CONFIDENTIAL
Partial transcript, phone call received 01 May 1943, FBI Officer in Charge, Boston Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, from Confidential Informant “Charlie”:
CI Charlie: …sorry, it didn’t work out.
FBI OIC: What do you mean it didn’t work out?
CI Charlie: It didn’t work out. He’s dead. That’s it.
FBI OIC: Did you recover anything from the body?
CI Charlie: Not a goddamn thing.
FBI OIC: Were you seen?
CI Charlie: I don’t think so.
FBI OIC: There’s going to be hell to pay.
CI Charlie: Tell me about it.
FBI OIC: And you should know, something huge is coming down the pike in less than a week and in your neck of the woods. You and your crew better be ready. You can’t afford to screw up again or you’ll be a dead man for sure, along with whoever else gets in the way or screws up.
CI Charlie: But there’s going to be a police presence on this, I’m sure—
FBI OIC: What, you think a local police badge protects anyone nowadays?
CI Charlie: Oh, Christ.
Through the gloom and driving rain, Inspector Sam Miller glimpsed the dead man sprawled beside the railroad tracks, illuminated by the dancing glow from flashlights held by two other Portsmouth police officers. Sam had his own RayoVac out, lighting up the gravel path alongside the B&M tracks. The metal flashlight was chilly in his hand, and a previously broken finger was throbbing. It was raw and cold and he was hungry, having been called out just as he sat down to supper, but dead bodies demanded the presence of a police inspector, and Sam was the only inspector the department had.
Minutes earlier he had parked his Packard next to a Portsmouth police cruiser, back at the nearest spot open to the tracks, the dirt parking lot of the Fish Shanty restaurant. In his short walk to the scene, he had gotten soaked from the rain, and his shoes were sloppy with mud. His umbrella was safe and dry back home. The two police officers waited, flashlights angled, black slickers shiny with rain.
The path was getting rougher, and he had to watch his step past the wooden ties. When he was young, he’d found railroads exciting, romantic and adventurous. In the bedroom he shared with his brother, late at night, the steam whistle would make him think of all the places out there he’d visit. But that was a long time ago. Now trains still did their work, but the passenger trains were crowded, tramps often overwhelmed freight cars, and there were other, secretive trains out there that spooked him and so many others.
Near the two cops standing in the middle of the tracks was another figure, hunched over in the rain. Beyond the tracks, grass and brush stretched out about twenty feet to the rear of some warehouses and storage buildings. To the right, another expanse of grass melted into marshland and North Mill Pond, a tributary from the Portsmouth harbor. Farther down the tracks, Sam saw the flickering lights of a hobo encampment, like the campfires from some defeated army, always in retreat.
Thirty minutes earlier he had been dozing on the couch—half-listening to the radio, half-listening, too, to Sarah talking to Toby, warm and comfortable, feet stretched out on an old ottoman, and he had been… well, if not dreaming, then just remembering. He wasn’t sure why—and maybe it was the onset of his finger aching as the temperature dropped—but he was remembering that muddy day on the football field of Portsmouth High School in the finals of the state championship in November, he the first-string quarterback… an overcast autumn day ten years ago, wind like a knife edge with the salt tang from the harbor… the wooden bleachers crowded with his neighbors and schoolmates… slogging through the muddy field, aching, face bruised, and the first finger of his right hand taped after an earlier tackle, no doubt broken, but he wasn’t going to be pulled out, no sir… down by three points against Dover, their longtime rival… knowing that a pretty cheerleader named Sarah Young was watching him from the sidelines, and Mom, Dad, and his older brother, Tony, were there, too, in the nearest row of the stands, the first time Tony and Dad had ever come to one of his games.
Slog, slog, slog… minutes racing away… only seconds left… and then an opening, a burst of light, he got the ball tight under his arm, raced to the left, his finger throbbing something awful… dodging, dodging, focusing on the goalposts… a hard tackle from behind… a faceful of cold mud… his taped finger screaming at him… and then quiet, just for an instant, before the whistles blew and the cheers erupted.
He scrambled up, breathing hard, ball still in his hands, seeing the scoreboard change, seeing the hand of the clock sweep by, and then a gunshot… game over. Portsmouth had won… Portsmouth had won the state championship.
Chaos… shouts… cheers… slaps on the back… being jostled around… looking at the people, his high school, his playing field… pushing… taking off the snug leather helmet, his hair sweaty… and there, Mom clapping, her face alight, and Dad had his arm around Tony’s shoulders, Tony standing there, grinning… Mom saying something, but he was staring at Dad, waiting, desperate for him to say something, anything, as so many hands patted his back… hands trying to get the game ball away from him… his broken finger throbbing.
Then Dad spoke, and Sam could smell the Irish whiskey on his breath. “Great news, boy, great news! Tony got into the apprenticeship program at the shipyard. Like father, like son… ain’t that great?”
Sam’s eyes teared up. “We won,” he said, despising himself for the humiliation in each word. “We won.”
Dad squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “But that’s just a game. Our Tony, he’s got a future now… a real future.”
And that winning, confident grin of Tony the school dropout, Tony the hell-raiser and hunter, Tony whom Dad cared about… not the other son, the winning football hero, the Eagle Scout, the one who—
A series of bells rang somewhere. Something nudged his foot. Sam opened his eyes.
“That was the station,” Sarah said. “Someone’s found a body.”
The taller cop said, “Sorry to get you wet, Sam. You okay with that?” His companion laughed. The tall cop was Frank Reardon, and his shorter and younger partner was Leo Gray. The third man stood behind them, silent, arms folded, shivering.
“I’ll be just fine,” Sam answered. The body beside the tracks was splayed out like a starfish, mouth open to the falling rain, eyes closed. The man had on black shoes and dark slacks and a white shirt and a dark suit coat. No necktie. No overcoat. Sam stepped closer, stopped at the gravel edge of the tracks. The man lay on a stretch of ground that was a smooth outcropping of mud, with just a few tufts of faded grass.
“How long have you been here?” Sam asked Frank.
“ ’Bout ten minutes. Just long enough to make sure there was something here.”
“That our witness?”
“Yeah.” Frank grabbed the third man by the elbow and tugged him forward. “Lou Purdue, age fifty. Claims he found the body about an hour ago.”
“An hour?” Sam asked. “That’s a long time. Why did it take you so long to call us?”
Purdue was bearded and smiled with embarrassment, revealing bad teeth. He wore a tattered wool watch cap and a long army overcoat missing buttons and held together with safety pins. “I tried, I really tried.” His voice was surprisingly deep. “But the Shanty place, I went there and asked them to call, and they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t even give me a nickel for the pay phone. So I went out in the street and waited till I saw a cop car come by. I waved them down, that’s what I did.”
Sam asked Frank Reardon, “That true?”
“Yeah, Sam. Almost ran over the poor bastard. Said there was a dead guy by the tracks, we had to come up to see it. We came up, saw what was what, then I sent Leo back to make the call. And here you are. Pulled you away from dinner, I bet.”
“That’s right,” Sam said, playing the beam from the flashlight over the body. The man’s clothes were soaked through, and he felt a flicker of disquiet, seeing the falling rain splatter over the frozen features, the skin wet and ghostly white.
The younger cop piped up. “Who was there? The mayor?”
Sam tightened his grip on his flashlight, then turned and played the beam over Leo Gray’s face. The young cop was smiling but closed his eyes against the glare. “No, Leo. The mayor wasn’t there. Your wife was there. And we were having a nice little chat about how she peddles her ass to pipefitters from the shipyard ’cause you waste so much money on the ponies at Rockingham. Then I told her I’d arrest her if I ever saw her on Daniel Street at night again.”
Frank laughed softly, and Leo opened his eyes and lowered his head. Sam, feeling a flash of anger at losing his temper to the young punk because of his father-in-law, turned back to the witness. “How’d you find the body?”
Purdue wiped at his runny nose. “I was walking the tracks. Sometimes you can find lumps of coal, you know? They fall off the coal cars as they pass through, and I bring ’em back. That’s when I saw him over there. I figured he was drunk or something, and I kept trying to wake him up by callin’ to him, and he didn’t move.”
“Did you touch the body?”
Purdue shook his head violently. “Nope. Not going to happen. Saw lots of dead men back in the Great War, in the mud and the trenches. I know what they look like. Don’t need to see anyone up close. No sir.”
The wind gusted some and Purdue rubbed his arms, shivering again, despite the tattered army overcoat. Sam looked back at the Fish Shanty, saw a flashlight bobbing toward them from the parking lot. “What’s your address?” he asked Purdue.
“None, really. I’m staying with some friends… you know.” He gestured to the other end of the tracks, where the hobo encampment was clustered near a maple grove. “Originally from Troy. New York.”
“How did you end up here?”
“Heard a story that the shipyard might be hiring. That they needed strong hands, guys who could take orders. I took orders plenty well in the army, and I figured it was best to come out here. Maybe they’d be a veteran’s preference. So far—well, no luck. But my name’s on the list. I go over every week, make sure my name’s still there. You know how it goes.”
Sam knew, and spared a glance at the lights staining the eastern horizon. The federal Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, set on an island in the middle of the Piscataqua River, an island claimed bitterly by both New Hampshire and Maine for tax purposes, and busily churning out submarines for the slowly expanding U.S. Navy. The world was at war again, decades after this filthy soul before him and Sam’s father had suffered to make the world safe for democracy. Some safety.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I know. I might need to talk to you again. How can I do that?”
“The place—you know the place down there. Just ask for me. Lou from Troy. I can be found pretty easy, don’t you worry.”
“I won’t. Hold on.” Sam reached under his coat, took out his wallet, and slipped a dollar bill out of the billfold, along with his business card. He folded the dollar bill over the card and passed it to the soaked and trembling man. “Go get some soup or coffee to warm up, okay? Thanks for grabbing a cop, and thanks for not disturbing the body. And call me if you think of anything else.”
