Representative Watkins pulled at his nose with his finger and thumb, and sniffed. ‘I’d have to ask twenty thousand. There are all kinds of palms to be oiled; all kinds of arrangements to make.’
‘If that’s what it takes,’ said Senator Stride. ‘If I don’t get out of Washington soon, I’m going to be captured again, and shot.’
Representative Watkins raised an eyebrow. He had a head that reminded Collis of a large plum pudding, steaming on a plate. Even the freckles on top of his bald pate looked like a frosting of Demerara sugar. The camera mechanism clicked again, and Collis grimaced at the loudness of it.
‘There will, of course, be expenses,’ said Representative Watkins. ‘I’ll have to pay for a carriage, and a boat, and for someone to row you across the Potomac.’
‘How much?’ asked Senator Stride.
Representative Watkins puffed out of his cheeks. ‘In all,’ he said, ‘about ten thousand dollars.’
‘So you’re asking for thirty?’
‘With five for personal expenses, yes. Thirty-five thousand.’
Senator Stride looked at Collis darkly, but all Collis could do was shrug. Collis was only acting as entrepreneur, and Senator Stride himself was in no position to haggle. Either he relied on Representative Watkins, and paid Representative Watkins’s price, or he would eventually swing from the gallows in Washington’s jailyard.
‘Very well,’ he said, and unbuttoned his vest just far enough to expose a canvas moneybelt wrapped around his waist. Representative Watkins sat back in his chair and licked his lips with unconcealed relish as Senator Stride counted out twelve thousand dollars in gold coins, and set it out on the table between them in seven neat stacks. The afternoon sun shone through the bare windows and sparkled on the coins as if it could give its attention to nothing else, as if it were obsessed by them. Collis had previously taken down the lace curtains to improve the quality of the light, but now the light itself was enhanced by Senator Stride’s gold.
Representative Watkins leaned forward, and spots of golden reflected light lit up his jowls.
‘I believe we can do business, Senator,’ he said.
From behind the curtains, there was another loud mechanical click.
Collis said nothing as Representative Watkins gathered up the money and scooped it into a leather portmanteau. But as the Congressman started to rise from his chair, Collis said, in a gentle but arresting voice, ‘There’s one bit of business we haven’t quite finished with yet.’
‘Yes?’ asked Representative Watkins cautiously. ‘What can that be?’
‘My business,’ said Collis. ‘The business of the Sierra Pacific Railroad, and its charter from Congress. The business of the Railroad Act. That’s what we haven’t quite finished yet.’
‘I don’t see the relevance,’ said Watkins, standing up and supporting himself on the table. ‘Fugitive Senators and transcontinental railroads are birds of a very different species, and I don’t care to discuss them both at the same meeting. I’ll have to bid you good-day.’
‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken,’ Collis told him, stepping between Watkins’s green broadcloth belly and the door of the suite. ‘Fugitive Senators and transcontinental railroads are all part and parcel of the same arrangement, by courtesy of the camera.’
‘Camera? I don’t understand you.’
Collis reached behind him and drew back the curtain. Blinking in the light, like a gopher discovered in its burrow, was the reticent gentleman from Ninth Street, with his waxed moustache and his tinted spectacles, and his large box camera.
‘You have just been photographed, Representative Watkins. Not once, but several times, in the act of accepting money from a Southern Senator whom you know to be a wanted fugitive. It seems to me that the only way in which you can prevent those photographs from falling into the hands of those who might wish to damage your career, or even those who might wish to throw you into prison for collusion with an enemy – it seems to me that the only possible way you can do that is to withdraw your objections to the route of the Sierra Pacific Railroad, and to advise your cronies to do likewise.’
‘Get out of my way,’ said Watkins haughtily. ‘You don’t alarm me one bit.’
‘And why’s that? Because you don’t mind solitary confinement? Or don’t you tremble at the prospect of political disgrace?’
Watkins came very close to Collis, so that Collis could smell the lunchtime brandy on his breath. He lifted one pudgy hand and prodded Collis hard on the breastbone.
