§ 52
The old plutocrat was feeble and sick, but his mind was all there,
and his eyes seemed to be boring Peter through. Peter realized that he
would have to be very careful — the least little slip would be fatal
here.
"Now, Gudge," the old man began, "I want you to tell
me all about it. To begin with, how did you come to be
among these Reds? Begin at the beginning."
So Peter told how he had happened to get interested
in the radical movement, laying particular stress upon the
dangerousness of these Reds, and his own loyalty to the
class which stood for order and progress and culture in the
country. "It ought to be stopped, Mr. Ackerman!" he
exclaimed, with a fine show of feeling; and the old banker
nodded. Yes, yes, it ought to be stopped!
"Well," said Peter, "I said to myself, `I'm going to find out
about them fellows.' I went to their meetings, and little by little I
pretended to get converted, and I tell you, Mr. Ackerman, our police are
asleep; they don't know what these agitators are doing, what they're
preaching. They don't know what a hold they've got on the mobs of the
discontented!"
Peter went on to tell in detail about the propaganda of social
revolution, and about conspiracies against law and order, and the
property and even the lives of the rich. Peter noticed that when the
old man took a sip of water his hand trembled so that he could hardly
keep the water from spilling; and presently, when the phone rang again,
his voice became shrill and imperious. "I understand
they're applying for bail for those men. Now Angus, that's
an outrage! We'll not hear to anything like that! I want
you to see the judge at once, and make absolutely certain
that those men are held in jail."
Then again the old banker had a coughing fit. "Now,
Gudge," he said, "I know more or less about all that. What
I want to know is about this conspiracy against me. Tell
me how you came to find out about it."
And Peter told; but of course he embellished it, in so far as it
related to Mr. Ackerman — these fellows were talking about Mr. Ackerman
all the time, they had a special grudge against him.
"But why?" cried the old man. "Why?"
"They think you're fighting them, Mr. Ackerman."
"But I'm not! That's not true!"
"Well, they say you put up money to hang Goober.
They call you — you'll excuse me?"
"Yes, yes, of course."
"They call you the `head money devil.' They call you
the financial king of American City."
"King!" cried the banker. "What rubbish! Why, Gudge, that's fool
newspaper talk! I'm a poor man today. There are two dozen men in this
city richer than I am, and who have more power. Why — " But the old man
fell to coughing and became so exhausted that he sank back into his
pillows until he recovered his breath. Peter waited respectfully; but of
course he wasn't fooled. Peter had carried on bargaining many times in
his life, and had heard people proclaim their poverty and impotence.
"Now, Gudge," the old man resumed. "I don't want
to be killed; I tell you I don't want to be killed."
"No, of course not," said Peter. It was perfectly comprehensible
to him that Mr. Ackerman didn't want to be killed. But Mr. Ackerman
seemed to think it necessary to impress the idea upon him; in the course
of the conversation he came back to it a number of times, and each time
he said it with the same solemn assurance, as if it were a brand new
idea, and a very unusual and startling idea. "I don't want to be killed,
Gudge; I tell you I don't want to let those fellows get me. No, no;
we've got to circumvent them, we've got to take precautions — every
precaution — I tell you every possible precaution."
"I'm here for that purpose, Mr. Ackerman," said Peter,
solemnly. "I'll do everything. We'll do everything, I'm
sure."
"What's this about the police?" demanded the banker.
"What's this about Guffey's bureau? You say they're not
competent?"
"Well now, I'll tell you, Mr. Ackerman," said Peter,
"It's a little embarrassing. You see, they employ me — "
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "I
employ you! I'm putting up the money for this work, and I want the
facts! — I want them all."
"Well," said Peter, "they've been very decent to me — "
"I say tell me everything!" exclaimed the old man. He
was a most irritable old man, and couldn't stand for a
minute not having what he asked for. "What's the matter
with them?"
Peter answered, as humbly as he could: "I could tell you
a great deal that'd be of use to you, Mr. Ackerman, but
you got to keep it between you and me."
"All right!" said the other, quickly. "What is it?"
"If you give a hint of it to anybody else," persisted
Peter, "then I'll get fired."
"You'll not get fired, I'll see to that. If necessary I'll
hire you direct."
"Ah, but you don't understand, Mr. Ackerman. It's a machine, and
you can't run against it; you gotta understand it, you gotta handle it
right. I'd like to help you, and I know I can help you, but you gotta
let me explain it, and you gotta understand some things."
