Blackstone and the New World (6 page)

‘But, surely, once the report was published, the whole rotten system was cleaned up, wasn’t it?’ Blackstone asked.

‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?’ Meade said. ‘It started promisingly enough. The mayor, who, for once, wasn’t a Tammany nominee, sacked the four commissioners and brought in new ones, including Teddy Roosevelt.’ Meade paused, as if expecting Blackstone to say something, and when the Englishman remained silent, he continued, almost incredulously, ‘You haven’t heard of Teddy Roosevelt?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ Blackstone admitted.

‘He’s a famous man in this country,’ Meade said. ‘Teddy likes to think of himself as a cowboy, even though he’s a native New Yorker. And I guess you could say he’s done just about everything – though none of it for very long. He worked for the Civil Service Commission, he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy – a position he used to start a war with Spain over Cuba—’

‘On his own?’ Blackstone interrupted.

Meade grinned. ‘No, he had some help from the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers, but a lot of it was down to him. When war was declared, he raised his own regiment to fight in it, and after the war, when he was discharged from the Army, he became governor of New York State. Now he’s President McKinley’s running mate in the November election, which means – God help us – that he’s only a bullet away from being president himself.’ Meade paused. ‘That last bit’s a joke.’

‘But not a very funny one,’ Blackstone said.

Meade shook his head. ‘Maybe you have to be American to understand it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, the Mayor brought him in to sweep the stable clean, and he tackled that job like he’s tackled most of the others he’s been given – with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and only the occasional pause for effective thought and planning. Do you know that while the other three commissioners walked down Mulberry Street to their new jobs, Teddy
ran
?’

‘I see,’ Blackstone said.

‘He did do some good things,’ Meade admitted. ‘He fired some of the worst policemen. He insisted on promotion based on merit – and that worked for a while. But he acted as if he was running a one-man show, and the other commissioners grew to hate him. And he enforced old laws that banned soda fountains, florists, delicatessens, boot blacks and ice dealers from working on a Sunday – so pretty soon the public hated him, too. He left the job less than two years after he’d been sworn in.’

‘And nothing much had changed,’ Blackstone guessed.

‘And nothing much had changed,’ Meade agreed. ‘As a result of the Lexow Report, seventy policemen, including two former commissioners, four inspectors and twenty-four captains, were charged with criminal offences. And despite the fact that they were appearing before Tammany-appointed judges, some of them were actually
convicted
. But then most of those convictions were reversed by other Tammany judges in the higher courts. So not only did the guilty men get off free and clear, but some of them were even given their old jobs back.’

‘I see,’ Blackstone said again, sounding more troubled this time.

‘You’re wondering how I ever got to be a sergeant, aren’t you, Sam?’ Meade asked. ‘You’re wondering if I’m up to my elbows in filth and corruption like almost everybody else.’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ Blackstone admitted.

‘I used influence,’ Meade said. ‘Not money, but influence.’

‘I see,’ Blackstone said for a third time.

‘No, you don’t,’ Meade contradicted him. ‘My father’s a state senator, but he’s also a lawyer – a very good one, and a very rich one – and when I was studying at Harvard, it was always assumed I’d join the family firm. I assumed it myself – and then I met Patrick O’Brien.’

‘The dead inspector,’ Blackstone said.

‘The dead inspector,’ Meade confirmed. ‘He was a captain then, and he addressed a debating club I belonged to. What he said was that New York City, and the police department in particular, was a cesspit, and was likely to
stay
a cesspit as long as people like us simply walked past it holding our noses. And I knew immediately that he was right, and that it was up to people like me – people from the patrician class, if you like – to do something about it. So I used my father’s influence to join the police – but only so I could do good.’

‘Good afternoon, Alexander,’ said a female voice.

Meade looked up, then
stood
up so quickly that he almost knocked the table over.

‘Good afternoon, Clarissa,’ he said, almost with a gasp.

The young woman who had so quickly reduced him to this state was perhaps a year or two younger than he was. It would have been stretching the truth somewhat to say that she was a pretty girl, but even the least charitable of men could scarcely have avoided describing her as ‘sweet’.

