Coalhouse sat lost in thought. Mr. Washington, he finally said, there is nothing I would like more that to conclude this business. He raised his eyes and the educator saw there the tears of his emotion. Let the Fire Chief restore my automobile and bring it to the front of this building. You will see me come out with my hands raised and no further harm will come to this place or any man from Coalhouse Walker.
This statement constituted Coalhouse’s first modification of his demands since the night of the Emerald Isle, but Washington did not understand this. He heard only the rejection of his plea. Without another word he rose and walked out. He went back across the street believing his intervention had accomplished nothing. Afterwards Coalhouse paced the rooms. His young men stayed at their posts and followed him with their eyes. One lay on the roof atop the domed skylight of the portico. He lay in the rain on guard and felt, though he could not see, the presence of thousands of quietly watchful New Yorkers. During the night he thought they made a sound, some barely detectable mourning sound, not more than an exhalation, not louder than the mist of fine rain.
38
fter Booker T. Washington conferred with the District Attorney he spoke with reporters in the parlor of the temporary headquarters. Mr. Morgan’s library is a dynamite bomb ready to go off at any moment, he said. We are faced with a desperately brainsick man. I can only pray the Lord in His Wisdom will bring us safely out of this sad affair. Washington then made a number of phone calls to friends and colleagues in Harlem — church pastors and community leaders — and invited them to come downtown and demonstrate the opposition of responsible Negroes to the cause of Coalhouse Walker. This took the form of a vigil in the street. District Attorney Whitman granted his permission even though the report brought back from the Library was grim enough to cause him to order an evacuation of every house and apartment within two-block radius. Such was the state of things when Father arrived. He was escorted through the police lines and marched past the bareheaded silent black men standing in prayer. He looked for a moment at the Library and then went up the stairs of the brownstone. Inside he was left to himself. Nobody spoke with him or wanted anything from him. He turned around, facing this way and that, waiting for some word or notice from the authorities. None was forthcoming.
The house was filled with police in uniform and men of indeterminate responsibility. Everyone milled about. Father wandered back to the kitchen. Here were the reporters. They had eaten the food in the icebox. They sat with their feet on the table and stood leaning against the cupboards. They wore their hats. They used the sink for a spittoon. Father listened to the conversation and heard the details of Booker T. Washington’s interview with Coalhouse. He marveled at the fame of the man who had played piano in his parlor. But it sounded to him as if Coalhouse had modified his demands. Was this so? Nobody seemed to perceive it. Yet if the life of Willie Conklin the Fire Chief was either conceded or at least negotiable, he ought to inform someone. He looked for an official and came upon the District Attorney himself, whom he recognized from his pictures in the paper. Whitman was at the bay window in the parlor, a pair of binoculars in his hands. I beg your pardon, Father said, and introducing himself he told Whitman what he thought. The District Attorney regarded him with startled eyes. Father noted small broken veins in his face. Whitman turned back to the window and raised his binoculars and stared out like a sea admiral. Not knowing what else to do Father remained with him.
Whitman was waiting for the replay from Morgan. He kept looking at his watch. Then someone ran by in the street. There was a commotion in the hallway. A boy came into the parlor followed by the curators and several policemen. He had a wireless from the Carmania. The District Attorney tore at the envelope. He read the wire and shook his head in disbelief. Goddamnit, he muttered. Goddamnit to hell. Suddenly he was shouting at everyone in the room. Out! Get out! He herded everyone through the doors. But he held Father’s arm and kept him there. The doors closed. Whitman thrust the cable into Father’s hands. GIVE HIM HIS AUTOMOBILE AND HANG HIM, the text read.
Father looked up and found the District Attorney glaring at him. This is the one way I would never consider, Whitman said. I can’t give in to the coon. Even to hang him. I can’t afford it. It would finish me. Goddamnit, I took care of that son of a bitch Becker. The crime of the century. That’s what the papers called it. And now the D.A. giving in to a nigger? No, sir! It can’t be done!
Whitman paced the room. Father experienced an infusion of boldness. He was holding in his hands a private message from J. Pierpont Morgan. It enabled him to accept immediately and without question his investiture as confidant of the District Attorney of New York.
Father saw clearly that the situation was ready to be negotiated. Even across the world Morgan had understood this. Coalhouse seemed to have softened on one of his demands, that Conklin be turned over to him. It was Father’s opinion, furthermore, that since Sarah’s death Coalhouse Walker’s most fervent wish was to die. He informed the District Attorney of this. The whole matter might be resolved quickly, he said. The car has no real value. Besides, it’s Mr. Morgan’s idea. I’ll say, said Whitman. Only Pierpont Morgan could think of it. Who else would have the nerve. No, Father said, I mean it’s his idea. Of course I don’t anything about politics, but doesn’t that absolve you of the responsibility? Whitman stopped in his tracks and gazed at Father. Right this minute, he said, I am supposed to be in Newport with the Stuyvesant Fishes, he said.
And so it happened just after midnight that a team of dray horses was backed up to Coalhouse Walker’s ruined Model T sitting by Firehouse Pond in New Rochelle. The rain had gone and the starts were out. The horses were hitched to the bumper and they pulled the car up to the road. Then they began the long journey to the city, clip-clopping along, the driver standing up in the front seat holding the reins in one hand, grasping the steering wheel with the other. The tires were all flat, the car rocked as it went, and every revolution of the wheels grated on the ears.
Even as the Ford was advancing toward Manhattan, Whitman managed to get Coalhouse on the phone. He told him he wanted to talk about his demands. He proposed Father as the intermediary to carry the discussion back and forth. This was more private than the telephone. You can trust him and I can trust him, Whitman said of Father. After all, he’s your former employer. No, Father said in Whitman’s other ear. I was never his employer. Father now had grave misgivings. In too few minutes he found himself outside in the chill early morning, walking across the floodlit street around the crater and up the steps past the state lions. He reminded himself that he was a retired officer of the United Stated Army. He had explored the North Pole. The brass doors opened, not widely, and he stepped in. He heard his own footsteps ring on the polished marble floor. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. He looked for the black man and saw instead his brother-in-law undressed to the waist but with his face blackened and a holstered pistol under his arm. You! Father cried. Younger Brother pulled out the pistol and tapped the barrel against his temple in a kind of salute. Father’s knees buckled. He was helped to a chair. Coalhouse brought him a canteen with water.