“How would I go about confirming that?”
“They have categorically refused an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“Then I cannot tell you. Detective work is not my province.”
Noah stood but did not move for the door.
“Yes, Whitestone? Is there something more?”
“If the child was given a morphiate by his mother, she would have been unaware of the contents. Does that not follow?”
“Yes,” Jacobi allowed. “I suppose it does. The mother, unless homicidal or a nincompoop, would not have knowingly dosed her son with an opiate after you had already given him one.”
“Then assuming that the family did not use patent medicines . . . and, other than Bismosal, I’m convinced they did not . . . what morphiate prescribed by a physician would she have given her son unaware of the contents? Does that not imply that her physician did not tell her?”
Jacobi tugged at his beard. “An implication I am not pleased to acknowledge. But, yes, that is a possibility.”
“Do you believe it equally possible that her son’s physician prescribed a medication . . . a new medication . . . something experimental . . . not telling her of the composition because he was part of a test to determine whether or not the drug was safe?”
Jacobi’s face darkened. “I am not sure I like the direction of your argument, young man.”
“But how else to test drugs if not on subjects?”
“No physician I know would test a morphiate on a child without extreme safeguards. In a hospital, under constant observation, and only in doses so small as to not cause harm. If those doses are tolerated, they would be increased slowly. The notion that a physician would conduct a test as you have suggested is more than harebrained. It is criminal. I am certain you are mistaken.”
Having come this far, Noah would not retreat. “Dr. Jacobi, do you believe there is a Patent Medicine Trust? That the liquor dealers, pharmacists, and proprietary drug associations have banded together to prevent government regulation of pharmaceuticals? That they ignore public welfare simply to amass profits?”
“I do not.” Jacobi seemed on the verge of asking Noah to leave. “Where did you acquire such a notion?”
How much to tell? There seemed no point in withholding anything. “I was approached by a journalist. From New Visions. He wanted me to help him investigate graft he claims is given to doctors by pharmaceutical concerns. I told him that I was already in sufficient difficulty and would not become involved with his magazine.”
Jacobi blew out a breath, then took two steps forward and patted Noah on the shoulder. “Very wise, my boy. I’ve learned that it is a good deal more important—and more difficult—to be among those who build rather than those who tear down. I am still passionate about improving the lot of the poor and the working class, but I no longer subscribe to the notion that to do so one must destroy society. Steering clear of the New Visions crowd will stand you in good stead.”
The old pediatrician smiled. “I corresponded with Karl Marx, you know. Until about twenty years ago. His children were always afflicted with one ailment or another—Marx never had any money—but mostly we wrote to each other about politics. Karl was a very bright man, God rest his soul, extremely adept at honing in on the flaws of capitalism. His theories on with what to replace it, however, are twaddle.”
“So you are not still radical?”
“Radical? What does the word mean really? To some it is merely an excuse to exercise distaste for those who succeed.” Jacobi swept his arm toward the window and the magnificent quadrangle beyond. “For me, this is radical. A radical step forward in education. This institution will provide more good than a thousand articles in New Visions. Had I only known that in my youth.”
“Was it difficult? Escaping from prison? Stowing away?”
“Ah, yes. My hairbreadth escape. My passage across the Atlantic in the belly of a steamer.” He smiled wistfully. “Both are somewhat overstated, I’m afraid. I seem, despite all my efforts to the contrary, to have acquired a legend. But life, I am sad to say, is not nearly so romantic as fantasy. While I did spend two years in prison, I did not exactly escape. Nor was there a death sentence. I was a radical and a Jew . . . the authorities were perfectly content on both counts to allow me to leave. Nor was I forced to work my way over on a tramp, although I daresay my accommodations were none too sumptuous. The irony is that for the past ten years Germany has been attempting to persuade me to return. ‘We would be honored if you would come home,’ is how the letter read. Signed by the Kaiser’s secretary himself. ‘Home.’ How hypocritical. I have refused, of course.