"All right," said the old man. "Go ahead, what is it?"
"Now," said Peter, "it's like this. These police and all these
fellows mean well, but they don't understand; it's too complicated, they
ain't been in this movement long enough. They're used to dealing with
criminals; but these Reds, you see, are cranks. Criminals ain't
organized, at least they don't stand together; but these Reds do, and if
you fight 'em, they fight back, and they make what they call
`propaganda.' And that propaganda is dangerous — if you make a wrong
move, you may find you've made 'em stronger than they were before."
"Yes, I see that," said the old man. "Well?"
"Then again, the police dunno how dangerous they are. You try to
tell them things, they won't really believe you. I've known for a long
time there was a group of these people getting together to kill off all
the rich men, the big men all over the country. They've been spying on
these rich men, getting ready to kill them. They know a lot about them
that you can't explain their knowing. That's how I got the idea they had
somebody in your house, Mr. Ackerman."
"Tell me what you mean. Tell me at once."
"Well, sir, every once in a while I pick up scraps of
conversation. One day I heard Mac — "
"Mac?"
"That's McCormick, the one who's in jail. He's an I.
W. W. leader, and I think the most dangerous of all. I
heard him whispering to another fellow, and it scared me,
because it had to do with killing a rich man. He'd been
watching this rich man, and said he was going to shoot
him down right in his own house! I didn't hear the name
of the man — I walked away, because I didn't want him to
think I was trying to listen in. They're awful suspicious,
these fellows; if you watch Mac you see him looking around
over his shoulder every minute or two. So I strolled off,
and then I strolled back again, and he was laughing about
something, and I heard him say these words; I heard
him say, `I was hiding behind the curtain, and there was a
Spanish fellow painted on the wall, and every time I peeked
out that bugger was looking at me, and I wondered if he
wasn't going to give me away.'"
And Peter stopped. His eyes had got used to the twilight now, and
he could see the old banker's eyes starting out from the crescents of
dark, puffy flesh underneath. "My God!" whispered Nelse Ackerman.
"Now, that was all I heard," said Peter. "And I didn't
know what it meant. But when I learned about that drawing
that Mac had made of your house, I thought to myself,
Jesus, I bet that was Mr. Ackerman he was waiting to
shoot!"
"Good God! Good God!" whispered the old man; and his trembling
fingers pulled at the embroidery on the coverlet. The telephone rang,
and he took up the receiver, and
told somebody he was too busy now to talk; they would have to call him
later. He had another coughing spell, so that Peter thought he was going
to choke, and had to help him get some medicine down his throat. Peter
was a little bit shocked to see such obvious and abject fear in one of
the gods. After all, they were just men, these Olympians, as much
subject to pain and death as Peter Gudge himself!
Also Peter was surprised to find how "easy" Mr. Ackerman was. He
made no lofty pretence of being indifferent to the Reds. He put himself
at Peter's mercy, to be milked at Peter's convenience. And Peter would
make the most of this opportunity.
"Now, Mr. Ackerman," he began, "You can see it wouldn't be any
use to tell things like that to the police. They dunno how to handle
such a situation; the honest truth is, they don't take these Reds
serious. They'll spend ten times as much money to catch a plain burglar
as they will to watch a whole gang like this."
"How can they have got into my home?" cried the old
man.
"They get in by ways you'd never dream of, Mr. Ackerman. They
have people who agree with them. Why, you got no idea, there's some
preachers that are Reds, and some college teachers, and some rich men
like yourself."
"I know, I know," said Ackerman. "But surely — "
"How can you tell? You may have a traitor right in
your own family."
So Peter went on, spreading the Red Terror in the soul
of this old millionaire who did not want to be killed. He
said again that he did not want to be killed, and explained
his reluctance in some detail. So many people were dependent upon him
for their livings, Peter could have no conception of it! There were
probably a hundred thousand men with their families right here in
American City, whose jobs depended upon plans which Ackerman was
carrying, and which nobody but Ackerman could possibly carry. Widows and
orphans looked to him for protection of their funds; a vast net-work of
responsibilities required his daily, even his hourly decisions. And sure
enough, the telephone rang, and Peter heard Nelse Ackerman declare that
the Amalgamated Securities Company would have to put off a decision
about its dividends until tomorrow, because he was too busy to sign
certain papers just then. He hung up the receiver and said: "You see,
you see! I tell you, Gudge, we must not let them get me!"
