23
End of the Road

Kate Sheridan had read somewhere that the deepest love was unspoken. If that were so, she sometimes thought wryly, then she was having one hell of a love affair with Mike Morgan. Seven hours a day plodding two hundred places behind him on dirt-roads followed by a couple of hours each evening in some greasy spoon over a cup of coffee. And yet Kate felt both contented and secure as she stood beside Morgan in the cool of evening at the Maxwell House Coffee Pot on the road outside Florence, Ohio. They were both wearing grey sophomore sweatsuits, the gifts of Bloomington College.

“Twenty-one,” she said, breaking the silence and putting down her cup.

“Twenty-one what?”

“Twenty-one more men to pass before New York.”

“Don’t think about it,” said Morgan. “Just do your piece each day.” He drained his cup and turned to the counter to have it refilled. “That’s all I do – live a day at a time.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Doc,” said Kate, smiling.

“Perhaps,” said Morgan thoughtfully. “I’ll admit, I’ve learnt a lot from that old coot.”

He picked up his fresh cup of coffee and looked out beyond the Trans-Americans standing in groups by the caravan. Below, in a field just off the road, the lights of the camp flickered. Then he saw Ernest Bullard approach them, determinedly making his way through the crowds of athletes.

Bullard nodded over Morgan’s shoulder to the waitress at the hatch and smiled uneasily.

“I’ve got a confession to make,” he said, turning to face his companions. A moment later he took his coffee from the hatch, paused, sipped it slowly, and sighed. “It’s amazing,” he went on. “All this way to find the best cup of coffee in the United States.”

He looked directly at both of them.

“I won’t flim-flam you any longer,” he said, taking out his Bureau card from his inside pocket, and opening it.

“FBI.” He looked at Morgan. “I suppose you know why I’m here?”

Morgan nodded.

“Know what?” demanded Kate sharply, flushing.

Bullard gestured for his cup to be refilled. “I don’t know what I would have done without this coffee,” he said. He sipped his re-charged cup and turned to face them.

“I know about Morgan,” he said. Morgan made to speak, but Bullard silenced him, putting his finger to his lips.

“Have another coffee,” he said, smiling as he pushed their cups towards the coloured waitress at the hatch of the Coffee Pot. “And don’t start blaming Flanagan, either of you. I knew before that fight at Bloomington. Just after St Louis my people sent me this . . .” He fumbled in his inside pocket and withdrew from it a faded press clipping. He handed it to Morgan. “Some young freelance photographer back in Pennsylvania got this picture of you in a warehouse way back in 1929.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked Morgan sullenly, ignoring his coffee.

“For the immediate present, nothing,” said Bullard. “You see, I’ve been keeping close tabs on you. I watched you handle yourself in St Louis, in Bloomington and then in Chicago. Back there in the booth you knew you were exposing yourself as a handy man with your mitts. It was the same in Chicago with Capone.” He put down his cup and tipped back his hat. “But you never held back. You never hid. Most men – most guilty men – would have steered well clear on both occasions.”

Bullard loosened his tie.

“No, as I said, I like your style. I’ve watched you both since Vegas. It’s been an education.” He replaced his empty cup on the hatch and shook his head as the waitress offered him yet another refill. Bullard sighed.

“One thing we’re taught at the Bureau is never to let our feelings influence our decisions. Sort of like a doctor – you know what I mean? You start doing that in my line of work and you’re on your way to getting killed.” He smiled. “So I’ve got a job to do. And that places me in what you might call a predicament. If I go strictly by the book I should pull you in now.”

Kate darted a fearful glance at Morgan, who remained impassive, waiting to hear what Bullard still had to say.

“But all the law isn’t in the book. So let me put it to you straight. Do you give me your word that you won’t abscond before New York?”

Morgan looked across at Kate, who nodded.

“You got it,” they said simultaneously.

Bullard put out his hand to Morgan. “Fine. That way you’ll pick up enough folding money to hire yourself some fancy lawyer to keep you out of a striped shirt. Leastways, that’s how I hope it’ll work out. For both of you.”

“So what happens in New York?” asked Kate.

“The moment your man crosses that finishing line, he’s mine,” replied Bullard.

“And what happens if the Trans-America doesn’t make New York?” said Morgan.

Bullard looked him straight in the eye.

“Then neither do you,” he said evenly.

 

It had been clear to Charles Flanagan, even before Bloomington, that he would not be able to bring a thousand runners into New York, as he had hoped, for even the athletes who had survived the Mojave, the Rockies and the Great Plains were only mortal. Illness, injury and sheer fatigue had trimmed the Trans-America down to close on nine hundred runners even before Chicago.

By Maumee, Ohio, the Japanese runner Son, lying in eleventh position, had succumbed to a throat infection and withdrawn, and soon after Elyria, on the Ohio-Michigan border, the Italian Maffei, who had been closing in on the leaders, had to give in to crippling leg-cramps. But the main volume of withdrawals were much further down the field, in the area of certain failure, where seven hours a day at five miles an hour on hot roads was more difficult to bear.

