Joe Steele (34 page)

Joe Steele went on the radio the day after the execution. “I know this may seem hard. I know it may seem cruel,” he said. “If you tell me Douglas MacArthur was a brave man, I will agree with you. But he made the same kind of stupid mistake General Short and Admiral Kimmel did. Theirs cost us the disaster at Pearl Harbor. His has gone a long way toward costing us the Philippines. We will not win every battle. I understand that. But we should not lose battles because we are stupider than our enemies.
That kind of failure will not be tolerated.
And that is why Douglas MacArthur is dead.”

Listening to the speech with his very pregnant wife, Charlie wondered how things would have gone if Joe Steele had paid less attention to Hitler, who couldn't reach American fighting men, and more to Tojo, who could—and had. Charlie was sure of one thing: nobody would haul Joe Steele up in front of a tribunal to judge him for his mistakes.

No, he was sure of something else, too. He couldn't say such a thing to anybody, not even to Esther. Keeping your mouth shut seemed to be one of the hardest things anybody could do. He did it.

*   *   *

O
ne of the expectant fathers in the waiting room paced up and down, hands clasped behind his back, as if he'd escaped from an animated cartoon. Charlie wanted to trip him every time he went by. He didn't. He pretended to read a magazine. He smoked cigarette after cigarette. In the delivery room, Esther was going through all the horrible things a woman had to go through to have a baby. He was stuck out here, waiting.

A doctor walked into the room. All the men stared at him. Behind his mask, he could have been anybody's obstetrician. He said, “Mr. Lefebvre?” Everybody except the pacing guy slumped.

He at least stopped. “It's
Le-fehv
,” he said; the doctor'd pronounced it
Le-fever
. “How's Millie doing?”

“Your wife is fine, Mr. Le-fehv,” the doctor said. “If you want to come with me, you can see them now. Congratulations!”

Lefebvre went with him. The other men in the waiting room went back to waiting. At least he wasn't pacing back and forth any more. Ten minutes later, the door opened again, but it was only another worried-looking dad-to-be. An hour went by. Another doctor came in. “Mr. Sullivan?”

Charlie jumped to his feet. “That's me!” You couldn't mess up Sullivan.

“It's a boy, Mr. Sullivan—eight pounds on the nose.
Mazel tov!
” The doctor wasn't Irish.

“Thanks.” Charlie had White Owls in his jacket pocket. He gave the doctor one and tossed one to each man in the waiting room. Churchill smoked cigars, but he'd cut out his tongue after a White Owl, or maybe before.
Too bad,
Charlie thought. He'd bought some Havanas, too, but he figured he'd save those for when he went back to the White House.

“Come with me, and you can visit with your wife and your new son,” the doctor said.

Esther looked as trampled as she had the first time, even though this labor had moved a little faster. The baby was a funny color, and his head was a weird shape. That didn't alarm Charlie; Sarah had looked the same way. He kissed Esther's sweaty forehead. “How are you?” he said.

She shook her head. “Did you get the license number of that truck?”

He looked at the baby again. “He's a big boy.”

“He sure felt big coming out!” Esther said. She stroked the little bits of fine hair splayed across the top of the baby's head. “Patrick David Sullivan.” He was named for Charlie's father's father and her mother's father.

“When they throw me out of here, I'll go call Mrs. Triandos and let her know she can tell Sarah she's got a new baby brother.” The family across the hall, who had two little kids of their own, were tending to Sarah till Charlie got back.

Patrick—or would he be Pat?—started yelling. It was one of those what-the-devil's-going-on? cries newborns let out. The world was a confusing enough place after you'd lived in it for a while. When you'd just arrived, you had no idea what was happening, or why.

“Here. Shut up and have some milk.” Esther put the baby on her breast. He might not know much yet, but he knew how to go after the good
stuff. Esther had nursed Sarah for a year. She planned to do it again. No matter what the baby-food companies said, it was simpler and cheaper than bottles and formula.

“A son,” Charlie said dreamily. It wasn't that Sarah wasn't wonderful. She was. But boys and girls were different, dammit. They'd do different things. They'd think different ways. If not for the differences between boys and girls, this old world wouldn't have much point, would it?

