Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [92]
Certainly no theorist of revolution could have denied the truth that with an enemy as vast as an entire nation of the white race, the restoration of a Model T automobile was as good a place to start as any. Younger Brother was shouting now. You can’t change your demands! You can’t reduce the meaning of your demands! You can’t betray us for a car! I have not changed my demands, Coalhouse said. Is the goddamn Ford your justice? said Younger Brother. Is your execution your justice? Coalhouse looked at him. As for my execution, he said, my death was determined the moment Sarah died. As for my Godforsaken Ford it is to be made over as it was the day I drove past the firehouse. It is not I who reduce my demands but they who magnified them as long as they resisted them. I will trade your precious lives for Willie Conklin’s and thank God for him.
A few minutes later Father walked back across the street. To get justice Coalhouse Walker was ready to have it done to him. But the people following him were not. They were another generation. They were not human. Father shuddered. They were monstrous! Their cause had recomposed their minds. They would kick at the world’s supports. Start an army! They were nothing more than filthy revolutionaries.
Coalhouse’s famous stubbornness had now become a fortress against the arguments of his men. It was he who stood between Mr. Morgan and disaster. Father confided none of this to the District Attorney. He felt Whitman would have trouble enough with the official terms. This turned out to be the case. Whitman threw back several shots of whiskey. Stubble covered his face. His protuberant eyes were red and his collar was wilted. He paced. He stood at the window. He made a fist of his right hand and several times smacked the palm of his left. He looked again at the wire from Morgan. Father cleared his throat. It does not say you have to hang the confederates, Father said. What? said Whitman. What? All right, all right. He looked for a chair to sit down in. How many of them are there, did you say? Five, Father said, unconsciously excluding Younger Brother. Whitman sighed. Father said I think this is the best you can do. Sure, said the District Attorney. And what do I tell the newspapers. Why, Father said, you can tell them, one, Coalhouse Walker is captured, and two, Mr. Morgan’s treasures are saved, and three, the city is safe, and four, the entire facilities of your office and the police will be used to track down the underlings until every last one of them is behind bars where he belongs. Whitman thought about that. We’ll tail them, he muttered. Right back to the woodpile. Well, Father said, that may not be possible. They’re taking a hostage and they won’t let him go until they know they’re safe. Who is the hostage, Whitman said. I am, Father said. I see, Whitman said. And what makes the coon think he can hold the building alone? Well, Father said, he will be out of the sightlines of skylight or windows with his hands on the dynamite box. That would do it, I should think.
Perhaps Father at this moment nourished the hope that after his release he could lead the authorities back to the criminals’ lair. He thought without Coalhouse they would lack the spirit and intelligence to continue successfully to defy the law. They were anarchist murderers and arsonists but he was not personally afraid. He knew their stamp and was a better man than any of them. From Younger Brother he was so totally alienated that he felt at this moment only joy in the thought of being responsible for his capture.
Whitman was staring into space. All right, he said. All right. Maybe if we wait till dark nobody will see what we’re doing. For Mr. Morgan’s sake, and his goddamn Gutenberg Bible and his five-page goddamn letter from George Washington.
And so the negotiations were completed.
39
Several calls to the Ford motorcar people had brought forth by eight in the morning a truck carrying all the interchangeable parts for a Model T. The Pantasote Company delivered a top. Aides of Morgan had agreed that he would be billed for everything. As the crowd watched from the corner, Fire Chief Conklin, under the direction of two mechanics, piece by piece dismantled the Ford and made a new Ford from the chassis up. A block and tackle was used to hoist the engine. Sweating, grunting, complaining and at times crying, Conklin did the work. New tires replaced old, new fenders, new radiator, magneto, new doors, running boards, windshield, headlamps and upholstered seats. By five in the afternoon, with the sun still blazing in the sky over New York, a shining black Model T Ford with a custom pantasote roof stood at the curb.