At the top the position changed almost daily. Since St Louis, Doc had steadily eroded McPhail’s lead, but Capaldi always finished well up on each stage, and was within striking distance, in third position, by Chicago. Behind Capaldi, only an hour framed Morgan, Eskola, Bouin and Digger Mullins. Thurleigh, who had taken some days to recover from his St Louis race against Silver Star, gained strength after Chicago, and now held tenth place, but was daily gaining on the leaders and edging towards the sixth position required by his London wager.

As the race had gained in popularity, so sponsors offered increasing numbers of stage prizes. These awards were often secured by runners who had no hope of winning the race but who were willing to exhaust themselves on a single stage in order to win a few hundred dollars, a car or a suite of furniture. No matter; as far as Flanagan was concerned these new names and faces added spice and variety to the Trans-America. And with Toffler at last off his back his troubles were melting away. The towns ahead looked likely to meet their obligations, and although the debts were still piling up there would be a modest profit once the race reached New York.

The Trans-America had slowly wound its way through the bleak industrial heartland of Michigan, crossing the Ohio-Michigan border at Colombia. They now moved directly east, north of Mishawata, towards Cleveland, and Flanagan’s final press conference.

 

Charles Flanagan looked down at the massed reporters in the audience in the Grand Metropolitan Hotel, Cleveland. Things had gone well. He had just learnt that Fred Astaire had launched a dance in honour of Kate Sheridan called the “Sheridan Shuffle”, while Irving Berlin had composed a ditty called the “Trans-American Rag”. Neither work would make its way into the pantheon of American show business, but it was all good copy nevertheless. He checked his wristwatch: the first half hour of questions had presented no problems. The race itself was now only four hundred miles from its conclusion, and should be gravy all the way. Already the request for places on the VIP platform at Madison Square Garden had exceeded the platform’s capacity.

Flanagan had decided, on balance, against the races between midget jockeys on Shetland Ponies. Better to finish with dignity. After all, as he reminded himself, the Trans-America wasn’t marathon dancing or pole-squatting. And anyway, the race was boiling up to one hell of a finish.

Carl Liebnitz raised his arm and, catching Flanagan’s eye, got to his feet.

“Some of my colleagues on the press corps have been wondering about Madame La Zonga and Fritz the talking mule,” he said, keeping his voice deadpan. “We don’t seem to have seen them since Springfield?”

“I’m glad you asked that question, Carl,” said Flanagan.

“Back in Bloomington, General Honeycombe made me an offer for the circus. I talked it over with Madame La Zonga – ”

“And Fritz?” said Liebnitz.

“And Fritz, and the rest of the staff,” grinned Flanagan.

“And they agreed to go with the General. Last thing I heard they were doing great business in Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

The exchange went down well. Flanagan peered down into the audience, scanning it for further questions. As he did so, at the back of the conference room a buttoned bell-boy in a pill-box hat entered with an envelope, and after whispering with some of the journalists in the back row made his way to Carl Liebnitz, tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a white envelope. Liebnitz looked up, ripped it open, scanned its contents, and stood up frowning.

“Sorry, Flanagan,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s bad news.” He paused and took off his spectacles. “I have a telegram here which states that the Trans-America Bank has today closed its doors to its depositors. In short, the bank has gone bust.”

There was immediate uproar and journalists scrambled over each other to get to their telephones, leaving Carl Liebnitz standing at the back of the room, the telegram hanging limply from his fingers.

Flanagan slumped back in his chair, face flushed, a lump in his throat.

“Conference over,” he said gruffly, banging his hammer on the desk.

 

The next morning nine hundred and sixty-one Trans-Americans, Flanagan’s road gang and the catering staff silently faced Flanagan in the same conference room at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel.

Flanagan stood up, forced a thin smile, and drew his fingers through his greying hair.

“I guess you’ve all heard the bad news by now. Carl Liebnitz got the first telegram, but I have since had the position confirmed by Leonard Evans, the vice president of the Trans-America Bank. The long and short of it is that, at twelve a.m. yesterday the Trans-America Bank closed its doors for good and is now in the hands of the receivers. I have at this moment no idea why the bank has gone bust – banks are going to the wall every day – but that isn’t our immediate concern. What it means to us, to you, is that your $350,000 prize money isn’t there any more. There’s nothing in the pot.”

The sun-blackened Texan Kane stood up. “Just what options have we got? What’s our financial position?”

“I’ll level with you,” said Flanagan. “I might have seventy thousand dollars in the pot after all the salaries and bills are paid. We have nine days to New York: the cost of that is forty thousand dollars, maybe thirty thousand if I cut it fine. That could leave thirty to forty thousand dollars for prize money.”

“But surely,” said Doc, interrupting, “those are your profits?”

“Were my profits,” replied Flanagan gloomily. “No, boys, it all goes into the pot. If I come out of this without ending up in the Tombs then I reckon I’m ahead.”