“After you call Irene, you need to tell our families,” Esther said.

“I was thinking I'd wait till I got home to do that. It'd be a lot cheaper than doing it from a phone booth.”

“Oh.” Esther thought about it, then nodded. “Well, okay. That makes sense. You can let the White House know, too.” She laughed. “When I married you, I never thought I'd say anything like that after I had a baby.”

“Life isn't what you think you're gonna get,” Charlie said. “Life is what happens to you while you're looking out for what you think you're gonna get.”

“That sounds good. Does it mean anything?” Esther yawned. “I'm so beat up, I don't care if it means anything or not. Go call Mrs. Triandos. If Junior here lets me, I'm gonna sleep for a week. After I eat something, I mean. I'm starved. Having a kid is hard work. They don't call it labor for nothing. You'd better believe they don't.”

Looking at her, all pale and exhausted, Charlie didn't see how he could do anything but believe her. He kissed her again, and kissed Patrick David Sullivan, too. New babies had a fresh-baked smell that wasn't like anything else in the world. Charlie'd been sad when Sarah lost it and started smelling like an ordinary little kid. Now here it was again, the odor that said something new had been added to the world.

There were phone booths (Charlie wondered why they weren't phone beeth, which said something about how tired he was) in the lobby downstairs. He called Irene Triandos. She squealed when he gave her the news. Then she called Sarah to the telephone.

“Daddy?” Sarah said.

“Hi, sweetie. You've got a new little brother. Mommy had a baby boy.”

“It's a boy! It's a brother!” Sarah told Mrs. Triandos, who already knew.

Talking on the phone with little kids was always an adventure. When Sarah started paying attention to the voice in her ear once more, Charlie asked her, “Do you remember what we were gonna name the baby if it was a boy?”

“'Course I do, silly! Patrick David Sullivan!”

“That's right. So you've got a little brother named Patrick.”

“Patrick brother! Brother Patrick!” Sarah was still kind of hazy about how those things worked. Pretty soon, though, she'd discover that one of the things younger brothers were for was driving older siblings nuts. Charlie was a younger brother. He'd been good at it. He was sure Patrick would follow in his footsteps.

*   *   *

J
ust as winter nights in Montana seemed to stretch like saltwater taffy, nights in summer were hardly there at all. That was how it felt to Mike, anyhow. The sun disappeared behind the Rockies. Next thing you knew, it was coming up again on the other side of the sky.

He realized with a small shock, or maybe not such a small one, how used he was getting to the rhythms of the sun here, and to the rhythms of encampment life. This was where he'd been, this was what he'd done, for the past five years. He'd served his stretch. It felt that way to him, anyhow. Yeah, the administrative law judge had slapped him with five to ten, but weren't five years of this enough for anybody?

Some people with stretches like his got out after five. He'd seen it happen. The Jeebies gave them clothes without numbers and twenty bucks, then put them on a bus to Livingston, usually with orders to stay inside the Rocky Mountain and Midwestern states. He didn't know what would happen if you went back to, say, New Hampshire and they caught you there. You'd probably get another term, a longer one.

They didn't seem about to turn him loose. John Dennison hadn't gone anywhere, either. Dennison dealt with the encampment better than anyone else Mike had ever seen, himself included. Whatever happened, it rolled off his back. He had the measure of the place. He didn't like it—who could?—but he dealt with it.

And just because some people got out, that didn't mean others didn't
come in. These days, the labor encampments were full of Japanese-American scalps. Joe Steele had ordered everyone of Japanese descent on the U.S. mainland seized. Women had encampments, too. Those were probably also loaded with black-haired, almond-eyed people. The Jeebies here came down extra hard on the Japs. They blamed them for starting the war. Why not? Plainly, Joe Steele did, too. Mike wondered how many Japanese would get turned loose, or if any ever would.

He also wondered if he ever would. Curiosity made him brave the administration building again. He told himself the worst they could do was say no. How was he worse off if they did? (Actually, the worst they could do was beat the crap out of him and stick him in a punishment cell for a few weeks, but he preferred not to dwell on such things.)