The dollar bill vanished into the man’s hand. He snickered and walked in the direction of the camp, calling back through the darkness, “Hell, a damn thing for that guy to end up dead. But hell. That’s a lucky walk, you’ve got to say, finding a body like that and making a buck… a hell of a lucky walk.”
Frank shuffled his feet, “So the bum gets to go someplace dry. You gonna look at the dead guy some, or you gonna keep us freezing out here?”
“Going to wait a bit longer,” Sam replied. “Don’t worry. The coffee and chowder will be waiting for you, no matter the time.”
“What are you waiting for, then?”
“To record history, Leo, before we disturb it. That’s what.”
Frank muttered, “Ah, screw history.”
“You got that wrong, Frank,” Sam said. “You can’t screw history, but history can always screw you.”
Another minute or two passed. From the distance, near where the fires of the hobo camp flickered, came a hollow boom, and then another.
“Sounds like a gunshot, don’t it,” Frank said, his voice uneasy.
The younger cop laughed. “Maybe somebody just shot that hobo for the dollar you gave him.”
Sam looked to the thin flames from the hobo camp. He and the other cops stayed clear of the camps, especially at night. Too many shadows, and too many angry men with knives or clubs or firearms lived in those shadows. He cleared his throat. “We got one dead man here. If another one appears later, we’ll take care of it. In the meantime, you guys looking for extra work?”
The other cops just hunched their shoulders up against the driving rain, stayed quiet. That was the way of their world, Sam thought. Just do your job and keep your mouth shut. Anything else was too dangerous.
From the rainy gloom, another man stumbled toward them, swearing loudly, carrying a leather case over his shoulder, like one of the hordes of unemployed men who went door-to-door during this second decade of the Great Depression, peddling hairbrushes, toothbrushes, shoelaces. But this man was Ralph Morancy, a photographer for the Portsmouth Herald and sometime photographer for the Portsmouth Police Department.
He dropped the case on the railroad ties and said, “Inspector Miller. Haven’t seen you since your promotion from sergeant to inspector, when I took that lovely page-one photo of you, your wife, the police marshal, and our mayor.”
Sam said, “That’s right. A lovely photo indeed. And I’m still waiting for the copy you promised me.”
Ralph spat as he removed his Speed Graphic camera from the case. “Lots of people ahead of you. Can’t do your photo and be accused of favoritism, now, can I?”
“I guess not. I remember how long it took you to get me another copy of a photograph, back when I was in high school.”
The older man rummaged through his case, clumsily sheltering it from the rain with his body. “Ah, yes, our star quarterback, back when Portsmouth won the championship. How long did it take for me back then?”
“A year.”
“Well, I promise to be quicker this time.”
Sam said, “Just take the damn photos, all right?”
Ralph put a flashbulb in the camera with ease, like a magician performing the same trick for the thousandth time. “Anything special, Inspector?”
“The usual body shots. I also want the ground around the body.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I want photos of what’s not there,” Sam said.
Frank Reardon stirred. “What’s not there? What kind of crap is that?”
Sam played the flashlight beam around the corpse, the raindrops sparking in the light. “What do you see around the body?”
“Nothing,” Leo said. “Mud and grass.”
“Right,” Sam said. “No footprints. No drag marks. No sign of a struggle. Just a body plopped down in the mud, like he dropped from the sky. And I want to make sure we get the photos before the body’s moved.”
He kept the flashlight beam centered on the corpse. The rain fell in straight lines, striking the dead man’s face. To Sam, the dead man looked like a wax dummy. There was a sudden slash of light, and Sam flinched as Ralph took the first photo. As Ralph replaced the bulb, he groused, “Plenty of time for me to make tomorrow’s edition.”
“No,” Sam said. “You know the arrangement, Ralph. We get twenty-four hours, first dibs, before you use any crime scene photos in the paper.”
Another flash, and Sam blinked at the dots of light floating before his eyes. “Come on, Inspector, give me a break,” Ralph muttered. “Twelve hours, twenty-four hours. What difference does it make?”
“If it’s twenty-four hours, it makes no difference at all. If it’s twelve hours, the department makes arrangements with another photographer. You’re an educated man, Ralph, you know what the jobless numbers are like. You really want to dick around with this sweet deal?”
A third flare of light. “Some goddamn sweet deal, getting rained on in the cold, taking photos of a dead bum.”
Sam gave him a gentle slap on his back. “Just the glamour of being a newsman, right?”
“Some fucking glamour. My boss got a visit last week from some jerk in the Department of the Interior. Wanted to know how we’d survive if our newsprint ration got cut again next month. So my boss got the message—tone down the editorials, or the paper gets shut down. Yeah, that’s glamour.”
Sam said, “Spare us the whining. Just get the photos.”
“Coming right up, Inspector. I know how to keep my job, just you see.”
This was Sam’s first untimely death as an inspector. As a patrolman and, later, sergeant, he had seen a number of bodies, from drowned hoboes pulled from Portsmouth Harbor to sailors knifed outside one of the scores of bars near Ceres Street. But as a patrolman or a sergeant, you secured the scene and waited for the inspector to arrive. That had been old Hugh Johnson, until he died of bone cancer last year.
Now it was Sam’s job, and what he did tonight could decide whether he got to keep it. He was on probation, a month left before he turned in the silver shield of an inspector on tryout, before getting the gold shield and a promised pay raise that would give his family some breathing room, a bit socked away in savings, something that would put them at the top of the heap in this lousy economy. So far, all of his cases had been minor crap, like burglaries, bunco cases, or chasing down leads for the Department of the Interior on labor camp escapees who had ties to the area. But if this turned out to be a homicide, it could help him with the Police Commission and their decision on his ultimate status.
As Ralph made his way back to the restaurant’s parking lot, Frank spoke up. “Sam, looks like this is a lucky night for all of us.”
“Not sure what you mean.”
Frank played the light over the corpse. “Doesn’t look like a political hit, which means it won’t be taken away from us. This’ll be a good first case for you, Sam.”
“Sorry, what in hell’s a political hit?” Leo asked.
Frank answered, “What I mean, kid, is that sometimes bodies pop up here and there, mostly in the big cities, where the guy has his hands tied behind him and he’s got two taps to the back of the head. None of those cases ever get solved. So it’s lucky for us that this guy’s arms are nice and spread out. Means nothing political is involved. We can just do our jobs, and nobody from Concord is going to bother us.”
Sam squatted, winced as a cold dribble of rainwater went down the back of his neck. He looked about him: a dead body, possible homicide, his first major case. Even in the rain and darkness, everything seemed in sharp focus: the two cops and their wet slickers, the mud, and the sour tang of salt water. The scent of piss from the dead man before him, the one who’d brought him here.
The man was thin, maybe fifties, early sixties. The skin was pale and the hair was a whitish blond. No cuts or bruises on the face. Sam touched the skin. Clammy. He went through the pockets of the suit coat, taking his time. No money, no paper, no wallet, no coins, no fountain pen, no cigarettes, no lighter. He sensed the other cops watching him, evaluating him, a feeling he hated.
Sam raised each shirtsleeve, looking for a watch or jewelry. “Frank,” he said. “Bring the light closer, down to his wrist.”
Frank lowered the light, illuminating the skinny white wrist. There. A row of faint squiggles on the skin. Numerals. Sam rubbed at the numerals. They didn’t smudge or come off.
A row of numbers, tattooed along the wrist. Portsmouth was a navy town, and Sam had seen every kind of tattoo, from Neptune to mermaids to naked hula girls, but never anything like this.
The numerals were blue-gray, jagged, as if they had been quickly etched in:
9 1 1 2 8 3
“Frank? You see those numbers? You ever see anything like that before?”
Frank leaned forward, and rainwater poured off his hat brim. “Nope, never have. Maybe the coroner, maybe he’s seen something like that. But not me.”
Though it didn’t make any difference to the dead man, Sam lowered the shirtsleeve. “Leo. Give me a hand here. We need to roll him over.”
“Cripes,” Leo said, but he was a good cop and did as he was told. They rolled the corpse on its side, and Sam checked the front and rear pockets of the trousers. The fabric was sopping wet, but the pockets were empty. The stench from the body grew stronger. Frank was right. No bullet wounds to the base of the skull. Sam and Leo rolled the body back.
“No money, no wallet,” Sam told them, standing up.
Leo said, “Maybe he was stripped, robbed, by one of the bums from the camp.”
Frank laughed. “Shit, kid, don’t be dumb. There’d be footprints. Nope, the way he got here is the way he arrived: no cash and no belongings. Still, Sam…”
“Go on, Frank.”
“Those clothes. They look pretty good. You know? Not from somebody riding boxcars or hitchhiking, looking for work. No patches, no rips. Not brand-new but not… well, not beat up.”
There was noise again from the Fish Shanty parking lot, and Sam looked up to see the hearse from the Woods funeral home roll in. Saunders from the county medical examiner’s office shouldn’t be too far behind, so the body could be moved and they could all get out of this damn rain. Sam was hungry, and it was getting late, and Sarah and Toby were waiting for him at home.
Two attendants carried a canvas stretcher from the hearse, the men holding the stretcher by its side so water didn’t pool in the canvas. Sam didn’t envy them having to haul this corpse back to the hearse, over the gravel and railroad ties, but it was their job. As everyone said nowadays, it was good just to have a job.
Frank stared at the approaching attendants, stumbling a little in the mud, and said, “Hey, Sam. All right if me and the kid take off after the body’s removed?”
“Yeah, but first I want the two of you to do a check of the buildings on this side of the tracks. See if anybody saw anything.”
