Tuesday, September 10, 1901
Abe Isaak was being held at the Central Police Station downtown, along with the others that Hannigan had swept up in a raid on the Isaak home on Carroll Avenue. As Hannigan promised, twelve anarchists were now in custody, with a city-wide hunt out for Emma Goldman, who was known to be in Chicago but had managed to stay underground.
The captain had an office at the Central Station as well, although he spent little time there. It lacked both the opulence and the secretary of the office at City Hall. But, with reporters from across the United States parked there, clamoring for information on the anarchist plot to assassinate the president, Hannigan was certain not to be anywhere else. The previous day he had given an exclusive to Wilkie’s old paper, the Chicago Daily Tribune, which extolled his efforts in bringing the conspirators to justice. The captain had been quoted as saying that “when Czolgosz went to Buffalo on his murderous mission, he was the agent of this group of Chicago conspirators.”
With his name in print as a protector of the nation, Hannigan was quite chipper when Walter was shown into his office, a small cubicle at the far end of the second floor. Instead of the pert, young brunette, opening the door for Walter was a white-haired, bulbous-nosed patrolman ready for his pension.
“Hello, George,” Hannigan enthused. He always looked unnatural when he smiled, as if his facial muscles were being asked to perform a task for which they had not been trained. “Anyone take a shot at you on the way over here?”
Walter shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Not disappointed at all, George. We in the Chicago police department understand the value of having our very own contingent from the Secret Service Division to help us in our labors. What can I do for you this morning? Found a phony greenback in your pay envelope?”
“I want to talk to Isaak.”
“Which one? We got four of them. Daughter ain’t half bad to look at. And seeing how they believe in free love and all . . .”
“The father.”
Hannigan spread his hands wide, palms up. He looked like he was waiting for someone to drop coins into them. “If that’s what you want. Sure you wouldn’t rather have the daughter? I’ll get you a private room.”
“The father.”
Hannigan made to sigh. “If you insist. But he ain’t gonna talk to you. These maniacs are tough nuts, I’ll say that for them. If I didn’t find out anything, you ain’t gonna.”
“No, probably not. But what if I take a shot anyway?”
Hannigan hauled himself out of the chair. “I’ll take you to his cell myself.”
“How about I use an interrogation room. And it might be best if you weren’t around.”
Hannigan was pleased to avoid leaving his office, particularly since Walter had passed a writer for the North American Review in the lobby who had just arrived to speak with Chicago’s famous captain of detectives.
Walter was escorted to a room in the basement by another Chicago copper who didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence. “Interview room” was often a euphemism for where coppers gave prisoners the third degree, but it would have to do. Walter didn’t want to speak with Isaak in a cell.
The Isaak family was new in Chicago, having arrived just a year before from Portland, Oregon, where Abe, Sr. had published his rag, then called the Firebrand. Like most anarchist publications, it advocated a combination of provocative politics and loose morals. Word around town was that Isaak had relocated east to seek a larger audience for his venom, but Walter had also heard, albeit from the coppers, that he had been asked to leave, and none too politely, by the Portland brass. Isaak was generally referred to as “the old man” to differentiate him from his son, Abe, Jr., who Hannigan had also hauled in but who was being held separately. Walter was therefore expecting a grizzled, white-haired, wild-eyed revolutionary. What he got was a small, well-dressed man in his forties with a trim mustache and hair combed in a pompadour.
Isaak seemed to be like many short men who had cultivated excellent posture in order to wring every possible inch out of their limited stature. But he entered the room bent slightly forward and to the left. Hannigan’s work. Ham-fisted blows to the stomach and kidneys. Nothing that would show, and all of which could be denied if the victim chose to make a stink to the newspapers. Even bent over, however, Isaak had ceded none of his dignity to his surroundings. A man accustomed to harsh treatment by the authorities. Isaak lowered himself into his chair, making contact delicately with the hard wooden bottom. Apparently Hannigan had used his boot as well.
Walter would learn nothing unless he separated himself from those whom Isaak would think his colleagues. He slouched into the chair across the table, keeping as far back as he could to minimize the size difference.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Isaak,” he began in a soft voice. “The Chicago police are unfortunately prone to unprofessionalism.”
A small, mirthless smile formed in the corners of Isaak’s mouth. “On the contrary. I found Captain Hannigan exceedingly professional. Do I take it that you are not from the Chicago police?” Only a trace of an accent was present in his speech. But not German. Farther east.
“You’re Russian?” Walter asked.
“Very good. Yes, although I’ve lived in this country for twenty years.”
“Did you leave because of political reasons or religious ones?”
Isaak cocked his head to one side. “Are you considering writing a monograph on persecution?”
“No. I simply wish to understand you. It will help me to determine if I believe you had no part in this.”
“Why should I care what you believe?”
“I might be able to help you.”
“Oh, yes. I’m certain of that. But you didn’t answer my question. You are not of the Chicago police?”
“No. I’m with the United States Secret Service Division.”
“And your name?”
“Walter George.”
