He"s a follower of William James, America"s home-nurtured philosopher. He"d have liked to meet James up at Harvard, and shake the man"s hand. For to what purpose is it, he"s always wondered, to inquire after origins? "original sin"? out of what unfathomable pit of Medusa-serpents an idea, a sentiment, a pa.s.sion, a belief arises? We ask only What are the results? Our gaze is resolute, Not backward but forward. Not thought but the fruits of action.
And once more he"s succeeded in winning the love of a beautiful, desirable, mysterious woman; a woman who"s his intellectual equal, or nearly; a woman with no brothers or sisters, the heiress daughter of a Manhattan millionaire. Once more, drawn to Venus Aphrodite in the flesh of a mortal woman. "This time, unmistakably, a woman deserving of my love and devotion. A woman of the New Era, yet a woman, still; wounded as a woman is invariably wounded, and seeking her fulfillment in a man." The nervous hooded eyes moistly green, the thin, sensual mouth in a fixed smile. No man can love me, I can love no man. Yet from the first he"d known they were fated for each other, he"s a man of romance, a man born to that terrible American decade the 1860"s, he believes in fate even as he believes that we make our own fate, and call it what we will.
But no denying how his pulses, including the thick sinewy pulse in his groin, stirred, that morning in Bies"s office. Rosamund he prays, not entirely jesting O Rose of the World have mercy on an ardent lover in an aging man"s body.
By autumn of 1926 it can be confirmed, as Abraham Licht confidently notes in his memoir, that he"s well again; fully recovered; though at times, admittedly, his head aches as if it"s filled with broken gla.s.s which the slightest movement can unsettle.
But he"s well. Himself again. In the person of Dr. Moses Liebknecht (of Vienna, Zurich, Paris, London) he carries himself both elegantly and forcefully; a man of mysteries, yet a man aligned with science; a psychotherapist, yet (it"s sometimes hinted) a man who"d begun his career as a biologist, or perhaps a physicist, in Vienna in the 1880"s. A man of mature years-in his early sixties. (In fact, Abraham Licht is sixty-five years old. A face he contemplates with perpetual disbelief, like a man gazing into a mirror and seeing two heads.) And the monkey-gland transplant has worked out very well . . . indeed.
Unfortunately, he and Dr. Bies have been quarreling often.
For though Moses Liebknecht owns only 37 percent of the Parris Clinic and isn"t precisely a cofounder, he"s certain that his ideas about running the establishment and about mental health in general are superior to Bies"s. He would screen prospective patients far more scrupulously not only in terms of health and finances but in terms of family background: there"s an obvious advantage to admitting primarily patients without immediate relatives. (For relatives invariably cause trouble. The more relatives, the more heirs; and the more heirs, the more trouble.) In principle, Bies agrees; in practice he"s become careless and greedy. Business is all that absorbs him, making the most money in the shortest period of time; and unhealthy quant.i.ties of food and drink. (Now that Abraham can drink only sparingly, he"s disapproving of his partner"s excesses.) There"s a rumor among the staff that Dr. Bies injects himself with morphine . . . but Abraham, that"s to say the rather taciturn Moses Liebknecht, isn"t the sort to bring up so private a subject.
Like most business partnerships, this one has had seasons of relative health, and decided unhealth. In early 1924, when Abraham Licht made the decision to invest $42,400 in the Parris Clinic, at that time in debt, Bies had been extremely eager to oblige him. Giving over to him the largest office in the former mansion, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a view of the English topiary garden; a.s.suring him he wouldn"t make any decisions without consulting him; flattering him by declaring that, with Licht"s business sense, and his own medical-professional background, they couldn"t fail to become millionaires within a few years. "It"s only a matter of time, "Moses." The right patients, and a good, reliable staff of therapists, ma.s.seurs, nurses, aides-the Clinic will practically run itself. For Autogenic Self-Mastery is the cure to most ills. Of that, I"m convinced." Dr. Bies spoke with such smiling confidence and boyish idealism, Abraham found himself believing . . . wishing to believe. (Hadn"t he read that most psychological ailments cure themselves, in time? So long as the Clinic didn"t admit seriously ill patients like schizophrenics, manic-depressives, paranoids and the like; and as few patients as possible with organic, medical ailments.) Abraham had checked out the background of Felix Bies, M.D., and confirmed that the man had a medical degree from the Medical School of Rutgers University, in New Jersey; he"d been a resident at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center; he"d even studied psychiatry in Edinburgh. (At least, Abraham thought uneasily, a man named "Felix Bies" was so trained.) Bies knew of Abraham Licht from the flamboyant era of the Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoleon Bonaparte; one of Bies"s in-laws had invested, and lost, a considerable amount of money in the scheme, to Bies"s amus.e.m.e.nt. He"d much admired the mastermind behind the Society, he told Abraham when they first met, and knew that, one day, they must meet-"Our paths would cross, and we would know each other. Yes!"
So it was of the utmost importance, Abraham Licht insisted to Bies, in these later, more difficult days when they found themselves in frequent disagreement, that, as partners, but more importantly as friends, they speak the truth to each other at all times. And Bies vehemently agreed. "As if, "Moses," one so clumsy as I should hope to deceive you."
