'You can't come to de surface fast, and break it and suck in the air.
You gots to swim away underwater, come to the surface slow, be gentle when you gits to it. Otherwise they hear you, ' they havin' too much fun to notice usually. You swim in, real slow and quiet. Follow them to their shore, ' otherwise you be real mixed up. You swim to the wrong shore, I can't help you none. Got it?'
'Where do I go?'
'Swim upriver maybe quarter mile. Look for a flash. That'll be me with a old carbide lamp. You come ashore there. You rest up couple of days, I'll set you free with a compass. It's a straight run to the tracks twenty-five miles out, you hops a freight and back you go. I got some money fo' you. No dogs trackin' you, no mens with guns and trigger fingers all twitchy-like, nothin'. They think you daid. They seen you go into the dark river. They don't know nothing. You home free. They never come after you. You got that life of yours back and you do wif it whatever you want.'
Earl could think of nothing to say.
'But even if we get that far, then you gots them two promises. You make them, or I swim you back out there and chain you to that rock again.'
Sam got back in a mood of near suicidal grief. So much for that adventure. His peregrinations in Baltimore had destroyed the serenity of a good woman and he had learned almost nothing of use. Dutifully, he typed out a report and sent it off to Davis Trugood, along with a careful, thorough accounting of all expenses.
He called Connie, was bucked up by her to a small degree; he went to one of his son's baseball practices where the boy did well, and that buoyed him even more. But it all went away late in the afternoon, and not even a powerful bourbon could destroy the sense of a life wasted, a friend betrayed, all control slipping away from him.
He finally made his decision. At 10:00 a.m. the next day, he would call Colonel Jenks, the commandant of the Arkansas State Highway Patrol, and tell him everything. It was time at last to get official convening authorities involved in the situation, and if there were anything that could be done, it would be done. Then he would call Junie Swagger, whom he now avoided like a disease. He would tell her, own up to his idiotic responsibility for all this, and tell her that he was trying to obey Earl's mandates, but now too long had passed, and it was time to get this thing settled.
He awoke with a sense of mission, showered, shaved, put on his suit and tie, had breakfast with his wife and two of the boys and two of the girls, and went downtown to his little office. He climbed the steps and sat at the phone. He could not make himself call at 10:00 a. m.' but by 10:15 he had screwed up the ambition. He reached for the phone, set it before him, an dit rang.
He let it ring a bit, then picked it up.
'Sam Vincent.'
'Sam, it's Melvin Jeffries.'
Mel was the pharmacist in town. Sam had once declined to prosecute one of his children on a fool shoplifting charge, for which Mel had been eternally grateful. That boy, if Sam recalled correctly, was now up at Fayetteville, doing well.
'Mel, what can I do for you?' 'Well, Sam, nothing at all. I just thought you should know a couple of fellows were here.' Sam paused.
From Mississippi?
His breath dried to a little spurt.
'Which fellows?'
'G-men.' 'G-men?' Sam said.
'Yes, sir. They had all sorts of questions ' you.'
'FBI agents?'
'I think so, Sam. At least that was the impression I had, even if they didn't say. Men in suits, with badges, carrying guns.'
'What did they want to know?'
He waited: all about your adventures in Mississippi? How you were an escaped prisoner from Thebes County. How they think you killed a woman.
How your friend, Earl, came down there and you got him killed.
How you violated the law and' Well Sam, mainly it was your politics.'
'What? My politics?'
'Yes.'
'Why, I'm a Democrat like everybody else here in Arkansas. Why would they have to know my politics? I ran for the Democratic party. I hope to run for the Democratic party again in a year or so. I've been a Democrat my whole life. What business is my party affiliation to the federal government?'
'Not them kind of politics, Sam. More like, were you ' or anything. You have any strange ' ideas about politics?
Were you sympathetic of unions? Did you listen to the Negro jazz music or classical music? What magazines you buy? What books you read? What was your sentiments about the Soviet Union? Did you ever speak favorably about Mr. Stalin? Were you upset we went to the aid of the Koreans? Did you speak agin' the atom bomb. Did you think it was a shame we didn't share that secret with our Russian allies? What was your opinion of communists in the pictures or on the radio? Seemed like they thought you were a red, is what I gathered.'
Sam realized: they were investigators from the House Un-American Activities Committee.
'Well, what did you tell them?'
' You's a true blue American war hero and went after criminals hard as hell and kept the order and represented the state and that you had good judgment and character, but also a heart and a sense of discretion. You know how highly we think of you in this house, Sam, after what you did for Harrison.'
'It's not right that they're asking these questions,' Sam said.
'No, Sam, it ain't. But they're all over town this morning. I thought you should know.'
'I see. Thank you so much, Mel. How's Harrison doing, by the way?'
'He's fine, Sam. He just pledged SAE.'
'Well, that's terrific.'
'You have a good day, Mr. Sam.' 'I will,' said Sam. He put down the phone, shaken. HUAC? Now how the hell? What the hell? Was it that somebody in Mississippi had complained?
Or was it that The phone rang again.
This time it was Mary Fine, who ran Fine's Dry Cleaning. The same story: two government men, questions about politics, insinuations about a radical unreliability, stern, judgmental demeanors, disappointment.
Something like that could ruin a fellow with public ambitions in a hurry.
Then it was the barber, the newspaper editor, and finally Harley Bean, the county Democratic chairman, who was also the mayor and the undertaker to most of Polk County.
'Sam, what the hell is goin' on? You must be the least red fella I ever heard tell of. Unless you consider sending Willis Beaudine up to Tucker for diddling that nigger gal.' 'Some would say that's pretty red,' said Sam.
'Well, Sam, I can't tell you your business, but if you're red I'm going to suggest we surrender to the commies, as they've already gotten too far.'
'Well, Harley, you know I'm not red.'
'Well, what is this all about?'
'They haven't reached me yet. Sure as hell, that's what they're here for.'
'Well, Sam, you know I'd go to bat for you in any ball game in America.
But when the FBI?'
'Did they say they was FBI?'
'Hmmm, Sam, now as I recollect I am not certain. I did have that impression, however. They just flashed badges and government IDs and on they went.'
'I don't think they're FBI. I think they're House investigators. That means they're not bonded police agents, and if they're carrying concealed weapons they are doing so in violation of the laws of Arkansas.'
'Well, Sam, nobody pays much attention to that law, anyhow. They certainly act like FBI. I'd get to the bottom of this, I was you. You know we have big plans to get you back in the prosecutor's office.'
'Thank you, Harley.'
