American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century (7 page)

But this morning Billy could not help but be affected. The mood of the frightened, damaged city reached out to him.
Another earthquake,
he decided,
would not have created such fear.
He understood too well the sort of man capable of such destruction.
A cunning, heartless ruthless enemy of society. A homicidal manic.

Billy hoped the man responsible would be caught soon, before he could strike again. But it was, he also knew, not his personal concern. Or his case. He had come to Los Angeles at the request of his biggest client to deliver a speech.

Billy enjoyed speaking to audiences. Always the actor, he knew how to reach out to a crowd. He’d offer up accounts of his famous cases, playing up the suspense and the danger as he built to an inevitable conclusion—the great detective getting his man. And he loved the applause.

He was in his hotel room, reviewing a draft of his speech to the bankers one final time, waiting impatiently for his breakfast to be delivered, when the house phone rang. The caller was George Alexander, the mayor of Los Angeles. He was in the lobby and wanted to come up.

Billy told the mayor his room number and waited. He had no doubt as to why the mayor wanted to speak with him. But his mind was set. He would not take the case. He had a new company to build. He did not want, or need, to be involved in another time-consuming and politicized investigation, another San Francisco. He had already confronted too many powerful adversaries in his lifetime. Besides, he was scheduled to give a speech in less than three hours.

“This certainly is a stroke of luck,” Mayor Alexander said as he pumped Billy’s hand. “You being right in the city at a time like this.” He was an older man, in his seventies, and with his long white goatee and a bit of the brogue from his native Scotland in his voice, he struck Burns as a comical figure, the sort of engaging character you’d see on stage in a vaudeville farce. But this morning Alexander was dour and mournful. Los Angeles had been attacked, and its mayor was frantic with concern. How many more bombs would explode? How many more people would be killed? The mayor needed the famous detective’s help.

“I wired all over the country in an effort to find you,” Alexander went on with genuine amazement, “only to learn that you were due here in Los Angeles this morning. It seems like fate.” He appealed to Burns to take the case. The detective must apprehend the men responsible for the twenty-one deaths, “no matter what the cost and no matter who they are.”

Billy considered. He was flattered by the mayor’s personal appeal. He knew the entire nation would focus on this case. A success would add another dimension to his celebrity. A triumph would bring new clients to the Burns Detective Agency. He even already had a theory about who might be involved. But still he hesitated.

His graft investigation in San Francisco had created too much ill-will. Too many well-connected people in California had wanted him to fail, and Billy was certain they would eagerly work against him again if they had the chance. He feared that Otis would actively obstruct his investigation. Los Angeles was the publisher’s home territory, a city where his influence was immense. Billy doubted he had the resources, the insider’s knowledge, to challenge Otis in his own town—and prevail.

“Mayor Alexander,” he said at last, “I have certain very influential enemies here in Los Angeles owing to some investigations I have made in the past. They will try to thwart me at every turn.”

But Billy also knew it would be the biggest case of his, of any detective’s, career.He wanted the job—if he could get it on his terms.

“I accept the responsibility of this investigation on the condition that I will be obliged to report to no one—not even you—until the job has been brought to a successful conclusion.”

He needed his independence; he was convinced it was the only way his investigation could succeed. Billy, adamant, went on: “My connection with the investigation should be kept an absolute secret.”

Mayor Alexander agreed without hesitation. He had done his job—he had hired the country’s greatest detective.

Billy Burns was pleased, too, energized by the mystery he’d be delving into. Without feeling any guilt, he quickly canceled the day’s previous commitment. Priorities, he decided with a bit of philosophy, had rearranged his orderly world. As soon as the mayor left, he called his Los Angeles office and told Malcolm MacLaren, its manager, to inform the bankers that they’d need to find someone else to talk at their lunch. He regretted this last-minute cancellation, but he hoped they’d understand. William J. Burns would be occupied solving the crime of the century.