“So, Dr. Whitestone, the legend of Jacobi, derring-do pediatrician, a pistol in one hand, a stethoscope in the other, turns out to be silly hyperbole. The lesson from this, I suppose, is that when a tale stretches credibility, seems preposterous, it generally is.”
ELEVEN
DAY 3. FRIDAY, 9/22—3:30 P.M.
Jacobi had made perfect sense, of course. Turner McKee’s tale of the great capitalist conspiracy, rife with heartless, venal profiteers leaving a trail of dead children in their wake in the pursuit of greater and wealth seemed preposterous. But was the notion that Mildred Anschutz had walked around in some sort of trance feeding a lethal dose of a morphiate to her son any less so? And the man on the train was certainly no trance.
In either case, he was back to Frias. And however likely or unlikely the theory seemed to be, Turner McKee and his mysterious proofs had become an itch that had to be scratched.
Noah stopped at a newsstand on Broadway and asked the boy if he might see New Visions. The newsboy, small and pimply, wearing a slouch cap, looked Noah up and down. “You, sir?” he asked. When Noah continued to wait, the boy withdrew a copy of the magazine from the rack. “Ten cents,” he said, holding his free hand open.
The cover featured a drawing of Admiral Dewey and his Japanese Akita, Bob. Dewey took Bob everywhere and was famous for insisting that every portrait include the dog lounging at his feet. But New Visions had placed the Akita’s head on the figure in the admiral’s uniform sitting in the chair, and Dewey’s head on the dog. The headline read, WHO SPEAKS FOR AMERICA?
Noah checked inside for the address of the magazine’s offices. Astor Place near the Cooper Union. Of course. Astor Place was notoriously avant-garde: home to artists, theater denizens, and bohemians of all stripes. He tossed the magazine into the trash.
When Noah arrived downtown, the streets were crowded, most of the pedestrians young and moving with an urgency lacking on the sedate streets of Brooklyn. Many were dressed with almost garish ostentation: men in loud, checked vests, and peaked caps; women in flared, peasant-type skirts and low-collared blouses.
The entrance was on Lafayette Street, in an industrial building, a brick rectangle, four stories high, with a dingy lobby and pock-marked wooden floor. A board listing the tenants hung on the left-hand wall, many of the entries written on paper and tacked on. New Visions currently shared quarters with a toy maker, an importer of leather goods, a manufacturer of musical instruments, and the Ukrainian-American Society. A large chain-and-pulley elevator was available, but Noah chose to walk up the single flight of stairs. When he reached the second floor, he walked across scuffed black-and-white linoleum to a door with a frosted-glass upper panel that proclaimed NO SOLICITING in letters almost as large as magazine’s name.
Noah walked into a scene of controlled chaos. Nine beaten-down wooden desks were spaced throughout, and between them, instead of open floor, lay stacks of paper, cartons, and packing boxes. A dozen men and women, all young, scurried about as if it were one minute before midnight. The men wore no neckwear and were clean shaven. The women were without high collars. Most had hair hanging loose on their shoulders. Some of the staff were seated in front of Remington Type-Writers; some were reading; some were in fervent conversation with others. No one seemed in charge. Noah’s eye was briefly drawn to a poster tacked up on the wall touting
William McKinley for president. A gun had been drawn in one of McKinley’s hands and a bloody, decapitated head, obviously a Filipino, held by the hair in the other. On another wall was a large drawing of Governor Roosevelt in the guise of a snarling beast.
Although the politics were offensive, the passion in the room, the swirl of raw energy, the . . . youth . . . was intoxicating. Noah leaned forward on the railing that divided the entrance from the remainder of the room looking for Turner McKee, but the reporter was not present. Some of the magazine’s employees glanced his way, but no one moved to inquire as to his presence. In his dark suit and carefully trimmed beard and mustache, Noah felt like some stodgy adult breaking in on a party in a university dormitory.
A door opened at the side of the room and a woman emerged. Her skin was dark, but with an undertone of gold. Brown hair, almost black, was loosely pinned so that it fell slightly, framing her face. She was arrestingly, stunningly beautiful.
