The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [48]
In the event he would be called upon to deliver an impromptu response—he had been warned Americans loved nothing so much as giving and receiving speeches—Doyle tried to assemble a string of suitable thoughts to express to these people, but as he climbed up beside Pepperman on the running board of their carriage, the rank and file demonstrated no visible interest in anything other than continuing to scream their lungs out in his general direction. Doyle waved to them, then waved some more, then finally followed Pepperman's earlier example and thrust his hat into the air, apparently a signal peculiar to American audiences to behave as if they had entirely lost their minds.
Scanning the back of the crowd as the hysteria played out, Doyle spotted a solemn Lionel Stern leaving the customhouse doors. A plain coffin carrying the body of Rupert Selig was being loaded into a nearby hearse. Supervising the effort, still in priest's cassock, stood Jack Sparks.
Right, then, thought Doyle, as his carriage drove away; no reason to fret over Stern's safety for the moment; if this skirmish turns out to be typical of the treatment I can expect from the average American crowd, it's my own skin I need to worry about.
When the two dozen members of the New York Police Department left the Elbe later that day after their exhaustive search of the ship for the last fugitive came up empty-handed, no one took undue notice of a tall, blond, good-looking officer in their midst, badge number 473. No one remembered speaking to him afterward, and most of them didn't even realize badge 473 was missing until three hours after they arrived back at the precinct house.
Three more days would pass before they found the naked body of the badge's original owner, a patrolman named O'Keefe, shoved into a burlap bag in the meat locker of the Elbe's kitchen.
DENVER, COLORADO
Who is that odd-looking old man? wondered Eileen. What a sight: funny round hat, floor-length fur-trimmed black coat, a ribbon around his waist, the strange formal cut of his collar and tie. Thin as a darning needle, hardly strength enough to lift that suitcase. But what a sweet smile he's got, talking to those Negro porters, lifting his hat to thank them. They've pointed him over this way; he must have been asking directions. Can't be easy to travel at his age, poor thing; your heart goes out to him. He looks so vulnerable and out of place, everybody staring at him. Doesn't seem to mind the attention, though. Doesn't even seem to be aware of it actually. He looks like someone ... who is it? Someone really familiar. God, that's it: Abraham Lincoln, although the beard's much longer, and his hair's gone to gray. But he has the eyes, those same sad puppy-dog eyes.
"Will wonders never cease?" said Bendigo Rymer, giving her a nudge and a big nod in the direction of the approaching man. "A Hebrew in the middle of the Denver train station."
"He looks nice," said Eileen, as she finished rolling a cigarette and struck a match off the bottom of the hard wooden bench. "He looks like Abraham Lincoln."
"By my stars," said Rymer. "He does at that. Imagine: Lincoln as Shylock. What a monumental miscasting."
The man reached the section where the Penultimate Players were stretched out with their luggage, set down his suitcase with a sigh, and pulled out a long white handkerchief to mop the sweat from his forehead. The rest of the Players, those few who weren't doing penance for their excesses of the previous evening, lay on their benches and stared at this exotic creature with the idle curiosity of jaded sophisticates. The man looked around, absorbed their diffident attention, and smiled pleasantly.
Tired, yes, but in good humor. A generous face, thought Eileen, as she smiled back at him.
"There