Yet it seems to be happening that Bies more and more often ignores Liebknecht"s recommendations. Or doesn"t consult him at all. His prescribed treatment for some patients is, in Liebknecht"s judgment, negligent; he has admitted near-moribund men and women to the Clinic who clearly haven"t any chance of recovery. A ninety-year-old blind man, dazed and sputtering, delivered over to the Clinic by a brusque son in his sixties, whose Rolls-Royce idled in the drive; an obese woman in a wheelchair, wheezing and gasping for breath, suffering from the delusion that she was awaiting a "train for home" in Pennsylvania Station, delivered over by a glamorous woman in mink and tinted gla.s.ses identified only, on the official admitting form in Bies"s office, as "Daughter-in-Law"; a wizened, prematurely aged child of nine brought to the Clinic by a sullen nursemaid who claimed that the child"s parents, wealthy residents of Tuxedo Park, had instructed her to "enroll" him here and to remain with him "for the duration"; a rail-thin woman in her thirties, wife of a prominent Manhattan attorney, so nervous her teeth chattered, and her eyes bulged in her skeletal head, under the delusion that she was at a clinic "to have my baby" . . . "Surely it"s bad judgment and bad for the morale of all, to accept so many hopeless patients at the same time," Moses Liebknecht said worriedly, but Bies, sighing expansively, shrugged and said, "Ah, they will outlive us, "Moses." And if they don"t, where"s the harm? As the great Santayana, who was once my patient, has said, "There is tragedy in perfection, because the universe in which perfection arises in itself imperfect."" ""Perfection"! Where, hereabouts, do you see "perfection," Felix?" (Between Liebknecht and Bies there was a feud of sorts, playful at the start but lately fairly hostile, for the former much admired William James, the very essence of native American philosophy, and the latter admired, or claimed to admire, the Spanish-born George Santayana, James"s ant.i.thesis.) Bies smiled at the wincing expression on his partner"s face, and offered him a drink-"The smoothest Scotch whiskey, lovely as death"-from his silver flask, unpleasantly warmed by the heat of his fleshy body. Liebknecht politely declined.
Am I being stricken by conscience, so late in The Game?
G.o.d help me, if it"s so.
Lately the partners were inclined, too, to disagree on the composition of the "Parris elixir." This was a secret medicine to be administered solely at the Clinic under the aegis of Felix Bies, M.D., who had patented it in his name in 1921; it was prescribed to patients in carefully modulated doses, for it was a powerful and potentially addictive formula consisting of blackstrap mola.s.ses, oil of coconut, finely ground thyme, almonds, dried seaweed and tincture of opium in varying degrees. (In truth, the precise nature of the elixir depended upon the whim of Dr. Bies"s a.s.sistants, who created the elixir in large steaming pots on a kitchen stove.) Moses Liebknecht, sympathizing with the infirm who so unquestioningly and hopefully drank down the elixir, convinced of its magical powers, argued that the elixir should contain a fixed amount of nonaddictive matter and a minimum of opium; he"d had some experience (of which he spoke evasively, for Dr. Liebknecht wasn"t one to share intimate secrets even with his partner and friend Dr. Bies) with opium addiction, and knew how malevolent it could be. "Above all, the elixir shouldn"t smell and taste repellent, which is sometimes the case-it"s a discouraging sight to see patients gagging on it even as, with tears in their eyes, they proclaim its magical powers." It seemed inevitable that certain of the patients as they grew sicker and weaker and less certain of their surroundings begged for heavier dosages of the elixir even when, in the most literal sense, they couldn"t stomach it. Dr. Liebknecht, that"s to say Abraham Licht, recalling Katrina"s herbal medicines, which had helped restore his health more than once, had been experimenting with a rival medicine: it would be called the Liebknecht Formula, consisting primarily of sweet, heavy cream into which cherries had been ground to create a smooth, blood-tinctured texture intended to stir in the patient"s unconscious idyllic memories of nursing at his mother"s breast; there was no practical way to avoid tincture of opium, but Dr. Liebknecht made sure that only delicious ingredients were ground into the formula-cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, pistachio nuts, cocoa, Swiss chocolate, and so forth. In some patients the Liebknecht Formula acted as a gentle soporific, in others as a stimulant; in others, a powerful emetic; in one patient, Mrs. Deardon, the neurasthenic wife of the Manhattan attorney, it had an alarming aphrodisiac effect resulting in Mrs. Deardon"s pregnancy after only five weeks at the Clinic. (As there were no provisions for pregnant patients at the Parris Clinic, Mrs. Deardon was obliged to hurriedly depart. The father, or fathers, of the unborn child were not named by Mrs. Dearborn, and did not come forward to identify themselves; but Mrs. Dearborn was reportedly very happy with the pregnancy, speaking of it as an autogenic conception involving no crude s.e.xual "act" for which she might be blamed.) Bies, normally indifferent to the atmosphere of the Clinic, began to take exception to the fact that a number of patients were choosing the new medicine over the old; while others insisted upon having both, with sometimes unfortunate results. So, the Liebknecht Formula was causing division at the Clinic where tranquility of mind was necessary, if Autogenic Self-Mastery was to retain its potency.
