Stan Parnell went for it. “It’s the barrel. If he was just another coon sliced up in Minetta Alley, I’d give it an inch, tops.”
Padded out with non-committal remarks from Mulberry Street headquarters, Max’s treatment ran five full grafs. He’d done his best to make the victim a living, breathing person, but what did he have to work with? The body’s connection to Martin Mourtone, the remarkably prescient William H. Howe, the anonymous voice on the telephone line—in short, every compelling detail—had to be kept quiet.
The corpse was both love note and threat. A professional had dispatched the Negro. Why not Max himself? Someone still cared for him, but the Africans body was a warning that the affection might last only so long. A spasm of fear ran through him, but he told himself that terror was a good thing. It led to sensible behavior. Yet despite the fact that he had seen danger on a slab, he didn’t quite believe it. These things happened to other men, men who weren’t careful, men who didn’t know the ropes, men tainted by lousy luck.
He was also aware that disbelief was his greatest enemy.
Parnell raised his rheumy eyes from Max’s copy. “Nice work, kiddo.”
“Thanks.”
He wasn’t imagining it. The sphinx, the man without emotions, was actually taking an interest in him. “Did Biddle set you straight on Howe?”
“Howe and Hummel? I can’t tell whether they’re defending criminals or defending their employees.”
Parnell made a thwarted sound that died in his throat. Parnellian laughter. “You’re making progress! Copy!” he shouted, and a boy came racing over. “Check around, see if any blackies have been reported missing,” he told Max. “Come back in a couple of hours. I’ll have something for you.”
Not wasting any time, Max made the rounds along Thompson, Sullivan, and West Third before hitting Mulberry Street headquarters again, but he came up empty. No detective had been assigned yet, and none would be, he suspected. What was he supposed to do? Wander around the remnants of Little Africa with a lantern?
Back at the office, Max looked around for Nicholas Biddle, who was alternately scratching some words on a pad and staring out the window. With his legs outstretched and his lanky body slid halfway down in his padded chair, Biddle appeared far too relaxed for a man at work. In between bursts of writing, he absently tapped his gold-tipped cane on the plank floor.
Max approached the old reporter. In his hand, he held out Howe and Hummel’s opus, In Danger.
“Thought I’d return this, Mr. Biddle.”
Biddle’s gray-blue eyes regarded him with amusement. “Nick, call me Nick. So how did Weeping Willy go down with you?”
“It leaves you wondering. Listen, do you have time for a spot at Logan’s? My treat.”
“Well, if you’re treating, let’s go to Pontin’s,” Biddle replied, thereby upping the ante four-fold. “On Franklin. You know the place?”
“Sure.” Max gulped. A few trips to Pontin’s, and he’d be making withdrawals from the Madison Square Bank.
Interrogating Biddle wouldn’t be cheap, and it wouldn’t be easy either. The man was close, perhaps all too close to William H. Howe, but he might give up a detail or two. Did the lawyer have a blood lust for young reporters, for instance? Or did Max’s attachment to the Herald protect him in some obscure way? Did Howe and Hummel represent Stephenson’s? Max recalled that they had defended Morris Tekulsky, president of the Liquor Dealers Association, and by extension the saloon interests.
He’d have to gain Biddle’s confidence while keeping his intentions veiled. It was always possible that the old reporter made extra greenbacks by whispering in Howe’s ear.
Biddle ordered the Sole Margeury and, without glancing at the list, his favorite wine. “They have a wonderful cellar here, very strong on the French. Now, what do you know about Pontin’s?”
“Mostly mouthpieces here, right?”
“Ahh, yes and no. If you look around, you will see the flower of the legal profession. That’s Judge Dos Passos over there, a great intellect. And Judge Mallory, a dim bulb by comparison. But the secret of this place is that for the truly elect, there is a separate dining room in the back.”
“Judge Dos Passos isn’t of the elect?”
“I’m disappointed, Max. Quick, quick,” he snapped his fingers.
“Howe and Hummel?”
“Practically their clubhouse. I’ve seen them do business on a tablecloth.”
“So you know them pretty well?” Max probed, taking a sip of the Bordeaux.
“Anyone who claims to know Willy’s depths is in my estimation a bleeding idiot.” Biddle lit into his filet with gusto. Pausing, he regarded a chunk offish on his fork. “Fresh, flaky. No one does it like Pontin’s.”
