The Gangster

The President was grinning from ear to ear. The car rolled slowly between applauding rows of engineers and contractors’ clerks and machine operators, who poured into the road behind the automobile and followed in the parade the President had demanded. Next were Negro rock drillers, cheering mightily.

“Honk the horn for them, Joe!” TR shouted. “The Spaniards called our colored regiments ‘Smoked Yankees,’ but the Rough Riders found them to be an excellent breed of Yankees covering our flanks.”

Van Dorn stomped on the rubber bulb and the White let loose a gay Auuuugha!

The rock drillers peeled out of their rows and joined the march.

Ahead waited legions of mustachioed, swarthy Italian laborers in brimmed hats. They were quiet, lining the road six deep on either side. But they smiled like they meant it, and Van Dorn had the funny thought that by the time the celebrity President got through with them, he’d convert them all to the Republican Party.

When Roosevelt heard their street organ, his grin doubled and redoubled.

“Do you recognize the tune that organ grinder’s playing?”

“‘You’re all right, Teddy!’” chorused Van Dorn and the Secret Service chief.

“Bully!” shouted the President. His fist beat the time on his knee and he broke into song.

“‘Oh! You are all right, Teddy!

You’re the kind that we remember;
Don’t you worry!
We are with you!
You are all right, Teddy!
And we’ll prove it in November.’

“Stop the auto! I’m going to thank these people personally.”

44

The President jumped down from the White Steamer before it stopped rolling.

Van Dorn and the corps chief flanked him instantly. Too excited to wait to join the end of the parade, the crowd surged at them from both sides.

“Did you see what that monkey’s wearing?”

Van Dorn was trying to look in every direction at once. “What was that, sir?”

“The monkey’s hat!” said Roosevelt. “He’s wearing a Rough Rider’s hat… Chief! Fetch that Consul General.”

“I can’t leave your side, sir.”

“Hop to it, man. I need a translator.”

Suddenly, Isaac Bell was there, saying, “I’ll cover.”

* * *

“Of course,” whispered Antonio Branco when Isaac Bell materialized in the space vacated by the Secret Service bodyguard. “Where else would you be?”

Then the crowd pushing forward blocked his view of the President. At the same time, it blocked Bell’s view of the elderly Sicilian groom cranking the street organ. With every eye fixed on President Roosevelt, it was all the cover Branco needed. He slipped in front of the old man and took the crank in his right hand and the monkey’s chain in his left. Not a note of music was lost, and a gentle tug of the chain made the animal jump on his shoulder, having learned in just a few days that its kindly new master would reward it with a segment of an orange.

* * *

“Step back, both of you,” ordered the President.

“Mr. President, for your safety—”

“You’re too tall. You make me look like a coward. These are hardworking men. They won’t hurt me.”

Roosevelt grasped hands with the nearest laborer. “Hello there. Thank you for building the aqueduct.”

The laborer whipped off his hat, pressed it to his heart, and smiled.

“I know you don’t understand a word I just said, but you will when you learn English.” He pumped his hand harder. “The point is, building this aqueduct with the sweat of your brow will benefit all of us.”

Roosevelt grabbed the next man’s hand. “Hello there. Thank you. You’re doing a bully job.”

“Bully!” echoed the laborer. “Bully! Bully! Bully!” And Isaac Bell saw that if Roosevelt hadn’t been sure of his welcome, he was now. Beaming like a locomotive headlamp, he grabbed more hands. They were almost to the organ grinder.

“Where the devil’s that translator?”

“I see him coming,” said Bell.

The chief of the Secret Service protection corps was gripping Italy’s Consul General for New York City like a satchel. Both were gasping for breath from their hard run.

“Mr. President, it is a great honor—”

“I want you to translate to the organ grinder that I am deeply touched that he played my campaign song and dressed his monkey in a Rough Rider hat. That takes the kind of clear-eyed gumption that makes a top-notch American… Boys,” he shot over his shoulder at Isaac Bell and Van Dorn. “I told you to stand back. You, too, chief. Give these Eye-talians a chance to enjoy themselves.”

He threw an arm around the Consul General and plowed ahead. “Tell him I had a monkey friend living next door when I was a little boy. I always wanted one, but I had to settle for Uncle Robert’s. Tell him I like monkeys, always have… There he is! Hello, monkey.”

The little animal tugged off its hat and held it out.

“Bell? Van Dorn? You have any money?”