Half in jest, yet half seriously, Moses Liebknecht observed to Felix Bies one day that the distinction between the new elixir and the old was that the new might well have curative powers-"I"m taking it myself in experimental doses. And I must say, Felix, I"ve never felt so-healthy, and happy." Bies regarded him with searching eyes, and a sly spiteful smile, saying, "Yes? There is a sort of luminous glow about you. As there is about our patient Miss Grille. Is she, too, taking the Liebknecht Formula? Like Mrs. Deardon?" Liebknecht flushed at this remark with its lewd innuendo, and would have departed Bies"s presence in dignity, except Bies added, quickly, as if to placate him, "Moses, do you think the Liebknecht Formula would work for me, too? I am in need of some sort of-restoration."
Moses Liebknecht smiled politely, and laid an a.s.suring hand on the other man"s shoulder. "Dr. Bies, recall the words engraved over the entrance to Hades: Caveat emptor."
Full of scorpions is my mind.
And who will purge it?
After Abraham Licht"s nervous collapse in Philadelphia in December 1916 he didn"t plunge of his own volition but fell helpless and terrified to the bottom of the marsh; to the rich slimy-black bottom of the marsh; where Katrina grown old now, gaunt and altered, her once-firm skin finely creased as an eggsh.e.l.l with myriad cracks, and of that pallor, nursed him for many months; Katrina, and Esther his youngest child whom he scarcely knew; until by Katrina"s judgment he was well-"And fit now to return to the world of Time."
In Katrina"s mouth these words had the effect of a statement of health that was simultaneously a kind of curse. For the "world of Time," to Katrina, the world beyond Muirkirk, was no paradise.
But for those months, in her care, Abraham Licht thought nothing of the world of Time, nor even of Philadelphia society which, he"d had every reason to believe, he had conquered; instead he slept like an infant again in his mother"s breast; slept, and woke; and slept again; and took sustenance from sleep, as from Katrina"s vigilant care; no matter that Katrina"s smile slipped cruelly from her gums and her eyes in their deep sockets blazed with an unearthly light; waking, Abraham might see that in the shadows only a few feet from him there crouched a wizened featherless bird, sharp-beaked, of about the size of a sparrow hawk: he wanted to cry out in terror, but could not. He wanted to whisper her name but could not. He wanted to shut his eyes to dispel the vision but could not. Help help help me I am not fit to die. I have not fulfilled my destiny on this earth.
In such fever-states Abraham was certain he could remember his lost mother across a s.p.a.ce of . . . could it be six decades? Six? Recalling not the exact image of the woman but the aura, the radiance of her abiding love.
Waking another time, to see Katrina quite ordinary, an aging but still capable woman, a woman to whom one might babble of nightmares; Fortnum & Mason tins crammed with flesh, blood, body hairs, the ooze and reek and shame of it, a body that was Abraham"s own served up to him like one of those hideous cannibal-feasts of antiquity; a son of Abraham Licht"s prepared as for a holiday meal in tinsel-wrapped packages with crinkly bows. And Katrina seemed to listen, and to humor him; saying, as she pressed a cool damp cloth against his burning forehead, that it was only a dream, and dreams are to be forgotten.
And Abraham raged to Katrina of his daughter, his beautiful angel-daughter whose name he could no longer speak, his daughter who"d betrayed him at last as her mother had done, eloping with a man Abraham Licht scarcely knew, eloping and marrying without Abraham Licht"s blessing, and now the girl was dead; and her name must never again be uttered.
And Katrina said, more somberly, that this too was only a dream, and dreams are to be forgotten.
All these follies you must forget for the Past is but the graveyard of the future; and no place for Abraham Licht.
So it happened that Katrina, with young Esther"s help, saw to it that Abraham ate when he hadn"t the appet.i.te, and slept when he protested his thoughts raged too wildly for sleep; and had nothing to do with Muirkirk, nor the great world beyond.
Protesting only mildly, Abraham gave in to her; slept as many as twelve hours at a time; made an effort to eat all the food she prepared; and, when he was feeling stronger, contented himself with walking in the marsh, or through fields, or along deserted country roads where he wasn"t likely to meet anyone who knew him. (Even those older inhabitants of Muirkirk who"d known Abraham Licht in the prime of his young manhood, as the city-dweller who"d galloped into their midst to buy, at auction, within minutes, the derelict Church of the Nazarene, seemed not to recognize this gaunt, longhaired man in seemingly good-quality but soiled and rumpled clothes, a battered fedora on his head so slanted to partly hide his eyes, with a bristly graying-white beard sprouting on his face like lichen.) If Abraham saw another person approaching-usually a farmer driving a horse-drawn wagon, or boys on foot-he quickly retreated and hid in the woods; in this way giving rise in the course of his eighteen-month sojourn in Muirkirk to a number of rumors and tales. The most persistent was that of a supernatural marsh creature, half-man, half-demon, who couldn"t bear the gaze of a human being but had to flee back into the marsh.