“They’re mostly stores. They’re all closed by now.”
“Then it won’t take long, will it?” Sam told Frank. “If anything of interest surfaces, call me at home. If not, write up a report. Leave it on my desk when your shift’s over.”
Frank said, “All right. But hey, remember, there’s a Party meeting tomorrow night. You’ve missed the last two. You don’t want me to make a report to the county director, now, do you? Or have one of Long’s boys start asking you questions?”
“Just do the search,” Sam said. “Write something up and put it on my desk. Don’t worry about me and the Party.”
“Sam, that’s the wrong attitude, you know it is.” Frank’s tone had sharpened. “Now, I give you a break ’cause you’re on the force and all, but you better be there, no foolin’. I’d hate to make a formal report. Especially with you being on probation and all. Hate to have something like that affect your promotion.”
Sam folded his arms, flashlight in his right hand, forcing himself not to move, forcing his voice to come out slow and deliberate. “I’ll be at the damn meeting. Okay?”
Leo was grinning, a rookie cop glad to see his mentor give the new detective a hard time. “Your brother be there, Sam?”
Sam aimed his RayoVac at the young cop’s face. “You know my brother?”
“No, but I know where he is,” Leo said. “In a labor camp up in New York.”
Sam kept quiet as the wind rose up, water striking his face, keeping the flashlight beam steady on the younger man. “Then I guess he won’t be there tomorrow night, will he, Leo.”
“Hey, Sam, just a joke. That’s all. Don’t you know how to take a joke?”
“Sure, Leo. I’m an inspector. I know a lot of things. Know how to question people. How to look at a crime scene. And how to recognize jerks when I meet them.”
Frank started to say something, but Sam turned away. “Party or no Party, brother or no brother, you’re both still beat cops, and I’m an inspector. In a couple of minutes, I’m going to be nice and dry, and you’re still going to be out here in this shitty rain, doing what I told you to do. That’s what I know. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Now I wish this fucking guy had been a political. At least we could get out of the rain sooner.”
“We all have wishes, don’t we, Frank,” Sam said.
Ten minutes later, Sam sat in the warmth of the Fish Shanty, writing up his notes while trying to ignore the smell of fried seafood, mixed in with the smoke from cheap cigarettes and cigars. Sarah was waiting at home with his supper, and woe be to him if he went home without an appetite.
He sat on a stool at the lunch counter, and off to both sides, booths filled up with shipyard workers, a scattering of locals, and sailors getting a fast meal into them before heading out for a night of whoring and drinking.
Unbidden, an empty white coffee cup was placed on the counter, and Sam looked up from his notes to see a smiling red-haired waitress wearing a black and white uniform that was just a tad too tight. Donna Fitzgerald, a few years younger than Sam, a local girl who had hung out with him and other kids years ago, having fun, raising hell, until high school and the Depression had scattered them. He smiled back.
“Having a busy night, Sam?”
“Just working a case. How are you doing, Donna?”
“Doing okay. Last night here at the Shanty, thank God.” Her smile broadened, displaying the dimple on her left cheek.
“Really?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, filling up his cup from a dented metal coffeepot. “I start tomorrow at the Rusty Hammer, in town. Oh, it’s still waitressing, but you get a good lunch crowd with the businessmen, with better tips. Here, well, most of the customers are tight with their money, saving it for… other things.” She winked and put a freckled hand on top of his. “Now, Sam, how come you never asked me out when we were in school together?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Donna. The age difference, I guess. Being in different classes.”
“Age doesn’t make much of a difference now, does it?” Her hand was still on his.
He smiled. “Guess it doesn’t.”
There was a shout from the kitchen; she took her hand away. “Time to get back to work. Good to see you, Sam… And did you hear? My man Larry is getting released from the camps in Utah. He should be back here in Portsmouth by the end of the week.”
“That’s… that’s good news, Donna.” For the briefest of moments, when her hand had touched his, there had been a little spark, a jolt.
She winked at him, and he remembered how pretty she’d been at fifteen. “Certainly is. You take care, Sam, okay?”
“I will,” he promised, and he watched her walk away, admiring the way the uniform hugged her hips and her other curves. He saw at the far end of the counter, sitting by themselves, a man and woman and small boy. They sat with cups of tea before them and nearly empty plates, a paper check on the countertop near the man’s elbow. They were well dressed and quiet. He knew the look. Refugees. French, Dutch, Brits, or Jews from everywhere else in Europe. Like lots of port cities up and down the Atlantic Coast, his hometown was bursting with refugees. The family had probably come here for a hot meal, and they were stretching out the comfort of food and being warm and dry. Sam knew they were here illegally. He didn’t care. It was somebody else’s problem, not his.
He looked down at his notes again, trying to get Donna out of his mind. Not much in his notes. Dead man, no identification, nice clothes, and a tattoo: 9 1 1 2 8 3. What the hell did that mean? A series of numbers so important they couldn’t be forgotten? Like what? A bank account? A phone number? Or if they were added in some sort of combination—or did they stand for letters? He did some scribbling on his pad, substituting each number with the corresponding letter in the alphabet, and came up with IAABHC. He tried rearranging those letters and came up with nothing. So maybe it was just the numbers.
But why go to the trouble of having them tattooed?
Sam looked up from his notebook and watched the boy at the other end of the counter whisper something to his mother. She pointed to the rear of the diner. The boy slid off his stool, then walked away from the counter, toward the bathroom. The boy was about Toby’s age. Sam wondered what it must be like to be that young and torn from your home, to live in a strange land where sometimes the people treated you nice and other times they arrested you and put you in a camp.
He took his wallet out, looked inside. Sighed. Being a cop meant a paycheck, but not much of one. Still…
For the second time this night, Sam slid out a dollar bill. He waited until the boy came back out, then let the bill fall to the linoleum. As the boy went by—Sam noted the sharp whiff of mothballs from the boy’s coat, probably a castoff from the Salvation Army—he reached out and caught his elbow. “Hey, hold on.” The child froze, and Sam felt the sudden trembling of the thin arm.
“Sir?” the boy said.
Sam pointed to the floor. “You dropped this on the way over.”
The boy—brown-eyed with olive-colored skin—shook his head gravely. Sam reached to the dirty floor, picked up the dollar bill, and pressed it into the boy’s palm. “Yes, I saw you drop it. It belongs to you.”
The boy stared, looked at Sam. Then his fingers curled around the bill and he ran back to his parents. The father started whispering furiously to the mother, but she shook her head and took the dollar bill from her boy. She picked up the check and nodded at the Shanty’s owner, Jack Tinios, who had just ambled out of the kitchen. He pocketed both the check and dollar bill, then came over to Sam, wiping his hands on a threadbare towel.
Like most of the restaurant owners in this stretch of New Hampshire, Tinios was from Greece but had moved here before the Nazis overran his country back in ’41. His real first name began with the letter J and had about a dozen syllables; he and everyone else made it easier by calling him Jack. His face was florid, his mustache damp with perspiration, and his arms and hands were thick and beefy. He had on a T-shirt and stained gray slacks, an apron around his sagging middle.
“Found a body on the tracks a hundred yards or so away,” Sam said.
Jack grunted. “So I hear.”
“Guy in his sixties, maybe a little younger. Thin blond hair, wearing a white shirt, black suit, no necktie. He come in here today?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Guys in suits come in here, I notice. I don’t notice no guy in a suit.”
“Okay, then,” Sam said. “Another guy came in here about two hours ago, wanting to use the phone to call the cops. He didn’t have a suit. You notice him?”
“Sure. Bearded guy, long coat. Told ’im to beat it.”
“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, Not fair, dammit, not fair, this case is less than a half hour old, I don’t know enough to brief my boss. Rudy added, “Nice job you got there, Sam. Being warm and all. Me, I’m back on the streets for another three hours.”
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.
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, A trap? When he thumped again, the door creaked open an inch.
“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 wounded, the rest got gassed. I got hit in the face by a tear gas canister. My wife… didn’t make it. So I came back here… found… something else to do.”
He didn’t know what to say. He finished his milk. Phil studied him and said, “You know what you got ahold of, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“You’re settin’ to kill one of the most guarded men in the world. You think you can do it?”
“I wasn’t picked for my damn charming personality, was I?”
Zach laughed again, softly, but Phil didn’t. “Understand you might got family issues. That going to be a problem?”
He shook his head. “No, it’ll all work out.”
“It better.”
Outside, he thought he saw a light flicker, and his hands tensed on the mug. He said, “What the hell do you mean by that?”
Zach was silent and so was Phil. A floorboard creaked. Phil said, “Not sure if you’re goin’ to be tough enough to do what has to be done. I know you heard all the plans. Most likely, damn thing is goin’ to be a suicide mission when it all gets wrapped up and the shootin’ stops. So. I got to know. Are you tough enough?”
Another flicker of light. He leaped up, grabbed the shotgun from the table, and burst out the rear door, with shouts and the sounds of chairs being upended behind him. Even with his bum leg, he could move quick, and he was around the other side of the farmhouse, yelling out, “Don’t you move again, you son of a bitch!”
The light jiggled and someone was crashing through the brush. He raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. There was a loud boom that tore at his ears, a kick to his right shoulder, a flare of light, and a scream. Zach and Phil were behind him, Zach holding up the kerosene lamp. The three of them tore through the underbrush. A man lay on his back near the trunk of a pine tree, moaning, his pant legs torn from the shotgun pellets.
He went up to the man, kicked at his torn legs. Blood was oozing through the shredded dungarees, and the man jerked. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”
From the yellow light of the lamp Zach held, he saw that the injured man was clean-shaven and young, wearing a brown jacket over a buttoned white shirt. He looked up, eyes brittle as glass, and said, “Screw you.”
