THE DOORS TO THE SWANK Mayflower Club flew open. Glassford, wearing street clothes, burst inside followed by a phalanx of his cops. He moved quickly past the yellow-draped tables and cornered the owner of the speakeasy behind the bar. While his officers herded up customers swigging their last gulps of illegal booze, he walked the length of the bar, half-expecting to find a couple of congressmen in his roundup.
Zebbie Goldsmith, the owner of the Dupont Circle speakeasy, fought against the cuffs clapped onto his wrists. “What the hell’s going on? I paid on time!”
“You did, did you?” Glassford checked his own reflection in a bar-length mirror crowned by rows of bottles. “We’ll have to see about a refund. Whose palm did you grease?” He caught Goldsmith trading a knowing glance with Lt. John Edwards, a holdover from the previous department regime. He walked behind the bar and brought down a bottle of champagne to read the label. “How much for this one?”
“Two bucks a quart,” Goldsmith said. “You show me a little leniency, Chief, and I can get you a deal.”
Glassford opened the bottle and smelled the cork. “That’s some expensive hooch, Zeb. With an investment like that, you should keep your inventory where it can’t fall.”
“That’s why I got them up there where—”
Glassford hammered his nightstick across the row of exquisite bottles, sending shards of glass cascading to the floor. “There must be a breeze in here.”
Goldsmith glared revenge at him. “I thought the feds were the ones who were supposed to invade a man’s sanctuary and bust up his property.”
“They don’t seem to be doing a real thorough job, do they?”
“I know what’s going on here!”
“I’m not surprised,” Glassford said. “You’re a bright fellow.”
“Crosby’s been pounding you like hamburger over those Reds you been letting run loose all over the city. So, you come in here to show them how tough you can be.” The owner stole another glance at Lt. Edwards, but the veteran cop acted as if he wasn’t listening. Seeing that his protection plan had been disrupted by the new regime, Goldsmith snarled, “Harassing good, hard-working Americans. Why don’t you go down the street and bust a couple of those whorehouses those congressmen frequent? Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’re the forward-minded police chief who thinks prostitution should be legal.”
“Does the oratory come free like the peanuts?” Glassford asked. “Maybe you should run for Congress with a mouth that golden. Then you could save yourself a bundle and serve that high-grade gin mash to yourself.”
“Powerful people come in here! You’re making enemies in high places!”
Glassford laughed. “You think I don’t have enemies in high places already?”
Hauled out, the owner shouted, “A man can get a poke, but he can’t have a drink at the end of a hard day! Hell of a country this is turning into!”
One of Glassford’s officers pointed to a painting of a lounging nude woman that hung above the bar. “What about the pornography, Chief? You want that confiscated, too?”
The cops and their handcuffed prisoners turned to hear Glassford's answer.
Glassford glanced up at the wall, seeing the painting for the first time. “Well now, Jensen, there’s a fine line between pornography and high art.”
“Looks like smut to me, sir,” said the rookie officer.
“Check the name of the artist on the lower corner!” shouted the struggling owner from the door. “Maybe Chief Clean Ass here can apprehend that scoundrel who has been dirtying up people’s morals!”
The young cop hopped over the bar to get a closer look at the signature below the nude lady’s feet. “Says here it was done by some jackass named ‘Happy something.’” The officer did a double-take and turned ashen.
With his eyes glinting amusement, Glassford slapped the handcuffed owner on the back as they all walked out together. “You have superb taste, Zeb. Remind me to tell the judge at your bail hearing.”
While his officers loaded the first of two paddy wagons and sped the arrested patrons off to the jail, Glassford walked alone down Connecticut Avenue, enjoying a well-deserved pipe smoke to celebrate his first bust. He’d already made sure the newspapers got word of the crackdown, and the morning editions were sure to send ripples of nervousness across the underbelly of the city, all part of his plan. That should get Crosby and Hoover off his back for a while, at least. And maybe some of those hypocrites up on the Hill would finally take notice and give him more of a hearing next time he lobbied them for the Bonus bill. Yeah, it felt pretty good to flex a little muscle. Truth was, he hadn’t felt this good since that morning he first stumbled into the German lines on the Meuse. This job might turn out to be fun after all.
“Spare a dime, buddy?”
Glassford turned and found a hobo curled up in the shadows of an alley. “A dime?”
“I could really use a meal.”