There was spontaneous applause from the Trans-Americans. Then Eskola got to his feet. “We could end here; split up the seventy thousand dollars now.”

“Impossible.” It was Doc again, moving to the dais on which Flanagan and his staff were seated. He faced the Trans-Americans. “Back in Hays, Kansas, Flanagan and my group laid out over seven grand at long odds on our making it all the way to New York. Flanagan chipped in about the same. That was for the cooks. Those guys went out on a limb for us back there in Kansas when we were in trouble. We’ve got to stand by them now.”

Eskola put up his hands in a placatory gesture as Doc sat down. “My apologies, Doc. I was not thinking clearly.”

“What if Mr Flanagan went ahead to look out a new sponsor, while we keep racing?” It was the Frenchman, Bouin.

Flanagan shook his head. “Time,” he said. “There’s no way I can see me picking up that sort of money in a week.”

Willard had meanwhile entered the room, and now placed a sheaf of telegrams on the table, at the same time whispering in his employer’s ear.

Flanagan smiled. “Looks like some good news for a change.” He picked up a telegram. “From the IWW union boys back in Vegas. They’re sending us five hundred clams.” He picked up another. “Doug Fairbanks’ sending a grand, and here’s a wire from Levy in St Louis – a grand.” He picked up the sheaf of telegrams.

“What’s the total we’ve got here?”

Willard scribbled on a pad in front of him and grinned.

“Twelve grand, I reckon. We even got a grand from those Scotsmen back in McPhee. Who says the Scots are tight?”

“Great,” said Flanagan. “But still a long way from what we need.”

Doc stood up again.

“Look, Flanagan, every man here is committed to finishing this race. Hell, we didn’t come all this way just to end up in Cleveland. That much is certain. All you have to do is to feed and house us till we hit New York. If it comes to the worst we’ll run for nothing.”

There was a rumble of agreement.

“Wait a minute,” said Flanagan, hands on his forehead. “See how this strikes you. Say we keep forty grand out of the total, just to get us to New York. That leaves us with around forty grand, with maybe more to come . . .” Flanagan closed his eyes.

“I’m getting it,” he shouted. “It’s coming through.” At his side, Willard put his fingers to his lips, and the Trans-Americans became silent, as if attending a seance.

Flanagan’s eyes opened, and he clenched both fists, knuckles down on the desk in front of him. “So we keep our forty grand safe, so we can get to New York, come what may. What’s left is either prize money or . . .”

“Or what?” said Doc.

Flanagan smiled.

“Gambling money. We take a chance, like we did in McPhee, in St Louis, in Springfield . . .”

“Like we been doing since Los Angeles,” came a voice from the floor. ‘

Flanagan nodded.

“Like we’ve been doing all the goddam way.” He paused. “I know for certain there are some fancy hustlers here in Cleveland.”

“Hustlers?” shouted Bouin.

“Gamblers. Poker. Dice,” explained Flanagan. “So let’s say I take the forty grand and put it in the pot . . .”

“You want to play cards with our money?” said Eskola. “Cards?”

“It’s a chance,” said Flanagan. “One that might be worth taking.”

McGregor, the head cook, stood up.

“I know it’s none of my business, but I saw Mr Flanagan pick up seven g’s in Las Vegas, on a five-hundred dollar stake. He’s good. He’s a humdinger.”

There was a flurry of discussion in some half-dozen different languages. Willard banged the gavel. “Order, gentlemen!” he shouted.

Doc stood at the base of the dais. “I’m lying second, and all of my group is in the first dozen, so I reckon I’ve got as much of a stake as anybody if all of us end up in the cellar. Forty thousand dollars split between the top runners – that’s chicken-feed compared to what we ran for at the start. Let’s look at this carefully. First, we put the forty grand in the poke. That can’t be touched, and that means we get to New York. Then we allow Flanagan to play with the rest of the money. Hell, it’s been a gamble from the beginning. Flanagan gambled on getting us to L.A., we all gambled when we came here, we’ve gambled one way or the other every single day since. Well, here’s just one more gamble – the final one.”

There was no need to put it to a vote. That night Flanagan made his way to the Biltmore Hotel with forty-two thousand five hundred dollars burning a hole in his pocket.

He entered the lift and pressed the button for the basement. A few second later he stood before a heavy steel door marked “boiler room”. He knocked and a hatch opened, revealing a pair of black bushy eyebrows and a bulbous nose.

“I’m Flanagan.”

The eyes looked at him unblinkingly.

“This is a private game,” said the nose eventually. Flanagan reached into his pocket and withdrew a thin wad of hundred dollar bills. “How much to make it less private?”

The eyes looked down at the clip of bills which Flanagan was holding.

“What you got there,” came the reply.

The next moment the door opened, and Flanagan entered.