‘You don’t alarm me because if you show those photographs to anybody at all, they’ll ask you, too, what you were doing in the company of a wanted murderer and escaped prisoner of war, without making any effort to detain him. You will be liable to arrest and disgrace, just as much as I.’
Collis smiled. ‘You don’t understand, Congressman Watkins. I have already sent my Chinese assistant to bring the military here.’
Senator Stride, who had been sitting silently in his chair, now suddenly turned towards Collis and stared at him in shock.
‘You’ve betrayed me?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve betrayed my daughter’s confidence?’
Collis thought, and then nodded. ‘You could call it betrayal. But perhaps a better word for it would be revenge.’
‘My God, you’re unscrupulous,’ said Senator Stride. He stood up, his face concentrated with indecision, and then he reached into his coat and tugged out a short-barrelled revolver. He aimed it at Collis without saying a word. Representative Watkins stepped back in alarm, and behind him Collis heard the breaking of glass as the Ninth Street photographer dropped one of his plates.
‘So, you’re going to shoot me,’ said Collis. He was trying to speak in a normal voice, but somehow his words came out high and unbalanced, as if he were being strangled with rawhide. He became abruptly and uncomfortably aware of the details of the hotel room all around him – the damp-stained wallpaper, the dusty plants, the unpolished coal scuttle in the fireplace – and he thought, I shall die here.
Senator Stride held his revolver steady for almost a minute. Then he lowered it. Collis still watched him warily in case he changed his mind and lifted it again.
‘I should shoot you,’ Senator Stride told him, in a regretful tone. ‘This is war, after all, and I would be quite within my rights. But I won’t. There doesn’t seem to be much honour in it.’
‘Honour?’ asked Collis.
‘That’s right,’ said Senator Stride. ‘It was a quality on which the Confederacy was founded, and which I hope it will always retain. Courtesy, bravery, and honour. The marks of a gentleman.’
There was a tight little pause, and then Senator Stride walked past both Collis and Representative Watkins, opened the door, and went out on to the landing. Before either of them could prevent it, he stopped at the top of the stairs, aimed the pistol at his own face, and fired. There was a deafening bang, which made Collis’s ears sing. Then the Senator turned, collapsed, and tumbled ignominiously head over heels all the way down to the second-storey landing. A cloud of blue smoke hung above the upstairs bannister, and the wallpaper was sprayed with a feathery pattern of blood.
Representative Watkins’s teeth were chattering. ‘I must leave,’ he said. ‘Good God, they mustn’t find me here.’
Collis gripped his arm, so savagely tight that he squeaked. ‘You won’t forget the Railroad Act, will you, Congressman?’
Representative Watkins took a deep breath, and then said, ‘Very well. You can take it that my objections have been withdrawn. Yes, and those of my friends. And may your soul rot in hell.’
He was about to dash off when Collis gripped his arm again. ‘The gold, Congressman? Since you don’t have any expenses anymore, with Senator Stride dead, you don’t need the gold.’
The Congressman looked down at his portmanteau. Grudgingly, he handed it over. ‘When you’ve taken the money out, send the portmanteau back to my office,’ he said. ‘It was a present from my late wife.’
‘I’m sure s
he would have been proud of you,’ said Collis. ‘This money is going back to Senator Stride’s daughter. It won’t bring her father back, but then it won’t bring mine back, either.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ said Representative Watkins.
Collis watched the fat man hurrying down the stairs. Hotel guests were already coming out of their rooms to see what had happened, and Watkins had to push his way past them with his hat raised so that nobody would recognise him. Washington was a small city, and its politicians were well known.
Senator Stride lay where he had fallen. His bloody face was pressed against the baseboard, and he was not quite dead. His breath came in long, quivering sighs. A woman brought him a piece of torn sheet soaked in brandy, and pushed it carefully into his mouth. It was impossible to tell if it brought him any relief or not, for in two or three minutes, he died.
Collis closed the door of the hotel room and looked across at the photographer, who was hastily packing up his camera and his plates. The photographer gave him a nervous, unhappy glance, and then went on fastening up his polished oak boxes.