“Yeah? Got any particular entrée in mind? Like maybe of the Kentucky liquid variety?”
“I don’t need your smart talk, pal. You don’t want to give, just walk on.”
“What’s your name?”
“Shipley.”
Glassford jingled the change in his pockets. “Come along. I’ll see what I got.”
The hobo struggled to his feet and followed Glassford around the corner, only to discover a second paddy wagon waiting.
“Edwards, I got another customer for you. Not bad for a new chief, eh?”
The panhandler saw that he had been double-crossed. He glared an accusation of unfairness at Glassford as he was pushed into the police truck with the booze violators.
As the second paddy wagon sped away, Glassford relit his pipe, determined to enjoy his smoke. Hell of a situation when a man couldn’t get through a good plug of tobacco without getting hit up for a donation.
Through the aromatic haze, he saw a slender shadow standing near a lamplight whose bulb had burned out. His hand reflexively edged toward his side, but he remembered that he hadn’t brought his pistol. During the war, he had been taught to elicit a verbal response in such dangerous situations, so he called out, “Are you waiting for someone?”
The lurker refused to answer him.
He squinted harder to make out the occulted figure. His pulse was racing; the last thing he needed was a headline telling how he got himself mugged after a raid. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out his badge, hoping its flash would be enough. “I’m a police officer. Did you hear me?”
A woman draped in a dark-blue Salvation Army cloak walked into the dim moonlight. “Are you going to arrest me for vagrancy, too?”
He was confused, thrown off his stride. He strained to get a better look through the descending night fog. “Now, why would I do that, ma’am?”
She came a step closer. “Why not? It would be another notch in your gun. Or do you only pick on poor, helpless men?”
Something in his submerged memory caused him to cough. “That fellow was breaking the law. If I start making exceptions, they’ll overrun the city.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the man might have been hungry, just like he said?”
“These slackers see passing the cup as easier than getting a job. He knows he’ll be back on the street before the next business day.”
The woman glared disgust at him, then turned and walked away.
“It’s not safe for a lady to be on these streets alone at night.” When she just kept walking, he tried again. “Ma’am, I don’t believe I caught your name.”
She pirouetted on her heels. “That must be very upsetting to you, Chief Glassford, considering your talent for catching everything that crosses your path.” She whipped her cloak’s cape over her shoulder and marched off.
Baffled by the odd confrontation, he stood motionless, until the ashes from his forgotten pipe spilled and singed the hairs on the back of his hand.
THE NEXT MORNING, THE DISTRICT courtroom was packed with city residents who had read about the Mayflower Club raid in the early editions. As the arrested speakeasy patrons sat in the jury box waiting to be arraigned, Judge John Gallagher waved Glassford up to the witness box. “We don’t often have the pleasure of the head honcho down here testifying.”
Glassford, in full uniform, took his seat next to the bench. “Just sending a message, Judge, on how serious I am about cleaning up this city.”
“Well, then, we can all take heart.” The judge scanned the rows of hooch violators to determine if any merited the special accommodation traditionally afforded to congressmen and senior government officials. Seeing none of any prominence, he motioned them all forward. “I think we can dispense with these malfeasants quickly enough.”
“Yes, sir,” Glassford said.
The judge lectured the forlorn customers being arraigned. “You gentlemen are fortunate to find me in a pleasant demeanor this morning. If Chief Glassford here has no objection, I’m going to assume that the night you spent in our local lockup, along with a five-dollar fine, will cause you to repent the error of your ways.”
Glassford nodded. “I think it’s a fair sentence, Judge.”
The judge looked down at the scofflaws for a response. “Are you willing to plead guilty under those terms?”
The boozehounds reluctantly nodded their agreement.
The judge slammed his gavel. “Pleas entered and accepted. See the clerk about payment of your fines.” He stood up and was about to retire to chambers when the prosecutor, who had not been able to get a word in edgewise, cleared his throat. “Your Honor, we have one more case.”
The judge peered across the bay of arrestees and found a haggard man in a stained suit sitting in the corner. Sniffing the air as if picking up a stench, the judge looked down at Glassford for an explanation of this arrest.
“Mr. Shipley over there accosted me for money last night.”
The bailiff prodded the homeless man to his feet, and the judge shook his head. “What’s this world coming to when a man tries to panhandle a cop?”
Glassford agreed with that sentiment. “I just want to reacquaint the fellow to the discipline I’m sure his daddy taught him.”