 

9 a.m., 3 June, the Grand Metropolitan Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio. Flanagan entered the conference room with a smile on his face and stepped on to the platform to face his Trans-Americans. He was impeccably dressed in a black waistcoated pin-striped suit and black patent leather shoes. Before him stood the Trans-Americans and his staff and a sprinkling of reporters, including Liebnitz, who had got wind of what was in the air. This time there was no need for Flanagan to call for silence. The room was still.

“One hundred and fifty grand in the pot – all our stake,” said Flanagan, his hands on the table in front of him. “Five card stud. Just me and Easy Eddy Arnold left in. A good player, but I’d played him in Vegas. A bluffer.”

The silence was almost palpable.

“Easy Eddy has to fill in a run in diamonds.” Flanagan drew in a deep breath. “I have a full house – aces and kings.”

Capaldi was the first to speak.

“For God’s sake tell us, Flanagan. Did the man fill in his run?”

“Yes,” said Flanagan, dropping his head into his hands.

 

Willard Clay looked around him and shook his head. He sat at a table in the gloom of Gargan’s speakeasy, Cleveland, along with Doc and his group and surrounded by other Trans-Americans. If he had visited any one of the ten speakeasies within walking distance of Gargan’s he would have witnessed the same scene: men who had not let alcohol pass their lips since Los Angeles now in various stages of inebriation.

“I sure hope these guys can take it,” he said, looking around him as he drained his glass. “ Cause we hit the road again, 8 a.m. tomorrow, rain, hail or snow, money or no money.”

“They can handle it,” replied Doc. “We can all handle it.” Around the table sat his team – Thurleigh, McPhail and Morgan – along with Packy Paterson, Stevie, Kate, Dixie and Lily.

“Where’s Flanagan?” Morgan asked.

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since morning,” said Willard. “He took off right after he spoke to you guys. Just got into a taxi and vanished.”

“He shouldn’t take it too bad,” said Doc. “Nothing he could have done. In his place I’d’ve done the same. A full house of aces and kings against someone trying to fill in a straight? He can’t be blamed. Anyhow, he’s kept this whole damn shebang on the road since Los Angeles. None of the boys blames Flanagan.”

“So what are you going to do?” said Willard.

“Keep running,” replied Doc. “That’s what we came here to do.” The others nodded agreement.

“Have you any idea of the number of people who have stopped us in the street today, telling us to keep going?” asked Doc.

“That’s right,” said Hugh. “People I don’t even know. One pushed twenty dollars into my hand.”

“One old guy stopped me in the street, gave me his running shoes. Said he had run a marathon back in 1912. That must have been about your time, Doc,” said Morgan, smiling.

“Amazing how many marathon runners we seem to meet,” continued Hugh. “Never heard of most of them. Jesus, it must be the American Dream to run a marathon. No, there’s no doubt the man in the street wants us to keep going. For one thing, he wants to know who’s the best man – ”

“Or woman,” interposed Kate. “A crowd of ladies from the Daughters of the Revolution turned up at the hotel today, after we’d finished our meeting, and offered me food and accommodation all the way to New York.” She turned to face Willard. “How much have you got left in the kitty?”

“Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight bucks in stage prizes, bets et cetera. At least a grand of that will go back to Juan Martinez’s folks. The rest of it we split up amongst ourselves, in New York.”

“If I manage to make the first two hundred places into New York – and the Woman’s Home Journal stay with their offer – then put that in the kitty, too. I reckon you guys have kept me in the frame since back before Vegas,” said Kate.

Doc raised his glass, smiling sentimentally. “Here’s to you, Kate. You’re a lady. Where do you lie now?”

“Two hundred and twenty-first,” interjected Willard. “Twenty-one runners to beat. You dropped a few places.”

“But the big question is, how many runners will stay in?”

“We still have stage prizes left, don’t we?” said Dixie.

“Yes,” said Willard. “About four thousand dollars’ worth. That might keep a fair number in, especially those in the front group.”

“Then the Journal will probably stay with me,” said Kate.

“Whatever happens, we should all come up smelling of roses,” said Doc. “How many of us haven’t had offers of work or endorsements for products?”

“I’ve been asked to lecture at colleges and women’s clubs all over the country,” said Kate. “Me? I never gave a lecture in my life.”

“You’ll have no problem,” said Doc. “You’ve been giving press conferences since Morgan bopped you way back in the Mojave. You’ve learned to stand on your feet. We all have. Of course it’s a shame that we’re not going to be able to finish off in real style, with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but if it hadn’t been for the Trans-America I’d still be serving milk-shakes at five bucks a week.” He squeezed Lily. “I reckon we’ve all come out of this in good shape. I certainly know I have.”

He raised his glass.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, let me give you a toast. To Charles C. Flanagan, wherever he is.”

 

For “Packy” Paterson the Trans-America had proved to be a new lease of life. He had not fully understood the implications of Morgan’s offer to join the race back in Bloomington but he had immediately accepted: to become, in effect, the “manager” of Doc’s group, dealing with mail, laundry, massages and any details which might detract from the runners’ concentration on their daily fifty-mile stints. In return, he was given an equal share of any winnings which Doc’s group might accrue by New York.