NINE

______________________

A
N HOUR LATER
, as Billy at last was eating his breakfast, an agitated Mayor Alexander returned to the detective’s hotel room. He brought news, and all of it was bad.

Two more bombs had been found. Police Detective Tom Rico had been part of a group of officers searching the Bivouac, Otis’s mansion fortress on Wilshire Boulevard, when he noticed a suitcase wedged into the hedges. Assisted by other officers, Rico carefully removed the suitcase and carried it to a far corner of the vast green lawn. He was slitting it open when he heard a whirring sound. “Run!” he yelled. The officers had dived into a drainage ditch when the bomb exploded. The blast dug a crater out of the lawn, but no one was hurt.

The second bomb was discovered at the home of Felix Zeehandelaar, the secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. For years he had been the object of union barbs; “Zeehande
liar,
” strikers had taunted. Now he had become a target.

Once again it was Detective Rico who had noticed a suspicious suitcase. But this time the bomb didn’t go off. The police had succeeded in cutting the wires. The device was intact.

“I’ll want to see it,” Billy told the mayor. He kept, however, another thought to himself. It was quite a coincidence that Rico had found both bombs. Perhaps it was even something more than a coincidence.

“Agreed,” said the mayor. The defused bomb had been taken to police headquarters on Second Street; the detective could examine it at his convenience. But, the mayor continued, his voice suddenly faltering, there was another problem.

Billy did not speak. He had seen too many men make agreements, give their word, and then walk away from their promises. He knew what was coming, and he prepared himself. He wanted to react with calm dignity, not with anger. His temper was famous, and he had grown old enough to be embarrassed by it.

The mayor’s words came out slowly, forming uneasy sentences. It was the manner of a man who was unpersuaded by his own logic or reasons. There were “political realities” in Los Angeles, he explained. At their last meeting perhaps he should have disclosed the situation to the detective with more clarity. He had needed, of course, to inform General Otis and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, as well as the Citizens’ Committee, of Burns’s appointment to head the investigation.

So much for the mayor’s promise, so much for secrecy, Billy thought. But now that the damage had been done, temper would accomplish nothing. Resigned, he let the mayor go on.

These groups, the mayor said, wanted their own representative to work with Burns. They felt they needed someone who would report to them on the course of the investigation. Bombs had been planted at
their
homes. For their own safety they insisted on knowing what progress, if any, was being made.

“They’ve picked a man, Mr. Burns.”

“Who?” Billy asked.

“Earl Rogers.”

Billy felt as if another bomb had just exploded. This was the man who had represented Patrick Calhoun. The man who had been on the side of all that was corrupt in San Francisco. It would have been difficult to suggest a more inappropriate individual. Still, Billy measured his words:

“He’s a lawyer, not a detective, and what you need at this time is the service of the latter. Besides, I cannot cooperate with Rogers.”

Mayor Alexander tried to persuade Billy, but the detective cut him off.

“Turn the entire matter over to the M&M and the Citizens’ Committee. I quit.”

Billy remained in his hotel room, brooding. He told himself he had done the right thing. He had had no choice: He could not work with Rogers.

But at the same time he also realized that if he was truly resigned to leaving the investigation and to relinquishing the opportunity to solve the crime of the century, at this moment he’d be on his way to the Bankers Association to give his speech.

He waited.

Billy was relieved when the house phone finally rang. Mayor Alexander was on his way up.

Alexander did not argue or try to reason with the detective. With a politician’s well-practiced canniness, he offered up a very personal plea.

“If you refuse to consent to act with Rogers, I will always be blamed if we fail to apprehend the men responsible,” the mayor said. “My administration would be discredited . . . I need your help, Mr. Burns.” His voice quivered as he spoke, and Billy felt the emotions were genuine.