A cryptic tale that endures in Muirkirk to this day, though Abraham Licht has vanished long ago.
BY DEGREES, REGAINING his health, he regained as well his old zest for reading. Don Quixote . . . the dialogues of Plato . . . Home Cures & Emetics . . . A History of the Chautauqua Region . . . P. T. Barnum"s Ill.u.s.trated News (for August 1880: featuring the sultry Zalumma Agra, "Star of the East," a lovely "Circa.s.sian" girl who quite distressed Abraham Licht by so closely resembling, despite her brunette coloring, his lost daughter Millicent) . . . and volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica whose mildewed pages he turned in nervous haste as if seeking a revelation that might alter his life. He reread the great tragedies of Shakespeare-Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Oth.e.l.lo-which he"d first encountered years before in the wretched isolation of a county jail (though which county, and for what reason he was there incarcerated, he couldn"t now recall); he studied Milton"s great poem of paradise lost to man by way of G.o.d"s cruelty; he discovered, to his delight, the melancholy wisdom of Schopenhauer- Suicide, the wilful destruction of the single phenomenal existence, is a vain and foolish act, for the thing-in-itself-the species, and life, and will in general-remains unaffected by it, even as the rainbow endures however fast the drops which support it for the moment may chance to fall.
"As I"ve always surmised," Abraham thought, slowly closing the book of yellowed and torn pages, as if he feared it might crumble to dust in his hands, "-suicide is pointless! One must be the rainbow, and exult in its prismatic ever-changing colors, that live forever, and cannot be destroyed."
It was a happy omen, which both men laughingly acknowledged even as they shook hands like old friends or brothers-Abraham Licht and Gaston Bullock Means were each wearing a Palm Beach suit, a white shirt with gold studs, and a straw hat that gave off an air of cheery affluence; and white shoes only very slightly scuffed. Abraham Licht"s bow tie was a conservative jade green, while Gaston Bullock Means"s bow tie was red and green polka dots. "Ah, Abraham, I am so relieved to see you, here," Means said, gripping his old friend"s hand and gazing, with rather protuberant red-veined eyes, into Abraham Licht"s face, "for so many men are flooding into Washington these days, and so much is happening every day-every hour!-we desperately need someone in our office whom we can trust."
The year was 1919; the month, June-a half year already since the signing of the Armistice, and the restoration of peace to Europe; and Abraham Licht, by way of his renewed contact with Gaston Bullock Means, was being hired by the Burns Detective Agency as a "special consultant," a position he would hold until August of 1923, the month of President Harding"s death. With the pa.s.sage of time Abraham Licht"s official duties were to vary widely, and, like numberless gentlemen brought to Washington during these heady years, he would make a good deal of money; yet, if the truth be told, his work for Burns, Means, the Justice Department, etc. never greatly excited him, or aroused in him any feelings of pride. For whether he operated as an agent for Attorney General A. Mitch.e.l.l Palmer (under Democrat Woodrow Wilson), or Attorney General Harry Daugherty (under Republican Warren Harding), or worked with Means on special a.s.signments for the Prohibition Bureau (where considerable sums of money routinely changed hands, as prominent bootleggers paid their fees for immunity from federal prosecution), Abraham Licht was rarely in a position to immerse himself in a project of his own but was accountable to other men, and their projects. (And, under Harding"s administration in particular, the schemes they devised were so transparent, so lacking in subtlety, originality, and grace-a matter, really, of simple theft from public funds-he saw very little point to it, and gradually lost interest in his career. "Why, they are mere pigs at the trough, nothing more," Abraham Licht realized, one day in 1922, "-and what pleasure is there for a gentleman, in competing thus?") Initially, however, he felt extreme excitement, and a renewal of his old powers. How good for the soul, to be immersed in the world of men again, steeped in Time!-and to be here, in Washington, D.C., at the very heart of the nation, where his talents might at last come to fruition. Moreover, it quite dazed him that Gaston Bullock Means, with whom he"d never been close in the past, welcomed him so openly and genially; even slung an arm around his shoulders, and gave him a manly sort of hug, repeating several times that he was most relieved to see Abraham Licht in the flesh, here, and now.
"FOR NOW AT last we are coming into our rightful inheritance," Gaston Bullock Means said expansively, signaling the black waiter for two more whiskeys, "-and no one is to stop us, ever again. Wait and see, brother, if you doubt."
The two men were seated comfortably in a leather-cushioned booth, in the dim-lit gentlemen"s bar of the Sh.o.r.eham Hotel, to which Means had brought Abraham Licht, direct from the railroad station. (Abraham"s temporary residence was to be the elegant Sh.o.r.eham, until such time as he might find adequate lodgings in the city, preferably close by the Burns Detective Agency. He was gratified to learn that, in the meantime, the United States Justice Department would underwrite all his expenses.) For several hours, over whiskey and cigars, Means outlined Abraham Licht"s general prospects as a special consultant or secret agent in the employ of the Burns Agency; and spoke, in a voice alternately lowered and exuberant, of his own remarkable adventures in the hire of the U.S. Government, and his plans for the future. "There has never been a time like this," Means said, hunching his big shoulders over the table, and fixing his gaze firmly to Abraham Licht"s, "-for, you know, life, and liberty, and the pursuit of one"s fortune."