Packy soon teamed up with Hugh McPhail’s friend, Stevie and, freed of preparation for nightly booth fights, the veteran boxer soon learned the delights of the Scottish “half and half”, which had felled Flanagan back at the McPhee Highland Games. Their friendship was perhaps not surprising. They had both lived through hard times in bleak places, the Scot in the depths of a Glasgow tenement, the American in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. Together they made a formidably effective management team, the hulking boxer and the quick-witted, bandy-legged little Scot.

For Stevie, the rural sections of the United States, the vast wheat plains of Kansas and Nebraska, had been a revelation; but the industrial north was simply Depression Glasgow all over again. True, the faces were Polish, German and negro, but they bore the same hopeless expressions that had haunted the “broo park”. He could not escape from them – gaunt unshaven faces in the rear of excited crowds lining the streets as the Trans-Americans plodded through town after town towards New York.

His journalistic work with McLeod of the Glasgow Citizen was far from onerous; just to winnow out the human stories of the Trans-America in order to give colour and depth to McLeod’s formal reports. By Springfield Stevie was offering his pieces to McLeod with confidence and by Elyria he was submitting whole reports to the Citizen under the journalist’s by-line. Like Hugh McPhail, he knew that there was no going back. You returned only to soil that would allow you to grow, and he owed no loyalty to Glasgow. True, times were hard in America too, but here there was room to breathe; and if he could not survive in America, he reasoned, he had no right to survive at all.

The immediate concern of the Scot and the American was, however, the location of Charles C. Flanagan, about whom nothing had been heard since Cleveland. Willard Clay, absorbed with the problem of setting the Trans-America on its way again, had asked Carl Liebnitz and the unlikely pair to combine to find Flanagan.

Flanagan was not found, however, until three days after Cleveland, on the morning of 4 June, when he was discovered face down, clad only in trousers and a woman’s dressing-gown, in a hotel bedroom in Akron, Ohio. Alongside him in the double bed were a trumpet and two Alsatian dogs.

“Wake up, you dumb Mick,” shouted Carl Liebnitz, pulling him on to his back. Packy Paterson slowly poured a pitcher of cold water over the recumbent figure, while the third member of the rescue party, Stevie, pulled back the curtains.

Flanagan hardly twitched as the icy water splashed over his face.

“Aces on kings,” he mumbled. “Aces on kings.”

Liebnitz looked helplessly at his two fellow-searchers.

Stevie took the initiative. “Just you go get some hot black coffee, Packy, lots of it, and plenty of ice.”

Packy stumbled off downstairs, to return a few minutes later with a steaming jug of coffee and a box of ice cubes.

“You want I should give him the coffee now?” asked Packy, standing menacingly over Flanagan.

“Not yet,” said Stevie. “Put the coffee and ice down there.” He pointed to the bedside table. “And get those blasted dogs out of here.”

Packy led the growling Alsatians from the room.

Liebnitz sat down on the side of the bed and took off his jacket and tie.

“God, it stinks in here,” he said. “Open that window, for God’s sake, somebody.” He bent close to Flanagan and grimaced.

“Give me the ice,” said Stevie. “And bear with me a wee moment. I’ve never tried this before, but I’ve heard it works a treat. It’s called the ‘collision of opposites’ method. When I say ‘now’, I want you to pour the coffee down his trap. You got it?”

Packy nodded while Liebnitz propped the limp figure up against the headboard of the bed.

Stevie gingerly unbuttoned Flanagan’s trousers and pulled out the elastic of his underpants. Flanagan’s eyes did not even flicker. Then Stevie picked up a handful of ice cubes and rammed them down into Flanagan’s groin.

“Now!” he shouted.

Packy pulled open Flanagan’s lower lip like a drawer and poured down the hot coffee.

The effect was immediate. Flanagan sat bolt upright, his eyes staring, spraying coffee over them all.

“Mother of God!” He leapt to his feet, jumped off the bed and ran round the room, spraying out ice cubes as he ran.

Liebnitz smiled at Stevie.

“Looks as if your collision theory works,” he said. “At that speed Flanagan could have beaten Silver Star on his own. I think we can all have a coffee now. But this time without the ice.”

 

Half an hour later a grey, shaven, sober Charles C. Flanagan sat in Jake’s Diner, Akron, on a stool alongside Liebnitz, Stevie and Paterson.

“It was one of the boys from Morgan’s old union who found you and got back to us,” said Liebnitz. “He said you were doing some sort of Rudy Vallee impersonation in the speakeasy last night. That didn’t go down too badly, but when you said Caruso couldn’t hold a candle to Count John McCormack you got into a fight with some Italians and the barman threw you all out.”

“That was the last I can remember,” said Flanagan, rubbing his jaw. “Still, I think I dished out a few punches.”

“Took a few too, by the looks of you,” said Packy.

