The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt Read online

  General Miles’s face went rigid, and his eyes stared unfocused at a distant point. He sat stock-still, not even fidgeting. I let the silence build. At last, he said, “He is the commander in chief.”

  His wife had said the same, word for word. A verifiable fact.

  * * *

  “General Miles is too stupid to invent a plot like that,” Theodore said. The back room on Jackson Place had taken on his personality, with a maelstrom of papers on his desk, piles of books and magazines, and a zebra-skin rug. He loved the temporary White House because he could avoid his usual morning routine of chitchatting with lawmakers and aggrieved citizens. “It takes imagination, creativity—a mind.”

  “So why is this unimaginative, uncreative man still commanding the army?” I said.

  “He doesn’t. I do. I don’t want a man with imagination. That’s my job. I am the commander in chief.”

  On that last point, everyone agreed. I recalled that, as the assistant navy secretary after the Maine exploded, in ’ninety-eight, Theodore had taken advantage of his boss’s absence one Friday (to see a podiatrist about his corns) and ordered the Pacific fleet to rearrange some ships and to stock up on ammunition and coal—all useful, it turned out, when Dewey defeated the Spanish Navy in Manila Bay that spring. A commander in chief in the making.

  “Why would you think he had anything to do with this? Any evidence?”

  I had to be careful what I told Theodore, straitlaced as he was. A mention of Lovey was out of the question, regarding a woman who was not my wife. “He has a motive,” I said, “and a pretty good one, I would say. The memory of physical pain isn’t painful, but the memory of humiliation is painful, and keeps being painful, every time you remember it.”

  “You think he did have something to do with it?” he said.

  “Wouldn’t say that, either,” I replied. “He might have a motive, but I haven’t seen any evidence he did anything about it. Besides, it doesn’t strike me as the way a commanding general—an unimaginative general—would act. Too roundabout; too hit-or-miss. And, in fact, it missed.”

  “I am inclined to think that Miles would be nasty indeed if the opportunity arose. Is he a killer? I should hope so. Any soldier needs to be—even a general. Is he a fool? Without doubt. But is he an assassin?”

  Before leaving, I asked Theodore whether he had read my proposed letter to our envoys in the European capitals, challenging the treatment of Roumanian Jews. He had.

  Could I go ahead?

  “If it amuses you,” Theodore decreed. “It always benefits a nation to act like a gentleman.”

  * * *

  “Any love notes to-day?” I said.

  “Mercifully few,” Adee said. “Do you want to be loved or do you want to be feared?”

  “Either would do. We may soon be adding to our death threats.” I told him of the president’s consent to the Roumanian letter and suggested we send it by Atlantic cable to our embassies in the seven affected capitals. “To-night, in case he has second thoughts.”

  “Comes to his senses, you mean.”

  I chuckled. “As you like.”

  Adee went looking for Margaret to arrange for the cables, while I read through the final version, on my desk.

  The political disabilities of the Jews in Roumania, their exclusion from the public service and the learned professions, the limitations of their civil rights and the imposition upon them of exceptional taxes, involving, as they do, wrongs repugnant to the moral sense of liberal modern peoples …

  I thought it struck just the right tone. That, and the cadence reminded me—not to be overly grand—of the Declaration of Independence, the boring part, beyond the rhetorical flourishes, the lawyerlike list of grievances against a distant king.

  I was admiring America’s rare lapse from hypocrisy when Margaret came rushing in. “For you,” she told me. “Chief Nicholson. On the ’phone.”

  “Tell Elsie to put it through.”

  I lifted the receiver from the side of the telephone box. Amid the familiar squawk of the connection came scraps of sounds that merged into words.

  “Delayed until January.”

  “What was?”

  “Their trial, on the manslaughter charges.”

  “I thought they were pleading guilty.”

  “They haven’t yet. They still might. But now their lawyer is … gone. As you are all too aware.”

  “Surely they have another.”

  “Yes and no. Long story, for another day.”

  “Has Madden said anything more? If he doesn’t have a lawyer, he doesn’t have a watchdog.”

  “I will try him again.”