Abraham Licht"s initial confusion about who his employer actually was, and of what his duties would consist, was quickly laid to rest: for though his workplace would be the Burns Detective Agency on Wisconsin Avenue, his employer would be the United States Bureau of Investigation, under the aegis of the Justice Department. Like Means, he would be a confidential agent; his t.i.tle, Special Employee of the Department of Justice. He was already on the payroll and in the morning, when he dropped by the office-10:30 A.M. was early enough: the detectives kept late hours-he would be sworn into his duties and equipped with a badge, telephone, official stationery, secretarial service and the like. "I"ve advised that you be issued a firearm," Means said, dropping his voice dramatically, and opening his coat so that Abraham could glimpse inside the polished handle of a pistol, snug in what appeared to be a gleaming leather holster. "For the Bolsheviks are sly sons of b.i.t.c.hes," Means said, laughing, "-once they know you are onto their game."
"The Bolsheviks-?" Abraham Licht asked.
Abraham was aware, wasn"t he, Means inquired, lowering his voice yet more dramatically, that thousands of enemies of the State had been arrested, and jailed, during the War? The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 had netted quite a catch, in all: German-Americans (who could be counted on to be pro-German); pacifists of various persuasions (who were either in the hire of the German war machine, or its dupes); Socialists, Anarchists, and Black Nationalists (Eugene Debs, "Prince" Elihu of Harlem, etc.); critics of the War, or of Woodrow Wilson"s policies, or, indeed, of Woodrow Wilson and his administration in general. Yes, quite a hodgepodge of felons!-and some of them put away for a long, long time. Neither President Wilson nor his Attorney General, A. Mitch.e.l.l Palmer, was likely to forget a political insult, or forgive an enemy; and the sentiment in Washington among both Democrats and Republicans was that the Armistice should not encourage a relaxation of vigilance at home, against subversives, would-be traitors, Socialists, radicals, union agitators, etc. The fight, Means said, sighing in pleasure, and rubbing his immense hands briskly together, was only now beginning.
"For we are secretly launching an undercover campaign," Means said, "to identify, and round up, every single dissenter in the country: very likely by the end of the year, if Mr. Palmer"s scheme holds. Which is one of the reasons that you have been hired; though I have other plans for the two of us, as well. But first things first! Waiter!"
So secluded a life had Abraham Licht led during his convalescence in Muirkirk, he"d followed only vaguely the progress of the War, and knew even less of the home-front war: ma.s.s arrests of striking pickets, radical speechmakers, German-born subversives, and the like. He asked carefully about the arrests of Eugene Debs and "Prince" Elihu of Harlem, and was told by Means, indifferently, that so far as he knew, both men-"the Socialist and the n.i.g.g.e.r"-had been sentenced to ten- or fifteen-year terms in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Since the Armistice, the administration had had to release hundreds, possibly thousands of "subversive" prisoners; but it was Woodrow Wilson"s vow that so long as he remained in office, neither Debs nor Elihu would be pardoned.
"The President is a tough old buzzard, for being a schoolmaster from Princeton," Means said, grimacing and shaking his head in admiration. "I would not want to mix with him."
Abraham"s vision misted over. He felt an ache of profound sadness and loneliness. Little Moses!-poor child! To think of him locked away in a federal penitentiary in Georgia, a n.i.g.g.e.r among n.i.g.g.e.rs, and all because of his betrayal of Abraham Licht"s fatherly love . . .
"Is anything known of this "Elihu" at the present time?" Abraham asked Means. "He had a sizable following among the Negroes of Harlem and elsewhere, didn"t he? You"d think Wilson wouldn"t want to offend them."
"Offend n.i.g.g.e.rs?" Means asked, staring at his companion. "How d"you mean?"
"Why, in the usual way. "Offend.""
"A n.i.g.g.e.r?"
"Well-a "n.i.g.g.e.r" is human, isn"t he?"
Again Means stared. Then he began to laugh, as if seeing that Abraham was joking. "h.e.l.l, the c.o.o.ns have forgotten him by now," he said, when he could draw breath again. "They forget easily, and forgive. They"re nothing like us."
The conversation then shifted to other topics: Means"s wartime service (he had, he said mysteriously, operated as "German Agent E-13" in the WashingtonBaltimoreNew York City region); Means"s current affairs (he was involved in negotiations with a certain millionaire "cereal king" who"d made a tidy profit during the War by cheating the government in bulk cereal sales, and was now bargaining with Means about the purchase price of the files pertaining to him in the Bureau of Investigation); and Means"s vague but rhapsodic plans for the future (with the imminence of Prohibition, and the inevitability of a clandestine market for alcohol, what might not be at hand?).
"A new era, Abraham, a new dawn," Means said, his voice catching as he gripped his companion"s arm tight. "And you have arrived only just in time."