Flanagan gulped down his coffee and shook his head. “Why didn’t you just let me be?” he said. “I’ve had it. I’ll pick up the race outside New York.”

“The race?” said Liebnitz. “The race is no problem. The boys are still pounding out the miles like there was still three hundred and fifty grand at the end of the road, and your man Willard is Mr Efficiency as usual. It’s all going like clockwork.”

“Then what are you doing here?” said Flanagan.

“Because I’ve got you an offer,” said Liebnitz. “So just pin back your Irish ears.”

Flanagan nodded blearily as a waitress served him his tenth cup of coffee.

“Transcontinental Airlines’ new boss is one Clarence C. Ross. He only took over a couple of weeks ago. After Cleveland, I wired him about the Trans-America, to see if he could rustle up some loot from some of his New York banker buddies. He refused point blank.”

“And you three came all this way to tell me that?” muttered Flanagan morosely.

“Let me finish,” said Liebnitz. “As I said, he refused point blank. No, he said, I won’t go to my banking associates, not on any account. I’ll put the money up myself. Transcontinental will sponsor the race.”

“God almighty!”

Flanagan sat up and coughed, again spraying coffee over Packy and Stevie.

“But on one condition,” said Liebnitz, taking out his handkerchief to dab his spattered jacket.

“I thought there’d be a catch.”

“No, listen, it’s not all that bad. You see, Clarence Ross is marathon mad; has been ever since the 1908 Olympics. He even tried running in one himself at Boston but ended up with rigor mortis at twenty miles. He thinks marathon runners are the greatest thing since the vertical man.”

Flanagan grimaced. “So what does he want us to do? Rollerskate into New York?”

“No. He wants us to put up the three hundred and fifty grand for a standard marathon into New York, the full classic twenty-six miles three hundred and eighty-five yards. So the slate’s wiped clean for the past three-thousand-odd miles. All the money goes on the marathon alone.”

They could almost hear Flanagan’s mind clicking into place.

“Why not?” he said, smiling. “Why not? The way things are no one gets nothing. Sure, the guys in the lead coming into New York have got a beef after running three thousand miles, but it’s either that or nothing. We’ve got to go along with it.”

Flanagan looked round at Packy and Stevie. He shook his head.

“Well,” he said. “It’s sure not working out the way I planned back in L.A.”

“Has anything?” growled Liebnitz.

Flanagan grinned.

“Not much.”

 

Edgar J. Hoover’s flat, square face crinkled into a smile. “Finley, that son of a bitch Flanagan has done it again.” He laid down his newspaper. “There he was, dead on his feet in Cleveland, his bank gone bust, all his prize money gone. Then he lost all the rest of his money in a card game. What a son of a bitch!”

Finley allowed himself a smile. “Bullard reported that he vanished into the Boondocks on a three-day binge. Took them a coon’s age to wake him up once they’d found him.”

Hoover laughed. “Then he digs up three hundred and fifty g’s from this marathon nut, Ross of Transcontinental, and presto! he’s back on his feet again.”

“With a bound he was free,” offered Finley.

“Come again?” said Hoover.

“Nothing, Director,” said Finley, taking his glasses off his nose and polishing them.

Hoover sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.

“Finley, it is my belief that the Trans-America is about as political as Mom’s apple pie.” He opened his eyes and leant forward on his desk. “Does that coincide with your views?”

“Precisely, Director.”

“Then call agent Bullard. Tell him I want to see him. And also tell him right now that if he values his job to get me on that VIP platform when Flanagan’s boys hit New York, and to arrange all necessary hotel accommodation. I want to be in on this at the finish.”

 

The cable Peter Thurleigh sent to his London club was addressed to Lord Farne and the others with whom he had made his wager all those long months ago on his reaching the top six in the Trans-America. It read: “Trans-America race discontinued through lack of funds. Now only final marathon.

Does wager stand? Suggest all money on marathon. Thurleigh.”

He now had in his blazer pocket a crumpled reply from London, received only a day after his own had been sent. It read, “Wager now on marathon. Still top six. Run for your life.”

 

It was with some pride that on 5 June 1931, Charles Ross sat in the Roosevelt Room in the newly-built Empire State Building, alongside an immaculate Charles C. Flanagan and his retinue, facing the world’s press.

Flanagan stood up to the whirring of cameras and explosion of flash-bulbs.

“Let me first say,” he said, “that it is with great gratitude that we have received the sponsorship of Transcontinental Airlines and its distinguished owner, Clarence C. Ross.”

“Wouldn’t ‘relief’ be a better word, Flanagan?” quipped a voice.

“Yes,” said Flanagan, smiling. “But don’t quote me on that.”

Bill Campbell of the Glasgow Herald had risen to his feet, and stood patiently until the laughter had subsided.

