The Assassin

John D. Rockefeller fixed him with his cold gaze. “The next time someone tells you that Standard Oil is an octopus, Mr. Van Dorn, you may tell them for me that the ‘octopus’ keeps his books straight, his inventory in order, his bank accounts positive, and pays his debts when due. He is not hoodwinked by alluring prospects. He keeps his powder dry. The octopus is organized and disciplined and the rest of them . . . they are not.”

“If the octopus is ready to get down to brass tacks,” said Van Dorn, “let’s take up the business of this meeting.”

“I intend to hire the Van Dorn Detective Agency to catch the assassin and end the slander.”

“You’re too late,” said Isaac Bell. “The man committed suicide in Humble, Texas.”

“I have rarely heard anything so ridiculous,” said Rockefeller. “You have your facts wrong.”

—

“Not unless you know something that we don’t about Standard Oil policeman Big Pete Straub,” said Bell.

“I do,” Rockefeller said blandly.

“We are all ears,” said Van Dorn.

“Mr. Straub suffered a medical condition the doctors call foot drop. His nerves were damaged by an injury he sustained in the course of a labor dispute. The damage, which was irreparable, caused paralysis of the flexor muscles.”

“Right foot or left?” asked Bell.

“Mr. Straub could not move the toes of his right foot. Had he desired to trigger a rifle with his toe, he would have bared his other foot.”

Van Dorn scowled as if embarrassed his detective was found lacking.

Isaac Bell almost smiled. He felt oddly relieved. That light Savage rifle in that big man’s hands did not feel right. And their attempt to penetrate Standard Oil had just paid off in a totally unexpected bonus.

“Did your refinery police detectives tell you this?” asked Van Dorn.

“Straub’s superiors reported the condition when they read the accounts in the newspapers. Do you see how perfectly silly that verdict of suicide is?”

“Thank you, Mr. Rockefeller, I do,” said Isaac Bell. “He was murdered. The killing was made to look like suicide. Mr. Straub was not the assassin.”

Bell spoke coolly, but his head was spi

Rockefeller said, “Van Dorn, I want you to stop wasting your time with the investigation in Washington and put your firm’s full effort into catching the assassin.”

Isaac Bell and Joseph Van Dorn knew that Bell’s ploy to infiltrate Standard Oil had hooked their man. Now the job was to reel in the cagey president.

Van Dorn said, “You have your own private detective force. Why don’t you put them to work?”

“They’re not the men for this job. I want the best and I’ll pay for it.”

Bell and Van Dorn exchanged what appeared to be puzzled glances. “But we are already investigating you for the Corporations Commission,” Van Dorn protested. “As I’m sure you know.”

Rockefeller said, “You will recall my instructions that I enter your offices, unaccompanied, by a private entrance.”

Joseph Van Dorn’s grand roman nose wrinkled as if he smelled something unpleasant.

“Mr. Rockefeller, what does your method of arrival have to do with anything?”

“We do not have to inform the Corporations Commission that you’re working for me.”

Joseph Dorn’s mouth tightened. His nostrils flared. His cheeks turned red as his whiskers as he ceased to draw breath. His voice took on a low, steely note that left no doubt that were Rockefeller a younger man, he would drag him down the Willard Hotel’s grand staircase by the scruff of his neck and throw him out the door onto Pe

“I have given my word to my client, the commission. My word is my bond. A sacred oath.”

“This is more urgent,” said Rockefeller.

Van Dorn started to retort.

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.”