  I suspected that Chief Nicholson was dragging his feet. Plausibly for the unexceptional reason that he had matters more urgent to pursue.

  “One more thing,” Chief Nicholson said. “Mr. Pratt, the carriage driver, he is ill. Very ill.” In a whisper: “The cancer, they say.”

  “Oh my. He didn’t look that bad. Does he know?”

  “Probably not. But I couldn’t say for sure.”

  “How long does he have?”

  I imagined a shrug but heard only static.

  * * *

  “Oh, Henry, where in the hell am I?”

  “At the corner of Connecticut and L, dear heart, where your handsome apartment house will mark the capital for a hundred years or more.”

  “That’s where we are,” I said. “But where am I?”

  “Ah, a harder question. If I knew, I wouldn’t dare tell you, because you wouldn’t believe me. Anything in particular troubling you to-day, old boy?”

  I kicked a stone out of the way, into L street. Just ahead was the Gothic edifice of the Visitation convent and school.

  “Not really,” I said, “except that everything is a muddle.”

  “Everything in the world? In your life? In your…?”

  “In my so-called investigation. I keep running into dead ends. Take Pierpont Morgan, for instance.”

  “Thank you, but no,” Henry said.

  “And General Miles. And Cortelyou. And Governor Crane. And”—I bowed toward Henry—“Theodore himself. All of them highly unlikely.” I left the Camerons unmentioned. “That leaves Mark Hanna, I suppose. I’m told he’s coming back from Cleveland to-night. Certainly he has the most to gain from Theodore’s untimely departure—besides yours truly, of course—and he is far more than willing than I am to do whatever he must to get what he wants. Though using a trolley in Pittsfield as his weapon of choice seems a little … roundabout, I must say, for a man of his blunt tastes.”

  “And don’t forget that poor Mr. Turtle was planning to see him.”

  “True,” I said. “But remember, he was planning to see me as well. And I didn’t try to kill him. I am reasonably confident of that.”

  Along Connecticut, we passed the fancy dress shops and the Turkish baths and the furniture store. In the next block, the crowds on the wide sidewalk thinned. Here, the handsome four-story brownstones with the bay walls and pointed roofs were still homes; one of them was the domicile of Alexander Graham Bell.

  “You find anything else of note in those mounds of documents?”

  “Nothing to speak of,” Henry said. “Only hundreds—nay, thousands—of reasons I feel fortunate to not be a lawyer. And how was our good friend General Miles?”

  “Dull,” I replied. “Too stupid, to quote Theodore, to plot anything like this.”

  “Too subtle for a military mind. To a soldier, every problem calls for a rifle or a cannon, not a trolley.”

  “He does have every good reason, though. Or reasons.”

  “He can stand in line for that. Anyone else on your list of prime suspects?”

  “The Republican machine of Berkshire County. Rather extreme for Massachusetts, I’d think, but Governor Crane has enemies, too.”

  “Who would go so far as to try and kill him?”

  “No reason to think so,” I said. “Besides, there are easier ways. Same for Mr. Cr
aig, who was killed. Who would want to murder him? Envy him to death, maybe, but murder him? These are all dead ends, Henry. Frankly, I don’t know a damn thing more than I did when I started. Except that I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Really!” Henry exclaimed. “You sure of that?”

  “I wasn’t at first. But twice I’ve been attacked and ordered to drop what I’m doing. So what I’m doing is bothering somebody, or somebodies, quite a lot. I have to think I’m on the right track, if they’re going to such trouble to stop me.”

  “Unless that’s what they want you to think.”

  “That’s one twist of logic too many, even for you, Henry.” To my surprise, he put up no argument. “And then there’s our unfortunate Mr. Turtle. I know he was murdered. Was it related to whatever happened in Pittsfield? I can’t prove it, but I’ve got to figure it was. That’s why he came here, to talk to … well, me included. And none of us has a clue about what he wanted to say. Except that it wasn’t an accident. But why else would you murder the lawyer involved, unless he knew things you didn’t want told?”

  Henry stumbled on a bump I could not see. “Maybe something went wrong,” he said.

