The Titanic Plan (33 page)

“
The Filipinos prepared for their executions by having a loud drinking party and getting good and drunk before slaughtering their victim. We never saw any of our friends being killed; we just heard their screams as they were being tortured in the room next to ours. The screaming always ended with gunshots. Then silence. Then the drunken laughter of the executioners.

“
That morning most of them went to church before coming back to drink. By late afternoon, we heard their whoops and shouts and I knew they would come for me any moment. By that time my tears had dried up. I was numb, having surrendered to the fact that my life was about to end. The door opened and there was my Filipino executioner. He pointed to me with a machete and waved that I should follow him.

“
Then, from the other room, came loud yelling and a volley of gunshots. I thought it was the insurgents whipping themselves into a frenzy, preparing for my beheading. The executioner turned to see what the ruckus was behind him when he suddenly stumbled backwards as if hit in the chest with a brick. Thick smoke curled into the room. Running through the smoke was my junior officer, Mick Shaughnessy. His eyes were animal wild. He held a pistol in each of his hands and he was firing away at the Filipinos. He yelled for us to follow him and we did. I stumbled over my executioner, who was twitching and screaming. Blood was gushing from a wound in his chest. We scrambled through the door of our slaughterhouse cell and into the main room. It was filled with an acrid cloud of smoke. Bodies of dead Filipino insurgents were scattered over the floor.

“
As Mick led us through the room, I asked him if the rest of the American squad was outside. ‘The whole squad is right here!’ he yelled and fired a shot into the air. I was confused at first, but then realized he was doing this all by himself. He led us through back alleyways and dark streets, past insurgent barricades and finally back to the American sector.

“
As you can imagine, I was incredibly grateful to him and asked him how I could repay him for saving my life. Mick asked only that he be transferred to a combat unit. I recommended the transfer, but the high command felt that he should be not rewarded for disobeying orders, even though he single-handedly saved ten American lives. When I told him he would not get the transfer, he just shrugged and said that I owed him a drink. I bought him that drink his last night alive.” Archie rolled his tumbler of bourbon between the palms of his hand then lifted the glass and took a long, deep, swallow.

“
Have you ever told anyone this?” Belle asked. Archie shook his head. “Then thank you for telling me,” Belle said quietly.

“
Telling you what? That I was a coward when I faced death?”

“
No,” Belle said, then reached out with both of her hands and grabbed his face, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. “Thank you for showing me your good and decent soul.”

“
But not a brave soul. Not like Mick Shaughnessy’s.”

“
Better than Mick Shaughnessy’s.”

“
You think a coward is better than a hero?”

“
You’re no coward, Archie. You were frightened. You had no guns. You were locked in a room. You acted how most of us would act.” Belle reached down and clasped Archie’s hands in hers. “Don’t compare yourself to Mick.”

“
Why not?” Archie cried. “He was the brave one. He was always the brave one. I’m surprised you were never involved with him. He liked women like you – bold women. You were the type he went after.”

“
I never said he didn’t go after me,” Belle laughed. “I told you, I liked Mick. Very much. But I would never have him as a lover. We were too alike. I knew the mad impulses that drove him, I knew his demons and I knew his magic. But I would never sleep with him no matter how wonderfully charming he was.”

“
No?” Archie said, suddenly aware of his hands being caressed by Belle.

“
No,” she answered. “For some reason I’m attracted to men who are less flamboyant. Men who don’t have to demonstrate how wonderful they are. Men who carry strength and dignity and don’t have to show it off. Men like my father…or like you, Archie.”

Belle inched closer on the sofa. Archie shivered from a jolt of electricity that bolted from Belle’s hands into his. She leaned close, close enough that he could feel her breath on his face.

“
Emma Goldman said you were as dangerous as a cobra,” Archie muttered.

“
And what if I am? A cobra can be tamed. The fakir does it all the time. Do you know how?”

“
I suspect you’re going to tell me, Miss Greene.”

“
Trust. He trusts the cobra won’t strike out at him and it never does. They have a mutual bond of trust neither will break. I need you to trust me, Archie, and I promise I won’t strike out.” Belle moved her face to within inches of his.

“
I’m not sure I can,” Archie said.

“
Is it because of who I am? Because I’m…”

“
No, that’s not it.”

“
Then what, Archie? What?”

Belle waited for his answer. But Archie didn’t speak. Instead, he lowered his head until his lips tentatively met hers. She could feel his whole body trembling. Then something strange happened – an electric charge shot through her, stunning her with a vibrating rush of energy. She started trembling like him. It was like a sunburst in their kiss, warming their entire beings. She had to pull back.

“
My god, Archie,” she whispered. “My god…”

Archie wrapped his arms around her and pressed her close. She put her head on his shoulder. “What just happened, Archie?”

“
The cobra and her fakir finally met,” he said, then lifted his head to look at her. Her face was luminous. “It’s late, Belle. Would you like to spend the evening here?”

“
It’s almost morning, Archie. I have spent the evening here.”

He smiled and reclined back on the sofa, taking her more tightly in his embrace. The warmth of her body against his, the weight of her head near his chest, filled him with an overwhelming joy. He felt her relax. Her breathing slowed into long, peaceful exhales. He closed his eyes and let himself drift with her; it was like the first time he had met her. Nothing else in the world existed – he could see nothing else, hear nothing else, feel nothing else, experience nothing else – only Belle da Costa Greene. In his arms. Belle da Costa Greene…

“
His files,” Belle mumbled through her sleepiness.