The woman walked to a nearby desk to speak with a male associate. As she gestured, her long arms and thin fingers moved with kinetic grace. The man to whom she was speaking listened almost worshipfully, nodding occasionally, yet seemed to be rapt only by her words and not her appearance. When she leaned over the desk to point to something on a piece of paper, her blouse, open at the neck, hung down and the sweep of her breast was clearly visible. Noah could not move his eye from the curve of her flesh.
He was unaware of how long he stood gawking. Eventually, the woman sensed his gaze and turned her head. Noah, caught, wanted to look away, but could not. After a second or two, the woman straightened and walked to the railing. She had a loose-limbed way of moving that was at once boyish and startlingly sensual.
“I was looking for Turner McKee,” he said. The sentence came out stiff, scratchy.
A look of suspicion fell over the woman’s face. Her eyes were large and a striking shade of green, almost aqua. He noticed a fleck of gold in each eye. She gave off a subtle, musky scent.
“He’s not here. Why do you want him?”
“My name is Whitestone.” Noah cleared his throat but was unable to lubricate his voice. “He asked me to come by. He said he might have some materials I would find of interest.”
“Oh, the doctor,” she said. She seemed to have moved closer to him, but perhaps he merely imagined she had. Her scent seemed stronger. “Turner mentioned you might come by. That you might be curious to meet the band of wild-eyed revolutionaries who work here.”
Noah was stung, jealous at the mention of McKee’s name. He was certain just from the way she said it that Turner McKee and this astonishing woman were lovers. A man engaged to be married, jealous of another man whom he had met once, over a woman whose name he didn’t know.
“Did Mr. McKee leave anything for me, Miss . . . ?” He had not taken his eyes from hers.
A man appeared at her side, holding a piece of paper. “Miriam, I need you to read this right away,” he said. “Mauritz wanted it shorter.”
“Mauritz Herzberg?” Noah asked.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” she said to the man.
“Yes, Dr. Whitestone. He’s our publisher.”
“Then you’re . . . Miriam Herzberg? The Red Lady?”
“An appellation of which I am not especially fond.”
“I read about you. You spoke at the rally during the Hampton dress factory strike. Almost caused a riot.”
“Yes, Dr. Whitestone. Those women work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, locked inside a sweatbox. Some are only girls, ten years old. I thought someone should speak for them. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” Noah replied. “Of course.”
“Turner left a message for you,” she said. “He said that he was out retrieving precisely the information you asked for.”
“Retrieving?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Is he bringing it here?” He hoped she would say yes so that he could wait.
Miriam Herzberg shook her head. Her hair fell onto her face and she brushed it away impatiently, as if it were an annoying insect.
“No. For some reason, he was going home. You might try him there. I’ll write down the address for you.” She took a pencil and paper off a nearby desk and scribbled down the information.
“Thank you,” he said, but made no immediate move to leave.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk now. We’re very busy.” She turned on her heel and walked back across the room.
McKee lived on Rivington Street, in a Lower East Side tenement, amid the poor immigrants whose rights he sought to secure. People, horses, carriages, and pushcarts filled the streets; Italians in derbies with long, drooping mustaches mixed with thick, fair-haired Slavs in grimy overalls, and Jews with enormous beards, dressed in black. Women in long dresses with shawls pulled tightly about them moved watchfully through the crowds. The smell of pushcart food—onions, sausage, peppers, spices, cheap meat—was everywhere, and everyone seemed to speak at once. Children darted in and out of the foot traffic. Two street Arabs attempted to grab for Noah’s wallet, but he dodged quickly and was able to keep it from their reach.
Noah found McKee’s building and, heeding the reporter’s warnings, looked about before going in. All he could detect was an avalanche of humanity. So many people came and went that the area had an odd sense of anonymity, as a cacophony often seems to engender an odd sense of silence.
McKee’s apartment was number six, up a rickety set of steps with a broken banister. The numbers had fallen off most of the doors, but McKee’s was fastened on with a single nail. Noah knocked. He waited but got no response. He knocked again, longer and harder. A door down the hall opened. An urchin stuck out his head and, seeing a well-dressed man, stuck it back inside and slammed the door shut.