Collis went to the window and shielded his eyes against the sunlight as he looked down into the street. He felt exhausted, as if he had been running hard for hours.
‘I’ll be going now, Mr Edmonds,’ the photographer said. ‘I’ll send you the prints in the morning.’
‘Very well,’ replied Collis. Then, more softly, ‘Very well.’
Theodore, when he discovered what had happened, was furious. He met Collis at the bar of the Emmett House Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue between Seventh and Eighth, and he appeared more harassed than ever, with his necktie hanging loose, and his lapel inside out.
‘Theo,’ said Collis, with exaggerated concern, ‘you’re allowing this railroad to get you down. Have a drink. You’ll feel much better.’
‘I don’t want your drinks and I don’t want your sympathy,’ hissed Theo. ‘I want to disassociate myself from you and all the rest of this company’s motley collection of directors as soon as I can. You’re nothing but a gang of small-minded thieves and twisters.’
Collis raised his hand to attract the barman’s attention. Then he turned to look at Theo; and, as he did so, the sun waxed strong and bright through the yellow glass of the hotel windows, and the curls of tobacco smoke around Collis’s head shone like a Satanic wreath.
‘I’ve heard a lot of talk about honour and moral rectitude since I first got involved in the Sierra Pacific,’ Collis said gently. ‘But without pushing, without pressuring, without using whatever means we have at our disposal, this fabulous railroad of ours will never be built. Just you remember that.’
The barman set a whisky down on the counter in front of Theodore. Theodore looked at it, tossed a dollar down beside it, and then walked stiffly out of the bar.
Through the weeks of bargaining that followed, Collis and Theodore were seldom apart. In committee rooms, in hotel suites, in restaurants, and even on board a naval ship moored on the Potomac, they sat side by side and argued for their railroad with compelling accord. It was only when the day’s business was over – when the cigars were crushed out in the smoke-filled rooms and the papers were gathered up from the tables – that Theodore would coldly and immediately leave for his hotel, while Collis went off to have dinner with one Congressman or another, or off to his rooms on Connecticut Avenue.
For both of them a government charter for the Sierra Pacific was their most pressing consideration. But once they were sure of that, both of them were quite aware that Theodore would do everything he could to buy Collis and his partners out. Theodore had seen the railroad as a vision of pure technology. As far as he was concerned, Collis’s and Leland’s motives were muddied with greed, with self-interest, and with a ruthless disregard for human sensitivity.
By June, with the Army of the Potomac still trying to force its way deeper into Virginia, the terms of the railroad charters were at last agreed. All of the Congressmen involved in the drawing up and ratification of the act were now well provided for, with promises of railroad stocks and bonds, and Thaddeus Stevens, the Representative from Pennsylvania, had insisted that all the iron used in the construction of the railroad should be made in America – which, since he was one of the country’s largest iron manufacturers, suited him fine.
The Pacific Railroad Act granted to the Sierra Pacific Railroad ten miles of land in alternative sections on either side of its right of way for each mile of track laid down. In addition – and Collis had fought hard for this – the company would be given loans of $16,000 a mile on the plains, $32,000 through the Great Basin, and $48,000 through the Sierra.
On 1 July 1862, a humid and unpleasant day, with thunderclouds hanging over the western horizon, the Army of the Potomac began to retreat from Virginia after the battle of Malvern Hill. That afternoon, in his rooms, Collis heard that President Lincoln had signed the Pacific Railroad Act.
Once the messenger had left, Collis called for Kwang Lee to bring him a drink. Kwang Lee came in with a whisky on a small tray. He was dressed in a smart grey tailcoat, and a clean white shirt.
‘You’re all smartened up,’ said Collis, taking his drink.
‘Yes, sir. I heard about the railroad. Good news, huh? Allow me to offer my congratulations.’
‘Thank you, Lee,’ said Collis. He took a mouthful of whisky. Then he stayed where he was, sitting in his chair, for almost an hour. A thundershower came and went. He heard army gun carriages in the street outside. It was only at five o’clock that the sky began to brighten, and the raindrops clinging on to the window began to sparkle the way they had on the window of the Monument Hotel, longer ago than Collis could recall.