  “I would say so.”

  * * *

  I needed to hit something, preferably something hard, and something that wouldn’t hit back. Sometimes, nothing else worked.

  I headed for the boxing gymnasium in Swampoodle. This was the Irish neighborhood just north of the Capitol, a lawless and malarial place beyond the swamps. Single Malt quickened her pace as she realized where we were going. She relished the crowded neighborhood—goats and chickens in the yards, garbage in the gutters, a kaleidoscope of delightful stinks.

  When I could persuade her to move, Single Malt kicked up dust from the roadway. Just ahead, four or five urchins were kicking a battered ball around the street, and a boy in a plaid slouch cap aimed it at my head. He missed, because I ducked, but Single Malt shimmied and started to rear, to her tormentors’ cawing. I calmed her with soothing words and, with a glance of disdain, she trotted past them.

  The gymnasium was in a rickety building just off north Capitol street, next to a blacksmith and across from a livery. I left Single Malt at the stable—she seemed not to mind—and grabbed my knapsack with battered gloves and a change of clothes. The entrance was on H street northwest. The narrow concrete steps were pockmarked and the pipe railing was gone. I pulled on the metal front door. From inside, I heard the refreshing thwack thwack thwack of fists pounding inanimate—and, from the sound of it, animate—objects.

  “Hello, sir,” the young fellow said. He had tattoos on his neck and a smile on his clean-shaven face. “Welcome back.”

  No matter how long I had been away, I was remembered here. And why not? I had sparred with a few of the young Irish toughs and lost more rounds than I won. But I had never been knocked down (indeed, I had decked one of them on a fluke) and had always held my own. I also knew when to tap gloves and step out of the ring. They would ask me how old I was and I would tell them and they would laugh. I didn’t care a fig for the kaiser’s or the tsar’s—or the president’s—opinion of me, compared to the respect I had earned here.

  My young friend pointed me to a lumpy boxing bag in the far corner. Single Malt could have the street’s smells; I loved the ones here. Of sweat and hard effort and doing what you never thought possible. I could forget myself in the gymnasium and come out cleansed.

  My hand wraps, however, reeked. I twisted them like phylacteries around each wrist and hand, between my fingers, and around the base of each thumb. A ritual, meant to ward off the pain. The ten-ounce gloves, originally shiny and black, were still black. I pulled on the left one with ease but needed the young fellow’s help to push the right one on and to tie them tight.

  Then I went to work.

  I circled the boxing bag like a jaguar stalking a mountain goat—eyes intent, forearms relaxed, until I pounced with a jab. I snapped it and stepped back. Another jab, then a right cross. How I loved my right cross! It ascended from my leg through my hip, hurtled down the reach of my arm and into my fist, and slammed into … the boxing bag, with a thud. Again. And again and again and again. A drumbeat. Pound that thing. I put a face on the bag, of the stolid, stupid, square-jawed General Miles. I unleashed a hook into his temple, and a hard right cross, and then another, into his teeth. The face became Pierpont Morgan’s and his gimlet-eyed disdain—wham! An uppercut and then a right cross, two of them, and two more, into that histrionic nose. How satisfying! My arm felt deliciously tired. I stepped back and sucked in the fetid air. As pure as the Alps, to me.

  Cortelyou’s slicked-back face was coalescing on the bag when somebody called, “Hey, mister, want some?”

  I stepped back toward the bag and took my orthodox stance and raised my fists to my temples.

  “You! Want some?”

  He was talking to me. He looked familiar—big-boned, heavy-jowled, dark-haired, glaring. I must have seen him here before. “Want what?” I said.

  “This,” he replied, raising his right glove.

  “Anytime.” I withheld the epithet.

  “How about now, old man?”

  “Who are you?” I said.

  “Does it matter?”

  Almost everyone I have met in a boxing gymnasium has been a … well, not a gentleman, so much—if it takes three generations to make a gentleman, some of these fellows are mired in the first—but a decent human being. They accept the discipline of physical training and the humility of recognizing that, unless they were James J. Jeffries, the heavyweight champ, someone in the world could beat them up. Not so this bristling young man.

