Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [84]
35
Even to someone who had followed the case from its beginning, Coalhouse’s strategy of vengeance must have seemed the final proof of his insanity. By what other standard could the craven and miserable Willie Conklin, a bigot so ordinary as to be like all men, become Pierpont Morgan, the most important individual of his time? With eight people dead by Coalhouse’s hand, horses destroyed and buildings demolished, with a suburban town still reverberating in its terror, his arrogance knew no bounds. Or is injustice, once suffered, a mirror universe, with laws of logic and principles of reason the opposite of civilization’s?
We know from Brother’s journal that the actual plan had been to make Morgan a prisoner in his own home. The band’s thinking had been that Conklin hiding in an Irish neighborhood was as undetectable as Coalhouse was in Harlem, and that therefore he had to be flushed out. What was needed was a hostage. Two nights of discussion had turned up the candidacy of Pierpont Morgan. More than any mayor or governor he represented in Coalhouse’s mind the power of the white world. For years he had been portrayed in cartoons and caricatures, with his cigar and his top hat, as the incarnation of power. The great fiefdom of New York could be made to pay an army of fire chiefs and a fleet of Model T’s for the ransom of its Morgan.
But Coalhouse had entrusted the reconnaissance of the Morgan home to two of the youths who knew little about the city below 100th Street and less about the ways of the wealthy. When they reconnoitered the Morgan establishments, the one a brownstone town house, the other a palace of white marble stone, they chose the white marble for the residence. Younger Brother would have seen the error. But he was the ordnance man; he lay in the back of a covered van loaded with explosives and supplies. He could hear the attack under way. The van was backed up to the Library gates and he was given the signal to unload. When he lifted the canvas flaps and looked out he screamed that it was the wrong building. But at that point there was no turning back. A guard lay dead, police whistles were heard. The sound of gunfire had alerted the entire neighborhood. The conspirators unloaded the van, bolted the great brass doors and took up their assigned positions. Then Coalhouse made a quick inspection of the premises. Nothing is lost, he assured them. We wanted the man and so we have him since we have his property.
As it happened Pierpont Morgan was not even in New York. He was two days to sea on the S.S. Carmania bound for Rome. He was making a slow pilgrimage to Egypt. Coalhouse had not known this either. So the entire action, misdirected and poorly timed, seemed to enjoy some special grace.
Almost immediately aides of the J. P. Morgan Company were informed of the situation. They cabled the Carmania to receive the old man’s instructions. For some reason, possibly a breakdown of telegraphy equipment aboard the ship, they could not learn if their message had been received. With Morgan not available to tell them what to do the police did nothing but cordon off the block, from 36th to 37th Street, from Madison Avenue to Park Avenue. Traffic was diverted and mounted city policemen galloped back and forth to keep the crowds behind the lines. The sounds of the city, its traffic, its horns, its life, seemed walled out by the silence of the scene. The thousands who gathered were as quiet as people can be who are thoroughly engrossed. When night came, flood lamps run by portable generators were trained on the edifice. The rumbling of the generators was felt under the feet of the onlookers, like the growling of an earthquake. Police were everywhere, in their wagons, on foot, on their mounts, but they seemed to be as much spectators as the crowds they held back.