'Four thousand?'
'Four millions,' said Houston.
The number hung in the air for a moment, echoing. 'What is it you want from me, Mr Secretary?' asked Littlemore.
'Why, just to refrain from telling the press about the robbery. It wouldn't do for the public to learn the United States Treasury has been breached — and certainly not that there are people inside the government with the will and wherewithal to steal the nation's gold. Wouldn't do at all.'
'Too late,' said Littlemore. 'I already told a couple of reporters there was something they might find interesting at the Treasury. Something to do with gold.'
'I know,' said Houston. 'We've received inquiries. That much is all right. I don't mind telling them the gold is here. The financial world is already aware of it. I don't even mind telling the press we've been moving the gold to the Assay vaults. I intend simply to let it out that my men happened to take their lunch break just before the explosion. A simple story. It was noon; the men had shut the doors for lunch; they heard the bomb go off; that was all. A coincidence. The great point is that there was no robbery, no breach in security, no loss of gold. Lunchtime.'
'Think anyone will buy that?' asked Littlemore.
'The gullibility of the common man constantly surprises, Captain. If everyone tells the reporters the same thing, I think we'll be all right. Especially if you tell them. You'll be doing your country a service.'
Littlemore weighed the Secretary's request. 'I want in on your investigation — who knew the gold was being moved, everything you've got on Riggs, who's selling bullion on the black market.'
'Why not?' said Houston. 'You might help. Unlike my other officers, you at least are not a suspect.'
'And one more thing. Get Flynn off my back. Any of Flynn's men come within spitting distance of my wife's family, I tell the press everything I know.'
'That will be more difficult. The Bureau is not under my control.'
'No deal then.' Littlemore put his hat back on and snapped its brim.
It was Houston's turn to weigh his options. 'Consider it done,' he said. 'I'm speaking with General Palmer tonight.'
Colette uttered not a word. She turned away and waved for a porter, who quickly loaded the three tattered suitcases onto his hand truck. The porter set off. Colette, followed by Luc, walked slowly into the crowd.
Younger, lighting a cigarette, gazed past the Welshman to the vast black George Washington, memories boiling up. It had been a great ship once. It had brought Freud to America. It had taken Woodrow Wilson to Europe. It had carried kings and queens and heads of state. Now it was relegated to commercial passenger duty once again. All greatness fades.
Colette stopped. She turned, burst out of the crowd, and ran back to him. 'I'm such a fool,' she said. 'I'm not going.'
'Get on board,' said Younger. 'You'll regret it — you'll resent it — the rest of your life if you don't.'
The ship spoke in an earsplitting blast. Seagulls took flight. The call for all passengers went out.
Colette buried her cheek on his chest.
'Go on,' said Younger. 'It won't be so hard. You can cry on my shoulder in Vienna when we get there.'
She looked at him; he looked back. 'You don't mean it,' she said.
'Why shouldn't I come?' he asked. 'You're in love with me, not Heinrich.'
She didn't deny it.
Younger went on: 'If I let you go by yourself, you might actually marry this convict. Don't think I'm coming for your sake, though. It's Heinrich I'm worried about. You don't do a man any favors by marrying him when you're in love with someone else. You'd be killing him, slowly but surely. Besides — ' he removed from his jacket another ticket for passage on the George Washington — 'my bags are already on board.'
Colette's whole body seemed to exhale with relief, and she smiled her most irresistible smile. As the ship steamed out to open sea, the three uncorked a bottle of champagne. Even Luc was allowed to try a little.
Part 3
Chapter Twelve
The United States should have been all fanfare and barnstorm in the autumn of 1920, all marching bands and whistle-stop. Americans were electing a new president, and the excitement always appurtenant to that event should have been redoubled in 1920 because women for the first time had the right to vote. One of the major candidates — the Republican, Senator Warren G. Harding — might even have been nominated with the fairer sex in mind.
Harding's appeal to women was not a matter of speculation. It was established fact. He had a loyal wife of sixty-one, a longtime mistress of forty-seven, another mistress of thirty, and a flame of twenty-four still head over heels in love. 'It's a good thing I'm not a woman,' Harding liked to quip. 'I can never say no.' Harding's record of political accomplishment may have been thin, but with silver hair and dashing smile, with dark eyebrows, commanding eyes, and a strong chin, he was undoubtedly a presidential-looking man.
Yet the steam had gone out of the campaign locomotive. Unease hung too palpably wherever crowds gathered. Arrests and deportations went on, yet the terrorist attack remained unsolved. Men in power — rich men, governors, and senators — demanded remobilization. Newspapers demanded war. The cloud of smoke and flaming dust that blotted the sun from Wall Street on September sixteenth had not dissipated. Its pall had spread over the entire nation.
On September 27, the day Younger and Colette left for Europe, papers around the country reported that the Soviet dictator, V. I. Lenin, had infiltrated the United States with clandestine agents to foment labor unrest, terror, and revolution. In Boston the cab drivers struck, and there was a run on the banks. In Alabama, soldiers with machine guns prevented a miners' strike. The third most popular presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, was an unabashed socialist, but at least he was in prison, having dared in 1918 to question the necessity of the war. Through it all, Prohibition parched the workingman's throat, and the still-resounding echoes of September sixteenth made people hurry as they walked out of doors in the great cities. The country was holding its breath — and didn't even know what for.
On Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, the Littlemores were enjoying a late- evening quarrel. It had begun in their kitchen and ended up in the street. The outdoor venue was more favorable to Mr Littlemore; inside, it had become increasingly difficult for him to duck the objects thrown in his direction — not very heavy ones, mostly, and not very accurately — by Mrs Littlemore.
Betty had not shared her husband's excitement at the prospect of moving to Washington, DC, where Littlemore had agreed to take a job with the Treasury Department. They had children in school, she pointed out. They had family in New York. Her mother and brother lived in New York. All their friends lived in New York. How could they just pick up and leave?
Littlemore did not try, after a time, to answer these questions. He just scraped the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk until his wife fell silent. 'I'm sorry, Betty,' he said at last. 'I should have talked to you first.'
'You really want it, don't you?' she asked.
'Been hoping for this kind of break my whole life,' he said.
She handed him a folded piece of paper from her pocket. 'It came today,' she said. 'It says how much we'd have to pay for Lily's operation.'
Lily, the Littlemores' one-and-a-half-year-old, had been born with a slight but complete atresia of her external auditory canals. In other words, at the center of her tiny, pretty, and seemingly healthy ears, where the aperture ought to have been, there was instead a membrane and probably, below it, a bone. The toddler responded well to sound, but if she was ever to hear and speak properly, she would have to have surgery — and soon. The surgery in turn required a specialist. The specialist required money.
'Two thousand dollars?' said Littlemore. 'To make a little opening?'
'Two thousand for each ear,' answered Betty.
