back to the boy: 'Well, if you are going back to Europe, we shouldn't be wasting time. I'll tell you what: Bring me a newspaper. We'll see when the Yankees are playing. Maybe Ruth will hit his fiftieth today.'
The boy scampered away and returned a moment later, the morning paper in his hands and a disappointed expression on his face.
Younger looked at the page to which Luc had opened the newspaper: the Yankees were on the road and therefore not playing in Yankee Stadium — which the boy apparently understood. 'Can you read English?' asked Younger.
Luc shrugged.
'I see,' said Younger, recalling how, when he was himself a boy, he had once astonished his father by having taught himself to read rudimentary Latin. He also recalled how he used to watch everything that happened in his household, understanding secret expressions on his mother's face that he was not supposed even to have seen. 'Can you speak, Luc? I'm not asking you to talk. I just want to know if you can. Yes or no.'
The boy stared at him, unmoving.
'Right,' said Younger. 'Well, too bad about the Yankees. Let me think — how would you like to go to the roof of the tallest building in the whole world?'
Luc's eyes lit up.
'Go see if your sister will let you,' said Younger. 'And if she'll join us.'
Detective Littlemore might have passed for one of the gentlemen of the press packed into uncomfortable chairs in the Astor Hotel, except that the detective's hands were stuffed in his pockets, while the newsmen's were busy scribbling down the remarks of William Flynn, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who stood at the front of the room next to a chalkboard map of lower Manhattan. Chief Flynn had commandeered several suites of rooms at the Astor, turning them into his personal command center. Littlemore sat in the rear chewing his toothpick, straw hat so far back on his head it looked like he was braving a strong wind.
The pug-nosed, barrel-chested Flynn had massive shoulders, a correspondingly big gut, and surprisingly clean-shaven, fresh-faced cheeks. Dressed in dark suit and tie, his brown hair slicked down, he bore a striking resemblance to a nightclub bouncer. He thought of himself, however, in more militaristic terms. Flynn believed that law enforcement was essentially military in nature and prided himself on knowing how to speak in the argot of the armed forces. 'At approximately oh-twelve-hundred hours yesterday,' said Flynn, tapping the map with a pointer, 'an incendiary device detonated in front of the Morgan Bank at number 23 Wall Street.'
'You mean a bomb?' asked one of the gentlemen of the press.
'That is correct,' said Flynn.
'Captain Carey says it might have been a dynamite truck,' called out another.
'The New York police got zero to do with this investigation,' Flynn shot back. 'The incendiary device was transported to the scene in an animal-powered transport vehicle.'
'A horse and wagon?' called out a newsman.
'Ain't that what I said?' Flynn replied with asperity. 'Now pipe down so's I can deliver myself. I got something important for you boys, and if you'll shut your traps maybe I can get to it. At oh-eleven-thirty yesterday morning, a United States letter carrier opened a mail receptacle here — ' he tapped another spot on the chalkboard map — 'at the corner of Cedar and Broadway. The receptacle was empty at that time. At oh-eleven-fifty-eight, the letter carrier made another collection from that same receptacle, at which time he found five circulars' — a word that Chief Flynn pronounced soyculars — 'without wrapping of any sort. Three minutes later, the letter carrier heard a loud noise, which was the incendiary device incendiarating. By order of General Palmer, we are making these circulars public, so's the law-abiding people of this country know who their enemies are.'
Flynn handed around five handbills.
'Don't paw at 'em!' Flynn barked. 'Anybody damages one of these, they're going to jail for destruction of evidence. I ain't kidding.'
Each piece of paper was rough and cheap, about seven inches wide by eleven long, and each bore the same red ink-stamped message, the unevenness of which made plain that it had been hand-printed, one letter at a time:
Rimember
We will not tolerate any longer
Free the political prisoner or it will be sure death for all of you
American Anarchist
Fighters
The newsmen copied furiously.
'Cedar and Broadway,' Flynn resumed, using his pointer again, 'is four minutes by foot from the incendiary location. That leaves no doubt about what happened. The anarchists parked their animal-powered vehicle on Wall Street at approximately oh-eleven-fifty-four. When they reached Cedar and Broadway, they placed these circulars into the mail receptacle, three minutes before the explosion.
'It will be recalled,' Flynn went on, 'that the circulars connected with the bomb outrages of 1919 looked just like these here and were signed by the same enemy organization. If any further cooperation was needed, which it ain't, it will also be recalled that the Chicago Post Office bombing of 1918 occurred on the third Thursday' — pronounced toyd Toysday — 'of September, which yesterday was too. The exact anniversary. In other words, these are the same terrorist Bolshevikis who bombed us in 1918 and 1919 — Eye-talians associated with the Galliani organization. There's your story. You print it. I will now read you the names of the wanted.' Reading from what appeared to be an arrest warrant, Flynn continued: 'Carlo Tresca, anarchist leader and known terrorist; Pietro Baldesserotto, anarchist; Serafino Grandi, anarchist and revolutionary; Rugero Bacini, anarchist; Roberto Elia, anarchist.'
The newsmen kept scribbling some time after Flynn had finished his recitation. Then one of them called out, 'Was J. P. Morgan hurt, Chief?'
'What are you — stupid? J. P. Morgan wasn't even in town yesterday,' said Flynn. 'This outrage was not directed at Morgan or any other individual. It was an attack on the American government and the American people and the American way of life. You put that in the papers.'
'What can you tell us about the horse and wagon, Chief?' a newsman asked.
'The witnesses thus far examined,' said Flynn, 'have told us that the horse was facing east, which ain't legal under traffic regulations. But terrorists don't care too much about traffic regulations, do they?' Flynn's torso heaved up and down at the last remark, which he apparently found humorous.
'So you haven't identified the wagon?' asked a reporter.
'They blew it up, you chucklehead,' Flynn shot back, irritated. 'How are we supposed to identify it? It's in a million pieces — and so's the horse. Any more bonehead questions?'
'What about Fischer, Chief?'
'Don't worry about Fischer,' said Flynn.
'Have you caught him yet?'
'Who says I'm looking? NYPD wants Fischer; let them look.'
'But how did he know about the bombing?'
'Who says he knew about it? The postcard never said bomb. And it said the fifteenth, not the sixteenth. I ain't gonna comment on Fischer. If you ask me, he's a mental case who got lucky. Now get out of here, all of you. I got men in the field waiting for orders.'
Under vaulted gold-leaf ceilings, Younger pointed out to Colette and Luc the caricature of old Mr Woolworth himself, carved in stone, counting his fives and dimes. They boarded the express elevator. The boy's eyes fixed in wonder on the winking lights that indicated the breathtaking passage of floors. Only a slight rocking of the car and a whistling of air betrayed the rapidity of their ascent.
Fifty-eight stories up, they emerged through heavy oak doors into a blinding blue sunlight and a wind so fierce Younger had to take Colette around the shoulders and Luc by the hand. The three-sided observation deck was lined with sightseers, coats flapping. At a railing, Younger, Colette, and Luc — on his tiptoes — gazed down on roofs of buildings that were themselves taller than the tallest cathedrals of Europe. Impossibly far below, rivers of mobile humanity — minuscule models of people, cars, buses — flowed and halted en masse to strangely slow rhythms.
