Amerikan Eagle (22 page)

He reached for the gearshift. Woolgathering. Time to get to work.

And then a flash of color caught his eye.

Yellow.

He moved in the seat, saw a car make its way up the street.

A yellow Rambler.

Just like that railroad guy had noted from the other day. The car that had made the train slow down the night the body was discovered.

Coincidence or part of a plan?

A plan to make sure that Peter Wotan—or whoever the hell he was—was dumped and later found in Portsmouth.

He put the Packard in reverse, backed up the street dodging one kid going to the school, the transmission whining, and when he came to the intersection, looked both ways.

Gone.

Gone for now
, he thought. But how many yellow Ramblers could there be in the Portsmouth area? He should be hearing soon from the motor vehicle division about the Rambler listings, and it wouldn’t take much to match that list with addresses in Portsmouth.

The blare of a car horn made him curse.

A Portsmouth police cruiser drew up next to him, engine idling, and he rolled down his window. An older officer leaned out, a guy named Mike Schwartz, with a thin, drawn face. “Sam, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but we’ve all been recalled to the station. On shift, off shift, even those on vacation. Everybody to report in.”

Sam shifted the Packard into first. “What’s going on?”

“Who the hell knows? But it sounds important, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to be late.”

The cruiser pulled away, and after performing a highly illegal U-turn, Sam followed him in.

* * *

At the station, he was stunned at what he saw: every patrolman, sergeant, and officer in the department was milling about in the crowded lobby. Frank Reardon stood by the door, and Sam went up to him. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Cripes, who knows.” Frank cupped a lit cigarette in one hand. “Got a phone call, just a few minutes ago. Everybody to report to the station. Even the guys on shift are rolling in. Shit, now’s gonna be a good time for every second-story guy or bank robber to hit us.”

Sam looked around for a certain young cop. “Where’s your buddy Leo?”

“You didn’t hear?” Frank replied. “Gone. Two nights ago a Black Maria came by his apartment and took him away.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Wish I was. Kid obviously screwed up along the way,
and he got picked up. You saw him back at the tracks. Liked to ask lots of questions. That’s always a dangerous habit.”

“You going to do anything to help him out?”

Frank dropped his cigarette butt on the dirty tile floor, crushed it under his heel. “Like what? Too late for Leo. That’s just the way it goes. Asking questions, poking around, just leads to more trouble. Leo was okay, but I’m not putting my ass on the line for him. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, Frank, I know how it is.” Sam broke away from Frank, knowing very much how it was. Stay out of trouble. Keep your head down.

There was a loud murmur of voices that went on for a few minutes, and he was going to head up to his desk when Marshal Hanson appeared, carrying a large Philco radio. Mrs. Walton was with him, notepad in hand. Hanson put the radio on the desk sergeant’s counter and raised a hand. “Okay, listen up, fellas, all right? Christ, shut your mouths back there.” The room fell silent. Hanson looked satisfied and turned to the desk sergeant. “Paul, plug her in, will you?”

“Hey, boss, what’s up?” came a voice from the rear of the room. “We at war or something?”

“Or something,” Hanson said, pulling out his pocket watch from his vest and checking the time. “All I know is I got an urgent message from Party headquarters in Concord that there’s going to be a national announcement coming across at nine
A.M.
, an announcement that everybody—and I mean
everybody!
—needs to hear. Okay, my watch says it’s one minute till, so everybody keep
your yap shut. Paul, put that radio on and turn the volume on high.”

There was a faint crackle and then a click as the switch was thrown, a hum as the vacuum tubes warmed up. Then a shot of jazz music burst from the speaker, making a couple of the guys laugh, but Sam didn’t feel like laughing.

The music suddenly stopped, replaced by the familiar three musical tones for NBC, and a voice said,
“We interrupt our morning program with this special news bulletin. Flash from Washington, D.C., we bring in our special correspondent Richard Harkness.”

A burst of static, and then the voice, fainter, began to speak, and in a split instant, Sam knew just how accurate the phrase was that you could hear a pin drop. In a crowded room with nearly thirty men and Mrs. Walton, the only sound was coming from the radio.

