The Alienist - Caleb Carr [163]
“Can I offer you gentlemen anything to drink?” Morgan said at length. After Kreizler and I both declined, our host took one of the cigars from the case on his desk and lit it, then began slowly to pace the thickly carpeted floor. “I agreed to see the delegation that has just left us,” he announced, “out of deference to Bishop Potter, and because I have no desire to see the recent outbreaks of civil unrest go on.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Morgan,” I said, a bit amazed by his tone. “But have you, or any of the gentlemen who were here, even discussed this matter with Mayor Strong?”
Morgan passed a hand before him quickly. “Inspector Byrnes’s point about Colonel Strong is well-taken. I have no interest in dealing with a man whose power is limited by elections. Besides, Strong doesn’t have the mind to deal with a matter of this nature.” Morgan’s heavy, deliberate pacing went on, and Kreizler and I remained silent. The library slowly filled up with thick cigar smoke, and when Morgan finally stood still and spoke again, I could barely see him through the brownish haze.
“As I see it, gentlemen, there really are only two advisable courses—yours, and that advocated by Byrnes. We must have order. Particularly now.”
“Why now?” Kreizler asked.
“You are probably not in a position to know, Doctor,” Morgan answered carefully, “that we are at a crossroads, both in New York and in the country as a whole. This city is changing. Dramatically. Oh, I don’t simply mean the population, with the influx of immigrants. I mean the city itself. Twenty years ago, New York was still primarily a port—the harbor was our chief source of business. Today, with other ports challenging our preeminence, shipping and receiving have been eclipsed by both manufacture and banking. Manufacture, as you know, requires workers, and other, less fortunate, nations in the world have provided them. The leaders of organized labor claim that such workers are treated unfairly here. But fairly or no, they continue to come, because it is better than what they have left behind. I mark from your speech that you are of foreign extraction yourself, Doctor. Have you spent much time in Europe?”
“Enough,” Kreizler answered, “to take your point.”
“We are not obligated to provide everyone who comes to this country with a good life,” Morgan went on. “We are obligated to provide them with a chance to attain that life, through discipline and hard work. That chance is more than they have anywhere else. That is why they keep coming.”
“Assuredly,” Laszlo answered, impatience beginning to show in his voice.
“We shall not be able to offer such a chance, in future, should our national economic development—which is currently in a state of deep crisis—be retarded by foolish political ideas born in the ghettos of Europe.” Morgan put his cigar down in a tray, went to a sideboard, and poured out three glasses of what turned out to be excellent whiskey. Without asking a second time if Laszlo and I wanted any, he handed two of the glasses to us. “Any events which can be prostituted to serve the purposes of those ideas must be suppressed. That is why Mr. Comstock was here. He believes that ideas such as yours, Doctor, can be so prostituted. Were you to succeed in your investigation, Mr. Comstock believes that your ideas might gain greater credence. Thus you see—” Morgan took up his cigar again, and drew in an enormous volume of smoke. “You have made yourselves a wide variety of powerful enemies.”
Kreizler stood up slowly. “Need we count you among those enemies, as well, Mr. Morgan?”
The pause that followed seemed interminable, for on Morgan’s answer hung any hope of our success. Should he decide that Potter, Corrigan, Comstock, and Byrnes were right, and that our investigation represented a range of threats to the status quo in our city that simply could not be tolerated, we might just as well fold our tents and head for home.