Billy understood that this was his last chance. The mayor could not be expected to beg him again. “A great detective requires great cases”—that was another of his precepts. Billy believed in his talents, but his vanity demanded that others acknowledge his skills, too. The apprehension of the men responsible for the destruction of the
Times
Building, for twenty-one deaths, would bring him national acclaim. He had grown used to the power and thrill of celebrity. A case of this magnitude would ensure his fame. He weighed all that was to be gained, and he made his decision: He would have to tolerate the presence of Earl Rogers. He’d simply have to find a way to prevent the attorney from meddling.

Billy, however, did not rush to share his change of heart. With a natural showman’s timing, he let a few reflective moments tick away. Then: “I think I can bury the hatchet with Mr. Rogers,” the detective announced.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” the mayor rejoiced.

The two men soon left the Alexandria Hotel. They were going to police headquarters. The detective would be briefed by Chief of Police Galloway. The mayor had also arranged for Rogers to meet them in the chief’s office. But Billy had his own agenda. At headquarters he’d get a close look at the suitcase bomb recovered from the Zeehandelaar residence.

TEN

______________________

I
N NEW YORK
the news of the disaster in Los Angeles continued to fill the front pages. Five days later the
New York Times
reported that bodies were still being removed from the charred rubble. The National Association of Manufacturers met that first week of October in Manhattan and sent Otis a telegram urging him to continue to battle “for industrial freedom.” At a large, boisterous rally on Union Square speakers speculated that the explosion might have been an accident, “caused by gas, which several in the building smelled during the evening.” While on nearby Fourteenth Street, D.W. already had Los Angeles on his troubled mind.

His troupe would be leaving for California in six weeks. Only now they would be forced to make the trip without the director’s favorite leading lady. The “Biograph Girl,” as audiences had taken to calling her, the country’s first genuine movie star, had abruptly left the company. Mary Pickford had sailed to Cuba with her new husband to shoot movies for Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture company.

D.W. felt not just disappointed but betrayed. Mary—born Gladys Smith—had walked into the Biograph studio as an accomplished teenage stage actress, but D.W. always believed he had discovered her. In his director’s mind, she was his creation. He had been the first to understand the engaging power that Mary’s tender, wonderfully expressive face would have on the big screen.

It had been a warm May morning in 1909 when sixteen-year-old Mary, as she would remember it, “belligerently . . . marched up the steps of Biograph” for the first time. With the family short of funds, and no new play on Mary’s schedule, her mother had insisted that she audition for a role in the movies. Reluctantly Mary obeyed. “I was disappointed in Mother: permitting a Belasco actress, and her own daughter at that, to go into one of those despised, cheap, loathsome motion-picture studios.”

Mary took a seat in a corner near the door, deliberately tucking herself away as if trying to hide. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped dress and a rolled-brim straw sailor hat with a dark blue ribbon. Short golden curls bobbed around a fresh, angelic face. Her large hazel eyes shined magically. She looked not more than fourteen, but there was a maturity and confidence in her controlled demeanor. Despite her efforts to remain aloof, it did not take her long to get noticed. In the dressing room, the actors who had been playing craps starting talking.

“There’s a cute kid outside. Have you seen her?”

“No. Where is she?”

“She’s been sitting out there in a corner by herself.”

Bobby Harron, the prop boy, told D.W. about the “good looker” who had the actors buzzing. Curious, the director went downstairs to see.

D.W. looked at her appraisingly. It was, Mary felt, “a manner that was too jaunty and familiar.” But the director was intrigued. “She was small—cute figure—much golden curls—creamy complexion—sparkling Irish eyes, but eyes that also had languorous capabilities.”

He decided to give her a screen test. In the basement dressing room, Mary was handed a costume. D.W. thought the young girl might be right for Pippa in
Pippa Passes,
the Browning poem he was hoping to shoot later that summer. He applied the makeup himself, asking about her theatrical experience as he worked. His manner was professional, yet Mary could not help feeling there was something intimate and presumptuous in his touch. He was “a pompous and insufferable creature” and she “wanted more than ever to escape.”