The First Casualty

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The tall man with the mustache parted his hair in the middle. He wore a bowler hat and a light coat over his suit despite the heat wave that had been ravaging the city for more than a week. Shutting the main door of the four-story brick building, he turned to lock it before proceeding south. He was tempted to ride the El, Broadway’s elevated railway, but chose a more direct route. He took his time walking through the Bowery, looked in a few shop windows along Saint James and picked up his pace when he reached Pearl Street.

At no time did his hand come out of the left pocket of his coat.

He stopped when he reached the steel skeleton of a building under construction on Wall Street. He had observed the project for a week, the only one suitable for the experiment. Finding a spot across the street shaded from the afternoon sun, he watched workers swarm over the structure like ants, driving rivets, manning the crane, riding the hydraulic lift up and down, until he was certain no one had noticed him. As calmly as though he owned the property, he sauntered over to the spot where one of the girders met the earth before it sank into the foundations.

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