‘This is Miss Clarissa Bonneville,’ Meade said to Blackstone. ‘Clarissa, may I introduce you to Inspector Sam Blackstone, a famous detective from England.’

‘Charmed, Mr Blackstone,’ the girl said, holding out her hand for him.

‘My pleasure,’ Blackstone replied, wondering if that was the correct etiquette in America.

‘We seem to see so little of you, these days,’ the girl said to Meade.

‘That’s true,’ Meade agreed. ‘Perhaps we could . . .’

Another woman had suddenly appeared at the table. She was older and stockier than Clarissa, and her face was pure vinegar.

‘You are keeping our guests waiting, Clarissa,’ she said sternly.

‘I only wanted a few words with Alex, Mama,’ the girl protested.

‘I am sure that Mr Meade understands that your guests must take priority over other social acquaintances,’ Mrs Bonneville said. She turned her sour face on Alex. ‘Isn’t that so, Mr Meade?’

‘Indeed it is, Mrs Bonneville,’ Meade agreed.

‘Then let us go, child,’ Mrs Bonneville said, almost pushing Clarissa away from the table.

Meade watched the two women depart, then sighed softly to himself.

‘There was a time when that dragon would have given her right arm to see me marry her daughter,’ he said.

‘So what changed?’ Blackstone asked.

‘I became a policeman, and her attitude towards me altered overnight.’

‘What if you left the force and joined your father’s firm? Would her attitude alter again?’

‘Oh, yes. Then I’d once more be a good catch,’ Meade said. ‘But I don’t really care what she thinks of me.’

‘No?’

‘Not at all. I love Clarissa, and, in the end, we
will be
married.’

‘And does she love you?’ Blackstone wondered.

‘Of course she does,’ Meade said. He grinned, a little sheepishly. ‘But perhaps she’s not yet quite as aware of it as she might be.’

‘Tell me more about Inspector O’Brien,’ Blackstone said.

‘He was a wonderful man,’ Meade said, and as he spoke, his eyes began to mist over. ‘Of all the appointments Roosevelt made during his brief tenure, Patrick’s was by far the most important. Teddy gave him a roving brief – to root out police corruption wherever he could find it – and though there were plenty of people who would have liked to have stripped him of that power once Roosevelt went, nobody’s ever had the guts to do it. It was Patrick’s mission to cleanse the department or die trying.’ The sergeant shuddered. ‘And die trying is just what he did.’

‘You know what you’re implying, don’t you?’ Blackstone said carefully. ‘You’re implying that O’Brien was killed by a fellow officer.’

‘Yes, that is what I believe,’ Meade agreed. ‘And I’m not the only one.’

‘Who else believes it?’

‘Commissioner Comstock.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘Of course. Why do you think he arranged for you to be part of this investigation? It’s because he knows he can trust you.’

Especially after he listened in on my conversation with James Duffy, Blackstone thought.

‘And why did he pick me, a mere sergeant, to lead it?’ Meade continued. ‘For the same reason. And why are there only two of us involved in the investigation? Because with the whole of the New York Police Department at his disposal, we’re the only two people he knows with any certainty that he can have complete faith in.’

SIX

T
hey were surrounded on all sides by things German. There were shops displaying German goods. There were bakeries with German names, which sold German bread and pastries. There were beer gardens which offered only German beer, and where the clients were entertained by brass bands playing only German music. Even the newspaper vendors – looking very Germanic themselves – had nothing to offer but newspapers written in German.

‘What did you say that the name of this area was?’ Blackstone asked Alex Meade.

‘It’s called Kleindeutschland,’ the sergeant replied. ‘That means “Little Germany”.’

‘And why would they ever have thought of calling it that?’ Blackstone said wryly.

‘Well, because . . .’ Meade began earnestly. Then he stopped himself, and smiled. ‘I suppose that would be an example of the English sense of humour, would it?’

