The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

Isaac Bell interrupted. “We should concentrate on the assassin. He is the clear and immediate danger.”

“No,” said Van Dorn. “The agency is honor-bound to do both.”

“I agree with Mr. Rockefeller,” Bell said staunchly. “This killer will murder again. Hanging a murderer is far more important—and more honorable—than parsing the intentions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which the Supreme Court will probably overturn anyway.”

Van Dorn clenched his fists. “If you feel so strongly that the intentions of a shilly-shallying Congress and a vacillating court are more important than my agency’s honor, you are free to resign your position and join Mr. Rockefeller.”

Rockefeller turned on his heel and headed for the door. “I’ll be at my estate in Westchester, New York, Mr. Bell, where you can call on me.”

—

The assassin entered the Washington Monument carrying a carpetbag and joined a group of men and women waiting for the elevator to take them to the top of the memorial shaft. They returned the bright smile and hearty hello expected of fellow out-of-town visitors and made room when the car arrived. Piloted by a self-important operator, who seemed to take pleasure in opening and closing the door at a glacial pace, it climbed five hundred feet in twelve slow minutes, a heart-pounding eternity of grating cables, wheels, and rails made even longer by the endless din of tourist chatter and the sudden exclamations as they spotted among the memorial stones that decorated the interior walls lumps of rock from their own states. It gets easier every day to be a snob, thought the assassin.

The door opened at last to the smell of turpentine and paint.

—

The so-called Lincoln Memorial was nothing more than a mud patch, and Clyde Lapham was having a hard time concentrating on the do-gooder’s speech. His eye kept wandering toward an exposed tree root that reminded him of a snake slithering up an Allegheny riverbank. The old man remembered the snake so vividly from his boyhood that he could smell the water and hear the flies buzzing around his head. He swore he saw its fast tongue exploring the air with expectant flickers.

“‘The Great Emancipator,’” the do-gooder droned in his ear. “‘Savior of the Union’ . . . Fitting to rise opposite the monument to our first president, don’t you think, sir?”

“That snake . . .”

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Lapham?”

“You see that snake . . .” Lapham’s voice trailed off as he lost interest in whether the do-gooder raising money to build the Lincoln Memorial could see the snake. He

could see the snake.

The do-gooder pointed at the Washington Monument. It was taller than a New York City skyscraper. Unlike New York skyscrapers, it stood alone. Far, far away. And far behind it, the dome of the Capitol rose into the sky like . . . like . . . he didn’t care what it was like. But here, in the mud, the snake.

He tried to remember why he was here instead of back in New York. The do-gooder wanted money from the Standard, and the boys at Number 26 had given him the job of riding the train down to Washington to reckon if it was the kind of thing Mr. Rockefeller would want to write a check to. Or so they said. Lapham had his suspicions. They just wanted him out of the office so they could cut him out of another private deal.

“How much money are you begging for?”

“Begging? May I quote Mr. Rockefeller himself on the subject of philanthropy? ‘I am proud,’ he said, ‘of my ability to beg money for the good of mankind.’”

“How much would this thing cost?”

“Well, sir, if Congress won’t act, it’s up to patriotic men of means like yourself and Mr. Rockefeller. As Mr. Rockefeller has undertaken to support many fine causes in his retirement—”

“Retirement?” Clyde Lapham snorted. “Rockefeller retired? You must be kidding . . .” His voice trailed off. He had just remembered they weren’t ever supposed to say that. He corrected himself. “Retirement. You’re right. He’s retiring. Retired. Retired. Goddamned-sure retired.”

The do-gooder, a churchman, recoiled at the sound of an oath.

“How much will this thing cost?” Lapham repeated.

“Well . . .” The do-gooder rubbed his hands. “Wouldn’t that depend, sir—Mr. Lapham—on the size of the monument?”

“Big as that one?” Lapham asked, pointing at the five-hundred-fifty-five-foot, four-sided obelisk erected to the memory of George Washington. He stared at it. His eye fixed on a barely visible square hole near the top. As the tree root reminded him of the snake, that square hole made him think of a wagon riding up the sheer wall of the pillar. He could even see the horses pulling it in the patterns of the marble building blocks.

“What’s that up there?”

“The monument?” asked the minister, who was beginning to realize that old Lapham was confused, to put it mildly. Too confused to contribute to his private Lincoln Memorial fund? Or confused in a way that might embrace the fund with open arms.

“Let us remember that magnificent edifice owes its existence to the private effort of the Washington Monument Society when good men like the good men of the Standard raised the funds that Congress failed to provide.”

“That square thing near the top . . . What the devil is that?”