The judge motioned the homeless man forward to get a better look at him. “How long have you been begging?”
“About three days, sir.”
“About three days?” the judge mocked. “You’ve honed the act quickly.” He turned to Glassford. “Does he seem pretty polished to you, Chief?”
“Like he’s been taking the show on the road.”
Shipley tried to straighten his arthritic back in protest. “I ain’t no bum, Your Honor. I’m an ex-Marine. I come to the capital to see about some compensation owed me by the Veterans Bureau. I ran out of money, is all.”
“A Marine. You’re a bright fellow, then. You knew loitering and beggary was against the law here in the District, didn’t you?”
“A man’s got to eat.”
The judge pondered the appropriate punishment. “I can give you thirty days. But considering your service to your country, I’ll let you off with an afternoon in the wood yard. A country fellow like you should be skilled with an ax.”
Someone in the back of the courtroom asked to be heard. Glassford peered across the rows to find the source of that request. The Salvation Army nurse who had watched him make the arrest rose from her seat on the rear benches.
“I know Mr. Shipley,” she told the judge. “I helped him find a pair of shoes down at the donation center yesterday.”
The judge tapped his fingers in annoyance. “This is highly irregular, Miss…?”
“Raber.… Anna Raber.”
Glassford tried to place that name as the judge waved the nurse up to the bench. Now that he thought about it, her face, seen for the first time in the full light, was beginning to look more familiar.
Anna walked through the swing gate and into the area reserved for the lawyers. “Mr. Shipley has no one to represent him.”
The judge rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Ma’am, if the city hired a lawyer for every vagrant that came through those doors, we’d all be broke.”
“I’ll plead his case, then.”
The crowd in the courtroom began buzzing about the woman’s chutzpah.
Trumped, the judge slumped back in his chair and glanced testily at his watch. “You’ve got two minutes. Let’s hear your defense.”
Anna turned toward her witness. “Chief Glassford, did you ever violate an Army regulation during the war?”
Glassford looked up to the bench in protest. “Now, wait a minute, Judge. I’m not the one on trial here.”
She kept him pinned down. “I’m just trying to demonstrate that Chief Glassford talks out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to following the law.”
The judge was intrigued. “I guess you’d better answer the lady, Chief.”
Glassford squirmed. “Sometimes a soldier has to bend the rules in the heat of battle.”
Anna leaned in closer. “Did you ever pull rank and conduct unauthorized theatricals for wounded American soldiers against Army medical regulations?”
Glassford’s eyes widened. Now he remembered: She was the nurse at the hospital in Rimaucourt. “I don’t see how any of that has anything to do—”
She cut him off. “Your Honor, I extracted this admission to establish that Chief Glassford has a penchant for going around in theatrical disguises.”
Cringing at the crowd’s laughter, the judge saw that he was about to lose control of his courtroom. “I’m waiting, Miss Raber, to hear how this revelation bears upon Mr. Shipley’s case.”
Anna turned back to interrogate Glassford further. “What were you wearing last night when you arrested Mr. Shipley?”
“Why, I was in a suit, but —”
Anna appealed to the audience. “A civilian’s suit? Not your uniform?”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you ashamed of your police uniform?”
“Of course not.”
“Then there could be only one other reason you chose not to wear it.” She leaned in to him again. “You were trying to entrap Mr. Shipley into asking you for a donation.”
Glassford was so flabbergasted that he couldn’t find a word in response.
Anna appealed to the judge. “Your Honor, isn’t there a law that requires a policeman to be in uniform so that citizens can know they are dealing with an officer?”
The judge glared down at Glassford. “I believe there is.”
Anna paced at the railing. “Poor Mr. Shipley there would never have asked the Chief of Police for a dime if he had been in proper uniform.”
The courtroom denizens burst out with applause for her summation.
Shipley stood swaying like a rotted post in a storm, trying to follow this inexplicable turn of events.
The judge tapped his gavel to regain silence. “I’m afraid Miss Raber has a point, Chief. I’m going to have to let Mr. Shipley go free and—”
“Your Honor,” Shipley said. “I’ll take the thirty days.”
The astonished courtroom fell silent.
The judge leaned over his bench. “What did you say?”
Shipley kept his head bowed. “I appreciate the nurse here standing up for me and all. But if I got a choice, I’ll take the jail time.”