“Bring the lamp down here,” he said, and Zach reached down. Hidden behind the lapel was a Confederate-flag pin.
“I’ll be damned,” Phil whispered.
He stood up, shotgun firm in both hands, and in three sudden, hard, vicious jabs, brought the stock of the gun down against the man’s throat, crushing it. The man spasmed, then was still.
Breathing hard, he passed the emptied shotgun with the bloodied stock over to Phil. “You were saying something about how tough I was?”
Phil took the shotgun, looked to the other man. “All right, then. Everything gets moved up. Zach, get the truck. Our man goes to Keene now. And take a good last look about this place. Me and you, we can’t come back.”
“Won’t miss it much,” Zach said.
Phil looked down at the murdered man, then at him. “Sorry about what I said back there. You got a tough job ahead of you, sure enough.”
Thinking of his family, such as it was, he answered, “We all do.”
Surprisingly—maybe because of the rain—the lobby of the Portsmouth Police Department was empty except for a desk sergeant, hands folded across his belly, eyes closed, head tilted back. The police station was in a brick Victorian at the corner of Daniel and Chapel streets, sharing its quarters with City Hall. The county jail was just around the corner on Penhallow Street.
Sam went up to the second floor, where his boss had his office. Most cities had a police chief, but Portsmouth was always a bit different, even in the colonial days, and had a city marshal instead.
Sam’s desk was in a corner just outside of Hanson’s office, facing a brick wall. There was a cluster of filing cabinets, another desk for the shift sergeant, and a third desk that belonged to the department’s secretary, Linda Walton. The door to Hanson’s office was open, and Sam went up to it, looked in. His boss waved him inside.
“Have a seat, Sam,” the marshal said.
Harold Hanson was sixty-three years old, had been on the police force for nearly four decades. He’d seen the force grow and shed its horses and get Ford patrol cars and the very first radios and an increasing professionalism, trying to break the grip of the payoff pros who ran the bars and whorehouses at the harbor.
Oh, there were still juke joints and bawdy houses on the waterfront, but if they were discreet, and if nobody made too much of a fuss, they were ignored. As far as who was on the take nowadays, Sam didn’t ask questions. He didn’t care what was going on with the other members of the force, what shameful secrets they kept, for Sam had his own. But keeping quiet and staying away from whatever money was being passed around also meant that when he was a shift sergeant, he always had the night and weekend shifts. The price, he knew, of doing what he thought was right.
Hanson’s pale face was pockmarked, he wore brown horn-rimmed glasses, and his usual uniform was a three-piece pin-striped suit. Tonight the coat was on a rack, and his vest was tight across his chest and belly. His pant legs were darkened with rain splashes, but his shoes were dry and freshly shined. On the wall were framed certificates and a few photos: Hanson with a series of mayors over the years—including the most recent, Sam’s father-in-law—a couple of New Hampshire governors, a U.S. senator, and in a place of pride, the President himself, taken three years ago on a campaign swing through the state. And there was a photo of Hanson wearing the uniform of a colonel in the state’s National Guard, where he was one of the top officers in the state, working for the adjutant general. In addition to being the city’s lead cop, he had connections among the politicians in D.C. and in Concord, New Hampshire’s capital.
Hanson sat in his leather chair, and Sam sat across from him in one of the two wooden captain’s chairs. Hanson said, “I heard about the dead man over at the tracks by the Shanty. What do you know?”
“Not much,” Sam said. “A hobo from the encampment spotted him and flagged down Frank Reardon, and then I was brought in.”
“Cause of death?”
“Don’t know,” Sam replied. “The body’s been picked up for transport to Dr. Saunders’s office. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Not run down by a train?”
“No.”
“Nothing else apparent, then. Gunshot wound, knife wound.”
“No, nothing like that,” Sam said.
Hanson leaned back in his chair, the wheels squeaking. His face was impassive, and the lack of expression made Sam shiver a little.
Sam knew his promotion to inspector was due to political play among the police commission, his father-in-law, the mayor, and Hanson—other candidates were unacceptable, and Sam was a compromise—and he still wasn’t sure if Hanson was on his side. Hanson was loyal to his fellow officers to a point, but it was known that Hanson was loyal to Hanson, first, second, and always.
“All right.” Hanson leaned forward, picking up a fountain pen. “Any ID?”
“No papers, no wallet. Just a tattoo on his wrist, some numbers.” In his mind’s eye, Sam saw those numbers again: 9 1 1 2 8 3.
“Luggage? Valise? Anything in the area that might have belonged to him?”
Sam knew he was disappointing his boss but couldn’t help it. “No.”
A tight nod. “All right. What next?”
“Right now Frank Reardon and Leo Gray are conducting a canvass, and I expect their report later tonight. When we’re through here, I’ll type up my notes, give you a copy, send a telex to the state police. Tomorrow I’ll check in with the medical examiner.”
Another nod. “Good. We’ll talk again tomorrow. And Sam? If it’s just an untimely death, if there’s nothing to indicate foul play, drop it.”
Sam shifted in his seat. “But… it might take some time. Blood work from the ME, looking for witnesses, getting him identified—”
Hanson’s lips pursed. “I meant what I said. Drop it. You’ve got enough on your plate with the car thefts, the amount of bad paper that’s been passing lately in town. Not to mention the store break-ins, for which your father-in-law continues to ride my ass. So if that dead guy is just a dead guy, you drop it. Understand?”
“Yes. I got it.”
“Good. Now here’s something that just came up…” Hanson touched a slip of paper and grimaced. “I just got back from a state Party meeting in Concord. We’ve been directed to look for any evidence of an Underground Railroad station in town. There have been reports of people passing through the Canadian border who’ve been sheltered here in Portsmouth.”
Sam made sure his hands stayed still in his lap. “Sorry… Underground Railroad? I know Portsmouth was a stop back in the Civil War, but now?”
Hanson dropped the paper, annoyed. “Yes, now. Dissidents, protestors, Communists, Republicans, all heading north to Canada so they don’t get tossed into a labor camp, where they belong. So if you see anything suspicious, people who don’t belong, word that there’s human smuggling going on, check it out. Report it to me immediately. The Party is really pressing me on this.”
Sam fought to keep his voice even. “I would think that checking in to an Underground Railroad station here would belong to the FBI. Or the Department of the Interior.”
Hanson said, “Yeah, you would think. But they’re stretched thin, and stuff like that is getting tossed to the local departments. And speaking of stuff being tossed our way, when you go home, I need you to make a delivery for the DOI. They have a prisoner over at the county jail, and he’s due to head out on a train later tonight. Their Black Maria broke down again, so I said we’d do them this favor.”
“And nobody from the patrol division is available?”
“Well, I understand two are performing a canvass on your behalf, which leaves two others, and there’s a brawl being broken up on Hanover Street as we speak. So no, Sam, nobody’s available.”
“It can’t wait?”
“No, it can’t wait. And I want you to do it. Don’t worry, it’s not some hobo. A well-dressed fellow. I’m sure he won’t piss in the backseat of your car. Get going so you can go home to that pretty wife of yours.”
Sam got to his feet, feeling his face flush at being made into a delivery boy. As he turned toward the door, Hanson said, “Oh, one more thing,” which Sam had expected. Nobody got to leave the city marshal’s office without a “one more thing.”
“Sir?”
Hanson leaned back in his chair, the wood and leather protesting. “The Party meeting tomorrow tonight. Make sure you attend, all right?”
“It’s a waste of—”
His boss raised a hand. “I know you think it’s a burden, not worth your efforts, but in these times, it’s necessary for all of us to sacrifice a bit, to get along, to keep things on an even keel. So. To make myself very clear, Probationary Inspector Sam Miller: You will attend the Party meeting tomorrow night. Have I made my point?”
Once upon a time there had been two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. But when Huey Long was elected back in ’36… well, now there was pretty much one political party in the country.
“Sam?” Hanson pressed.
“Absolutely. But it’s still a goddamn waste of time. Sir.”
“It certainly is, but you’ll be there. And I’ll be thankful for it. And so will your father-in-law. Now get going.”
Sam went out. He slammed the door behind him.
At his desk outside the marshal’s office, Sam carefully slid three sheets of paper, separated by two sheets of carbon paper, into the Remington. Before he started to type, he allowed himself a quick shake, a quiver of nerves. The Underground Railroad in Portsmouth. Holy Christ. He shook his head and got to work.
At 1910 hours on 1 May 1943, INSPECTOR SAM MILLER was notified of a possible homicide victim located near the B&M railroad tracks west of the Fish Shanty parking lot off of Maplewood Avenue. MILLER arrived at the scene at 1924 hours and met with PATROLMAN REARDON and PATROLMAN GRAY, who pointed out the location of the body. Said body was discovered at approximately 1800 hours by LOUIS PURDUE, age 50, of Troy, N.Y., currently residing at an encampment off of North Mill Pond. PURDUE said he discovered the corpse while walking the tracks.
Sam paused in his typing. No point in saying what Lou Purdue was doing, for he was sure that in addition to retrieving lumps of coal, Lou was also checking out how strongly some of the B&M boxcar doors were locked, up at the collection of sidings just over on the other side of Maplewood Avenue, near the B&M station. Let the B&M cops handle it.
The body is that of a white male, approximately fifty to sixty-five years of age. There is no apparent sign of trauma. There is also no apparent cause of death. A preliminary search of the body revealed no possessions save for clothing and no identification. The tattoo 9 1 1 2 8 3 was found on the man’s wrist. Photographs of the scene were taken by photographer RALPH MORANCY, on contract to the Portsmouth Police Department. The body was placed into the custody of DR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS, Rockingham County Medical Examiner’s Office, and was removed by attendants of the Woods funeral home.
A teletype with the dead man’s description has been transmitted to N.H. state police headquarters in Concord.
