ELEVEN

 

DAY 3. FRIDAY, 9/22—3:30 P.M.

Jacobi had made perfect sense, of course. Turner McKee’s tale of the great capitalist conspiracy, rife with heartless, venal profiteers leaving a trail of dead children in their wake in the pursuit of greater and wealth seemed preposterous. But was the notion that Mildred Anschutz had walked around in some sort of trance feeding a lethal dose of a morphiate to her son any less so? And the man on the train was certainly no trance.

In either case, he was back to Frias. And however likely or unlikely the theory seemed to be, Turner McKee and his mysterious proofs had become an itch that had to be scratched.

Noah stopped at a newsstand on Broadway and asked the boy if he might see New Visions. The newsboy, small and pimply, wearing a slouch cap, looked Noah up and down. “You, sir?” he asked. When Noah continued to wait, the boy withdrew a copy of the magazine from the rack. “Ten cents,” he said, holding his free hand open.

The cover featured a drawing of Admiral Dewey and his Japanese Akita, Bob. Dewey took Bob everywhere and was famous for insisting that every portrait include the dog lounging at his feet. But New Visions had placed the Akita’s head on the figure in the admiral’s uniform sitting in the chair, and Dewey’s head on the dog. The headline read, WHO SPEAKS FOR AMERICA?

Noah checked inside for the address of the magazine’s offices. Astor Place near the Cooper Union. Of course. Astor Place was notoriously avant-garde: home to artists, theater denizens, and bohemians of all stripes. He tossed the magazine into the trash.

When Noah arrived downtown, the streets were crowded, most of the pedestrians young and moving with an urgency lacking on the sedate streets of Brooklyn. Many were dressed with almost garish ostentation: men in loud, checked vests, and peaked caps; women in flared, peasant-type skirts and low-collared blouses.

The entrance was on Lafayette Street, in an industrial building, a brick rectangle, four stories high, with a dingy lobby and pock-marked wooden floor. A board listing the tenants hung on the left-hand wall, many of the entries written on paper and tacked on. New Visions currently shared quarters with a toy maker, an importer of leather goods, a manufacturer of musical instruments, and the Ukrainian-American Society. A large chain-and-pulley elevator was available, but Noah chose to walk up the single flight of stairs. When he reached the second floor, he walked across scuffed black-and-white linoleum to a door with a frosted-glass upper panel that proclaimed NO SOLICITING in letters almost as large as magazine’s name.

Noah walked into a scene of controlled chaos. Nine beaten-down wooden desks were spaced throughout, and between them, instead of open floor, lay stacks of paper, cartons, and packing boxes. A dozen men and women, all young, scurried about as if it were one minute before midnight. The men wore no neckwear and were clean shaven. The women were without high collars. Most had hair hanging loose on their shoulders. Some of the staff were seated in front of Remington Type-Writers; some were reading; some were in fervent conversation with others. No one seemed in charge. Noah’s eye was briefly drawn to a poster tacked up on the wall touting William McKinley for president. A gun had been drawn in one of McKinley’s hands and a bloody, decapitated head, obviously a Filipino, held by the hair in the other. On another wall was a large drawing of Governor Roosevelt in the guise of a snarling beast.

Although the politics were offensive, the passion in the room, the swirl of raw energy, the . . . youth . . . was intoxicating. Noah leaned forward on the railing that divided the entrance from the remainder of the room looking for Turner McKee, but the reporter was not present. Some of the magazine’s employees glanced his way, but no one moved to inquire as to his presence. In his dark suit and carefully trimmed beard and mustache, Noah felt like some stodgy adult breaking in on a party in a university dormitory.

A door opened at the side of the room and a woman emerged. Her skin was dark, but with an undertone of gold. Brown hair, almost black, was loosely pinned so that it fell slightly, framing her face. She was arrestingly, stunningly beautiful.

The woman walked to a nearby desk to speak with a male associate. As she gestured, her long arms and thin fingers moved with kinetic grace. The man to whom she was speaking listened almost worshipfully, nodding occasionally, yet seemed to be rapt only by her words and not her appearance. When she leaned over the desk to point to something on a piece of paper, her blouse, open at the neck, hung down and the sweep of her breast was clearly visible. Noah could not move his eye from the curve of her flesh.