A sergeant pulled his file and examined it. “Well, your record's not
too
bad, and you put in your enlistment request pretty early,” the man said. “That's one more point for you. Let's see what Captain Blair thinks.”

“Okay. Let's.” Mike figured he hadn't struck out, anyhow. Whether he was just getting in deeper, he'd have to find out.

Captain Blair had a patch over his right eye socket. Mike guessed that made him a Great War veteran—no, with a new war in town, now they were calling it World War I. He bent low over the papers to examine them, which meant his remaining eye was nearsighted. Then he looked up at Mike.

“Normally, you'd serve your full ten. At least your full ten,” he said. “Sergeant Sanders didn't notice some of the coding in here. But there is a way for you to get out of the encampment, if you want to.”

“Tell me,” Mike said.

“We can take you to Livingston—straight to the recruiting station there. You can volunteer to serve for the duration of the war. Your service will be in what's called a punishment brigade. It will have men from the encampments and disgraced officers trying to get their good name back. It will go in wherever things are hottest. It will keep doing that as long as the war lasts. If you live, you'll be released then. If you don't, well, so it goes.”

“Oh,” Mike said, and then, “You don't pull any punches, do you?”

“You can't say you didn't know the score before you played the game,”
Blair answered. “You can take your chances—and they aren't too good.” He touched the patch to emphasize that. “Or you can stay here a long time. You must have ticked off somebody with clout.”

“I ticked off Joe Steele,” Mike said proudly.

“I hear all kinds of bullshit from wreckers. You, I almost believe. So what'll it be?”

John Dennison would have stayed. Dennison
was
staying. Mike didn't want to let another five years go by here, or another ten. He'd look up and find he'd worked here longer than he had for the
Post
. He wouldn't be able to imagine a life beyond the barbed wire and the chopping details, let alone live one. They'd try their best to kill him if he joined the Army? They were killing him here, only in slow motion.

“Take me to Livingston,” he said.

“You'll go in the morning, after roll call and breakfast,” Captain Blair said. “Believe it or not, I wish you the best of luck. I tried to get back on active military duty, but they wouldn't take me. The limeys used Admiral Nelson even though he was shy an eye and an arm. These are modern times, though. I don't cut the mustard for the real war. I'm stuck here.”

Making war on Americans instead,
Mike thought. But he didn't say it. Blair had been square with him, as square as anybody could be. What he did say was “Thank you.” It felt as unnatural as it had when he'd said it to Lopatynski the winter before.

*   *   *

C
harlie got a card from Mike announcing he'd joined the Army.
The hardest part is, I have to learn a new number for myself,
his brother wrote.
I've been NY24601 a long time. But I'm someone else these days.

He didn't know whether the card was good news or bad news. Mike hadn't gone overseas the last time around. He'd worked in a munitions plant instead. At the labor encampment, he was reasonably safe. In the Army, he wouldn't be. On the other hand, the powers that be were more likely to let him out of the Army than to release him from the encampment.

Out in the wider world, the war ground on. Charlie remembered Admiral Spruance from his days on one of Joe Steele's military tribunals. He hadn't been an admiral then. Now, his ships smashed the Japs near
Midway: one more place Charlie'd never heard of till it got splashed all over the newspapers.

In Russia, the Germans couldn't attack along the whole vast front, the way they had the year before. They pushed forward in the south and hung on in the center and north. Plainly, the drive was aimed at the Caucasus and the oilfields there. Oil had always been a problem for the Germans—they didn't have enough. If they could grab the Russians' fields, they'd help themselves and hurt the Reds at the same time.

Rostov-on-the-Don fell. The Germans had taken it in 1941, too, but the Red Army drove them out then. Now they hung on to it and even advanced. Trotsky sent his faltering troops an order: not one step back! Order or no order, the Russians kept retreating.

The Nazis couldn't just roll into the Caucasus. That would leave them with a long, unprotected northern flank. They had to take more of southern Russia. There was a city on the Volga that, in the days before the Revolution, had been called Tsaritsyn. The Reds couldn't leave it with a reactionary name like that. Now it was Trotskygrad: Trotsky's town.