Abraham Licht agreed; but thought it queer that he failed to feel as much exhilaration and zest as he should. Perhaps it was because he hadn"t eaten a meal for many hours, and, under Means"s influence, had had too much to drink. (In Muirkirk, away from the company of other men, Abraham had lost interest in drink altogether.) Moreover, Gaston Bullock Means"s company was more overbearing than he recalled: for Means was in the habit of talking virtually nonstop, interrupting himself with little wheezing asides and spasms of mirth, in a manner now bl.u.s.tering, now deferential, now sly, now merry, now rather brutal-a sudden startling reminder of the man"s past, in which, as a convicted confidence-man, swindler, and outright thief, many years ago in Albany, he had a.s.suredly not worn white costumes of the cut of his Palm Beach suit, nor entertained a friend in the luxurious twilight, aglimmer with tall bottles, gla.s.ses, and mirrors, of a gentlemen"s bar like the Sh.o.r.eham. He had newly acquired a habit of dropping his voice low, as if he had reason to believe he was overheard; then, when his companion leaned forward, cupping his hand to his ear, he was likely to explode in a guffaw, and finish his remarks in a boisterous near-shout.
Though in height and coloring Means resembled Abraham Licht, he was a few years younger; forty pounds heavier; with an unusually round head, s.h.a.ggy gray-brown hair, and a dimpled, even cherubic smile. His close-set eyes flashed and beamed with masculine good humor; he was the sort to immediately inspire confidence, Abraham Licht conceded-feeling in that instant suddenly old, and not prepared to return to The Game.
Means, however, took not the slightest notice of his companion"s change of mood, but, briskly ordered another round of drinks, continued to chat of his contacts in the Justice Department, and in the Senate, and in the House; and of confidential investigative work he was doing, without Burns"s knowledge, for the Bureau of Special Reports, or was it the Alien Custodian Bureau, or the Bureau of Internal Revenue, or the Secret Service, or the Bureau of the Budget . . . .
At the end of the long evening, Means slung his heavy arm around Abraham Licht"s shoulders again, and leaned his head close, and winked, saying: "What is it about? What is it about? Honor, I say: honor! And again-honor. D"you understand, my friend? You understand, my friend, don"t you!"
(Yet wasn"t there something about Gaston Bullock Means that Abraham Licht should remember?-that, in the privacy of his sumptuous hotel suite, he half-remembered?-having to do, perhaps, with the unspeakable disaster in Philadelphia. But no: he was convinced that Means hadn"t recognized him then, or poor Harwood; or, if he had, surely he wouldn"t have revealed their ident.i.ties. "Otherwise it wouldn"t be possible for the man to be so friendly and forthright with me now," Abraham thought, undressing with slow leaden motions for bed.)
The Great Red Raid, as it was afterward called, opened with commendable dramatic effect on 1 January 1920, when two hundred suspected subversives, cited by the "Fighting Quaker" Attorney General Palmer as being in violation of the Sedition Act, were seized in their homes by government agents in several American cities, and thrown into jail. And, before the enormity of the event could be fully grasped by patriotic Americans, there followed, on 6 January, the arrest of two thousand subversives, in thirty-three cities!
"That"s odd," Abraham Licht observed to Gaston Bullock Means, as in the privacy of Means"s office at the Burns Detective Agency, the two men were glancing through newspapers, "-where did Palmer come up with the extra names? I don"t remember there having been more than eight hundred on our list."
For a moment Means too looked puzzled, though as he readily confessed he himself had added a few names taken from the telephone directories of such cities as Chicago, Boston and New York (notorious hotbeds of Anarchist and union agitation, owing to their large immigrant populations); then the obvious explanation occurred to him-since the administration took the stand that anyone who protests the arrest of a Red and visits him in jail is naturally a Red himself, the logical step for law enforcement officers is to arrest him or her too, with no delay. "It"s a matter of security," Means said. "And very practical. For within twenty-four hours our Attorney General has doubled his list of subversives, and it is most impressive, isn"t it? Palmer may well run for President himself. Such headlines! Such publicity!" Means smiled in admiration.
"Yet-where will it end?" Abraham mused. "For if friends and relatives come to visit these additional people, they"ll be arrested too, and within a few days our jails will be overflowing. A Malthusian predicament!" He tossed down a newspaper and picked up another which displayed on its front page a blurred photograph of a dozen stunned-looking men and one or two women being herded by uniformed police into a van. (One of the men, tall, broad-shouldered, husky, fair-haired, grimacing as a stream of blood ran down his face from a head wound, looked very like . . . but Abraham did not wish to acknowledge My firstborn, my lost son; and so would not think of Thurston who had broken his heart, from whom and of whom he hadn"t heard since that tragic farce in Trenton, New Jersey, long ago. Ridiculous!) Saying, cynically, "Though I suppose there"s no problem: any armory, warehouse or cattle pen could be commandeered."
