The Death Instinct

Throughout 1920, the country lurched along in this strange, headless condition. In January, Prohibition took effect. In March, the Senate rejected the League of Nations and, with it, Wilson's vision of America joining an international community of peaceful states and taking center stage in world affairs. Wilson had never persuaded his practical countrymen why America would want to entangle itself in Europe's intrigues and ancient enmities. What, after all, had the United States gained from the last war, in which more than 100,000 American young men had perished to save English and French skins?

Uncertain of their direction, deprived of drink, Americans in 1920 were waiting — for a storm to break the gathering tension, for a new president to be elected in November, for their economy to recover. Americans believed they had brought peace to the world. Surely they were entitled to worry about their own problems now.

There was, however, no peace in the world. In the summer of 1920, great armies still ravaged the earth. In August, a Soviet army marched triumphantly into Poland and even entered Warsaw, its sights set on Germany and beyond. Lenin had reason to be ambitious. Armed communists had seized power in Munich and declared Bavaria a Soviet Republic. The same occurred in Hungary. Right next door to the United States, revolutionaries in Mexico overthrew the American- supported regime, promising to reclaim that nation's gigantic petroleum deposits from the companies — in particular the United States companies — that owned them.

But most Americans in 1920 neither knew nor cared. Most had had their fill of the world. Most — but not all.

On Saturday morning, September 18, two days after the bombing, one day after Colette's lecture in Saint Thomas Church, Younger and Littlemore met at a subway station a couple of blocks from Bellevue Hospital.

Any way to identify the girl?' asked Younger as they set off for the hospital.

'Two-Heads?' said Littlemore. 'We'll probably know in a day or two. With girls, somebody usually comes in to report them missing. Unless she's a hooker, in which case nobody reports her.'

'I have a feeling this one isn't a hooker,' said Younger.

The two men looked at each other.

'Did you check her teeth?' asked Younger.

'To see if she lost a molar? Yeah — I had the same idea. But nope. No missing teeth.'

'Why Colette?'

'You mean why are these things happening to her? That's the question all right. But like I said — don't assume everything's connected.'

'What are you assuming — freak coincidence?'

'I'm not assuming anything. I never assume. If I had to guess, I'd say somebody thinks the Miss is somebody she isn't. Maybe a whole lot of people think she's somebody she isn't.'

Bellevue was a publicly funded hospital, required to take all patients delivered to its door, and the catastrophe on Wall Street had added fresh strains upon its already overtaxed resources. Every corridor was an obstacle course of patients slumped over on chairs or stretched out on gurneys. On the third floor, Younger and Littlemore found the woman from the church in a ward she shared with more than a dozen other female patients. She was breathing but unconscious, veins pulsing on the engorged mass bulging out of her neck. A nurse told them the girl had not regained consciousness since being admitted. One bed away, a hospital physician was administering an injection to another patient. Littlemore asked him if he thought the redheaded woman was going to live.

'I wouldn't know,' said the physician helpfully.

'Who would?' asked Littlemore.

'I would,' said the physician. 'I attend on this ward. But I've had no time to examine her.'

'Mind if I examine her?' asked Younger.

'You're a doctor?' asked the doctor.

'He's a Harvard doctor,' said Littlemore.

'I'd like to get a look at what's inside that neoplasm on her neck,' said Younger. 'Do you have an X-ray machine?'

'Of course we have one,' said the doctor, 'but only the hospital's radiology staff is permitted to use it.'

'Okay,' said Littlemore. 'Where can we find the radiology staff?'

'I'm the hospital's radiology staff,' said the doctor.

Littlemore folded his arms. 'And when could you do an X-ray?'

'In two weeks,' said the doctor. 'I perform X-rays on the first Monday of every month.'

'Two weeks?' repeated Littlemore. 'She could be dead in two weeks.'

'So could five hundred other patients in this hospital,' snapped the doctor. 'I'll have to ask you to excuse me. I'm very busy.'

After the physician had left, Littlemore said, 'Maybe I shouldn't have told him you were a Harvard doctor. I don't know why people resent what they ought to admire. What the heck is that thing on her neck?'

'I don't know, but we might find out pretty soon.' Younger pointed to a thin, bluish vertical fissure that was developing on the distended mass. The fissure ran from the girl's chin to her sternum. 'Whatever's inside may be trying to get out.'

'Great,' said Littlemore.

'It could be a teratoma.'

'What's that?'

'Encapsulated hair or teeth, usually,' said Younger.

'Teeth — like a molar?' asked Littlemore.

'Maybe. Or a twin.'

'What?'

'A twin that was never born,' said Younger. 'Not alive. There's never been a case of a live one.'

'First we see a woman with no head on Wall Street, and now we got one with two. That's what I call — wait a minute. She was a redhead too.'

'The woman with no head? Was a redhead?' asked Younger.

'Her head was. We walked right past it. And I'm pretty sure she was wearing a dress like this girl's. I'll go to the morgue. Maybe she was missing a molar.'

That same morning, newspapers all over the country reported that Edwin Fischer, the man who knew in advance about the Wall Street bombing, was in custody in Hamilton, Ontario, having been adjudged insane by a panel of Canadian magistrates. Fischer had been taken before the Canadian judges by his own brother-in-law, who had read about the now-famous postcards and motored from New York to Toronto in the company of two agents of the United States Department of Justice.

Younger had a look around Bellevue Hospital after the detective left. It wasn't difficult for a doctor to pose as a personage of authority in a large, overcrowded hospital. At any rate it wasn't difficult for Younger, who had learned in the war how to command obedience from subordinates through the simple artifice of acting as if it went without saying that one's orders would be followed.

He found the roentgen equipment on the second floor. It was as he'd hoped: a modern unit, driven by transformer, not induction, and equipped with Coolidge tubes. The milliamperage was clearly marked. He knew he could operate it.

At police headquarters, Officer Roederheusen knocked on Littlemore's door. 'I've got the mailman, Captain,' said Roederheusen. 'The one who picks up at Cedar and Broadway.'

'What are you waiting for?' asked Littlemore. 'Bring him in.'

'Urn, sir, do you think I could have a nickname?'

'A nickname? What for?'

'Stanky has a nickname. And my name's kind of hard for you, sir.'

'Okay. Not a bad idea. I'll call you Spanky.'

'Spanky?'

'As opposed to Stanky. Now bring me that mailman.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

Roederheusen returned in a moment, mailman in tow. Littlemore offered the man a seat, a doughnut, and coffee. The postman, who accepted all these offerings, coughed and sniffled.