“Well, after reading their pamphlet, I was wondering….”
“Yes?” Biddle’s eyebrows bobbed up and down. On his aristocratic face, the effect was disconcerting.
Max’s speculations had gotten a laugh out of Stan Parnell, so he plunged ahead. “It’s really a treatise on how to commit crimes, isn’t it? Do they plan the robberies and then defend the ones who get caught?”
“Oh, that old canard. Tell me you weren’t laughing while you read it.”
“I was, I was.”
“Good. Otherwise I would have to revise my opinion of you. That whole thing was a lark, and a nice piece of advertising too. Why would they want to get their hands dirty when they’re making a fortune on the proper side of the law? Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that Willy and Abie aren’t a little bent. They’re not above playing the badger game, in a gentlemanly sort of way. On the other hand, to whom can a chorus girl turn when she’s down on her luck?”
“You mean their breach-of-promise racket?”
“Hmmm … Stan said you were a quick fox. I’m not too fond of the practice myself, but when Abe Hummel burns papers, they never come back. And the same girl will never bother you again. In a way, he’s doing you a service.”
A rueful smile crossed Biddle’s thin lips, and Max guessed that the old reporter had been caught in Hummel’s net too.
Biddle as much as admitted it. “The next thing you know, Abie is buying you first-night tickets or giving you a tip on Saratoga. He writes that racing column, but you know that. You have to admire a little man like that, he’s practically a hunchback for Godsakes, and yet he wrings more out of life than anyone.” Now Biddle veered back to the original subject. “Let me ask you. Why do you think their own pamphlet makes them out to be felons?”
“Advertising, as you pointed out.”
“Yes, true. But think about it. They have a reputation to uphold. They’re not selling their services to Mr. Parkhurst or Mr. Comstock, are they? Willy has a genius for making his clientele comfortable. They know he’s not judging them.”
Max’s skepticism must have been written across his face.
“So you don’t believe me, my young cynic? Would you like proof?”
“Proof is always attractive.”
“For instance, they’re quiet as church mice about it, but they do more pro bono work than any outfit in town. What’s more, if Willy loses a murder case, he can’t let it go. It plagues him. Tell me any other lawyer who visits his convicted client, convicted of a capital offense, the client most lawyers want to forget as fast as possible, and tell me the lawyer who stays with the wretch even on the day of his hanging. Would you like examples?” bure.
“You know there is a mania for facts nowadays; it’s almost offensive. All right. Carlyle Harris, the wife-poisoner? Willy took his case on appeal, but the first lawyer botched it so badly, there wasn’t much he could do. Do you know what he told me after the hanging? When he hears a friend’s neck snapping, that hideous sound makes him more determined than ever to keep his clients off the gallows.”
Max kept a straight face. Biddle seemed to be forgetting he was talking to another reporter. “You’re making a good case yourself, Nick, but isn’t this just more self-promotion?”
“Cynical, Greengrass. Cynical. How about this? Do you know who defended Victoria Woodhull when that cretin Comstock brought her up on obscenity charges?”
At the mention of Mrs. Woodhull, Max practically choked on his chop. Why would Howe get mixed up with a radical feminist? Wouldn’t that sully his reputation? “The Victoria Woodhull?”
“The same one who published the little tale about the Reverend Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. The same one who was dragged before the bar for printing the word ‘virginity’ in her magazine. You should have seen Willy’s cross-examination of Comstock, that mincing prude! Willy Deuteronomy, Shakespeare, and Byron, to see if Comstock would keep them out of the mails, too. Postal Inspector! It’s amazing the pantywaist sonofabitch is still in power. Back then, in ’73, I thought those Puritans were relics. Now we’ve got the Reverend Parkhurst biting our ankles. And this Weems fanatic, too. Sometimes I think history is running backwards.”
Biddle was beginning to sound just like Mrs. DeVogt. Of course, he came from the same generation, with the same irritating tendency to speak from on high. Still, Howe as defender of free speech and tormentor of the mail censor Anthony Comstock cut an admirable, if incongruous, figure.
“I’m beginning to understand.”
“Not to speak of that woman … my memory is failing me … the one who swore the Republican Party was running a conspiracy to drive her crazy. Willy defended her gratis too.”
“No.”
Leaning over the table, his striking blue-gray eyes shining, Biddle made one more point. “Do you know how much Western George paid Willy after the Manhattan Savings job? Ninety thousand. It’s still the biggest fee in history.”