  The boxing ring was empty, and we leapt up onto the apron and climbed through the ropes.

  What in the hell am I getting into? And why is he bothering me?

  The boxing ring was worn, its floor uneven. Some of it felt springy; certain spots seemed ready to give way. Boxers drifted over from around the gymnasium and gathered to watch. I hardly noticed. I did notice that just the two of us were in the ring. No referee. Oh my.

  I was nervous as hell. I willed myself to ignore it, and once we touched gloves, I pretty much could. I had never learned to think in the ring (about more than one thing at a time, anyway), but I knew how to concentrate, and I did. Facing a flurry of fists was a mighty motivation. Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of my chums was another.

  I raised my gloves and peered into my opponent’s eyes. He was a boy, for God’s sake, not more than nineteen or twenty, his whiskers as sparse as the wings on a hog. He was sneering at me—did he hate his father, or what? How I longed to punch him in the face.

  I got my chance and I took it. Maybe he forgot to defend himself, or maybe he was so busy casting his curse that he neglected the temporal threat of my fists. I delivered a stiff jab followed by a quick, fierce right to the jaw. His look of surprise surprised me. And surprised me again, when I saw the gape of open defiance behind the childish, slack-jawed grin. Then I knew who he resembled.

  Del.

  It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried with Del. To the contrary, I had probably tried too hard. That might not have been true for Clarence, our younger son, an easygoing boy who got lost in this large family’s shuffle—a blessing for him, no doubt. But the elder son and all, I wanted him to be like me, and he simply wasn’t. Physically he took after Clara, with a full face and torso. A big boy—as a fourteen-year-old he was taller than I was—but … too big. Once, he had come home in tears from the football field and I forced him to return, to confront his aversion to blocking. There was the time I upbraided him—in private, let me plead in my defense—for his vulgar comment to the Brazilian ambassador’s daughter. I kept telling him to work harder, that his fate was in his own hands. I admit to it—was that so wrong? The boy’s wit wasn’t quick; he was, shall we say, thoughtful. Other boys would jump; Del would watch first. I was hard on him, I know, but only because he had such potential, such promise. And he d
id! He turned out beautifully … Well, didn’t he?

  I was doubling over even before the younger, stronger pugilist punched me in the gut, and I was out of breath before he struck my chin. I knew I could never hit him again. I had already hurt him enough. Lying on the canvas, such as it was, was a relief. I could not decide whether it was my lunch or my tears bubbling up, before everything went mercifully black.

  * * *

  “You are tougher than you look, old man.” Theodore, far too cheerful, was hovering over my bed. At least it was my bed.

  “Is that a compliment, Theodore?”

  His teeth clacked. I took that as a yes.

  It was nice that he stopped by, but he was an exhausting visitor. He asked about the bout, punch by punch. I had no choice but to tell him I had stopped fighting—and why. He was wrapped up with his own children, and best I could detect from the look of horror on his face (though who could tell anything for sure about this emotional yet impenetrable man?), he did understand. He even empathized.

  After a while I feigned sleep, and he clasped the back of my hand and made his departure.

  The next time I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. A small bulb was lit by my side of the bed. Clara was rocking in the wine-colored chair.

  “Morning, dearest,” she said.

  “Morning?” I started to scramble out of bed.

  “No, no,” she said with a laugh. “Just morning for you. It’s a little past ten. At night.”

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  In the kitchen, I watched Clara standing at the cast-iron stove. The sizzling of the eggs and the toasty smell flooded my heart with grief. For Del, of course. He was a part of our lives—our plans, our pride, our affection. Throughout, my one source of comfort has been Clara—her sanity, her courage. She has character enough for both of us.

  The moment passed, but my eyelids felt sticky.

  Otherwise, I was none the worse for wear, or so I preferred to believe. Just a little hazy. Not sure how I got home, but Single Malt was back in her stall. I had never been knocked cold before, and I didn’t like it. But I felt lucky, tell you the truth. I had nothing left to prove, not even to Theodore—or to myself.