“This is Richard Harkness, reporting from Washington, D.C., with a special news bulletin. It is being announced simultaneously today in Washington and in Berlin, Germany, that a treaty of trade and peace has been reached between the government of the United States and the government of Germany. This treaty will put into place a framework of peace and cooperation between the United States and Germany and will also see an immediate increase in trade between the two countries, with a substantial rise in employment and the stimulation of the American economy.”

“Christ,” someone muttered.

“A
s
part of this new trade agreement, Germany has announced that it will immediately begin purchasing substantial new armaments from the United States
,
including tanks, fighter planes, and bombers, to replace those German armaments being expended in the Eastern European war. In exchange, the United States will seek to improve relations with the government of Germany, including an understanding on the stationing of naval forces in the Caribbean and Atlantic, and new provisions associated with the criminal extradition treaty.”

A cop behind Sam whispered, “Such a deal. We get jobs paid for by stolen treasure from Europe, help kill millions more Russians, let the Krauts turn the Atlantic and Caribbean into their playground, and oh, by the way, if you’re here in the States illegally, we’ll help the Gestapo grab your ass and stick it in a concentration camp back in Europe.”

Someone told the whisperer to shut up, but somebody else griped, “Shit, you woke me up to listen to this crap? Who cares?”

And, Sam thought, in a matter of seconds, everybody within listening range of the radio instantly knew why they should care.

“To officially approve this treaty, a summit meeting will take place between President Huey Long and Chancellor Adolf Hitler seven days from now at the Navy Yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, site of the—”

What was being said on the radio was instantly drowned out by the burst of voices coming from the cops.

Since coming back to Portsmouth, he had lived in Curt’s attic. It was stuffy, tiny, with a sleeping bag on the floor and not much else save boxes of junk and a low roof that meant he banged his head at least twice a day. There were two small windows at either end of the attic, and even though it had been a cool May, it got stiflingly hot in the afternoon. Once in the morning and once in the evening, Curt let him out to use the bathroom and to grab a bite to eat, as plans and plots moved ahead here in Portsmouth and other places.

This morning he tried to stretch out his legs and arms after waking up, when he heard movement in the hallway underneath him. He froze, wondering if Curt was back early, and then there was a flare of light as the trapdoor in the middle of the attic floor came up. He looked around frantically for something, anything, to grab as a weapon, then almost burst out laughing at his fear.

A well-dressed woman slowly came up through the square opening, her eyes blinking from the dust. “So there you are, as promised,” she said, smiling.

He knelt and took one of her hands in both of his. “My God, I can’t believe it’s you.”

“I can’t stay long. I need to be at work. But here.” One of her hands went down and came back up with a brown grocery sack with twine handles. “Some more food. I know Curt is feeding you, but he’s a bachelor. This
should be better. I’m sure what he gives you gets dull after a while.”

He picked up the bag and lowered it to the floor. Everything just seemed all right. The visitor before him was the prettiest thing he had seen in years.

“You doing all right?” he asked.

Her happy expression faltered. “I’m … I’m holding up. There’s a lot of danger out there. But it’s you I’m worried about. From what little I know about what you’re up against …”

He said, “That’s it. Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself, worry about what we’re all doing. You do your job, I’ll do mine, and in the end, it will all work out.”

As she bit her lower lip, her eyes became weepy. “Okay, I hear you, but I’m still so scared for you.” She swiped at her eyes with one hand. “This is when … when I think about what might have been if you had been first to ask me out in high school instead of Sam. I know that’s a horrible thing to say … I mean, damn, I’m all mixed up. I just worry about you and miss you awful. And I think of you a lot.”

“Stop that,” he said. “If I had been with you back then, you would have been arrested, too. And you wouldn’t have that wonderful boy, my dear nephew. And my brother … he’s crazy about you. So please don’t say any more.”

She wiped her eyes again. He bent down, kissed the top of her head. “It’s all right. You get going now … and thanks. This was the best gift you could have given me.”

She smiled up at him through her tears. “It’s not much. Just some sandwiches and—”

“I wasn’t talking about the sandwiches. Now go.” She started to descend, and he thought of something. “Sarah?”

