his pomaded pate reflecting the light. “Walter,” he whispered, “if we worked until we was eighty, I don’t think we could afford a single thing we see here.”

  From the far door, another retainer entered the room, this man white and dressed in a tailed suit. “Mr. Hawkesworth will see you in the library,” he said in a voice smooth as cream.

  The library was a thirty-foot walk from a door at the far left. Hawkesworth’s home made Milburn House, where the president was recovering, seem like a hovel. Here was true wealth, ruling-the-nation wealth.

  Anthony Hawkesworth was seated behind a desk when Harry and Walter were ushered in. The desk was an immense rosewood affair, large enough for Harry to sleep on, but seemed antlike inside the cavernous library. Shelves, floor to twelve-foot ceiling, lined three walls and yet not a single space seemed unoccupied. Blue, green, and red leather spines shone as if they had been just individually polished. Wal
ter felt himself gawk. All these books, all this learning, available to the owner at the flick of a fingertip. He wanted desperately to walk along the shelves, read some of the titles, even to remove a volume or two and feel it in his hands. A sense of immense injustice flooded through him. Why should a rapacious plutocrat like Anthony Hawkesworth possess treasure that he almost certainly appreciated only for its resale value, while others, more worthy . . .

  “I don’t have a good deal of time, gentlemen.” It was Hawkesworth himself, rising from his chair. He was a small man, pale-skinned, white-haired, and bald, with a perfectly pointed goatee and tightly trimmed mustache. His hands were pink and he exuded flaccidity. Everything about Hawkesworth seemed effete except his eyes. Cold, dark eyes. Killer’s eyes. He didn’t stare and he didn’t look away. But he held those at whom he looked in a grip that was almost physical.

  Hawkesworth walked from the behind the desk in small steps. He stopped at the side and directed Harry and Walter to a pair of red leather wing chairs opposite. When they were seated, he returned without pleasantries to his own chair behind the desk. He asked if they cared for refreshments, but in a tone that implied they should refuse, which even Harry knew enough to do.

  “I’ve been asked to personally solicit a report on your progress, Mr. George.” Hawkesworth’s voice had surprising timbre, as if he had practiced extensively to remove all traces of origin from his speech. He gave the distinct impression that he had grudgingly given up more important affairs to inquire about an attempted assassination of the president.

  Walter glanced over Hawkesworth’s shoulder at the books, taking time to respond as a counter to the banker’s impatience. “From whom, if I may ask, Mr. Hawkesworth?” Walter could feel Harry stiffen next to him, but Hawkesworth seemed amused, as if his pet spaniel had performed an amusing trick.

  “Senator Hanna and I are quite good friends.”

  Walter nodded, once then again. “Since I assume you’ve been in touch with Senator Hanna, may I first inquire about the president’s health?”

  Hawkesworth raised an eyebrow. He appeared for an instant to almost smile. “Of course. President McKinley continues his remarkable recovery. In fact, he will convene a bedside cabinet meeting on Friday at three P.M. His progress has been so extraordinary that Senator Hanna has departed Buffalo. Mrs. McKinley has taken a carriage ride. The president will likely return to Washington in two to three weeks. As the senator said upon his departure, ‘All Americans should throw up their hats and cheer.’” Hawkesworth paused, his eyes not moving from Walter’s. “Does that answer your question satisfactorily, Mr. George?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Now, if you will answer mine . . .”

  Not such an easy task, Walter thought. How much to say? Half-truth was best. “I don’t believe Czolgosz was acting on his own . . .”

  “That is hardly an original hypothesis.”

  Walter ignored Hawkesworth and continued. He was just like Hanna. The more a man was accustomed to intimidating others, the more he respected strength.

  “Two men came to see him in Cleveland about six months ago. The same two, it seems, who visited a girl in Chicago at about the same time. She was also an anarchist, a librarian.”

  “An anarchist librarian?” Hawkesworth seemed amused. “Do you find that an odd combination, Mr. George?”

  “Not at all.” Certainly not as odd as the question, Walter thought. “Just afterward, she moved to Buffalo. She and Czolgosz had frequent contact after he got to the city on the first. On the day of the shooting, the girl was found dead in what the Buffalo police considered a robbery.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Mr. Swayne and I consider it unlikely.”

  “So it appears that the two men who visited this librarian and Czolgosz would be a link to whoever launched the conspiracy. Have you made any progress in locating them?”

  “Other than learning about their movements in Cleveland, no.”

  “The girl’s got a sister in Chicago,” Harry piped up. “Walter here has talked to her too.”

  “Any help there?”

  “Nothing definite. Just a general description.”

  “Have you checked the usual anarchist haunts? That would seem to be where to start.”

  “Walter isn’t sure the two men were anarchists,” Harry blurted. Walter wanted to backhand him, but the cat was out of the bag. They would be lucky from here not to be pulled off the case.

