“You wouldn’t even let him use the pay phone?”
“Bum wanted a nickel. You know what happen, I give ’im a nickel to make a phone call? He runs out. I never see him, never see nickel again.”
“You might have impeded an investigation, Jack. We might have gotten here earlier if you’d let him make that call.”
“Hell with that. One dead man, what do I care? What I do care is those bums down the tracks, living like animals, pissing and shitting in the woods, always breakin’ in my place, goin’ through my trash, lookin’ for scraps to eat, dumpin’ it all on the ground. Why don’t they get cleaned out? Huh? I’m a taxpayer. Why don’t they get cleaned out?”
Sam dropped two quarters on the counter. “Priorities, Jack, priorities. One of these days…”
Jack said something in Greek and palmed the coins. “You sound like the President. One of these days. Every man a king. One of these days.”
“Sure,” Sam said, “and make sure Donna gets that tip, okay?”
“Yeah, I make sure.”
The door opened and another Portsmouth cop came in, his slicker glossy with rain. He held his uniform cap in one hand, shaking off the water to the wet floor. Rudy Jenness was one of the oldest cops on the force and the laziest, but because his brother ran the city’s public works, he was safe in his job as shift sergeant. He walked over, his face splotchy red and white. “Sam, glad I saw your car parked out there.” Without a word, Jack pressed a cup of coffee into Rudy’s palm.
“Yeah, lucky me, what’s up?” Sam said.
“Marshal Hanson, he wants to see you. Like now.”
“He say why?”
Rudy noisily drained the cup and then slapped it on the counter. “Shit, you got a dead son of a bitch, right? Hanson wants to chat you up about it.”
Sam felt a voice inside saying,
Sam said, “Good place for you, don’t you think?”
Rudy smiled, and Sam saw a patch of stubble on his chin where the razor had missed shaving. “You can have your inspector job. Lots of bullshit a guy like me don’t have to worry about, and I’ll be getting mine when I retire. See you in the funny papers, Sam. Thanks for the coffee, Jack.”
After Rudy left, Sam folded his notebook shut, put it inside his coat, and got up from his stool. The door banged open and two young men stumbled in, noisy, already drunk, swaying. Their cropped hair was wet from the rain, and they were dressed almost identically, in leather boots, dark blue corduroy pants, and leather coats. On the lapel of each coat was a small Confederate-flag pin, and Sam stood still, watching them stumble by and sit down at the counter.
The two jokingly passed a menu between them, and Sam started to the door, just as one of the men yelled out to Jack Tinios, “Hey, you old bastard, get over here and take our order! What the hell are you, a lazy Jew or something?”
The coffee shop fell silent. One of the sailors set his fork down. Sam looked to Jack, who looked back at him, eyes sharp. No one dared look at the two men who had just slammed in. Donna stood by the kitchen doors. She had a plate of food in her hand, and even at this distance, Sam saw her eyes tear up. In the restaurant window was a faded sign: WE SUPPORT SHARE THE WEALTH. One of the ways to get along, not to make waves, even though Sam knew Jack detested the President.
The rain was pelting down, but Sam took his time after he went outside. He looked at each of the cars parked in the dirt lot until he found the one he was looking for, a ’42 Plymouth with Louisiana license plates, a pelican in the center of the plate. The front fenders and windshield were speckled with insect carcasses from the long drive north. Two members of the President’s party—Long’s Legionnaires, they were called in some of the braver newspapers—sent north as reverse carpetbaggers, to install Party discipline with a fierce loyalty for their Kingfish. Up till recently, Portsmouth had been spared such visitors, but in the past few weeks they’d been here, setting up shop, doing their bit to extend their President’s control.
Sam looked back at the rain-streaked windows of the small restaurant, saw the two young men sitting there, laughing. Then he knelt down, took out his pocketknife, and gently slit the two rear tires.
INTERLUDE I
With Vermont behind him, it took him nearly a week, but he finally made it to this isolated farmhouse on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River. Standing in the trees at dusk, he had watched the place for almost an hour before reaching a decision. Sweet wood smoke rose and eddied up from a metal smokestack set in the sagging roof of the one-story home next to an empty barn. He rubbed his hands. It was probably warm in that snug old farmhouse. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d last been warm. Only when it was dark, and someone lit a kerosene lamp from inside, did he make his move.
He walked up to the rear door, going as fast as he could, limping from last winter’s injury, when a pine tree he’d cut down had fallen the wrong way. When he got to the door, he gave it a good thump with his fist.
No answer.
His breath snagged as he thought,
“Yeah?” came a voice from inside.
“Just passing through,” he said.
“So?”
He hesitated, knowing it would sound silly, but still, it had to be said. “Give me liberty…” He waited for the countersign, wondering if he could run fast enough back to the woods if it went wrong.
The man on the other side of the door replied, “Or give me liberty.”
His tight chest relaxed. Only someone he could trust would have the correct countersign. Only then did he recognize how tense he had been. There were two men inside, the one answering the door, another sitting at a wooden table, where the kerosene lamp flickered. Both wore faded flannel shirts and denim overalls grubby with grease and dirt. The man at the table held a sawed-off shotgun pointing at his gut. He stopped on the threshold, and the man put the shotgun down on the table. The armed man was in his thirties, the other man—who walked over to an icebox, opened it, and came back holding a plate with two chicken legs and a mug of milk—was in his fifties. His face was scarred on the right, and the eye on that side drooped. A lit woodstove in the other corner warmed the small room.
“Thanks,” he said, sitting down, picking up a chicken leg and starting to eat. “Been a long time.”
The older man sat across from to him. “You can spend the night, but Zach here”—he gestured in the armed man’s direction—“will get you into Keene tomorrow. From there, someone will get you to the coast.”
Amazing how quick it was to finish off one chicken leg, and it seemed he was even hungrier when he picked up the other. “Fair enough.”
Zach asked, “How’s things where you came from?”
“Tough,” he replied. “How’s things here?”
Zach laughed. “Used to have the best dairy herd in this county before milk prices turned to shit. Lost money on each gallon of milk I sold, so I slaughtered my herd and make do where I can. Still, not as bad as Phil here.”
“True?” he asked Phil.
Phil rubbed at stubble on his chin. “I went out to the Midwest back in ’28, got a job at Republic Steel. A tough place. Management treated us like shit, got worse after the Crash. Then we went on strike in ’37.”
He nodded, remembering. “Yeah. The Memorial Day massacre. You were there?”
“Sure was. Hundreds of us strikers marching peacefully, lookin’ for better conditions and wages, then reachin’ a line of Chicago cops. More than twenty were shot dead by those bastards, whole bunch of others were