“Ah yes. I read about you. The counterfeiting case. This seems to be out of your bailiwick.”
“We protect the president as well.”
“Not too effectively, judging from recent events.”
“I don’t believe you’re in the position to be flip, Mr. Isaak.”
“Why? Do you think my manner will have any effect on whether or not I am railroaded into prison or to the gallows?”
“Perhaps not. But your candor might.”
“My candor? You certainly make every effort to separate yourself from others in your profession, Mr. . . . George, was it not?”
“Yes. And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you leave Europe? I’ve read how difficult it is for Jewish people in Russia. Was that the reason?”
“It is indeed difficult for Jews in Russia, although that had nothing to do with me.”
“You’ve renounced your faith?”
“Judaism? You assumed I’m a Jew? Like that damn Jew whore Goldman? That’s how it’s generally expressed.”
“With a name like Abraham Isaak, it seemed a reasonable assumption.”
“Reasonable, perhaps, but totally incorrect. As it happens, I was born an Anabaptist. A Mennonite. I don’t suppose you know what a Mennonite is though . . . we’re like the . . .”
“The Amish.”
“Not entirely, but close enough. Both Mennonites and the Amish are pacifists is what I believe you are saying.”
“Yes. Then you have given up your faith.”
“Altered it to fit the circumstances in which I find myself. As you are doing with me now.” Isaak shifted in his chair. The movement made him wince but he seemed angry with himself for showing pain. “And I must say, your performance has been excellent. I cannot remember being questioned by someone so articulate. You seem misplaced in your profession.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you? Very well. But perhaps we could get to cases.”
Walter nodded. “All right. You told Hannigan that you thought Leon Czolgosz was a police agent. You said you published it in Free Society the week before the president was shot. I looked through the issue. There is only a general warning that your movement has been infiltrated by spies. If you thought Czolgosz was one of them, why not say so?”
“Because we merely had suspicion. Unlike you, we do not accuse people simply on the possibility that they might be an enemy.”
“What was the foundation of your suspicion? If you don’t mind telling me.”
“Not at all. I find it refreshing to talk to a policeman who is not trying to beat the answers out of me.”
“Thank you.”
Isaak blinked. “We suspected Czolgosz was a police agent because of his eagerness.”
“Aren’t all your converts eager?”
“We are not a religion. We don’t have ‘converts.’ But to answer your question, Czolgosz displayed an eagerness well beyond what a normal man would. We assumed that he was either insane or acting for someone else. The latter seemed the more likely prospect.”
“That’s all?”
“No. Subsequently we received . . . information that Czolgosz was not the least bit insane.”
“Information from whom?”
“‘Whom?’ Bravo, Mr. George. We have a wide circle of friends. Wider than I think you would expect. Many supposedly ‘patriotic’ Americans are disgusted at the way this country represses workers, women, Negroes, and even Jews and Mennonites.”
“And your information said that Czolgosz was a put-up. Who was he supposedly working for?”
Isaak shrugged. “I can’t do all your work for you. But someone important.”
“Or perhaps you’re simply trying to deflect suspicion from yourself and your followers. Perhaps you know that, even though the president survived, you’re all probably going to spend the next twenty years in the penitentiary.”
“Prison does not frighten me. Prison is, in fact, quite a fertile landscape. I can work for the betterment of society there as well as anywhere else.”
“Easy to say from out here.”
“No. It isn’t. But ask yourself this, Mr. George. What have we to gain by having one boy, whom most will dismiss as a lunatic, execute a man even as odious as McKinley? The answer is, we gain nothing unless we let the world know that we are the strong right arm of the people and have struck the blow. When Alexander Berkman attacked that pig Henry Frick, no one denied the gesture. Quite the contrary.”
“You didn’t admit the Haymarket.”
“No. For the simple reason that we had nothing to do with it. The Haymarket was a frame-up. As is this.”
“If you are so clever, then, perhaps you might suggest a substitute.”
Isaak gave an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe it was Roosevelt.”
Before he realized what he was doing, Walter had reached across the table and landed a backhanded slap on Isaak’s cheek. Isaak went sailing from his chair.
Walter froze. His fingers suddenly felt thick, inflexible. He could not stop staring, wide-eyed, at the man crumpled on the floor. He had never hit a prisoner before. Never. He wanted to rush and help Isaak up, but he couldn’t move. These were people who wanted to destroy America, he tried to tell himself. Who murdered their enemies. Set bombs to kill the innocent.
But Isaak didn’t need Walter’s help. He pushed himself to his feet lifted the chair off the floor and sat down, again facing Walter across the table. A speck of blood was at the corner of his mouth. Without taking his eyes from his adversary, Isaak removed a small handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat. The square of white cloth had several brown blemishes that Walter knew to be dried blood. Isaak slowly and deliberately blotted the corner of his mouth and then, after a brief glance at the newest stain, returned the handkerchief to his pocket.
“Well, Mr. George,” he said evenly, but with a note of triumph, “it seems as if you are not so different from the others after all.”