  But Hawkesworth did not register indignation or demonstrate shock at the revelation. He simply pursed his lips, and tugged for a moment at the point of his beard. “Do you mind telling me why not?” Hawkesworth made it clear by his gaze that Walter was to speak for himself.

  Walter recited his reasons—appearance, demeanor, atypical modus operandi—but omitted any mention of Pinkertons, other Secret Service operatives, and particularly anyone who might have been behind the plot.

  “Do you agree with this assessment, Mr. Swayne?” Hawkesworth asked when Walter had finished.

  “I agree that others were involved, but I still think the anarchists are likely the ones. Maybe Walter here is right, but I figure it’s just one group of anarchists setting up another one. They do fight each other, you know.”

  Hawkesworth was silent for a few moments, considering the implications. Walter doubted the banker ever did anything in haste.

  “We must protect the president at all costs, Mr. George,” Hawkesworth intoned finally. “That I do not need to tell you. Whoever is behind this dastardly attempt must be apprehended quickly. They might well not be dissuaded by failure and make another attempt. It is thus vital that you uncover the source of this plot. You must, therefore, locate the two men you described with the utmost haste.

  “But as to whether or not they were anarchists, I heartily second the president’s sentiments. This investigation cannot and must not descend into a witch hunt. If that Jew Isaak, or Goldman, or any other anarchists are indeed to blame, the full force of the law should be brought down on them. But if not, we must not allow petty vengeance to distract us from unearthing the real conspirators. Not only would we miscarry justice, but we would leave at large those who might make a second attempt.”

  Walter was stunned. Grateful for the reprieve of course, but Anthony Hawkesworth was the last man he would have suspected to voice such noble sentiments.

  “I assured President McKinley that I would adhere to his wishes, Mr. Hawkesworth,” he said. “I am happy to reiterate those assurances to you.”

  Hawkesworth closed his eyes for a moment, tugging once again on his beard. “Do you like President McKinley, Mr. George?”

  “Yes. I did. I found him to be a fair and decent man.”

  Hawkesworth nodded, the half-smile making another ephemeral appearance. Did Hawkesworth know Walter had used that very phrase with Mark Hanna? “You are certain you don’t prefer the vice president?”

  Walter’s hands tightened on the armrests of his chair. He removed them and placed them in his lap. “In my position, one doesn’t think in terms of preference.”

  “Good family, the Roosevelts,” Hawkesworth mused. “The vice president is rather kinetic, however. Part of his charm, is it not?” Walter knew not to a venture an opinion. “But Mr. McKinley will steer us a steady course. Don’t you agree, Mr. George?”

  “The nation is in good hands with President McKinley at the helm,” Walter replied. No reason not to match nautical metaphors. “But if the outcome had not been so fortunate, we would be lucky to get a man of Vice President Roosevelt’s abilities to step in.”

  Hawkesworth reached up with a pink index finger to dab the corner of his mouth. “Yes, fortunate indeed. He would certainly not feel overmatched in the position.” He stood. “Now I must attend to other affairs. I would like to be kept abreast of your progress.”

  Harry and Walter rose as well. “To pass on to Senator Hanna or for your own interest?” Walter asked, towering over the little banker.


  Hawkesworth looked up to Walter’s face. The height difference did not bother him one whit. Ten million dollars added quite a bit to a man’s stature. “I cannot see how that is in the slightest bit germane, Mr. George.” With that, he turned on his heel and exited the room through a door at the side of his desk built into the bookshelves. The door through which Walter and Harry had entered opened a second later. The retainer stood just outside, waiting to escort them out.

  21

  TR is ‘kinetic?’” Harry hadn’t stopped muttering since they got into the coach. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Not sure, Harry. Hawkesworth definitely seems happy McKinley made it. Maybe he figures TR would have made good on all that talk about busting trusts. Bigger question is why he told us.”

  “Yeah, maybe. And all that applesauce about being fair to Isaak and Goldman. That’s a load of crap, if you ask me. He’s up to something. Maybe Mark Hanna too. I got the feeling he would have been happy if we found a way to pin this all on TR.”

  Walter drew a breath. “Why do you say that, Harry?”

  Harry shrugged. “Shit, Walter, you got ears same as me. Hawkesworth hates TR. They’re all kicking themselves that they stuck him on the ticket. Mark Hanna most of all.”

  “Why?”

  “Jesus, Walter, for someone who reads all the time, you don’t know shit. Hanna wants to be president. It’s gonna be him or TR against Bryan or whatever other loser the Democrats put up in ’04. That means it’s gonna be him or TR in the White House.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about Hanna running.”

  “Walter, you don’t hear anything except what you want to.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Harry . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think it could’ve been TR?”

  Harry rocked his head from side to side. “Anything’s possible I suppose. Gets him the job. But my money’s still on Isaak and Goldman. They got her, you know. The coppers. Somebody climbed in a second floor window into a flat on Sheffield. She denied who she was, but Schleutter showed up . . . you know, the captain . . . and she owned to it. She’s in City Hall.”