He was unaware of how long he stood gawking. Eventually, the woman sensed his gaze and turned her head. Noah, caught, wanted to look away, but could not. After a second or two, the woman straightened and walked to the railing. She had a loose-limbed way of moving that was at once boyish and startlingly sensual.

“I was looking for Turner McKee,” he said. The sentence came out stiff, scratchy.

A look of suspicion fell over the woman’s face. Her eyes were large and a striking shade of green, almost aqua. He noticed a fleck of gold in each eye. She gave off a subtle, musky scent.

“He’s not here. Why do you want him?”

“My name is Whitestone.” Noah cleared his throat but was unable to lubricate his voice. “He asked me to come by. He said he might have some materials I would find of interest.”

“Oh, the doctor,” she said. She seemed to have moved closer to him, but perhaps he merely imagined she had. Her scent seemed stronger. “Turner mentioned you might come by. That you might be curious to meet the band of wild-eyed revolutionaries who work here.”

Noah was stung, jealous at the mention of McKee’s name. He was certain just from the way she said it that Turner McKee and this astonishing woman were lovers. A man engaged to be married, jealous of another man whom he had met once, over a woman whose name he didn’t know.

“Did Mr. McKee leave anything for me, Miss . . . ?” He had not taken his eyes from hers.

A man appeared at her side, holding a piece of paper. “Miriam, I need you to read this right away,” he said. “Mauritz wanted it shorter.”

“Mauritz Herzberg?” Noah asked.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” she said to the man.

“Yes, Dr. Whitestone. He’s our publisher.”

“Then you’re . . . Miriam Herzberg? The Red Lady?”

“An appellation of which I am not especially fond.”

“I read about you. You spoke at the rally during the Hampton dress factory strike. Almost caused a riot.”

“Yes, Dr. Whitestone. Those women work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, locked inside a sweatbox. Some are only girls, ten years old. I thought someone should speak for them. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Noah replied. “Of course.”

“Turner left a message for you,” she said. “He said that he was out retrieving precisely the information you asked for.”

“Retrieving?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Is he bringing it here?” He hoped she would say yes so that he could wait.

Miriam Herzberg shook her head. Her hair fell onto her face and she brushed it away impatiently, as if it were an annoying insect.

“No. For some reason, he was going home. You might try him there. I’ll write down the address for you.” She took a pencil and paper off a nearby desk and scribbled down the information.

“Thank you,” he said, but made no immediate move to leave.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk now. We’re very busy.” She turned on her heel and walked back across the room.

McKee lived on Rivington Street, in a Lower East Side tenement, amid the poor immigrants whose rights he sought to secure. People, horses, carriages, and pushcarts filled the streets; Italians in derbies with long, drooping mustaches mixed with thick, fair-haired Slavs in grimy overalls, and Jews with enormous beards, dressed in black. Women in long dresses with shawls pulled tightly about them moved watchfully through the crowds. The smell of pushcart food—onions, sausage, peppers, spices, cheap meat—was everywhere, and everyone seemed to speak at once. Children darted in and out of the foot traffic. Two street Arabs attempted to grab for Noah’s wallet, but he dodged quickly and was able to keep it from their reach.

Noah found McKee’s building and, heeding the reporter’s warnings, looked about before going in. All he could detect was an avalanche of humanity. So many people came and went that the area had an odd sense of anonymity, as a cacophony often seems to engender an odd sense of silence.

McKee’s apartment was number six, up a rickety set of steps with a broken banister. The numbers had fallen off most of the doors, but McKee’s was fastened on with a single nail. Noah knocked. He waited but got no response. He knocked again, longer and harder. A door down the hall opened. An urchin stuck out his head and, seeing a well-dressed man, stuck it back inside and slammed the door shut.

Noah was about to turn and leave when McKee’s door opened a crack. McKee put his face to the narrow opening. “I can’t see you now.” He turned his head back toward the interior of the room. “I’ll be right there, dearie.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “As you can see, I’m entertaining.”

“But what about . . .”

“Your timing is inopportune. Didn’t I make myself clear? I’ll call you tomorrow. We can meet for lunch. I’ll even buy.”

With that, McKee cast Noah a stiff, final grin and slammed the door.

Noah muttered his way back to Brooklyn. What an idiot he had been. Traipsing about only to have a door shut in his face by a man engaged in an assignation. Vital information. Murdered children. Melodrama. Jacobi had been correct after all. And perhaps the man on the train had simply been a man on a train.