Amerikan Eagle

“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.

CHAPTER THIRTY

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.