Sam read and then reread the report after taking the sheets of paper from the typewriter. He signed each sheet and put one sheet in a folder for this case, gave another to the department’s secretary. The third sheet he placed in Hanson’s mailbox. He looked at a clock on the far wall, shook his head, and left to play errand boy before getting home to Sarah and Toby.
As his boss had promised, the prisoner was well dressed, a tall man with a fleshy face and wavy hair. The left leg of his fine trousers was torn open, exposing a bloody knee. His hands were cuffed in front of him and his eyes were unfocused, as if he couldn’t comprehend what was happening to him. He kept silent as Sam bundled him into the rear seat of his Packard, ducking down from the continuing onslaught of heavy rain. The prisoner’s paperwork was tucked inside Sam’s coat, unread, since he had no interest in knowing why this guy had been arrested. All Sam cared about was getting this piece of crap work done as soon as possible.
Sam started up the Packard, and as he backed out into the street, the man said from the rear seat, “Are you FBI? Or Interior Department?”
“Neither.” Sam switched on the wipers, wondering why it was his luck to be out tonight in such a nasty downpour. “Local cop being a taxi driver, that’s all.”
“What’s your name?”
“Miller.”
“Mine’s Lippman. Ever hear of me?”
“Nope.”
“I’ve written some books, used to be a newspaper columnist down in New York… hell, even worked for President Wilson during the last war… now look where I am. Do you have any idea why I’ve been arrested?”
Sam braked at a streetlight. There was a small fire in a nearby alleyway in a metal drum. Three men in shabby clothes were clustered by the drum, holding their hands out over the flickering orange flames. He had a feeling that the men would be there all night, just trying to stay warm.
“No,” Sam said. “I don’t. Look, I’m just bringing you to the train station and—”
Lippman said, “Suspicion of income tax evasion. That’s the catchall charge so they can hold you until something better comes along. But the real reason—the real reason is that I kept on writing against that damn man and his administration, even after being fired from my newspaper job. That’s my story, friend. Arrested and sent away because of my opinion.”
The light changed to green. Sam let up on the clutch and headed down Congress Street, to the local station of the Boston & Maine railroad. His eyes ached and his car now held a smell of old smoke and sweat. Lippman cleared his throat. “This has nothing to do with you, does it?”
“What’s that?”
“My arrest. That’s not a local charge, not even something your state police would care about. Look, you seem like a good man, Mr. Miller. I mean, this is a lot to ask, but… you didn’t look happy, bringing me out of my cell. I’m sure you don’t like being pushed around by the FBI, the Interior Department. So why not do something about it?”
“Like what?” Only a few stores were open on this main city street, their lights brave against the rain and lack of customers.
A nervous laugh from the prisoner. “Let me go. It’s the proverbial dark and stormy night… just help me out of the car, and I’ll just disappear. I’ll make my rendezvous up in Maine. I know it’s asking a lot, Mr. Miller… but maybe I can rely on you. A simple thing, really. A prisoner escaping? Happens all the time, doesn’t it? And why am I a prisoner? For what crime?”
Another red light. Even though there were no other cars or trucks out, Sam eased the Packard to a halt. A hell of a thing, to be arrested for an opinion. Sam remembered a time when that hadn’t been a crime. And Lippman was right—it would be easy just to open up that rear door, have the guy tumble out, and let him take his chances…
Yeah. And then what?
“Sir?” came the voice. “Please. I… I don’t think I could handle a labor camp. Not at my age. Please. I’m… I’m begging you to look into your heart, to help me out…”
The light changed. Sam made a turn onto Maplewood Avenue, past the Shanty, and one block later, he was in front of the stone and granite building of the B&M railroad station, just off Deer Street. There, parked in front as if it belonged, was a black Buick van with whitewall tires. No insignia or lettering on the side or doors. The Black Maria didn’t need such markings. Everyone knew what it was and what it carried. The Buick’s hood was open and someone was working on the engine, and standing nearby, in long trench coats and slouch hats, were two lean-looking men who looked up as Sam’s Packard approached.
“Sorry,” Sam told Lippman, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. “I can’t do it.” He got out and opened the rear door and helped his prisoner out.
Standing in the cold downpour, Lippman said hoarsely, “I suppose it was my bad luck to be transported by a man with no heart or soul.”
Sam said, “No. It was your bad luck to be transported by me.”
He turned Lippman and his paperwork over to the Interior Department men and finally went home.
His home was a small light blue house on Grayson Street, which ran parallel to the Piscataqua River, separating this part of New Hampshire from Maine and eventually emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. He pulled his Packard into an open shed, dodging a Roadmaster bicycle lying on its side in the driveway, and walked out in the rain, feeling sour over his completed errand. The tiny rear yard ran down to a low hedge; beyond the hedge was the river, a tidal river: Four times a day, the rear yard overlooked a smelly mudflat.
He looked at the house again, felt disappointment in his mouth. To be his age and have one’s own home, in this time and place, was a miracle. He remembered how, a couple of years after getting married, when Sarah was pregnant with Toby, he had promised to get the three of them out of a downtown apartment that had plumbing that knocked and leaked, and rats and roaches scurrying around, even during the day. He had done everything possible, gone to the banks, measured up his savings, went without beer for months… but when the time came, he was short five hundred dollars.
Don’t ask how he knew, but his father-in-law, Lawrence Young, the mayor of Portsmouth and the owner of the city’s biggest furniture store, that greasy bastard knew what was going on and had offered a loan. That’s all—a loan that could be paid back by Sam working weekends at the store, under Lawrence’s supervision, of course, and under the bastard’s eye and thumb.
He didn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. He had found another way—a way that still disturbed his sleep, a way that made sure coming to his home at night gave him little joy, for the money he had finally gotten for the down payment had been dirty money.
Up onto the sagging porch, past the wooden box for their weekly milk deliveries, and after unlocking the front door, he went in. Sam remembered a time when doors were always unlocked, but that was before thousands of hoboes had taken to the rails.
A small brunette woman was curled up on a small couch, reading the daily Portsmouth Herald. All the local news in ten pages for a nickel, and not much news at that. Like the photographer Ralph Morancy had noted, the news had to be the right news, or else the federal pulp-paper ration would be cut back. Sarah looked up and studied him for a moment. Then she said, “You’re late. And sopping wet, Sam Miller.”
“And you’re beautiful, Sarah Miller,” he said, taking off his coat and hat, hanging them both in the vestibule. He unbuckled his shoulder holster and slid the .38 Smith & Wesson Police Special revolver on the top shelf, away from curious hands.
The radio was on, tuned to Sarah’s favorite station, WHDH out of Boston, playing ballroom dance music. The couch, two armchairs, the Westinghouse radio, a crowded bookshelf, and a rolltop desk filled most of the room.
Sarah got up from the couch and came to him, a blue lace apron tied around her tan dress and slim waist. Her dark hair was cut in the over-the-eye look of Veronica Lake. Sarah one time said she thought she looked like the Hollywood actress, and in certain lights, her head tilted a certain way, Sam would agree. He had met her in high school, the oldest story in romance magazines and movie serials, she the head cheerleader, he the star quarterback.
Now he was a cop and she was still at school, a secretary for the school superintendent, and they were among the lucky ones in town, to have reasonably safe jobs.
A quick dry kiss on the lips and she asked, “Was it what they said when they called you? A dead man by the tracks?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, thinking of what he had to say in the next few moments, wondering how that pretty face in front of him would respond to the news. “One dead man. No ID. A real mystery.”
“How did he die?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet,” he replied absently, still working through what had to be done. “Doc Saunders will probably let me know tomorrow.”
Sarah said, “Sounds interesting. And Sam, I just saw in the paper, Montgomery Ward’s has a sale on, men’s dress shirts for a dollar forty-four apiece. Do you want me to pick you up a couple next time I’m downtown? With your promotion, you’ve got to have more than just two.”
“Yeah, I guess… Look, we’ve got to talk.”
He took her hand and led her back to the couch. He sat his surprised wife down and looked around, then turned up the radio’s volume. The thumping joy of some bigband orchestra grew louder, the trumpet piercing. Harry James, playing “I’ve Heard that Song Before.” He leaned over to her and said, “It has to stop, Sarah. Now.”
Her eyes widened. “What has to stop?”
His chest was tight, so tight it hurt. “The Underground Railroad. It has to stop now. Tonight. This instant. And we’ve got to empty out the basement of any evidence.”
His hand was still in hers, and her fingers felt cold. “What’s wrong? Who found out?”
“Damned if I know how, but the Party knows there’s a station operating here in the city. Marshal Hanson asked me to keep an eye open for any evidence. Pretty damn ironic, right?”
“Sam, this could be a good thing. You could pretend that you couldn’t find anything, the heat would be off, and—”
“No. Not going to happen, Sarah. It’s one thing to look the other way when you and your friends set the station up in our basement. But I can’t jeopardize my job, or you and Toby, by going along with a cover-up. It’s not going to happen. Promise me the station shuts down. Tonight.”
She withdrew her hand gently. “I promise we’ll talk about it. All right? That’s all I can do right now.” Her cheeks were flushed.
“Sarah, please. It’s been a hell of a long day.”
She stood and reached over to snap the radio off. “I’m sorry to say, but your day’s not over yet.”
In the silence that followed, he didn’t want to argue any more about the Underground Railroad. Sam didn’t know how much the Party suspected, but he did know the Party had amazing wiretapping abilities when they had the desire, and lately, they’d had plenty of desire. “How’s that?” He tried to keep his voice even.
“Your ham loaf and potatoes are ready, but you need to talk to Toby first.”
“Don’t tell me we’ve got another call from his principal.”
