Fall (eBook)

10

The driver pulled on the horses’ reins and the police wagon bearing Falconer, Waidler, and Halloran stopped in front of Military Hall at 193 Bowery. The three men jumped off as a second wagon pulled up near to them carrying another three plainclothes detectives from the nearby Eldridge Street station.

As the second group of men clambered down from their wagon, Falconer scanned his surroundings. It was evening and a large crowd was slowly moving through the front door of the three-story brick building that stood before them. The temperature had dropped significantly as the sun had gone down, and due to a cool front that had slipped into the city in the past 48 hours, the air was almost pleasant, giving the city’s residents a satisfying break from the suffocating heat of the summer months.

Falconer motioned for the men to gather around him. “All right,” he said amidst the din of the conversing throng stepping into the hall, “we’re obviously not hiding who we are tonight, so wear your badges on your jackets. They know we’re here and why. Just keep to the back of the room and don’t interfere unless you have to. They won’t be happy with us, so just expect that.”

He looked at one of the detectives from the Eldridge Street station, Michael Arndt. “Arndt, are you okay with translating if they start speaking German?”

“Sure thing, detective sergeant,” the detective replied. “I’ll just stand by you so you can hear me.”

“Thanks,” Falconer replied. “They probably won’t speak English because this is largely a German crowd. All right, let’s move in.”

He led the men from the sidewalk up to the front door through the multitude of spectators waiting to get inside the assembly hall. As they pushed through the crowd, some of the people grunted in frustration, but the policemen just ignored their protestations and moved quickly into the place. Stepping inside, they moved to either side of the entrance and stood against the wall as the crowd followed them in.

Falconer looked around the room. It was a long, narrow lecture hall, and at the end, below the dais, was a table where an assemblage of reporters had already taken their seats and pulled out their pencils and notepads. The regular spectators had no chairs, however, and thus, they were forced to simply stand where they could and try to see what was happening up on the dais.

People continued streaming into the hall, and soon the air grew heavy and oppressive in the absence of the cool, evening breezes outside. After another fifteen minutes had elapsed to allow the last of the spectators to enter, a man finally walked up onto the dais and the crowd cheered. He then motioned for them be quiet and spoke.

Waidler turned to Falconer and whispered into his ear. “That’s a fella’ named Dyer Lum,” he said. “Important Red agitator and general troublemaker.”

Falconer nodded and then looked toward the dais to hear what Lum was saying. He was already shouting in English and gesticulating wildly, telling the people how heroic Berkman’s deed in Pittsburgh had been, and how the working men now had to face down their capitalist oppressors like the wounded Henry Frick. Building his exhortation to a crescendo, he raised one hand high in the air and shouted to the wild-eyed and smiling spectators: “When an anarchist like Berkman decided to leave the world, he considered it his duty to take a good Christian like Frick along with him!”

The crowd roared with approval and Lum stepped down from the dais with a host of hands being held out to shake his own. Then, after he had made it to a seat in the front, another man stepped up and took his place at center stage. The crowd cheered heartily for the man who was noticeably tall and sported a very dark beard.

“Who’s this?” Falconer asked Waidler.

“Joseph Peukert,” Waidler answered. “Leader of a certain group of anarchists called the ‘Autonomists.’ Not sure what that means.”

Falconer nodded and turned back to listen to Peukert, but quickly learned that the tall firebrand would be speaking in his native German tongue. As Peukert looked down disapprovingly at the reporters sitting in front, Arndt slipped closer to Falconer and began translating the speech: “This meeting,” he said, “is an expression of approval on the part of the working class of the deed of Berkman. When the working men of Homestead were ground down by the capitalists, one man elected himself the champion of the oppressed classes and tried to liberate them from their slavery, not by shooting Frick, but by showing them where the source of their misery lay. We approve of the act most heartily. You paid vassals of the press cannot stop the wheels of history. The people are awakening, and they will crush you, with those who pay you, these murderers, these robbers, the capitalists. So long as there are people who are starving, there will be a Berkman, and these Berkmans will shoot without any conspiracy.”

The crowd cheered, and then, after Peukert had quieted them, he continued. Falconer listened closely as Arndt continued to translate the words into English. “We are proud of Berkman’s act,” Peukert asserted. “We were associated with him and we don’t deny it. The working men must fight and that soon. Hundreds of Berkmans will arise to do their duty. These reporters before me are the people who declare us unwashed and unkempt. We do not wash ourselves because we have to work. When we are through work, we are tired, and we cannot afford to change our shirts twice a day. Now the question is whether we are dirty or you. You have been trained like parrots and are the parasites of capital.”

The spectators erupted into applause once more, and then, after taking a long bow, Peukert walked down the steps to his chair near the other speakers. Falconer and the men next heard from an Italian anarchist doctor by the name of Merlino, who struggled through broken English to decry in a wild and frenzied speech the crimes of the capitalists and the promise of approaching revolution.

After the doctor at length composed himself and sat down to the cheers of the assembled workers, Emma Goldman then finally ascended the stairs. Falconer peered intently at her as she walked slowly to the center of the dais and looked down at the clapping spectators with a stern and almost reproachful look on her face. Her brown hair was pulled back into a bun, and her large, bright, blue eyes glared behind her silver pince-nez spectacles, giving her the appearance of an unpleasant schoolmarm displeased with her pupils. He was surprised at her tiny frame and wondered how such a petite creature could have instilled such fear and worry in the authorities. But here she was—the woman who was considered a prime danger to the country and possibly even a terror mastermind—in league perhaps with countless unnamed bomb throwers and secret assassins bent on tearing down the government and the existing capitalist structure of society.

Falconer reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarillo as the applause continued. Lighting it, he noticed that Goldman’s intense gaze now appeared to be settling directly on him and his men standing against the back wall near the entrance to the hall. For a moment, despite the distance that separated them, he almost felt that their eyes met, and he felt strangely uncomfortable. Then, still seemingly staring at him, Goldman finally spoke to the people: “Comrades, I would warn you to be quiet in this hall tonight, for it happens to be filled with detectives who want to raise a row and kill the speakers.”

A loud chorus of boos immediately filled the room as the spectators started looking around, searching for the police interlopers who would so deviously try to sabotage the meeting. Falconer and the men just looked at each other, and Falconer chuckled briefly, amused with Goldman’s tart opening. He then leaned back against the wall to hear more from her, but she then started to speak in German, and he quickly motioned to Arndt to come translate again.

“Got it, boss,” Arndt said, leaning over towards Falconer’s ear. “The condition in America,” he began as Goldman started to speak, “is worse than in Russia because here it is cloaked by a sham republic. The report of Berkman’s shot will be heard throughout the world, and these shots will continue until capital is dead.”

The crowd gave a sustained cheer, which forced Goldman to pause momentarily, and then she continued. “We must make the most of this deed of Berkman’s and follow it with other similar deeds until there are no more despots in America.” The crowd then interrupted her again with a huge roar, and she was forced to pause again for almost a minute. Quieting the attendees, she went on speaking in German for another twenty minutes or so, expounding on the blessings of anarchy and lauding the heroic actions of her close friend, Berkman, and when she was done, the people cheered her mightily for several minutes.

As the people clapped and shouted, Falconer looked out at them all. He thought nothing of them, really—just a band of strange, manipulated, poor, working people who were being led down a path by a bunch of foreign crazies who liked to hear themselves speak. But then he suddenly noticed something off to the side of the darkened hall: a lone man, walking slowly down...