Amerikan Eagle (27 page)

A woman in a thin black cotton dress stared at him as she went by. She called out in a thick accent, “Why are you doing this?
Why?
”

He looked away. He had no answer.

At the nearest truck, a line had formed by the wooden tables. Paperwork was being checked, clipboards consulted. The men manning the tables shook their heads, made a motion with a thumb, and up into the rear of the
truck the people went. As if they had practiced it before, the younger undesirables helped the older ones up.

“Shit,” someone whispered. “This is like those damn newsreels from Europe, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam replied. “I guess we’re all Europeans now.”

A motion caught his eye. A man came down the wooden steps alone, using crutches, one leg usable, the other cut off at the knee. RAF Lieutenant Reggie Hale, the guest of Walter Tucker. Staring straight ahead, moving slowly and deliberately, heading over to the examining table. Sam watched, hardly able to bear seeing the slow progress of the crippled pilot. Walter probably hadn’t gotten to him in time. When Hale got to the desk and started talking, the thought came to him of how the poor bastard would get into the rear of the truck.

That was what did it for him.

Sam left the line and went over to the desk, where Hale was speaking low and proper. “Old boy, I tell you, someone must have stolen my papers, because they were in my coat just last week.”

“Yeah, fine, that’s only the sixth time I’ve heard that in the last five minutes,” replied the bored National Guard clerk. “Come along, up on the truck and—”

“Hold on,” Sam said.

The RAF pilot swiveled on his crutches, his face expressionless. The clerk said to Sam, “Fella, get back where you belong, all right?”

Sam handed over his badge, not using LaCouture’s card, wanting to keep the FBI man out of this. “I’m Inspector Sam Miller of the Portsmouth Police Department. This man is Reggie Hale, right?”

The clerk glanced down at his clipboard. “Yeah, so what?”

“Hale is a material witness in an ongoing investigation I’m conducting. He’s to stay here.”

“Hey, Miller, I don’t need—”

“The name is
Inspector
Miller, pal,” Sam said. “And Hale stays here. Or I’ll go get the rest of the Portsmouth cops and leave, and you can see how well you do your job with twenty or so fewer men. How does that sound?”

The clerk had a little Clark Gable mustache that twitched some. He handed back Sam’s badge with a clatter. “Fine, take the fucking limey. I’ll put your name down as the guy I let him go to. In case he shoots the governor or something, it’ll be your neck. Get back where you belong.”

Sam walked back to the line, then glanced behind to see if Hale was following, but no, the RAF pilot had limped away and faded into the shadows.

Well
, he thought,
how about that
.

One of his fellow cops said, “Sam, what the hell was that?”

“That was a lesson,” he answered. “Sometimes you do a favor and you don’t get anything in return. Except pissed-off people.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

He stood there, the wooden truncheon cold in his hand, as the arrests continued, as the trucks backed up with their growling diesels, the children crying, the whistles blowing, seeing it all, not wanting to see it, not wanting to hear it, but forcing himself to do it just the same.

After about an hour of watching the refugees get processed, the coffee he had drunk earlier had percolated
through his kidneys and bladder. He said to Lubrano, “Hey, do you know anywhere a guy can take a leak?”

Lubrano shrugged. “Dunno. There’s an alley back there I used a couple of minutes ago.”

Sam left the line of police, found the alley. He went down the narrow stretch between two tenements, stinking of trash and urine. He found a couple of ash cans, propped up his wooden truncheon against the far wall, and unzipped his pants, did his business. Damn, what a night. After he was done, he zipped up his pants and—

Someone was singing.

There was a sharp moan of somebody in pain.

He picked up his truncheon, went down to the other end of the alley, heard some laughter. On the sidewalk, a streetlight illuminated a scene that froze him. A man lay on the sidewalk cowering, dressed in tattered clothes. Standing over him were two younger and better-dressed men, kicking him, laughing. Both wore short leather coats and blue corduroy pants. Two of Long’s boys hard at work, handing out their brand of street justice. The pair from the Fish Shanty, the guys whose car tires had been slashed.

“C’mon!” one yelled. “Let’s hear ya sing, ya drunk mackerel snapper!”

The other man laughed, too. “C’mon, sing! You know how to sing, don’t ya? Sing our song!”

The first one tossed his head back.
“ ‘I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.’ ”

The man on the ground cried out, “Please, please, stop … I’ll … I’ll try! Jesus … just give me a sec … ow!”

It seemed as if time were passing by at a furious pace,
with no time for thinking or reflection. Sam stripped off his helmet and his armband, dropped them on the ground. With his truncheon, he hammered the skull of the nearest Long’s Legionnaire, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The other one looked up, startled, scared, and the astonished look on the Southerner’s face brought Sam joy.

“Here,” Sam said. “This one’s for you.”

He slammed the wooden truncheon into the side of the man’s skull. The Legionnaire stumbled and Sam followed, hitting him twice in the stomach. The Legionnaire tripped over his companion and stayed down. Sam helped up the old man they had been tormenting.

His face was bloody, his hair white and stringy. “Ohhh … ohhh … thank you, thank you, I—”

“Go. Get going.” Sam gently pushed him away.

The man stumbled down the street. Sam went back to the Legionnaires. He gave them both a swift kick to the ribs. Both yelped in pain.

He couldn’t resist one. He sang to them:
“ ‘Yes, we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom!”

Then he left them, like trash on the street, and picked up his discarded helmet and armband.