“No, nothing like that. He just wants you to say good night to him. And Sam—he wants to know if he can get rid of the rubber sheet. He’s terribly upset about wetting the bed last week.”
“All right. I’ll talk to him.”
“And there’s Walter, Sam—”
“Damn,” he said. “What now?”
She rolled her eyes in the direction of the ceiling. “Said his sink is clogged. Wants to know if you can fix it before you go to bed.”
“A clogged sink? Again? Can’t the man fix a damn clogged sink?”
“He used to be a science professor at Harvard. How smart can he be?”
“I don’t know. He’s living with us because you’re friends, so you tell me.”
“Please,” she said. “Can we not get into that now? He’s paying us rent, we need the money, and he needs his sink unclogged. Can we just leave it at that, Sam?”
He recalled what he had said to the snide young cop about knowing things. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay, Sarah—Toby first, dinner second, and Walter third.”
Her mood changed suddenly; Sarah smiled at him, a welcome sight after their talk about the Railroad. “Care to think of a fourth, Inspector Miller?”
“I certainly do, Mrs. Miller, and look forward to it.”
She slapped his rump and pushed him away. “Only if you get your boy to sleep and play plumber. So get to it. And Sam… we’ll talk about the other thing later. Promise.”
He went through the kitchen and past a new Frigidaire refrigerator, an anniversary gift from his father-in-law. He hated receiving something so extravagant from a man he despised, but Sarah loved getting rid of the icebox and the never-ending task of emptying the floor drain pan, so that had been that.
He eased open the door to his son’s room. The night-light illuminated the narrow bed and a bookcase that held a cluster of books and toy trucks, one, he always noted with a smile, a police cruiser with Portsmouth markings. On the other side of the bookcase were a Gilbert chemistry set and a fossil collection.
From the ceiling, model aircraft hung from black thread and thumbtacks pushed into the plaster: Great War aircraft like a Sopwith Camel and a Fokker triplane, and a German zeppelin and U.S. Navy blimp. All made from balsa wood and tissue paper, each one carefully pieced together with his boy on lazy Sunday afternoons.
He sat on the corner of the bed and touched Toby’s silky brown hair with his hand. His boy stared up at him sleepily.
“Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Toby yawned. “I wanna make sure you were home. That you were okay. That’s why.”
“Well, I’m back. And I’m okay.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
“There was a case I had to investigate.”
“What kind of case?” Toby rolled on the mattress, making a rustling noise from the rubber sheet underneath the cotton one. Just last week the boy had awakened screaming from a nightmare, having wet the bed.
“A… dead man was found. I had to check it out.”
“Was it a murder?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Oh…”
“Toby, are you scared of something?”
“I dunno. I worry sometimes about bad men. Spies, killers. Bad men hurting you. Hurting Mom. Stupid, huh?”
“Not stupid,” Sam said firmly. “But I promise you: No bad men are going to hurt you. Or Mom. Or me. Ever.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Dad… I don’t like this rubber sheet. It’s for babies.”
Sam repressed a sigh. “Just a little while longer, pal.”
His boy turned his head. “Dad, you’re sure about that? That there are no spies?”
“There’s no spies,” Sam said firmly. “We’re safe, pal, you and your mom and me.”
How many fathers out there had had the same talk with their sons hours before being seized, arrested, their families broken up, their children sent to state homes? Sam thought, Oh, there are so many bad men out there, how in God’s name can I protect you from all of them?
Sam cleared his throat. “Now make us both happy and go to sleep, okay? And no more nightmares.”
“’Kay, Dad.”
“And keep doing good in school, okay? No more notes from your teachers, all right?”
“I’ll try, Dad,” Toby murmured, already falling asleep. Sam kissed the soft brown hair, got up, and went to the door. A small voice said, “Dad? Can I listen to my crystal set for a while?”
The crystal radio set, made as a project in the Cub Scouts. Let him listen to music or a western or a mystery… or no, his bright little boy would probably listen to the news of the bad men butchering little boys in Manchuria and China and Indochina and Russia and Finland and Burma and—
Sam felt adrift. What he really wanted to do was talk to his son, to tell him there was a time when the radio wasn’t full of news about wars overseas, that the President was someone to admire, that people had work and unemployment wasn’t approaching 40 percent. When newsprint wasn’t a rationed government resource. And that even though the country had managed to stay out of the bloody wars in the Pacific and in Europe, it now seemed to be endlessly at war with itself, with arrests and detentions and labor camps, all orchestrated by a man who wasn’t fit to inhabit the house once lived in by Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
But for tonight… “No,” he answered. “I don’t want you listening to your radio. You go to sleep now, okay?”
“’Kay, Dad.”
Sam closed the door behind him, softly.
The ham loaf had dried out, and the potatoes were cold, but he ate them greedily as Sarah sat with him and asked him about the body. He grunted in all the right places, trying to hurry things along so he could go to the upstairs apartment and fix the sink and get this long day and long night behind him. Once during dinner the phone rang—one long ring and three short rings—and they both ignored it. Their ring on this local party line was two long and two short; the other ring belonged to the Connors down the way.
He pushed his chair back, kissed her cheek, and said, “Back in a bit, girl. Boy’s asleep and—”
She started picking up the dishes. “Get along, Inspector. You still have work to do, and that boy had better still be asleep if you want to get lucky.”
“Lucky is the day you said yes to me,” he said, making it a point to look down the front of her dress when she bent to reach for his plate.
Another fleeting smile, and she moved her hand in a fluttering motion as if to shoo him away from leering. “You know what, Inspector? You are so right. Now make me proud and get to work.”
“Hope it’s not all work,” he retorted, but she was already at the sink, running the hot water. It was if she was now ignoring him. That was Sarah. Sometimes bubbling with childish enthusiasm, sometimes quiet, and now silent, thinking of who knew what. Her change of mood was as though a window had been opened, letting in a cold draft, and he knew it had to be about the Underground Railroad. He couldn’t help himself, but he thought of Donna back at the Shanty, her eager smile and sweet body, and he remembered just… how simple Donna was. No, that wasn’t the right word. Donna was uncomplicated. That’s all. Just uncomplicated. Sarah… now, she was complicated.
So why hadn’t he dated Donna back in school?
Forget it, he decided. That was then, this is now.
He went downstairs to the dirt-floor cellar, past the coal furnace and outside bulkhead, where he grabbed a canvas bag of tools from his workbench. In one corner, near the coal furnace, hung an old sheet. He pulled the sheet back. A cot was pushed up against the stone foundation. There was a pillow at one end and a green wool blanket folded at the other. He looked at the cot and thought, Well, that’s it for charity work. That was their private joke about this Underground Railroad station. But it was one thing to do what you could, when trouble was down in D.C. or Baton Rouge. It was another thing when trouble was on your front doorstep, especially delivered by your boss. What did Sam know about the Underground Railroad here in Portsmouth?
A hell of a lot, he thought. A hell of a lot.
Bag of tools in hand, he climbed upstairs, went through the living room and then outside. The rain had finally stopped. He went around the rear of the house, where an open stairway led up to the second floor. Up the creaking stairs he went, and at the top, he knocked on the door. He had to knock twice more before it opened.
“Inspector Miller!” boomed the familiar voice. “So nice of you to make it here.” The door swung open.
The apartment was even tinier than the rooms downstairs and really shouldn’t have been an apartment at all, but he and Sarah needed the extra income after promised pay raises for both of them fell through last year. Through a friend of Sarah’s at the school department—who was once a student of Walter’s—Walter Tucker had come into their lives. Blacklisted from a science-teaching position at Harvard University for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, Walter was in his late forties, heavyset, almost entirely bald. His fat fingers always clasped a stubby cigar. Tonight his eyes, behind horn-rimmed glasses, were filmy, and he was wearing worn slippers and a frayed red plaid bathrobe.
The room had cracked yellow linoleum and had been turned into a kitchen of sorts, with a scarred wooden table and three unmatched chairs. There was a wooden icebox in the corner and a hot plate on a small counter. Off to the right was a bathroom with a toilet and the offending sink. Open doorways led to two other rooms: a bedroom with an unmade bed and an office that had a desk made of scrap lumber that bore a large typewriter. Everywhere in the apartment were books and pulp magazines and copies of Scientific American and Collier’s.
A radio next to the hot plate was playing swing music, Benny Goodman, it sounded like. Sam went into the bathroom and sighed at the gray water in the sink. “What now, Walter? What did you do?”
“Nothing, my dear boy. Just preparing my evening meal. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there you go. The sink overflowed, and I wanted to make sure it was repaired before it started leaking on your head.”
“Thanks,” Sam muttered. “Do you have a coffee cup or something I could borrow?”
“Absolutely.” Walter waddled off. He came back with a thick white coffee mug with a broken handle, and Sam started bailing the water out of the clogged sink. As he worked, Walter leaned against the doorjamb and lit a cigar. “What news of the Portsmouth Police Department?”
“Had a body out on the railroad tracks tonight. By Maplewood Avenue.”
“A suicide?”
“Don’t know right now.”
“How fascinating. Maybe you’ve got a real murder on your hands, Sam.”
Sam paused, the mug slimy in his hand. “What are you doing, Walter? Research for a detective story?”
Walter studied his cigar. “No, son. Detective stories are a tad too realistic for me. You know what I write. Science fiction and fantasy. That’s where my degraded tastes have led me. Stories about rockets and robots. Evil wizards.”
“Speaking of which, rent’s due on the fifteenth. Just so there’s no misunderstanding.”
The older man grinned. “No misunderstanding. I received a check from Street and Smith yesterday and expect another one shortly. The rent will be paid in full and on time.”
“Best news I’ve gotten today.” The sink was empty. He squatted down and said, “Can you get me a saucepan or something?”
“Certainly.”
