chairs, a dining room table, a wet bar, and a desk with matching chair and a black metal wastebasket. Lights came from overhead lightbulbs, and a small electric heater in one corner of the tent cut the chill. Sitting in the chair was another Long’s Legionnaire, older, his uniform crisp and clean, the leatherwork shiny, and on the collar tabs, the oak leaves of a major.
Sam took the chair across the desk. The Legionnaire said, “Sam. Good to see you.”
“How long?” Sam said.
Clarence Rolston, the janitor and handyman for the Portsmouth Police Department, picked up a file folder and replied, “Years and years, of course. And damn long years at that. Pretending to be brain-soaked, slow and dense, takes a lot of work. Most Legionnaires are happy to do their work in public. It takes a special talent and commitment to spend years underground.”
“Was Hanson in on it?” Sam had to ask.
Clarence’s smile was thin-lipped. “Sort of defeats the purpose of being undercover if your supposed boss knows what’s going on.”
“You were very convincing,” Sam managed to say, thinking of what Clarence must have overheard, must have seen, all the while toiling in the background of the police department. He remembered what the marshal had told him back in Burdick:
“Thanks, Sam,” Clarence replied, going through the folder. “Only the ones who desire to see the President and the Party succeed can be chosen for such a task. But you know what? I was proud of every second of my job.”
Sam thought,
He said, “Does your brother know?”
Clarence grimaced. “You mean my older brother, the honorable Robert Rolston, city councillor? He knows how to toss a vote for the right bribe, how to skim a city contract for money, and how to get booze and broads in return for city jobs. Other than that, he knows shit.”
Sam said, “I see.”
Clarence said, “Let’s get right to it, all right?”
Sam was startled at the sound of a shotgun blast coming from outside, but the firearm discharging didn’t bother Clarence a bit. Sam said, “Sure. Let’s get to it.”
The supposed janitor put on a pair of reading glasses and said, “What I have here is a collection of documents, Sam, all implicating you in a variety of anti-Party crimes and activities. For example, I have a denouncement saying that at the last Party meeting, you wrote down the names of Long, Coughlin, and Lindbergh when you were asked to list the names of local undesirables. I also have a canvassing report from two Legionnaires who detected suspicious activity at your house when they arrived for a visit. And I have an interrogation report concerning your brother and other plotters against the President. This report strongly implicates your participation. Finally, I have a request from a facility in Vermont seeking your immediate arrest and internment because of activities threatening national security.”
Sam stayed still, his ears roaring like tidal waves crashing over him, overwhelming him and everything in their path.
Clarence peered at Sam over his reading glasses. “Do you have anything to say about these documents, Sam?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you deny the information contained in these reports?”
“No.”
“Anything to say in your defense?”
Sam said, “Not a goddamn thing.”
Clarence stared, then put the papers down. “Very well, then. I have no other choice, I’m sorry to say.”
The Legionnaire lowered his hand, opened a desk drawer, and Sam watched as Clarence took out a—
Cigarette lighter. Sam was expecting a pistol, or handcuffs, or an arrest warrant.
Clarence took the papers he had read, held them over the wastebasket, and with a flip of the lighter set them ablaze. The flames quickly rolled up the sheets of paper until Clarence was forced to drop them in the wastebasket. Wisps of smoke rose to the peaked green canvas roof of the tent.
Clarence put the cigarette lighter back into the desk drawer, slid it shut. He took his reading glasses off. “Sam, you always treated me well all the years I was undercover. Every single time you saw me. Not like some of your fellow cops, who figured I was just a dummy, a moron they could ignore or tease or rough up… Anyway, how you treated me day after day, month after month, year after year, that tells me what kind of man you are. Not whatever was claimed on those sheets of paper—which, of course, no longer exist.”
The Legionnaire picked up a fountain pen. “You’re a good guy, Sam. But get the hell out of my sight, all right?”
Sam did just that.
Outside of the temporary holding areas on the football field, a small crowd of people had gathered against the fence, looking for friends or family members. A couple of the braver ones were arguing with the Legionnaires keeping guard at the gate. Sam slipped through and thought of the luck that had just graced him.
As he was going to his Packard, there was a touch on his arm and a familiar voice. “Sam? Sam?”
There was Donna Fitzgerald, face drawn, eyes puffy. She had on a shapeless tweed coat. He said, “Donna… what’s wrong?”
“Larry… he’s been rounded up… and all I know is that he’s in there somewhere.”
“What are they charging him with?”
She wiped at her runny nose. “Who knows? Who cares? He hasn’t done a thing since he’s been back from the camp, just sleeping and catching up on his eating, and now he’s gone again. Oh, Sam,” she sobbed. “Can you help me?”
His chest felt cold and tight. “Donna, I’m sorry, I’m just a local cop, and it’s a federal charge he’s up against. I can’t do anything.”
“But I saw you walk out of the compound with no problem.”
Sam was torn, God, how he was torn. He wanted so much to help his old friend, but he had to keep moving. There were so many important things going on, things he couldn’t talk about or even afford to think about too much.
“That was different, Donna. Police business. I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.”
Her hand grabbed his. “Sam. Please… we’ve known each other for years… I thought I could rely on you…”
“Donna—”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Don’t you remember when we were kids, how you saved me?”
He knew the look on his face said it all: He didn’t remember. She went on. “I had. I had started to develop… you know? And a couple of the neighborhood boys, the Taskers, they wanted to see my boobies… they were holding me down, they were trying to pull off my shirt. You were there, and you pulled them off of me, slugged them, and I ran home crying. You saved me, Sam, you saved me…”
She squeezed his hand and went on, faster. “I don’t have much in the way of money, but I can make it worth your while. You know I can. Pay you back… for then and now…”
For the briefest of moments, he closed his eyes. Thought about the other desperate women he had heard of, offering the only thing they had to try to free their men. How had it come to this? He opened his eyes, took his hand back from her, and gently said, “Donna, I can’t.”
By then it made no difference. Donna turned back toward the closed gate, her shoulders slumped against the biting wind, her possible savior no help at all.