When Sam got home, exhausted, all he wanted to do was grab a beer and take a hot bath and let the dirty memories of the night soak away. If he had been lucky, all those Southern clowns saw was some guy with a big stick. All right, a pretty stupid stunt, but still, he felt good about it. He felt even better about letting that hobo get away. A beer to celebrate sounded pretty fine.

But when he got through the front door, the radio was on in the darkened living room, “Sarah?” he called out, confused.

“Nope, ’fraid not,” came a voice, and Sam thought,
Oh, great
. After hanging up his coat, he flicked on a switch, lighting up the room. Tony sat on the couch, muddy feet splayed out in front of him.

“Thought I left the house locked this morning.”

Tony grinned, “Learned a lot of skills in labor camps, Sam. How to take your time cutting down trees. Best way to stow your gear without one of your bunkmates stealing it. And how to break into a house, even one belonging to a cop. You should have better locks.”

“And you should have better sense. What the hell are you doing here?”

Tony crossed his feet. “Man, there’s so many feds and National Guard troops crawling around, I had to get someplace safe, even for a little while, and this was it. You know, when we were kids, it’d take about ten minutes to
get to this neighborhood from Pierce Island at a good trot. Tonight it took me almost an hour. Can you believe that?”

Sam took a chair, sat down heavily. “Yeah, I can believe that. You must have learned some skills up there, to miss all the patrols.”

“You wouldn’t believe some of the things I learned.” He looked around and said, “Toby and Sarah coming back soon? I’d love a chance to see ’em, I really would.”

“They’re gone for a few days. I stashed them up in Moultonborough, at her dad’s place. Too many chances of something bad happening while Portsmouth gets crowded with every nutball in the region.”

“A good idea. Too bad there aren’t enough safe places like that in the state for people who need them. Or the country. Or the world.”

Sam stretched out his legs. “Jesus Christ, do you have to make everything into some goddamn symbol of the times or something?”

“Why not? That’s the world we’re living in.”

“So says you,” Sam said, tired of it all.

From the radio came a familiar voice, that of Charles Lindbergh, speaking at some rally. In his Midwestern high-pitched tone, he said, “It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead
of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.”

“Can you believe that rube?” Tony motioned to the radio. “The war’s all about Europe, all about the Jews. Just stay home between the two oceans and mind our own business and beat up the Jews ourselves and we’ll all be happy little children.”

Sam said, “Some would say the man makes a point, even if he has a lousy way of making it, of staying out of Europe’s war.”

“Yeah, some point. Just because you know how to fly a plane doesn’t mean you know shit about politics and history. The next hundred years of what kind of people we’re going to be, what kind of world we will inhabit, is being fought out in the steppes of Russia, small towns in occupied England and Europe, and our sainted Kingfish has just cast his lot on the side of the invaders.”

Sam felt his blood rise. “As opposed to what, Tony? Helping Joe Stalin and the Reds? You say you know so much. Ever hear of a place called the Katyn Forest, in Poland? Russians took over the eastern half of Poland back in ’39, as part of the Stalin and Hitler peace pact. When the Krauts overran that part in ’41, they found thousands of dead Polish soldiers and officers buried in
pits, hands tied together, shot in the head by the NKVD, the Russian secret police. The Krauts invited reporters there, newsreel guys, showed the world what the Russians had done to those Poles. That’s the kind of people we should be helping?”

Tony glowered at him. “Just like you can’t choose your family, Sam, you can’t choose the ones to help you in a desperate fight.”

Lindbergh’s voice kept on coming, almost whiny. “I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.”

“Come on, Tony, what do you say? Should Long make an alliance with Stalin, help him fight the Germans, is that it?”

“The Germans gassed Dad, put him in an early grave. And the Navy Yard thought so little of him and the other workers that they didn’t care when he started coughing out his lungs. Don’t you ever think about that?”

“Sure I do, but having one doctor or six at the Yard wouldn’t have made much difference,” Sam said. “And you know what? I’m sure we go back far enough, we’ll find some English lord or gent made life miserable for the Millers back in Ireland. Does that mean we hold a grudge
forever? Christ, that’s what they do in Europe, and look where it’s gotten them.”

“So we just give up?”

“Christ, Tony. What the hell do you want me to do? Buttonhole Long or Hitler in a few days, give ’em the point of view from my escapee brother? Is that it?”

Tony stayed silent for a moment. “No. I … I expect you to do your job, Sam. That’s all. Just do your job and do the right thing.”

It now made sense. “Tony. It’s no coincidence you’re here now. What’s going on?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, yes, it does,” he insisted. “You just told me to do my job. And that’s what I’m doing. My job. So why are you here? You’ve been a prisoner for a couple of years, you finally escape and end up in Portsmouth just when Hitler’s coming by for a visit. A hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Tony got to his feet, face set. “Sorry, brother. Time to go.”

“You’re not leaving. Tell me why you’re here. The summit … what are you going to do? Make a scene? A protest? Tell me why you’re here.”

Tony stepped toward him. “You going to stop me? Arrest me? Pull a gun on me?”

Doing his job, doing what he had done with those two Long boys, that had been one thing. But his brother was something else. The room was still.

“Tony.…”

“Still here.”

“Leave, then. But get out of Portsmouth. It’s too dangerous here. If you care for Sarah or Toby, get the hell
out. Stop whatever it is you’re up to, and just get the hell out.”

“Good advice,” Tony said, brushing past him, heading to the door. “But you know me when it comes to advice. I hardly ever take it. Even if I do care for your wife and boy.”

The door slammed behind Tony and Sam wiped at his face with both hands. Such a goddamn day. He changed the radio station to some music, went into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and emptied it before he headed for his bath.