‘Yes – or what passes for one, anyway,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘How many Germans are there in New York?’

‘There are around three hundred thousand people who are German or of German extraction.’

‘And they all live in this area?’

‘They used to – but not any more. They’ve mostly moved north to Yorktown, and now the tenements that they formerly inhabited have been taken over by a new wave of immigrants – the Eastern European Jews. But even though they no longer live here, this is where the Germans still come to do most of their shopping and have a good time.’

‘Three hundred thousand,’ Blackstone mused. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of Germans.’

‘That’s nothing compared to the number of Irish in the city,’ Meade said dismissively. ‘There’s maybe one and half million people living on Manhattan Island, and
eight hundred thousand
of them were either born in Ireland themselves or have parents or grandparents who were.’

‘Big number,’ Blackstone said.

‘Ain’t it, though,’ Meade agreed. He smiled again. ‘Shows just how much they must have liked being ruled over by you English.’

True, Blackstone thought, and wondered if he’d ever see a solution to the Irish problem in his lifetime.

Blackstone sensed Meade’s good humour suddenly evaporate, and looking ahead of him, he thought he understood the cause.

They were approaching a saloon which called itself the Bayern Biergarten, and on the sidewalk outside it there was a rough circle of sawdust.

‘Is that where it happened?’ Blackstone asked.

‘That’s where it happened,’ Meade confirmed mournfully. ‘It was on this very spot that a fine man died last night.’

When they reached the circle of sawdust, they came to a halt, and Meade brushed some of the sawdust away with his shoe, revealing the red stain on the sidewalk.

‘They just covered it up. They couldn’t even be
bothered
to wash it away,’ Meade said angrily. ‘And that’s how they want this investigation to go.’

‘What do you mean?’ Blackstone asked.

‘They think all they have to do is cover it up and wait for it to slowly fade away, so that in the end everybody will simply have forgotten about it,’ Meade said, his rage growing. ‘But
I
won’t forget. I can promise you that!’

‘What
has
the investigation been able to uncover so far?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Haven’t you even
begun
to understand what’s going on here yet?’ Meade demanded, with uncharacteristic rudeness. ‘There’s
been
no investigation. The owner of the biergarten called the police, and the police took Inspector O’Brien’s body to the morgue. And that’s it! That’s all that’s been done.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘I’m sure. There can’t be more than a handful of men on the force who care whether the murder’s solved or not – and there’s probably
at least
a handful who most definitely
don’t
want it solved.’

It bothered Blackstone a great deal that Alex Meade’s mind seemed so closed on the matter.

Because how could you investigate a case properly when you thought you already had the solution? How could you be sure you’d not missed any clues when there were only
certain
clues you were even looking for?

‘You
can’t
be certain that anyone from the police was involved,’ he cautioned the other man.

‘But I
am
,’ Meade said firmly. ‘There’s nobody in this city who would dare to kill a cop without someone tipping them the wink that it would be all right. And who else
could
tip them the wink but another cop?’

They entered the beer hall.

Blackstone looked around him. This wasn’t anything like an English boozer, he thought – not by any stretch of the imagination.

The pubs at which he drank in London were made up of a number of rooms, and each of these rooms contained a number of small tables – little islands around which groups of mates could congregate. It was true that if the piano was playing, it would, for a while, become the centre of everyone’s attention, but mostly you stuck to your own island, and merely nodded to the residents of the others.

The Bayern Biergarten operated on an entirely different philosophy. It was a vast cavern of a place. It had been filled with long wooden tables, and at each table there were at least a couple of dozen men in leather shorts and Tyrolean hats, drinking frothy beer from heavy stone mugs and shouting good-naturedly to their friends across the room.

‘They’re mostly Bavarians – South German Catholics – in here,’ Meade said. ‘The Prussians, who come from the north of Germany, are Protestant, and have their own beer gardens.’

The bar ran the whole length of one wall, and as they approached it, Meade reached into his pocket for his detective’s shield.

The bartender, a broad man in his thirties, followed their progress with interest, but no signs of concern.