As it turned out, Gaston Bullock Means and "Gordon Jasper Hine" (Abraham"s a.s.signed name) were hardly the only investigators working in strictest confidence on plans for the raids. Yet it seemed to Attorney General Palmer that we two were the most ambitious of the agents, and the most enthusiastic; he commended us in private and apologized for the fact that, due to the secrecy of the Burns connection with the federal government, he and President Wilson couldn"t offer us public citations. "And what will be the fate of the "Reds"?" Abraham asked Palmer, out of curiosity, perhaps; and Palmer surprised him by saying with simple gentlemanly frankness, "Of course some of us would like to hang the leaders, like Debs and the Harlem rabble-rouser-hang "em high for all the world to see. But there are obstacles to that, Mr. Wilson concedes, at least under our present Const.i.tution."
AS SPECIAL EMPLOYEES of the Justice Department, Abraham Licht and Gaston Bullock Means had spent months traveling about the country; usually by Pullman car, though sometimes in a chauffeur-driven limousine. They stayed in the finest hotels, dined superbly, yet as it happened they did work hard-for in some cities they were confronted with a scarcity of Reds, and in others, a fertility that seemed doubtful. So, the list for New Orleans had to be improvisationally expanded; the list for Detroit, judiciously edited. Virtually no old-fashioned detection work was required, however, to Abraham Licht"s relief, for as it turned out, his partner was blessed with contacts everywhere-reliable police informers, editors of Republican newspapers, conservative politicians, members of the organized underworld, veterans of the War-who were eager to provide them with names for little payment, or none. "It is impressive isn"t it," Means more than once exclaimed, "-the degree of voluntary patriotism in America!" So there was never any fear of Means and "Hine" returning to Washington without a bulging caseload of evidence.
Acting upon whim or perversity or my knowledge that all men were my enemies but particularly Woodrow Wilson and his administration, Abraham Licht began to amuse himself by idly crossing out some names and, like his mentor Means, copying others from the telephone directory. He thought it inc.u.mbent in any case to gratify the Attorney General with a few surprises-men with upstanding Anglo-Saxon surnames, members of the Protestant clergy. Who was not after all a traitor to his country in posse?-confronted with the torturer"s rack, for instance; or the right amount of cash.
WITH THE Pa.s.sAGE of months, however, the campaign against the Bolshies widened to include an alarming diversity of citizens. Newspapers were shut down, and their editors charged with sedition; the Justice Department arranged, with a great deal of publicity, to deport two hundred forty-nine immigrant undesirables to Russia; strikers in Chicago, West Virginia, Indiana, and California were beaten and wounded by police; zealous War veterans smashed Socialist offices, and even, out in the State of Washington, lynched and castrated a member of the I.W.W. So it was, both Abraham Licht and Gaston Bullock Means were relieved when the Democrats were thrown out of office, and Harding and his Republican pals from Ohio arrived in a cheerfully disorderly sort of triumph. Farewell to Wilson, and memories of War, and the ill-fated League of Nations! Welcome to Warren Harding and "normalcy"!
An unprecedented victory for the common man? Abraham Licht was moved rather to amazement than envy; for it was never any secret among Republicans and Democrats alike that Warren Harding had no qualifications for the office of President other than a dauntless bonhomie, and a genuine enthusiasm for speechmaking.
Yet more important, the new Attorney General was a political hack from Ohio, Harry Daugherty, who"d been Harding"s wily campaign manager. He had none of Palmer"s crusading zeal or patriotic pretensions; he had no ideas at all; he wasn"t cruel, and he wasn"t kind (except to his friends); he slipped into his new office as an undersized man slips into clothes too large for him, yet comfortable nonetheless. To the victors go the spoils.
At the clamorous inaugural reception in the White House, to which both men were invited, Abraham Licht and Gaston Bullock Means exchanged a glance of recognition after having shaken Daugherty"s hand: "He is one of us."
Yet the Harding years, from 1921 to summer 1923, proved keenly disappointing as I could not have antic.i.p.ated.