“Yes?” his sister-in-law asked.

“Stop thinking about the past, about what might have been. Think about the future. Toby … we’re doing this for Toby and the world he gets to grow up in. No matter what happens, no matter how much you and Sam and even I suffer, remember that.”

“I will,” she promised, and she closed the trapdoor, and the attic suddenly got dark again.

An earsplitting whistle cut through the chatter as somebody brought fingers up to his mouth. Hanson held up his hands and said, “Guys, I’m just as surprised about this as you are. Christ … Look, for now all days off are canceled. In fact, all time off is canceled. We’ll put cots in the basement because I know it’s gonna be a long haul between now and then. Okay, I want to see all the sergeants in my office, pronto, along with Captain Stackpole and Inspector Miller. Guys, this is going to be a hell of a thing. By the end of today, this city is going to be crawling with radio newsmen, newsreelers, newspaper reporters, and every nut with a grudge. I know you got questions, but I don’t have the answers. We’ll have a department meeting at ten o’clock, and we’ll know better then.”

A voice from the rear of the room: “Boss, all right if we go home, wrap a couple of things up, then come back?”

“Yeah.” Hanson nodded. “That makes sense. You officers on duty, go back to work. The rest of you fellas, if you need to go home, check in with the wife, or whatever, that’s fine. Just be back here by ten o’clock. And pack some clothes and essentials.” He slapped his hands together. “Let’s get a move on. There’s plenty of work to be done.”

Moving through the crowded lobby, Sam went upstairs, where Hanson’s door was open and Mrs. Walton was on the phone, desperately fielding message after message. The three shift sergeants and Art Stackpole, the sole police captain, were clustered around Hanson’s desk. Hanson was on the phone, nodding, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah” while writing something down. The sergeants and Stackpole ignored Sam as he entered. Four of his fellow officers, and four men who figured they should have had the inspector’s job instead of him.

Hanson hung up the phone. He tore off a sheet of paper and passed it over to Sam. “Change of plans, Inspector. Rockingham Hotel. Room Twelve. Get over there right now.”

“What’s going on?”

“What’s going on, Sam, is that FBI character you met the other day is still here, and he’s going to be part of the federal task force running the summit security. He wants a liaison officer with the department, and guess what, you just got picked.”

“But I can do more if—”

“Sam, just do it,” Hanson cut in impatiently. “Okay? Look, in the last five minutes, every goddamn newspaper, radio station, and newsreel outfit within a hundred miles called me. Not to mention the governor’s office and our
two distinguished senators and two representatives. I’ve also got to see your father-in-law in about ten minutes. Then there’s the matter of coordinating everything with the Navy Yard and about a hundred other things have just landed on my desk, so please, Sam, just shut up and do this. All right?”

Sam folded the piece of paper, stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Good. And one more thing. Here.” Hanson passed over an embossed piece of cardboard, and Sam glanced at it, saw a bad photograph of himself pasted on one side, and a drawing of an American eagle, and some lettering. Hanson said, “Your new commission in the New Hampshire National Guard. Congratulations. Stick it in your billfold, and for God’s sake, don’t lose it.”

“It says I’m a lieutenant. How in hell did that happen?”

“What? You got problems with being an officer and a gentleman?” One of the other cops snickered, and Hanson sighed. “Don’t worry about it, Sam. Automatic official rank and all that, reflecting your position in the department. Understand now?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So glad to hear it’s all clear for you, Inspector.” Hanson reached for his phone. “And if you can get to the Rockingham ten minutes ago, that would be goddamn delightful.”

Sam turned and left. As he passed Mrs. Walton in the outer office, he heard her say, “I don’t care if you’re NBC Red, NBC Blue, or NBC Pink, you can’t speak to the marshal. And he’s not a chief, he’s a—”

He took the stairs down to the main lobby two at a time.

The Rockingham Hotel was under a two-minute ride from the station, on State Street, and for Portsmouth it was an impressive building, brick, five-story, with two sets of narrow granite steps leading up to the wide swinging oak doors of the lobby. On either side of the steps was a massive stone lion, staring blankly out into the street.