time the call was interrupted by a bored male voice: “All long-distance phone calls from this county are now being administered by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Is this an official military phone call?”
“No, it’s a call from—”
Two more tries, using his police affiliation, got the same result.
So he gave up.
The marshal’s office door opened and Harold Hanson came out, his suit and shirt wrinkled, eyes puffy behind his glasses. “Time to ride, Sam,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”
Sam got up from his desk, wiped his hands on a paper napkin, and followed the city marshal to the station’s basement. He smelled gasoline and fuel oil from the department’s maintenance garage on the other side. There was a crowd of off-duty cops, all wearing civvies, talking in low voices. Large cardboard boxes were set by the near brick wall.
Hanson stepped up on a wooden box, held up a hand. “All right,” he told them. “This isn’t going to be easy, but it’s something we’ve been ordered to do. This is a National Guard action. We’re heading out in a few minutes.”
“Boss,” came a voice. “What the hell’s going on?”
“The summit’s taking place in a few days. We’re under orders from the White House to clear out all undesirables in the city. This place has to look perfect for the radio, newsreels, and newspapers.”
The basement was silent. Sam thought about that hobo encampment, bulldozed and burnt to the ground. What about Lou Purdue? Where in hell had he gone, with what he knew about a witness? One more loose end about Peter Wotan…
“So that’s what we’re doing.” Hanson’s voice was hesitant, unlike his usual style. “We’ve got flophouses and other places to check out. Anyone who’s a refugee, anyone who doesn’t belong in Portsmouth, we’ve got to remove. That’s orders straight from the White House.”
“Remove them to where, boss?”
“Not our problem. The army will have transports set up, and they’ll be taken out to a resettlement camp.” He rubbed his eyes. “Look at it this way, guys. We’re just following orders. All right? Just following orders.”
From the cardboard boxes, military gear smelling of mildew was hauled out: old-style round metal helmets from the last war (
Lubrano said to Reardon, “You know, I’ve always wondered how we got so many Jews and refugees in town. Bet you they paid off Long and his buds to look the other way when they got smuggled in.”
Reardon laughed. “Too bad they can’t get their money back after tonight.”
They pulled up at Foss Avenue, a narrow street about a block away from the harbor, with sagging buildings of brick and wood, dirty trash bins on the crooked sidewalks. Sam knew the street well: taverns, flophouses, and boardinghouses. A place for people struggling to make a go of it. The luckier ones moved on to better neighborhoods. The others never left except in ambulances or funeral home wagons.
There was another reason for remembering this place, for something Sam had done on Thurber Street, two blocks over, just before he and his very pregnant Sarah had bought their house. Thurber Street. Even being this close to the street made him uncomfortable. He turned away. There was a wooden and barbed-wire barrier overseen by two regular National Guard troops in uniform, gear spotless, boots shiny, Springfield rifles hanging from their shoulders. Sam noted their grins as he and the others got out of the cruiser with their surplus gear. The real National Guard and the play National Guard.
Sam hung back as other cops dressed in helmets and gear approached. From the gloom came a man in a dark blue suit, Confederate-flag pin on his lapel, carrying a small flashlight and a clipboard stuffed with papers. “Eddie Mitchell, Department of Interior,” the man said. “Listen up, okay?”
Sam and the others gathered in a semicircle around Mitchell, a tall man with glasses who spoke with a soft Tennessee accent. “The other end of this street is sealed off, and we’ve got the alleyways covered as well. Y’all gonna be used as chutes. There’s a place down there, the Harbor Point Hotel. In about”—he put the flashlight beam to his watch—“ten minutes, we’re gonna have that place raided and trucks backed up to take the undesirables away. Y’all just gonna be flanking the front entrance. Just make sure nobody gets away. Got it?”
A murmur of voices, but Sam kept quiet. He wished he was in his empty home, taking a bath and having a beer. Any place else than here.
A rumble of approaching truck engines, and Mitchell waved a hand. The regular National Guardsmen pulled the barrier aside. Two army deuce-and-a-half trucks growled by, canvas sides flapping, diesel fumes belching. Mitchell yelled, “Let’s go, boys. Follow ’em!”
The more eager of the bunch followed the truck at a half-trot. Sam pulled up the rear, walking at a brisk pace, truncheon in hand, helmet hard and uncomfortable on his head. Ahead, voices were yelling, and there was a throng of people in front of the hotel, some wearing uniforms, others not. Flashlights were being waved around, and there were other guys in suits directing the flow of people, blowing whistles. The place was three-story, wooden, with a rotting porch out front, a blue-and-white wooden sign announcing HARBOR POINT. One of the trucks backed in, the tailgate rattling open. Sam took a position by the porch as lights blazed, as the other officers in helmets and webbed gear made up two lines leading to the truck.
Amazing, too, was what followed. Wooden tables were unfolded, chairs lined up. It was strange, like seeing a voting booth set up in the heart of a riot. Then people started filing out of the grandly named hotel. They were old and young, the men clean-shaven or bearded, some women wearing colorful kerchiefs on their hair, some holding children by the hand. Most carried small suitcases, as though they had always expected this night to come.
He heard a jumble of voices—French, Polish, Dutch, British—but the faces all looked the same. Pale, shocked, wide-eyed, as if they could not believe this was happening to them in this supposed land of liberty. All had the look of having been put through this before, but with soldiers in gray uniforms and coal-scuttle helmets, soldiers with crooked cross symbols on their vehicles, not white stars.
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?
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?”