“I’d like to ask Mr Ross a question, Mr Flanagan,” he said finally, in his rich Scots burr. “Many of my readers at home, observing that a Scot, Hugh McPhail, had a two-minute lead in the Trans-America before the final marathon stage was placed on the present ‘winner take all’ basis, will ask if the present competition is entirely fair to him.”

Flanagan flashed an uneasy sideways glance at Ross, who was growling under his breath. “Perhaps,” said Flanagan, “that question should be addressed directly to Hugh McPhail himself.”

Hugh stood up.

“No,” he said. “I don’t feel badly about it. I came out here to cross America by foot, and it looks as if I’ve just about done that. Even to have led a group of runners of this class all that way is an honour as far as I’m concerned. Mr Ross has put up money that otherwise wouldn’t have been there, so I’m content to fight it out over the marathon on Saturday.”

“I think that answers your question, Bill,” said Flanagan.

“I’d like to ask why we’re finishing the race in Central Park instead of Madison Square Garden or the Polo Grounds,” said Liebnitz.

Charles Ross stood up. At forty-five he still had the lean, hard build of a long-distance athlete.

“May I answer that question, Mr Flanagan?” he said. Flanagan nodded and Ross continued. “It was my treat to the citizens of New York. I felt that everyone should see these great athletes who have trekked all the way across the roads of America. I consulted first with Mayor Jimmy Walker, and we were in full agreement. This way, I reckon, well over three million citizens will view the final miles of the race; the greatest crowd for a marathon in the history of track and field.”

There was scattered applause as Ross sat down.

Pollard of the St Louis Star stood up.

“Flanagan, do you see any possibility of Kohlemainen’s Olympic best of two hours, thirty-two minutes, thirty-five seconds being broken in the race?”

Flanagan stood, shaking his head. “How many miles did Kohlemainen run in 1920 before that record? My boys have covered more than three thousand miles. They won’t be looking for any Olympic records on Saturday. Anyhow, no athlete ever does. Athletics is about beating other men, and with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the pot this is the richest race of all time. So if I were you I wouldn’t wear out your pencils talking about records.”

“Kevin Maguire, Irish Times. What celebrities are you expecting to be at the finish, Flanagan?”

Flanagan rose and picked up a sheet of paper. “You boys will get the full official list after this meeting, though we’re still getting calls from all over the States. We have Governor Roosevelt, Edgar Hoover – who has, throughout, shown a personal interest in the race – Walter Reuther, Miss Tallulah Bankhead and Miss Helen Hayes. Douglas Fairbanks is flying in from Los Angeles, accompanied by Miss Mary Pickford, and the British, French and Finnish ambassadors are going to be in attendance.” He lifted a telegram from the table. “And I’ve just received a telegram from the famous evangelist, Miss Alice Craig McAllister, to say that she’ll be at the finish. Gentlemen, all the world’s going to be in Central Park in three days from now.”

Albert Kowalski of the Philadelphia Globe, sun-bronzed and lean from hundreds of miles of running, rose to his feet.

“Lord Thurleigh, with about one hundred miles to go, when it became known that the race money was going to be decided by a marathon you were lying half an hour and two places short of the sixth position required by your wager. Do you think that you could have picked up those vital – and might I say lucrative – thirty minutes?”

Peter Thurleigh rose, smiling. “Yes, it was possible. All I had to do was to pick up fifteen minutes on two consecutive days over one hundred miles. My wager has been changed, and now relates to Saturday’s marathon.” He smiled. “So, gentlemen, when that gun goes on Saturday I’ll be running for the money like everyone else in the race.”

“Charles Rae, Washington Post. Flanagan, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars is one heck of a pot, right in the middle of the hardest times the United States has ever faced. Have you any means of ensuring that no cheating takes place? I mean, like doping?”

“Could I answer that one, Flanagan?” It was Doc Cole, who stood up in the audience, his face serious.

“I know that journalists are by nature a pretty cynical bunch,” he said. “But I’d like to say this. I would trust every man in this race with my last buck. For the last three months we haven’t just run together and raced together – we’ve lived together. Tell me, who wants to lie to his buddies and lie to himself for the rest of his life? Say there was something a guy could take – and I wouldn’t know what that could be – that would help him win this final marathon. What would he feel like, living with that lie, wondering whether or not he could have won on his own merits? No, I don’t think the question will arise, gentlemen.”

There was an awkward silence, but Rae stayed on his feet.

“I’m sorry to pursue this point,” he said, looking down to scribble on a pad in his left hand, “but it is common knowledge that many of the Trans-America competitors have formed themselves into teams and will split any winnings they have picked up during the race. Now, I’m not suggesting that there is anything corrupt in this. Far from it. What I am asking is whether or not such agreements might result in teams shepherding their favoured runners or individuals sacrificing themselves for the sake of another team member. This would surely diminish the Trans-America marathon as a race.”

“A very good question,” said Flanagan. “I have yesterday asked all Trans-Americans to nullify any financial team agreements which they may have made, or at least those relating to the final marathon stage on Saturday. Any sign of runners using destructive team tactics will result in immediate disqualification.”