Sipping the last drop of his white wine, Nicholas Biddle rested his case.
“What about the press, Nick? Would Willy defend us?” He thought the question was vague enough.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said about Victoria Woodhull? Free speech is Willy’s creed.”
“He wouldn’t use any strongarm tactics against a reporter? You know, if you got on the wrong side of him?”
“You have a sardonic look; did anybody ever tell you that, Greengrass?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
Their eyes locked, but then Biddle broke into mordant laughter. It was impossible to resist Nick’s charm, but that didn’t make Max any less wary. Suddenly Biddle’s features shifted, another face emerging, a face stripped of practiced irony. He leaned over the table, his voice low and serious. “I wouldn’t cast Bill in a bad light.”
“Who would? He’s my hero, fighting those temperance hags.”
“Our knight in shining armor,” Biddle agreed. “Violence isn’t in Bill’s nature. He can crush a man like a bug and never leave a mark on him.”
Somehow this assertion rang true. Why should Howe soil his hands with insignificant reporters?
“Tekulsky uses him, right?” If the saloon owners’ organization employed Howe, there was a good chance the attorney represented Stephenson’s too.
“What’s your point?” Biddle said sharply.
The reporter’s reaction all but confirmed Max’s suspicions. The black -and-tan operators were probably Howe and Hummel clients too, along with Mourtone Senior. Who knew if the lawyers mightn’t have uttered the abracadabra that made Martin vanish? Now he was jangled all over again. Howe had to know about the brewery’s barrel. Why wouldn’t he keep a longshoreman or a merchant marine on the pad to keep an eye on dock business?
“Just idle curiosity.”
“Ha! You and Torquemada. I’m on deadline. This inquisition is over.”
He had two choices. Crouch in terror, his insides churning every time a stranger look at him crooked, or march straight into the lion’s mouth. Living in darkness and perpetual anxiety was clearly the greater of the two evils. He would assure Howe that he posed no danger to Mourtone or the rest of his clients. If he could ask the lawyer a few of the questions Nick Biddle had turned aside, all the better. Straight, direct, above-board. An antidote to the nightmares ambiguity was sure to spawn.
However, when he phoned the attorney to set up an appointment, the great man was consulting at the Tombs. In fact, the law clerk told Max appointments were hard to come by. Perhaps Howe would see him at the end of the summer. Max cajoled the clerk to no avail. Any audience with the solicitor would have to take place months in the future.
What else could he do? He’d have to ferret out Howe’s daily itinerary and ambush him.
Parnell was waving him up to the throne. Max felt the eyes of the other space-raters on him as he wove his way through the tightly packed “desks, ducked under a copy wire, and leaped onto the platform. The metro editor knew the effect of his gestures, he knew that the hungry space men kept their eyes on him constandy for signs of approval. Now Max had been summoned twice in a single day. No one would fail to notice his good fortune.
“Anything on the Negro?”
“Not a peep.”
“Ahh, don’t worry. We probably wasted enough ink on that one. Wait right there.”
The editor ran his eye over a story on his desk, slashing at it several times while Max, straight-faced but barely able to contain his joy, waited for his next assignment. “They picked up your friend last night on East 126th. Caught her in the act,” Parnell barked. “Get up to the arraignment. Harlem Police Court. You may be able to talk to her before she posts bail.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Edwards. Savior of the feline species. She went on a spree last night. The arresting officer said she gave him a lecture about her influence with Henry Bergh and the ASPCA. She’s got a nice badge, he says.”
“Didn’t Bergh die five years ago?”
“You’re a sharpie, Greengrass.” Parnell tapped his forehead. “That’s why we’re hiring you. Now get out of here.”
Hiring him! Giddy, Max ran halfway to the train before a stitch in his side stopped him in his tracks. Hiring him. He’d been so dizzy he hadn’t asked any questions, but he assumed he would start drawing a regular salary right away. Hiring him. What a miracle. His years of scraping together stories about two-bit domestic disputes and horseblanket heists were over.
He had reached a turning point in his life, and all because a bunch of reforming biddies were running rampant with their smothering rags. Yet he still found their campaign, with its strange mixture of altruism and savagery, completely incomprehensible. Wouldn’t he have to explain their motivation to the Heralds readers at some point? Wouldn’t he have to explain it to himself?