Sally Spencer - Blackstone and the New World

‘Is that right, Sam?’ Alex Meade said, though his thoughts were clearly focused much more on Senator Plunkitt than they were on Blackstone’s military experiences.

‘And believe me, it’s not an easy temptation to resist,’ Blackstone continued, speaking as if he had gained Meade’s full and enthusiastic attention. ‘You see the man charging towards you, and you know his greatest wish in life is to get close enough to you to kill you. Your own blood is racing and you desperately want to pull the trigger. But there are two very good reasons why you shouldn’t do it.’

It seemed to have finally occurred to Meade that this was more than merely idle chatter.

‘You’re making a point here, aren’t you, Sam?’ he asked.

‘I’m trying to,’ Blackstone admitted.

Meade sighed. ‘All right, what are the two reasons you shouldn’t pull the trigger?’

‘The first is that the closer he gets to you, the more you can see of him, and the bigger a target he becomes.’

‘Sure. Makes sense.’

‘But the second one is even more important. You see, he knows you’re pointing your rifle at him. He expects you to fire it. And because of that, he knows he has no choice but to keep on running. And maybe that will work out for him. Maybe he’ll be able to dodge the bullet and be on top of you before you have time to fire again.’

‘Well, I guess that’s war for you,’ said Meade, who had never had any military training.

‘But if you don’t fire, it unnerves him even more than a bullet flying past his ear would,’ Blackstone continued. ‘Because he’s not sure what the rules are any more. And that will affect the way he acts. Sometimes the uncertainty will slow him down. Sometimes it will make him start to waver from side to side. But whatever he decides to do, he’ll start making mistakes — because you’ve robbed him of his clear sense of purpose.’

Meade grinned. ‘I get it,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Sure! You’re saying I shouldn’t go into this meeting with Plunkitt with all guns blazing.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Blackstone confirmed.

‘Relax, Sam,’ Meade said. ‘I’ll run rings around the man.’

I very much doubt that, Blackstone thought.

George Plunkitt had a barrel chest and legs as thick as small tree trunks. His broad face was dominated by a large nose and a thick black moustache which looked as if it could have served as a heavy-duty scrubbing brush.

But, as they drew closer to the man, it was his eyes that fascinated Blackstone the most. They had the sharpness of a fox’s, and the cunning of a peasant’s — but what they totally lacked was any sign of the worry that Meade expected them to be showing. If they revealed anything at all, Blackstone decided, it was a sort of amusement which, while it was not exactly contemptuous, was certainly a long way from respectful.

Meade reached into his pocket for his shield.

‘Senator Plunkitt?’ he asked crisply. ‘I’m Detective-’

‘You’re little Alex Meade,’ Plunkitt interrupted. ‘Well, well, well. Seems a long time since I last dandled you on my knee at a Tammany Hall picnic, don’t it? So how’s your daddy gettin’ on, Alex?’

Meade swallowed, as if not sure what to say next. But a question had been asked of him, and — almost against his will — he found his good breeding forcing out an answer.

‘My father’s doing fine, Senator,’ he said.

‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that,’ Plunkitt said. ‘Be sure to give him my best wishes the next time you see him.’

‘I will,’ Meade said awkwardly. He paused for a second, to regroup his forces, then continued. ‘Considering the nature of this meeting, Senator, you might prefer to hold it in your office.’

‘Now, I’m just a simple man from the peat bogs, but I always thought that an office was the place where you did your business,’ Plunkitt said. ‘Did I get that wrong, Alex?’

‘No, you didn’t get it wrong, Senator,’ Meade said, miserably.

‘Well, then, we’re in the right place, ain’t we?’ Plunkitt said, waving his hand expansively up and down the street. ‘ This is my office, boy,’ he said. ‘Always was, an’ always will be.’ He looked down at the shoeshine boy. ‘Ain’t that the plain simple truth, Antonio?’

‘It is, Senator,’ the boy agreed, as he continued to polish.

‘A fine young man, and the best shoeshine in New York City,’ Plunkitt told Blackstone and Meade. ‘Why, I’d walk miles out of my way just to have this lad shine my shoes.’

The boy gazed at Plunkitt with a look which came close to adoration on his face, but the Senator’s attention had already been transferred to a Jewish tailor who was walking past with a bolt of cloth under his arm.

‘See you at the bar mitzvah, Jake,’ Plunkitt called out.

‘It’ll be an honour to have you there, Senator,’ the other man called back.

Plunkitt turned back to Meade. ‘So, you’re the one who asked for this meeting, let’s hear what you got to say.’

‘Inspector O’Brien, the policeman who’s just been killed, was conducting an important investigation just before he died,’ Meade began.

‘I would hope all our city officials are always engaged in important work, ’cos we sure as hell wouldn’t want to pay them their fine salaries for doin’ unimportant work,’ Plunkitt replied.

‘And we know he came to see you, which would suggest that he considered you to be connected — if only in a minor way — with that investigation,’ Meade pressed on.

‘I was sorry to hear of the inspector’s death,’ Plunkitt said. ‘I sent the widow some flowers and a note which said if there was anything I could do for her in her time of woe, she only needed to ask.’

‘You haven’t answered my question, sir,’ Meade said.

‘I wasn’t aware you’d asked one,’ Plunkitt countered.

‘Did Inspector O’Brien think you might be connected with the investigation he was conducting?’

‘To tell you the truth, I don’t rightly know,’ Plunkitt replied. ‘When I spoke to him on the telephone, I certainly thought that might be the case. But then I spent half an hour with the man, and if he had a point he wanted to make — or a question he wanted to ask — he never got around to it.’

‘So what did the two of you talk about?’ Meade asked sceptically. ‘The weather?’

‘As a matter of fact, we did,’ Plunkitt said. ‘Inspector O’Brien was of the opinion that it was even hotter this summer than it was last. We also talked about whether this American League they’re thinkin’ of founding will ever turn baseball into a national sport.’ He paused for a second. ‘An’ the Oklahoma Territory,’ he added. ‘We discussed that, too. He thought it was about ready for statehood, and I didn’t.’ Plunkitt smiled. ‘So you see, while it was an amiable conversation on the whole, we did have our disagreements.’

‘And he gave no indication that he suspected you might be involved in anything illegal?’ Meade persisted.

‘No indication at all. But if you were to ask me what I thought he believed , deep down inside himself, I’d guess he believed what men like him always believe when they see men like me, with our big houses an’ our yachts.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘That I was probably one of the rottenest apples in the barrel.’

‘And are you one of the rottenest apples in the barrel?’ Blackstone asked.

Plunkitt looked at him, with an amused smile playing on his lips.

‘Who’s your friend, Alex?’ he asked.

‘Inspector Sam Blackstone,’ Meade said.