For Abraham Licht, even as Gordon Jasper Hine, began to feel an aesthetic revulsion for thievery so gross and undisciplined it resembled a "shark feed" in the ocean; or, indeed, hogs grunting about a common trough. Where was the subtlety, the ingenuity, the sport? The Game had become mere plunder! It was true that as Gordon Jasper Hine he made a good deal of money, both from his salary as a government agent (for he and Means were immediately hired full-time by Harry Daugherty) and from various fees, gifts, loans and so forth provided by uneasy citizens who were being investigated by the Bureau, or threatened with that possibility. Like Means, "Hine" was nearly always on expense account, had a chauffeur-driven Packard limousine at his disposal and a suite of six rooms in Chilchester House, K Street (an elegant English-style hotel with high tea in the afternoons, the finest-quality bootleg liquor and handsome bra.s.s spittoons). His vanity was flattered that the Harding circle sometimes included him in their boisterous poker evenings, whether upstairs at the White House or at the Little House on H Street, as Daugherty"s residence became known. (Yet how noisy and slapdash the poker evenings were!-Abraham lost nearly as much money as he won, and came away with violent headaches as a consequence of the heavy cigar smoke and the clumsy shouted repartee of Harding and his companions.) So perverse is man, as Schopenhauer well knew-the anguish of struggle yielding to the ennui of success-Abraham Licht began to feel it a wearisome sort of life, to trade in explicit deals where his aesthetic instinct urged him to create secret plots; and to be approached by gentlemen fearing prosecution from the Justice Department, before he or Means got around to approaching them. Means thrived, week by week, and grew ever more swaggering and confident; Abraham Licht a.s.sumed an enthusiasm he did not invariably feel, and came to understand the President"s odd, even compulsive, habit of placing quick side bets (at poker, at c.r.a.ps, on the golf links)-such tactics aroused a brief sensation of risk, of being alive. (One night, during a typical poker game at the White House, Harding negotiated an off-the-cuff bet with Abraham Licht on some small matter in the game: a diamond stickpin of Harding"s against a diamond stickpin of Abraham"s. "Aren"t they identical, Mr. President?" Abraham asked; and Harding, his heavy sweat-stained face agleam, said genially, "No matter! No matter!" The result of the bet was that Abraham Licht came away with two diamond stickpins, each worth approximately $3,000.) He couldn"t have guessed at the degree of his aristocrat"s sensibility, before he discovered himself offended, upon several occasions, by Mrs. Harding (a supremely brash, squat, ugly woman, older than Harding, whom Harding had married for her money, known with sn.i.g.g.e.ring affection as the d.u.c.h.ess); and revulsed by the President"s mistress Nan (a coy, simpering, fleshy Ohio girl decades younger than the d.u.c.h.ess, who professed to adore her "Warren," and to be faithful to him unto death: no matter that her portly lover had no more gallantry than to copulate with her on the floor of the clothes closet in his very White House office, with any number of ushers, couriers and secretaries close by). Accustomed, perhaps, to the degree of sophistication and wit possessed by (ah, he hardly dared think of her!) Eva Clement-Stoddard, Abraham Licht found himself disgusted by the coa.r.s.eness of men like Harding"s Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall (who scarcely made it a secret, from the start, that his office was open to "bids" from private parties, in the matter of leasing oil-rich public lands), and Colonel Charley Forbes of the Veterans Bureau (who had somehow finessed a budget of a half billion dollars yearly, and was busily involved in the sale of "surplus" and "damaged" medical supplies left over from the War), and Daugherty"s constant companion Jess Smith (big-boned, shambling, flabby, asthmatic, yet rewarded with a mysterious connection to the Justice Department, and to its files and influence, though he was never officially on the payroll); and, indeed, the pugnacious Daugherty himself. (Both Abraham Licht and Gaston Bullock Means resented the fact that Daugherty blew hot and cold-to use Means"s expression-with his Special Employees at the Bureau of Investigation. Clearly, he wanted them to spy on all his enemies in Washington, and on all his friends with the exception of Jess Smith and Harding; he wanted detailed reports, though not in writing; and not at any prescribed time. When one or another of the Bureau"s special deals fell through, or was in danger of being discovered by the opposition press, Daugherty shouted abuse at them over the telephone, and threatened to fire them; when a deal went very well indeed-Abraham Licht labored for weeks, for instance, to arrange a nearly legal means by which unsaleable whiskey stocked in warehouses might be shipped to foreign countries, with a generous "surcharge" split between the Prohibition Bureau and the Bureau of Investigation-Daugherty boasted of the coup as if it were his own.) In order to repay hundreds of political favors, Harding had appointed friends, or friends of friends, or reliable party hacks, to nearly all the federal judgeships; and to such offices as the Alien Custodian Bureau, and the Public Health Bureau, the Bureau of Special Reports, the Bureau of Engineering, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of the Budget, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, et al. Unqualified but faithful Republicans were named as Governor of the Federal Reserve System, Superintendent of Federal Prisons, Governor of Puerto Rico, Alien Property Custodian, Chairman of the Shipping Board . . . and, to Abraham Licht"s amazement, his old kinsman "Baron" Barraclough was named Comptroller of the Currency, and the wily Jasper Liges, of whom he hadn"t heard in years, was named Commissioner of Indian Affairs! (When Abraham inquired of one of the President"s men what the duties of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs might be, he was told with a broad smile: "Oil leases and real estate.") Most astonishing of all: Harding would have appointed Jess Smith Secretary of the Treasury if there hadn"t been protests from all sides.
"WHY, THE WORLD has been turned upside down," Abraham Licht thought in despair, "-and where is my place!"
Yet, as he fully intended to make clear in his memoir one day, all was not disappointing during his Washington years: for, as Gordon Jasper Hine, he commanded uneasy (if not occasionally resentful) respect about town; he traveled where and when he wished, under the auspices of the Bureau; and it p.r.i.c.ked his gambler"s curiosity, as to how long the Harding administration could last, before the house of cards came tumbling down.
"Why, we will go on forever-who will stop us?" Gaston Bullock Means asked, staring. "The people love Harding."
Which was true, at least initially.
No matter the pa.s.sionate vacuity of his public addresses, no matter the childish nature of his "bloviating" (as he himself called his speech-making talents), or the laughable presumption of his beliefs ("I do not think any government can be just if it doesn"t have somehow a contact with Omnipotent G.o.d"), crowds everywhere applauded him with unstoppered enthusiasm: for, at the start at least, Harding looked like a President.