Minutes later, Sam undid the U-joint with a wrench, and brown water rushed into the pan. He reached in with his fingers and winced in disgust as he pulled out the clog, greasy lumps of potato peelings. He dropped them in the saucepan, put the piping back into place, and worked the wrench, then stood up.
“Don’t peel your potatoes in the sink, please, Walter. Do it someplace else, okay? It just clogs the sink. You did the same thing last month.”
“My thanks, Inspector, my warmest thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Walter.” Sam dropped his tools into his bag, saw a worn leather valise on the floor nearby. He never saw Walter without the leather valise, in which the former professor carried letters, manuscripts, and God knew what else. On the table was a stack of magazines with names like Thrilling Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories. He picked up Astounding Stories, studied a garish spaceship, fire spewing from its nozzles. There were three names on the cover, and he was startled to see one he recognized: Walter Tucker. He set the pulp magazine down. “How’s the writing gig going?”
“It’s a living of sorts. I’m sure the overpaid and quite cowed professors at Harvard would turn down their noses at what I do, but it can be a lot of fun, frankly. You have to tell a story quickly and to the point. Actually, I’ve learned an extraordinary amount the past few years. About astronomy, biology, atomic theory, and archaeology. Among other things. Anyway, once you’ve been blackballed, that’s it. Even industries that need workers with a scientific background won’t touch me. And the secret satisfaction of science fiction and fantasy is that you can also write about forbidden topics without worrying about censors and critics with handguns and nightsticks.”
Sam was silent, thinking about how tired he was.
“If you write a story about a suppressed group of knights who are working hard to overthrow a king from a swampland who has usurped the throne from the rightful king, who was murdered before his time, and how this swamp king has put his lackeys into places of power around the kingdom… and how they fight to return the kingdom to the old and free ways… then it’s just a fantasy. A tale that no overseer or censor will worry about… a tale that won’t get the author into trouble.”
“Or into a labor camp.”
“Exactly,” Walter agreed, dropping the magazine back on the table. “Speaking of labor camps, how’s your brother?”
The second mention of Tony in one evening. Must be a record. “Got a postcard from him last month. Seems to be doing well.”
“Glad to hear it. And I’m glad he has a brother who’s handy with tools.”
“I’ve got to get going. Remember, no potato peels in the sink.”
“Duly noted. No peels in the sink. Thanks again, Inspector.”
“You’re welcome. And make sure that you—”
“Yes, yes, I know. The rent on the fifteenth.”
Outside, the night air was damp and chilly. The lights from the shipyard reflected yellow and white against the low clouds, and he could now make out the faint sounds of workmen putting together the latest class of navy submarines. He stood there, seeing a place that had built ships for a century and a half, a place his father had worked after his service in World War I and a place his brother, Tony, had worked until… Sam again felt that flush of embarrassment of a law officer having a brother who had been arrested three years ago and charged with illegally trying to unionize the shipyard workers. A quick star-chamber-type trial, and now Tony was serving a sentence at a federal labor camp near Fort Drum, New York. Besides the shame and concern for his older brother, there was also anger, for he was certain his brother’s arrest had very nearly sidetracked his promotion to inspector.
The crack of a gunshot down the street startled him, the hollow boom echoing and re-echoing about the frame houses. He didn’t move. Another example of what was called by his fellow cops “a shot in the dark.” Like the gunshot at the railroad tracks, these firearm discharges—scores being settled, somebody being robbed, an argument ending—were ignored unless they were officially reported. Not a way for a good cop to respond, but he had no choice. Besides, he had his hands more than full with a corpse, the pile of paperwork on his desk, and his convict brother.
One could pick one’s friends, but one could never pick one’s relatives. Or in-laws. And both were giving him a headache.
At the bottom of the steps, he tripped over a small shape. He turned on the back porch light and stooped to see what had tripped him.
By the steps were three rocks piled on top of one another.
Three rocks.
He was positive they hadn’t been there when he had gone up to Walter’s apartment.
He bent down, picked up the rocks, then tossed each as hard as he could out into the darkness. Two fell within the yard, and he had a moment of satisfaction as the third splashed into the Piscataqua River.
The radio was off, as were most of the lights, and he moved through the silent living room and into the kitchen and to their bedroom. The only light came from the bedside radio, which was on. Sarah liked to fall asleep to the sound of the radio, music or news or a detective tale. He, on the other hand, couldn’t fall asleep if the radiator was ticking.
Sarah had laid his pajamas out on his side of the bed. He changed clothes and slid in under the sheets. Sarah murmured and he leaned over and pressed his lips against her neck. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I know you had something in mind tonight… I just couldn’t stay awake…”
“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll take a rain check—if you offer one.”
She sighed, took his hand, and placed it on her breasts, the soft lace of the nightgown pressing against his palm. In the darkness, he smiled. Sarah could stretch a food budget or a utility budget, but she never skimped on nighties and lingerie. She called them her tools for keeping Sam in place, and he had to admit they did a very good job of at least keeping him in bed.
“Rain check offered, then,” she murmured. “Just make sure you use it and don’t lose it.”
He moved up against her, his hand on the softness of her flesh and the delicacy of the lace. “Rain check accepted, and it won’t be lost. Not ever. Good day at the school department?”
“Not bad. Getting ready for another round of budget cuts.”
“Anything I should know about?”
He felt her tense under his touch. “The usual.”
“Sarah…”
“I’ve been careful, honest. Nothing going on just right now, though we’ve heard rumors of a refugee roundup sometime soon. Have you heard anything?”
“No. But watch yourself. Leaflets stuck under windshield wipers, registering new voters, dropping off pamphlets at the post office at night. That’s one thing for you and your fellow revolutionaries.”
He waited for a reply and heard nothing but cold silence from her and soft music from the radio. He gave her a squeeze and said, his voice a low whisper, “But Sarah… being a stop on the Railroad, that’s another. We’ve got to close it down. Now. Besides the marshal dropping that big-ass hint to me earlier, we’ve got Long’s Legionnaires in town, watching things. I ran into two of them tonight, at the Fish Shanty. Two losers and they made everyone in the restaurant freeze in their seats, scared out of their wits.”
Unexpectedly, she turned her head and kissed him, hard. “Sam… I don’t know what I can do. There’s one in the pipeline coming to Portsmouth in the next couple of days. I just got word this afternoon.”
“Can you delay it?”
“I don’t know. I can try, but sometimes it’s hard letting the right people know.”
“You’ve done enough already. Time for somebody else to take up the burden. We can’t take the chance, Sarah. We’ve got to close it down.”
She sighed. “Sam, I said I’d try. It’s not like I can make a phone call and stop it cold. And look, we’re just a bunch of schoolteachers. And secretaries. That’s all.”
“There’s a whole bunch of schoolteachers from Hyde Park in New York, breaking rocks in the Utah desert because they were suspected of harboring FDR’s widow, Eleanor. Your pretty hands and face won’t last long in the desert.” He heard the cruelty in his voice and winced. “Look, Sarah, I worry about you. We need to think of Toby.”
She moved some, and he thought she was rolling over in anger, but she surprised him again by raising up her face and giving him another, deeper kiss. “All right, Sam, I’ll be careful. I’ll try to stop the visit here. You be careful, too, Inspector.”
“I’m always careful.”
“If you’re right about what the marshal said and those damn Legionnaires being in the area, then I don’t know. Even the careful ones can get into trouble.”
Sam lay there, blankets and sheets pulled up to his chest, as his wife’s breathing slowed. The radio was on his side of the bed, the shallow glow of light from the dial reassuring. He could reach over and shut it off, but instead, he listened. It was the top of the hour, and time for the news. He closed his eyes, started to feel himself doze away, while the headlines droned on through the static.
“… bombing raids upon Berlin by a number of long-range Ilyushin bombers took place tonight. Officials reported that no military targets were struck but that a number of homes and hospitals were destroyed and scores of civilians were killed.
“On the Russian front, house-to-house fighting continued in the city of Stalingrad, while Russian armored units have reportedly engaged German panzer groups on the outskirts of Kharkov.
“In London, Prime Minister Mosley met again with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. The talks were conducted to review terms of the armistice agreement signed between Great Britain and Germany two years ago. One of the main areas of disagreement, according to Washington diplomatic sources, is the number of German troops that are allowed to be based in Great Britain and some of her overseas possessions.
“In Montreal, a surprise visit from a trade delegation from the Soviet Union raised suggestions in some quarters that the government of Canada may be seeking closer ties to its neighbor to the west.
“Closer to home, President Huey Long signed a bill today ensuring that all Americans receiving federal assistance of any type sign a loyalty oath to the government, guaranteeing, as the President said, that patriotism will continue to thrive during his second term. The bill, called the Patriot Enhancement Act, will be enacted into law immediately. A violation of the loyalty oath will mean an automatic prison term.
“On Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, fresh from his attendance at a meeting of the World Jewish Congress, was unsuccessful in his attempts to convince Congress to increase the number of Jewish refugees allowed into the United States this year.
“Also from Washington, unemployment figures released from the Department of Labor indicate that more Americans are working today than at any time before and that—”
Sam reached out and switched off the radio. News of the world. Mostly lies, half-truths, and exaggerations. Everyone knew that the unemployment numbers were cooked. Every month more and more Americans were supposedly working over a decade after the stock market crash. But he saw with his own eyes what was true, from the hobo encampments by the railroad tracks, to the rush of unemployed men at the shipyard gates when a rumor spread that five pipefitters had been killed in an accident, to the overcrowded tenements in town.
That was the truth. That desperate numbers of people were still without jobs, without relief, without hope. And nothing over the radio would change what he knew. He rolled over, tried to relax, but two thoughts kept him awake.
The thought of three stones piled up on his rear porch.
A series of blurry numerals, tattooed into a dead man’s wrist.