Noah was about to turn and leave when McKee’s door opened a crack. McKee put his face to the narrow opening. “I can’t see you now.” He turned his head back toward the interior of the room. “I’ll be right there, dearie.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “As you can see, I’m entertaining.”
“But what about . . .”
“Your timing is inopportune. Didn’t I make myself clear? I’ll call you tomorrow. We can meet for lunch. I’ll even buy.”
With that, McKee cast Noah a stiff, final grin and slammed the door.
Noah muttered his way back to Brooklyn. What an idiot he had been. Traipsing about only to have a door shut in his face by a man engaged in an assignation. Vital information. Murdered children. Melodrama. Jacobi had been correct after all. And perhaps the man on the train had simply been a man on a train.
TWELVE
DAY 4. SATURDAY, 9/23—7 A.M.
The following morning, Noah rose early, washed, dressed, and asked Mrs. Jensen to prepare a proper breakfast. Or as proper a breakfast as Mrs. Jensen was capable. Although she had told him that Mr. Jensen had died of a heart attack, Noah had often speculated as to whether the cause had actually been malnutrition.
Noah sipped his coffee as he read the morning edition of the Daily Eagle. Dewey’s flotilla, led by his flagship Olympia, was due to anchor off Tompkinsville, Staten Island, on Thursday, in preparation for its trip up the Hudson on Friday. Noah paid particular attention to the announcement that the official list of instructions for the regiments in the land parade had been transmitted to the army commanders.
“What do you know of Colonel Anschutz?” he asked Mrs. Jensen when she returned with the coffeepot.
Mrs. Jensen filled the space between them with a cough. “Well, doctor, you know how it is with army men.”
“No, Mrs. Jensen. Tell me.”
“You know. They’re trained to fight all the time . . . I guess it kind of gets in their blood.”
“Are you saying that Colonel Anschutz is a violent man?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper, thrilled to have the truth dragged out of her. “Hit his wife once. Maybe more. The boys, too. Whole family’s terrified of him. Annie O’Rourke, the
ir cook, told Mrs. Hardesty down on Clark Street that the missus whispered to herself when he left that she hoped he didn’t come back. She’s too afraid even to tell her father or her uncle. Neither of them knows pea soup. Mayor Wurster thinks his son-in-law is the silk.”
“Do you know when he’s coming home? I mean, will he have to wait until the procession is completed, or will he get leave two days before, when the fleet arrives?”
Mrs. Jensen shook her head. “Dunno. I’ll try and find out.”
Noah thanked her, then continued to leaf through the paper, trying without success to banish Pug Anschutz and Arnold Frias from his mind.
On page four, he found an item to lift his spirits. The Brooklyn Superbas and Jack Dunn had defeated the Perfectos and the mighty Cy Young by a score of 2 to 0 at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis to bring the season’s record to a prodigious 90–40. When all this was settled, he must attend a game with Maribeth. Not Ibsen, perhaps, but great fun nonetheless. And women more and more had begun to be seen in the better seats.
Noah browsed the editorial page, the fraternal society news, the classified advertisements, the stock market reports, and the church page. He was about to put down the paper when an item on page sixteen caught his eye. Right under the account of a policeman shot by a burglar.
“Turner McKee, 24, an employee of New Visions magazine, was killed just after 9 P.M. after a fall from Gouverneur Street pier into New York Harbor. Any chance Mr. McKee had of saving himself was lost when he was struck by a passing tugboat, the Amelia Jane. Captain Dorn of the Amelia Jane succeeded in fishing Mr. McKee from the water, but efforts to rouse him were to no avail. Mr. McKee was taken to the city morgue pending funeral arrangements by his family.”
Oh my God.
Noah checked the time. Only nine minutes. He dropped the newspaper, grabbed his coat, and hurried out the door. He had to get to the electric trolley station before 8:30 or he would be forced to wait a half hour for the next departure. Even now, there was a chance the family had already acted.
Deadly Cure Page 8