The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 56
She looked away. “Are you saying I should give up, Arn?”
“I’m saying that after your second arm gets bit off, it might be time to stop poking the bear.”
“Yeah.” Gurley sighed. “Time to start kicking the son of a bitch.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Nothing I can do.”
“Arn, they sent me to Spokane to organize and raise money to hire a national lawyer to challenge this law. We are a week away from the second free speech action, and you’re sending me back with no men, no money, nothing.”
“What do you mean, no money?”
She looked down. “We ran into some trouble in Taft.”
“What in God’s name were you doing in Taft?”
Gurley’s eyes trailed around the busy depot—travelers greeting family, porters handing luggage to travelers. “Doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Arn said. “I’m at a loss here. This is all I can do.” He reached in his back pocket and handed her three train tickets. Two second-class tickets to Spokane. And one to Butte. “Time for you to go home.”
Del Dalveaux, 1909
THE HOTEL clerk handed me a message from Bolin. Flaccid old lobcock wanted me to call a number. I had the girl on my end connect us.
Right off, Al said, “It didn’t go, Del. Taft didn’t go.”
The girl on my end was chewing nails.
“They took the money is all. And let ’em go on to Missoula.”
I said nothing.
“It’s a lazy bunch up there is the thing.”
I said nothing.
“And there were surprises.”
Said nothing.
“Wasn’t like you said.”
Nothing.
“So what I figured now is—”
I snapped my fingers and gave a nod to the girl, who yanked the call.
I was ripe enough with that whorepipe Bolin to grab the next rattler to Wallace and beat him to death before he could hobble off.
But first I needed to deliver the news to Brand. And the thought of telling that fat church bell anything but “It’s done” and “Goodbye” sank my guts. Goddamn Spokane.
I caught a hansom to his house. Algoddamnhambra. The stones on that man. His doorman said he was having a drink at his club, so I had the cab take me there, to a pillared building above the river where I found the man smug in a gauzy library, having Scotch and cigars with what he called the consortium—half a dozen fat whiskered high-collared white men sunk like nails into plush chairs in front of a fireplace so big three of them could’ve held hands and walked into it. Butter on bacon, that room was: white marble floors and velvet chairs, Negro waiters behind the rich men, and two bored security men along the wall. Thirty millionaires in Spokane and six of them sat right here, like potted plants in this gilded room, ripe prig-pipes playing chess with the whole town.
Low chatter rose from the chairs—a set of whiskers complaining about the mayor hiring the Olmsted brothers to map a new park system. “I said to Pratt, you’ll spend a million dollars to have some New Yorker tell you to put grassy fields where our grassy fields are.”
The other men laughed, and one said, “What’s your complaint, Charles, if they pass the bond, they’ll buy up your scabland, hire your crews to build the parks, and you’ll end up with half the money.”
“He’s complaining because he wants all of it.”
I wondered how many I could get in that fireplace before the security men stopped me.
Brand’s back was to me, so I edged into the room, past more wall portraits of bristled white faces. He looked up and saw me, smiled, and began to speak, “Oh, Mr.—” before he remembered my admonition and brought his finger to his lips. I tilted my head to the hallway, stepped out, and waited for him.
When one of the waiters walked by with a tray of cognacs, I snagged one, drained it, put it back.
Finally, Brand came out in the hall. He was bleary-eyed drunk. Worse, one of the other men in the library had come with him and stood nearby, a few steps back. He was thin and pale, with a few long hairs pulled over his pate like wild grasses on a beach.
Brand chattered: “I’m sorry, Mr. . . . Grant. I know you said not to mention your real name, but Mr. Tate here is my dearest friend and closest ally, and I promised I would introduce him.”
I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t a good idea, him introducing us, but drunk Lem Brand had already turned to his mate and waved him over: “Bernard, come, meet the famous detective”—and now he whispered—“Del Dalveaux.”
Christ.
“Such a pleasure!” This Bernard was drunker and more gal-boy booster than even Brand. “And how are you finding our fine city?” he asked. “I have heard it described more than once as the London of the West.”
“Have you?”
“Because of the rivers, I mean. The Spokane and the Thames.”
“Yes,” I said, “those are both rivers.”
“I hope someone has taken you to the Auditorium,” he said. “It has the largest stage in the world.”
“Perhaps you could tell me about it another time,” I said. “I really must speak with Mr. Brand.”
“Of course,” he said. “Anarchists and dynamiting bums—we appreciate the work you’re doing—Lem here has kept us all abreast and has told us of your great reputation. But it must have been quite a surprise when you found out that Lem’s driver was Lem himself!”
“Mmm,” I said, a bullfrog’s croak.
Lem Brand jumped in then. “But we’ve got them on the run, don’t we, Del? Chief Sullivan squeezing from the top and you and I from our end.”
“Mmm.” I felt the sweat on my brow—wiped it with the back of a spotty hand. I had aged ten years in a week in Spokane, and I was old when I arrived. “Speaking of which, Mr. Brand, I really must speak to you in private.”
This was too much excitement for his friend Tate. “Of course! Infiltrations and espionage, much to discuss!” He