“That answers my question,” said Rae, resuming his seat to murmurs of approval.

Albert Kowalski rose to take his place. “A question for Miss Sheridan, please. I believe that, by virtue of being in one hundred and ninety-eighth position at the end of the penultimate stage, she has now been offered the ten thousand dollars originally set by the Woman’s Home Journal. Since she has not completed the full distance, does she intend to accept the prize?”

Kate Sheridan stood up, eyes flashing. “No, I don’t. I was offered the prize for finishing within the first two hundred positions over the whole distance across America. It’s my intention only to pick up the prize if I finish in the top two hundred in the marathon.”

There was immediate applause.

“That’s the spirit of the Trans-America,” shouted Flanagan, as the applause subsided.

Carl Liebnitz got to his feet, looked around him at his colleagues, and addressed himself directly to Flanagan.

“Flanagan, it seems to me that this may be the last time we’re all going to be together in one room: athletes, journalists, you, your staff. And when that last man comes in on Saturday it’ll be sort of like a family breaking up. It certainly will be for me, anyway.”

He took off his spectacles, rubbed his thin, hawklike nose, and looked around him at his silent colleagues.

“I’m not a sentimental man, Flanagan. As you know, journalism isn’t a sentimental profession. But we’ve come a long way together, all of us, across some of the toughest country God ever made. I’d like to say on behalf of all my colleagues that it was worth it, every long mile of it. We’re glad you made it.”

The press corps rose as one man, applauding and, for the first and only time, a blush suffused Charles Flanagan’s lean face. He nodded sheepishly, shuffled with his papers and made his way from the dais as the press broke up.

As Morgan was leaving the conference room he was stopped from behind by a tap on the elbow. It was Ernest Bullard, his face grim.

“Just got a cable from my boss,” he said. “They want me to close the case and hightail it back to headquarters after the race.”

“And what about me?” said Morgan.

“How do you mean?”

“The Bronx Bomber?”

“The Bronx Bomber?” laughed Bullard. “What the hell would a prizefighter be doing in a foot-race?”

“You mean – ?”

“I mean you’re still in trouble,” said Bullard. “If you don’t run your heart out, all the way into Central Park.” He jammed his hat on to his head. “And forget about the Bronx Bomber. I never even met him.”

 

AMERICANA DATELINE FRIDAY 5 JUNE 1931

 

Had the Greeks failed to whip the Persians at Marathon in 490 B.C. then it is unlikely that three million New Yorkers would tomorrow be watching the richest foot-race in history. Similarly, had, in 1908, an Italian waiter called Dorando Pietri been a good judge of pace and finished the London Olympic marathon without the assistance of officials, then the distance to be run tomorrow would not be the exact twenty-six miles three hundred and eighty-five yards that Charles Flanagan’s Trans-Americans will attempt to cover.

However, the Greeks did defeat the Persians, setting Pheidippides on his epic run to Athens; and Dorando Pietri was no judge of pace, and as a direct result Clarence C. Ross of Transcontinental Airlines has put up over a quarter of a million dollars on tomorrow’s foot-race from Denville, New Jersey, to Central Park, New York.

Everyone and his uncle is now on the Trans-American bandwagon, and many a Hollywood agent is in trouble for failing to secure his client a place on the VIP platform in Central Park, but it was not always thus. There were many doubting Thomases, not least your correspondent, when Charles C. Flanagan first set his tattered crew on their way East from the Coliseum Stadium, Los Angeles, way back in March. That day many competitors failed to survive the first stage, indeed some did not get much further than the Coliseum car park, and my perhaps over-sensitive nostrils began to sense something rotten in the state of California.

Those of my readers who have shown sufficient endurance to stay with me since those early days will know that I was an early convert to the Trans-America, as were the American people. Floods, riots, defaulting towns, snow-storms – nothing has stopped the onward rush of Flanagan’s men across the United States. When, one day, the full story of the Trans-America is written, it will read like something between Homer’s Odyssey and Huckleberry Finn.

One of my first reservations about the Trans-America was that it was obscene that in the middle of the worst Depression in our history men should be foot-racing for such massive prizes. I humbly admit my error. The athlete represents man at the edge of his limits in an area which few men glimpse, let alone inhabit. We identify with the athlete because we feel this, sense that he is one of the privileged few who can go close to reaching his potential, while most of us spend our lives unaware that such a potential even exists.

Some idea of the nature of Flanagan’s Trans-America may be given when I reveal that every one of his runners insisted on completing the whole distance to Denville, New Jersey, in order that they could claim to have run all the way from Los Angeles to New York. These men had come to run across the United States, and they would be satisfied with nothing less.

So, tomorrow, even when you are looking at some veteran chugging along in seven hundredth position with no hope of ending up in the money, remember that he is the privileged one. For he is one of a select band of men who have made their way on foot across America. He is a Trans-American. And that is in itself an accolade.

CARL C. LIEBNITZ