Empire

“So what do I-want?”

“Information about people, you know, bigwigs. Like senators and that stuff. You know John D. Archbold?”

“Standard Oil?”

“Yeah. The same. He looks after politicians for Mr. John D. Rockefeller. Well, my stepfather is his butler in the big house in Tarrytown, and Mr. Archbold, a very fine man, by the way, got me this job as office boy at Twenty- eight Broadway, where the Standard Oil is.”

Blaise tried not to look interested. “I’m afraid we’ve no openings here for an office boy,” he began.

“Oh, I’m out of that business now. Me and my partner, we’re opening up a saloon on a Hundred Thirty-fourth Street. Anyways, me and my partner, we went through Mr. Archbold’s files, where he has all these letters from the bigwigs in politics who he pays money to so they’ll help Standard Oil do different things. Anyways, I happened to come across Mr. Eldridge about that time, last December it was, and he asked me to bring the letters round to the American where he could photograph them, and then I could put them back in the files, so nobody’d know they was ever missing.”

Hearst had the letters. That was plain. But how would he use them? More to the point, how would-or could- Blaise make use of them? “I assume Mr. Eldridge told you that I might be a customer for the letters…”

“That’s about the size of it. Mr. Hearst paid us pretty good for the first batch. Then, a couple weeks ago, Mr. Archbold fired us, my partner and me. I guess we didn’t always put things back in the right order, or something.”

“Does he know which letters you photographed?”

Winfield shook his head. “How could he? He doesn’t even know that any of them was photographed. Because that was something only somebody like Mr. Eldridge could do, at a newspaper office-like this.”

There was a long silence, as Blaise stared at the window, which now framed a most convincing rainstorm. “What have you got to sell?” he asked.

“Well, when we was fired, I’d taken out this big letterbook for the first half of 1904. I’ve still got it…”

“Then you’ll go to jail when Mr. Archbold reports the theft…”

Winfield’s smile was huge. “He won’t report nothing. There’s letters in there from everybody. How much he paid this judge, how much he paid that senator, and other things, too. I offered to sell it to Mr. Eldridge, but he says the price is too high, and Mr. Hearst’s got enough already.”

“Did you bring the letterbook?”

“You think I’m crazy, Mr. Sanford? No. But I made out a list for you of some of the people who wrote Mr. Archbold thanking him for money paid, and so on.”

“Could I see that list?”

“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Sanford.” Two sheets of paper were produced; each filled with neatly typewritten names. Blaise put them on his desk. Where once railroads had bought and sold politicians, now the oil magnates did the same; and Mr. Archbold was Mr. Rockefeller’s principal disperser of bribes and corrupter-in-chief. The names, by and large, did not surprise Blaise. One could tell by the way certain members of Congress habitually voted who paid for them. But it was startling to see so many letters from Senator Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio, the man most likely to be the Republican candidate for president in 1908. Blaise was relieved not to find Jim’s name on the first page. He picked up the second page. The first name at the head of the column was “Theodore Roosevelt.”

Blaise put down the page. “I think,” he said, “we can do business.”

FIFTEEN

1

ON MARCH 3, 1905, John Hay wrote a letter to the President, whose inauguration was to take place the next day. Adee stood attentively by, combing his whiskers with a curious oriental ivory comb. “Dear Theodore,” Hay wrote. “The hair in this ring is from the head of Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Taft cut it off the night of the assassination, and I got it from his son-a brief pedigree. Please wear it tomorrow; you are one of the men who most thoroughly understand and appreciate Lincoln. I have had your monogram and Lincoln’s engraved on the ring.” Hay affixed one of his favorite tags from Horace to the letter, and hoped that he had got the Latin right. He sealed the letter and gave it to Adee, with the small velvet box containing the ring. “It is the laying on of hands,” he said, and Adee, who was staring at him, nodded. “You are the last link.” Once Adee had left the room, Hay walked over to the window and looked out at the gleaming White House, where, as usual, visitors were coming and going at a fast rate. The sky was cloudy, he noted; wind from the northeast. There would be rain tomorrow. But there was almost always bad weather at inaugurations. Hadn’t there been snow at Lincoln’s second? Or was that Garfield’s? He found it hard to concentrate on anything except the pain in his chest, which came and went as always, but now, each time it came, stayed longer. One day it would not go; and he would.

Clara and Adams entered, unannounced. “We have seen the ring-bearer, on his joyous errand.” Adams was sardonic. Despite Hay’s best efforts, Adams had discovered the gift of the ring with Washington’s hair to McKinley. “You will be known to posterity, dear John, as the barber of presidents.”

“You are jealous that you have no hair suitable for enclosing in a ring.”

“We are booked,” said Clara, “on the Cretic, sailing March eighteenth.”

Hay coughed an acknowledgment. Each January he was host to a bronchial infection, and this January’s was still in residence.

“We land at Genoa on April third, by which time you should be dancing the tarantella on the deck.” Adams gazed thoughtfully up at his grandfather’s eyes, which stared down at them from the room’s fireplace. Except that each was entirely bald, there was no great likeness.

“I’ve made arrangements at Nervi. With the heart specialist,” Clara declaimed idly.

“Then on to Bad Nauheim and Dr. Groedel, but not with me,” said Adams. “As I am totally valid, I have no desire to join the invalid…”

“Bad No Harm, Mark Twain calls it.” Hay was beginning to feel better. “Then on to Berlin. The Kaiser beckons.”

“You won’t see him.” Clara was firm.

“I must. He hungers to know me. And I him. Anyway, the President says I must.”

“You are,” said Clara, “too ill, and he is far, far too noisy.”

“That is the nature of kaisers,” said Adams, “and of at least one president…”

“Henry, not on this day of days.” Hay held up a hand, as if in benediction.

“All is energy,” said Adams abruptly. “The leader of the world at any given moment is simply the outlet for all the Zeitgeist’s energy, all concentrated in him.”

“Major McKinley was much quieter,” said Clara, thoughtfully.

“Less energy flashing about in those days.” Hay indicated that Clara could help him up. “I have a feeling that it will rain tomorrow.”

But though there was rain in the early morning, by the time of the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the first inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt at the Capitol, the sky was clear, and a strong wind made it impossible to hear the President’s speech, which was just as well, thought Hay, for the speech was cautious and undistinguished. Theodore had made too many promises to too many magnates for him to sound a bugle note of any kind. For the moment, the square deal was in abeyance, and the progressive President retrogressive. Later, Hay was certain that Theodore would exuberantly betray his rich supporters. He could not not be himself for long.

Hay sat with the Cabinet in the front row of the platform which had been built over the steps of the Capitol’s east front. Hay was grateful to have Taft’s huge bulk next to him, shielding him from the icy wind. Directly in front