The Gangster

Roosevelt landed nimbly on the Military Academy pier. He shook hands with the commandant. He waved to the citizens crowding the ferry wharf and the West Shore Railroad Station. He saluted the ramparts of the stone fort on the bluff, which were gray with cadets in their full-dress coats. Then, surprising no one, especially Van Dorn, he gave a speech.

He thanked the Army grandly for its welcome, the citizens of West Point for turning out to greet him in such a bitter cold, and the United States Navy for its “hearty salute, which reminds all Americans gathered here that we look forward to the day when disputes between nations are settled by arbitration, but, until then, Connecticut’s mighty twelves will do our arbitrating for us.”

It fell to the chief of the President’s Secret Service corps to spoil the mood with an abrupt change of plans. “We will not board the train — with your permission, Mr. President — but embark directly from here in the White Steamer.”

“Why? Storm King expects me on the train, not in an auto.”

“That is precisely why, sir. To confuse any enemy counting on you to arrive as scheduled at the station. The drive is only five miles and the road isn’t bad.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“It was Joseph Van Dorn’s idea.”

“I should have guessed.”

“When I told him that you might not be one hundred percent pleased, he said that a war hero like yourself would recall the power of surprise.”

“I am in the hands of the professionals,” President Roosevelt intoned, but a dangerous glint in his eye informed the chief of his protection corps not to take any more liberties.

Joseph Van Dorn waited beside the big White Steamer, wearing a slouch hat, a polka-dot bandanna, and wire-framed spectacles. He held the automobile door for the President and said, “I would appreciate it if we would raise the top.”

Roosevelt looked him over sharply.

“What happened to your face?”

“I shaved my sideburns.”

“What are you up to, Joe? You don’t wear specs, but you’re wearing specs — without glass in them. And what’s that hat doing on your head? You weren’t a Rough Rider; you were a United States Marine.”

“Confusing the enemy,” said Van Dorn.

“Has it occurred to you that if you confuse them too successfully, you’ll be the one shot?”

Van Dorn answered with a straight face. “The voters spoke loud and clear, Mr. President. Not one of them voted for me.”

“The top stays down.”

Van Dorn said, “Would you read this wire from Detective Bell?”

LOST BRANCO

CULP’S 1903 SPRINGFIELD GONE

“The 1903 Springfield is—”

“A deadly sniper rifle,” the President completed Van Dorn’s warning. “O.K. You win! Raise the top.”

Van Dorn and the chief quickly unfolded the canvas and locked its framework. The chief got behind the wheel. Van Dorn climbed in next to him.

“That make you happy?” the President called from the backseat. “You don’t look happy. Now what’s wrong?”

“If you’d agreed earlier, you would have saved my whiskers.”

Roosevelt poked the canvas with his finger. “This top is going right back down at Storm King.”

* * *

“Leave your shovels,” the Irish foreman bellowed at the pick and shovel gang grading a drainage ditch. “All a youse.” He pointed at the road to the shaft house. “Get up there with the rest of ’em.”

A thousand Italian laborers already lined the road, six deep on either side, a festive crowd celebrating the unheard-of luxury of paid time off. The contractor had handed out bread and sausages. Wine bottles hidden under coats washed it down. Accordions wheezed, drowned out by an organ grinder’s jaunty tunes that carried in the clear, cold air like a miniature steam calliope. Rumors flew that the great Caruso would appear with the beauteous Tetrazzini. Best of all, the President of the United States—Il Presidente himself — the famous Spanish-American War hero Colonel TR — was coming all the way to Storm King to thank them for digging a “bully” aqueduct.

“Get up there! He’s on his way.”

They scrambled out of the ditch and raced to the road. Head still bowed, hat brim shadowing his face, eyes fixed on his boots, and slouching to disguise his height, Antonio Branco struggled to keep up, limping like an old man.

The foreman urged them into line, then swaggered into the road and cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Listen, all a youse,” he bawled, beckoning the young laborer he used to translate orders on the job. “Tell ’em, when the President comes by, take off your hats and cheer real loud.”

The translator rendered the order into Italian.

“If, God forbid, the President was to take it in his head to stop and talk to you, hold your hat over your heart and nod your head and give him a big smile.”

The translator repeated that.

“When he speechifies, tell ’em watch me. When I clap, they clap hands like it’s an Eye-talian opera.”

The Irishman pantomimed applause.

“And the second after the President goes down the shaft, I want to see a stampede of guineas running back to work.”

* * *