“
Hmmm?”

Belle lifted her head. “Have you looked in his files, Archie?”

“
Whose files?”

“
Mick’s. That’s where librarians always start – a file. The army has to have files on him. Maybe the police do too.”

“
I’ve never even thought of that.”

Belle put her head back down and snuggled into the crook of Archie’s arm. “That’s why you need a cobra,” Belle whispered before drifting back to sleep.

* * *

On June 20, 1911, a formal request was received at the Department of War for the Army file of Corporal Michael Shaughnessy. The written requisition was from the White House. It was signed by Major Archibald Butt.

CHAPTER 35

I
t was all too familiar to Henry: a cold cell of brick and concrete, a foul smelling bucket for a toilet and a bed constructed of a gas-piping frame topped with a razor thin mattress. Like before, Henry shared his cell with a large, extended family of rats. Unlike before, he also shared the cell with another human being. Franco Bonini was from New York by way of Rome. At 19, Franco was not much older than Henry. But at five foot eleven, he towered above his tiny cellmate who looked like he had barely reached puberty. Far from being a dark, handsome Italian, Franco had pale skin, dirty blond hair, blue eyes and a soft roll of fat around his middle that gave him the appearance of a walking pyramid. He was doing time for theft. “I steal a roast for mama ‘cause we hafta eat,” Franco moaned to Henry. “The butcher catch me and I hand him the roast back, no problem, eh? The sonuvabitch gets the police anyway.”

Franco was serving an eight-year sentence. On separate occasions he had been caught stealing seven apples, an overcoat, a box of cigars, a sewing machine and the roast. Franco was a kind and gentle soul and an incredibly lousy thief. He treated Henry like a little brother, offering him support when Henry became discouraged. “Don’t worry, my friend, you’ll be out soon. In Italy they throw you in a dungeon and you’re never heard from again. But in America they no throw you in jail for long without a reason. Too many lawyers here.”

Henry wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know what I’m doin’ here,” Henry lamented to Franco. That wasn’t entirely true. Henry had an inkling why he was in prison. He was accused of murdering Mick though he had never been charged with the crime, never saw a lawyer, never stood before a judge, never declared his innocence to a jury. Henry told Franco, “I’m not sure they will ever let me out, ‘cause no one even knows I am here.”

Sing Sing
had the reputation of being the worst prison in America. A grand jury was appointed in 1911 to investigate the appalling conditions at the prison. The grand jury’s report noted: “The eighty-year old cells are unfit for the housing of animals, much less human beings…the cell block is infested with disease-carrying vermin which it is impossible to eradicate. Vermin swarm in every corner of the cells… the bed space is grossly inadequate, the ventilation is insufficient, the close contact of prisoners is demoralizing. Immorality abounds, disease is fostered, criminal propensities cultivated and inculcated. Half the showers don’t work and sometimes as many as twelve prisoners, the diseased and the healthy, crowd under one shower. The steam conditions allow perverts, thus screened from observations, to practice acts of sexual degeneracy.”

Henry was well aware of the dangers that lurked in the showers. He had witnessed men preying on each other first hand. Though he had the appearance of an innocent choirboy, his innocence was tempered by the grim reality of living on the street for years.

Thursday morning was shower day for Henry’s wing. The guards marched him and Franco and 60 other prisoners to the shower area. The prisoners disrobed in a large dressing area then shuffled naked into the steamy shower room, away from the guards’ eyes. The guards didn’t care what went on in the showers. As long as the same number of men who walked in, walked out twenty minutes later, their job was complete.

Henry always stood away from the men who jostled to wash under the streams of hot water. The water usually turned cold halfway through the shower period. Henry liked cold showers. It was a preference he picked up winter bathing in the Hudson River. He usually dashed under the water in the last few minutes of the shower period, gave himself a quick and efficient scrub then dashed to dry himself off. Whatever unseemliness occurred in the foggy mist before he showered, he was more than happy to miss.

As he stood under a broken showerhead in a dry corner of the room, a large middle-aged man with frost-blue eyes and a dirty mop of salt-and-pepper hair skulked up to Henry. “You waiting for a shower, son?” The man smiled kindly.

“
I like it when the water gets cold,” Henry smiled back. “It’s invigoratin’”

The man fixed his gaze on Henry’s face. His eyes stayed wide and never appeared to blink. “You need hot water to get really clean,” the man said, showing great concern about Henry’s hygiene.

“
Maybe, but like I sez, it’s freezin’ water that gets my blood flowin’.”

“
But you need to be clean.”

“
Hey, thanks for your two cents, mister, but I’ll wait a few minutes.”

The large man smiled paternally, and then hissed, “No son, you need to be cleaned now.” He grabbed Henry’s thin arm and jerked him toward the water. Henry squirmed to get away. “Lots of soap, we’ll need lots of soap for you,” the man shouted, dragging Henry into the thick steamy mist.

“
Pervert!” Henry yelled, though the rush of water drowned his voice out. The man smashed a vicious backhand across Henry’s face. A soft groan rose from Henry, his eyes floated upwards in his head. The man began eagerly rubbing a soap bar over Henry’s body.

“
Stop,” Henry cried, but the man had no intention of stopping.

“
Doesn’t it feel good to be clean?” the man said, scrubbing Henry under his arms. Henry tried to curl himself up, like an insect rolling into a ball when he knows he can be crushed in an instant. The man pressed forward. Henry could feel him becoming aroused. He began rubbing his hands over Henry’s thighs. “No,” yelled Henry.