*
Two days later, in Sacramento, Hannah left the house shortly after sunset and walked down to the front gate, where their black houseboy, Juno, was waiting patiently with the carriage. The evening had that soft, dusty quality that is particularly Western, and the horses fidgeted in their harness.
Hannah mounted the carriage and took the reins. ‘I won’t be long, Juno,’ she told him. ‘No more than an hour or two. I’m visiting Mrs Weiss for supper.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Juno. ‘Please take care, now.’
Hannah clicked her tongue, and the horses trotted ahead. She drove quite briskly towards downtown Sacramento, in the direction of Mrs Weiss’s house on J Street; but once she was out of sight in the twilight, she turned the carriage and headed for the intersection of Eighth and L.
She felt as breathless now as she had on the first occasion when she had visited Mrs Pangborn’s. She felt just as resolved, though, in spite of all the agonies of conscience she had gone through; in spite of the fact that she knew now that she had abandoned her religion forever.
She wondered as she drove along L Street whether her religion had at any time amounted to anything more than a substitute for real love. Had it really all been false? Had all those prayers to the Virgin been hollow? And how did God regard her now? As a lost sheep, whom He would search out and gather in His forgiving arms? Or as a damned soul, guilty of breaking both the sixth and the seventh commandments, and duly earmarked for eternal punishment?
She looked up over the rooftops of the clustered wooden houses, and the sight of the stars made her shiver. Maybe it was growing colder. Maybe she was frightened by the thought of Mrs Pangborn’s shining instruments. Maybe she was disturbed by the way the stars hung all around her like haughty witnesses to her sin.
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered, knowing how false it sounded. One of the horses twitched its ears.
She had made Collis a promise on their wedding day – that his firstborn child would be the railroad. It had to be that way, for Collis ate, drank, breathed, and slept the railroad. Everything he did in the hardware store was directed towards making more money for the railroad. Every book and pamphlet he read was concerned with iron and steel and bridges and railroad locomotives. If they had a child before the Railroad Act was signed, then that child
would be nothing to Collis but an interference in his midwifery of a child far more precious. At least, Hannah believed it would, and she couldn’t bear the idea of it. When she and Collis had their first child, their first real child, she wanted that child to be everything.
Last year, she had fallen pregnant in April, the month that war had broken out. She had decided at first that she wanted to keep the baby, but by July Collis’s angry moods about the slow progress of the Railroad Act had at last turned her mind against it. While Collis had spent his time writing furious letters to Theodore in Washington, and fretting about finance, Hannah had been going through a silent self-crucifixion. I am going to have to kill my child, she had thought, one sunny morning in mid-July. It is better for it to return to heaven, and to spend the rest of eternity in innocent happiness, than to be born into a world in which it will be second-best in its father’s affections to a railroad company.
She had talked to the tough, stringy little woman who cleaned the church every Monday. They had stood among the wooden grave markers, under a hot sun. The woman had suggested Mrs Pangborn, who was often having to perform ‘little operations’ for her working girls. The next evening, when Collis had been staying late at 54 K Street to talk to Leland, Hannah had taken the carriage and driven herself to Eighth and L, just as she was tonight.
Collis had never known. Nor, she thought, would he ever know.
It was dark by the time she reached Mrs Pangborn’s house. She tethered the horses around the corner on Ninth, so that the carriage wouldn’t be seen outside the whorehouse. Then she walked across the street, her face veiled, her black coat swishing on the dusty road. Very faintly – so faintly that she could scarcely hear it – a piano was playing ‘Roses Red and Roses White’. She stepped up to Mrs Pangborn’s door and knocked.
One of Mrs Pangborn’s girls let her in – a frizzy-haired blonde with pink cheeks and a chubby bottom. Hannah was sure she had seen the girl working during the day at Oppenheimer’s Pastry Parlour. To serve cakes by day and fornicate at night – that was a strange way to make a living. There were red chrysanthemums on the wallpaper, and the hallway smelled of perfume and tobacco. The smell brought back her fear.
Railroad Page 72