Glassford, indignant, arose from the witness chair and came hovering over Shipley. “Don’t smart talk the judge, or you’ll get it.”
Shipley fixed a glum gaze on Anna. “They got meals in jail, don’t they?”
Glassford, stunned, settled back into his seat. He saw tears in Anna’s eyes.
The judge was nearly apoplectic. “You mean to say you’d give up freedom for a bowl of soup? What’d you fight for over there in France, anyway?”
“I didn’t fight to come back to starve. And be called a hobo on top of it.”
The judge slammed his gavel so hard that he nearly cracked its handle. “Get him out of here! Thirty days!” He stormed off the bench and marched into chambers as the courtroom erupted in jeers and shouts of contempt at Shipley being escorted out.
His confidence shaken, Glassford arose unsteadily and, with head lowered, walked from the courtroom. In the lobby, reporters rushed at him for quotes about the speakeasy raid, but he brushed them aside and hurried away, seeking refuge on his motorcycle.
Anna, cradling two books under her arm, stood waiting for him aside Blue Bessie. She had a look of equal parts satisfaction and contrition. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I didn’t come here to ruin your day. I wanted to give you something.” She handed him the books.
Glassford read the author names on the spines. “Steffens and Dreiser.” He shook his head at the implication of the gift. “I see you’ve still got that same gentle bedside manner.”
“You’re just suffering from a little cognitive dissonance. You’ll recover.”
He thumbed through one of the books. “Big words for a country girl. I suppose they’re in here somewhere.”
“Just because I was raised Mennonite doesn’t mean I don’t read. There wasn’t much else to do in France at night while I was waiting for the hemorrhages.”
“‘Cognitive distance,’ you said? What is that?”
“‘Dissonance.’ I learned about it from a French psychologist who treated the poilus for shell shock. It means your mind is straddling a fence. Caught between the world that was and the world that’s coming. We saw a glimpse of the world that’s coming in that courtroom up there. And it’s coming faster than you think.”
“You seem to have all the answers. What do you suggest I do about it?”
“Get ready.”
“I’ve been trying to get ready ever since those men left Oregon. But the powers that be around here don’t exactly cotton to the way I do things.”
“I know that feeling. At least they still talk to you.”
“If you’re so gung ho, why don’t you help me out?”
“Doing what?”
“Those West Coast veterans are going to be here any day now,” he said. “Just between you and me, we’ve received reports that thousands more are following them. I’ve got my eye on a spot for an encampment down at Anacostia Flats. It’s in the southeastern part of the city, down across the east branch of the river.”
“Across the river.” Her tone suggested she was skeptical of his intentions. “In the working poor section, away from the mansions on Massachusetts and Connecticut. I haven’t been here that long, but even I know that area is bordered by a lunatic asylum on one side and the Negro streets on the other.”
“They’ll have water down there for their washing.”
“Those river flats can only be accessed by a drawbridge. The Navy Yard is nearby. You’ll be able to keep them penned in and guarded.”
The depth of her cynicism—and Machiavellian perceptiveness—left Glassford shaking his head. True, Anacostia was not the most appealing of District locations, having been ignored by the French architect L’Enfant in his grand plan for Washington and left undeveloped for decades. But he had few options in the city for a large encampment, and the lowlands had the advantage of being within walking distance of the Capitol for the men to present their petitions. “They’re going to need soup kitchens and shelter. If I spread them out all over the city, it will be a logistical disaster.”
Anna softened her suspicious stare. “I’ll help out with the cooking.”
As magnanimous as that offer was, Glassford waved it off. “Stirring soup is not what I have in mind for you. There’s a more serious problem I need to head off, and fast. With thousands of malnourished men and their families living in such close confines, their resistance to disease is going to be weakened. We both saw that in France. I’m going to set up a medical station inside the camp. I need someone I can rely on to oversee the clinic. Someone who’s had experience with trauma and mud.”
Anna hesitated. Then, she said, “I’ll do it, on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Promise me you’ll never betray them.”
He was coming around to the notion that this was a woman not to be crossed. He shook her hand to seal the vow, holding it a bit longer than necessary. “Get me a list of the medical supplies you’ll need. I’ll see what I can do about pestering the local hospitals for donations.” When she nodded in gratitude, his smile widened into the boyish grin that had become so famous years ago at the Point. “And thanks for the books.”