Both mysteries. Despite his job, he hated mysteries.
Now he was back in the shadowy streets of old Portsmouth, where there were lots of homes from the 1700s, with narrow clapboards, tiny windows, and sagging roofs. He kept to the alleyways and crooked lanes, ducking into a doorway each time he saw an approaching headlight. When he got where he had to be, he crouched beneath a rhododendron bush, waited some more. He thought about these old homes, about the extraordinary men who had come from this place, had gone out to the world and made a difference. Did they feel then what he felt now? The history books claimed they were full of courage and revolutionary spirit. But he didn’t feel particularly full of anything; he was just cold and jumpy, knowing that behind every headlight could be a car full of Interior Department men or Long’s Legionnaires.
Across the street, the door of an old house opened and a man stepped out, silhouetted by the light. The man looked around, bent over, put two empty milk bottles on the stoop, then went back inside.
In the darkness beneath the bush, he smiled. All clear. One bottle or three, and he would have left. But two was the sign. He crossed the street, through an open gate to a picket fence, then to a cellar door. He opened the door and went down the wooden steps. The cellar was small, with a dirt floor, an exposed rock foundation, and three wooden chairs set about a wooden table. There were two men in the chairs, only one of whom he recognized, and that was a problem.
The man on the left had a thick mustache and swollen hands, scarred with old burn tissue. The owner of the house, Curt Monroe. He looked to him and said, “Curt.”
“Boy, I’m glad to see you, pal,” the scarred man said.
He said, “You tell me who this other guy is, Curt, or I’m out of here.”
The other man had thinning hair and a prominent Adam’s apple. Curt said, “This is Vince. He’s all right.”
He thought about that. Then he took the spare chair and sat down. “How’s he all right?”
Vince said, “Look, I’m—”
He stared at the second man. “I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing.”
Vince shut up. Curt tapped his fingers on the table. “I used to date Vince’s sister back when I was working, before my hands got burnt. I know him, he’s okay, and he can get what we need.”
Now he looked to Vince. “Where?”
“Huh?”
He had to struggle to keep his temper under control. “We need something particular. Something that’s hard to get nowadays, with the latest confiscation laws for firearms. So. Where the hell are you getting it from?”
“A guy up the street from my sister. He’s got a ready supply. I already paid him with Curt’s money. You just tell me where you want it.”
He thought about that and said, “I want it delivered to Curt.”
Vince was confused. “I… that wasn’t the deal. The deal was, I get paid half for making the buy and the other half for delivering it where you want it.”
“Fine. And I want it delivered here, to Curt.”
“But—”
He stared right at him. “Bud, last time I’m going to say this. I know Curt. I worked with him back when we were both employed. I was one of the first guys to get to him when his hands got burnt. So me and him, we got a history. You, I don’t know shit about you. Curt’s vouched for you, but I’m a suspicious bastard, you know? Last time I trusted somebody I didn’t personally vouch for, I got my ass arrested. So the deal’s changed. All right? You deliver it here. You get paid. And then you forget this all happened. Got it?”
Vince looked to Curt, and Curt shrugged, and then Vince got up and left, going up the wooden steps, his feet thumping hard. Curt said, “Pal, you’re even a bigger prick since you’ve gotten out.”
“All that government attention will do it to you,” he said. “Be back in a sec. Don’t leave.”
“What?” Curt asked, but by then he was at the cellar door, swinging it open. There was movement out on the street, and he followed Vince in the shadows as he strode away, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward, moving fast. Idiot, he thought, trailing him with no difficulty at all. Damn fool isn’t even checking who might be behind him.
Vince walked four blocks, then stopped at a corner. This part of town was more commercial, with two bars and a corner grocery and an abandoned bank building, the former Portsmouth Savings & Trust, one of many abandoned banks across the country. He stood in a doorway, watching. Vince took a cigarette out, stuck it between his lips. It took three tries to light it up. Nervous twit, he thought, and then a sedan came down the street and stopped.
Vince tossed the cigarette into the gutter and got into the rear of the sedan. The vehicle quickly drove off. It was too dark to see the license plate or who was inside the car, a model he didn’t recognize, knowing only it was a pricey set of wheels.
He stayed for a few moments, looking at the now empty street corner. He started walking back to Curt’s place, thinking of another chore that had to be done later the next day.
Revolutions were so damn tricky.
The dingy lobby of the Portsmouth Police Department was crowded the next morning with poorly dressed men and women checking on family members or friends picked up the previous night for the typical offenses in a hard-drinking and hard-living port city. Upstairs at his desk, Sam found a note propped on his typewriter: Sam. See me soonest. H. There was also a single sheet of brown paper with a penciled handwritten note:
TO: Inspector Sam Miller
FROM: Patrolman Frank Reardon, Badge Number 43
A canvas of a 2 block area surounding the dead man discovered on May 1 determined that no witnesses could be produced that had any nowledge of the dead man, his identity, or any other clues to facilitat your investigation.
There was a scrawled signature, also in pencil, on the bottom of the sheet. Sam shook his head at the memo’s misspellings. He was sure Frank and his young partner had spent ten minutes walking around in the rain before coming back to the warm station and spending an hour on this report. Sam put the useless report down, looked again at the note.
Sam. See me soonest. H.
H being Harold Hanson. Something about last night had gotten Hanson’s attention—what was one dead guy, even if it was a possible homicide? He looked over to Hanson’s secretary, a woman whose gray hair was always tied at the back of her head in a severe bun, and who wore vibrantly floral dresses no matter the season. He called out, “Mrs. Walton? Is he in?”
Linda Walton looked up from her typing, eyeing him over her black-rimmed reading glasses. She had been working for the city for decades; nobody knew her husband’s name, and the jokes were that she actually ran the department, a joke nobody had the balls to mention in her presence. She was also responsible for religiously maintaining a leather-bound book known as The Log, a record of where every senior police officer was day or night, week or weekend. With the city in a continuous budget struggle, The Log also made sure the city wasn’t cheated on its meager salaries.
“Yes,” she said, looking down at her telephone and its display of lights. “But he’s on the phone and— Oh, he’s off now.”
He lifted the note as though it were a hall pass and she were a high school geometry teacher. “He says he needs to see me.”
“Then go see him already.” She went back to her typing.
He got to his feet, not liking the way she talked and knowing he would do nothing about it. Cops who irritated Mrs. Walton often found their overtime hours mysteriously went away at a time when scraping for overtime meant the difference between soup or ground round for dinner. He went past her, detecting a scent of lilac, and after a brief knock on the door, went in.
Hanson looked up from his desk, and if it weren’t for his clean shirt, he would look like he’d spent the night there. He told Sam, “This won’t take long. Have a seat.”
Sam sat, and Hanson said, “I take it you made the prisoner transfer successfully last night?”
He thought about that poor man pleading to be let free and how he had delivered him as ordered. “Yes, it was successful. And I don’t want to ever do it again.”
“Sorry, Sam. Can’t promise you that.”
He kept his mouth shut, and his boss said, “Did Frank and Leo find anything concerning your dead John Doe?”
“Not a thing.”
“You’re on your way to see the medical examiner?”
“In just a bit,” Sam said.
“Good. Let me know what you find out. And remember what I said last night. If this guy died from hunger or cheap booze, leave it be. Now. I need to ask you something else. You were at the Fish Shanty last night, am I right?”
“Yes, I was.”
Hanson picked up a sheet of paper, and Sam felt uneasy, as if a tax assessor were about to double his property tax bill. “An interesting coincidence, then, since about the same time you were at the Fish Shanty, two fine members of Long’s Legionnaires said they exited the restaurant and found two tires on their car slit. I suppose you have nothing to tell me about this.”
“That’s right, sir. I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“Fine.” Hanson crumpled up the paper, tossing it in his wastebasket. “Goddamn Southerners forgot who kicked their ass back in ’65. Look, knock it off, all right? So far, we’re doing all right here. We don’t want another South Boston incident. Understood?”
Sam had heard a few rumors about South Boston and saw his opening. “What South Boston incident?”
Hanson hesitated, as if judging whether he could trust Sam with the information. Then he said, “Some of Long’s Legionnaires were in South Boston two months ago, trying to instill a little freelance Party discipline. Fighting broke out, got escalated, and before you know it, you had barricades in South Boston with a couple of squads of Legionnaires on one side, and some Southie Irish cops on the other, shooting at each other. Ended up with three dead, scores injured, and one police precinct burned down. Only by the best of luck did the mayor avoid having martial law declared and National Guard platoons sent in. And what I just told you is confidential.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you do. I also hope you didn’t forget that other matter from last night. About the Underground Railroad.”
Sam wondered what he could say, for he was out on a very long limb, and his boss was holding a very sharp saw.
“Suppose I found out there had been a station? But that the station had stopped operating… was no longer sending criminals north? What then?”
Sam’s heart was racing at the gamble he had just taken. From the other side of the closed door, Mrs. Walton kept on slamming at her typewriter keys. Hanson lowered his head and said, “Officially, I want you to prepare a report—in your spare time, of course—on what you learned about the station. Unofficially, I’d be very glad to hear there’s no longer any illegal activity attracting the attention of the Party.”
Hanson’s tone changed. “All right, that’s enough for now. Let me know if you find anything out about that dead man, and remember that Party meeting tonight.”
“Yes, sir. Party meeting tonight.”
Hanson picked up a fountain pen. “You got anything else for me?”
“Just one thing, if I may.”
“Go ahead.”
“I heard a… a rumor, actually, that there might be a crackdown coming down on the refugees. That we might be used to clear them out and turn them over to the Department of the Interior.”
“Who told you that?”
Sam thought of Sarah and fought to keep his voice steady. “Nobody… well, nobody of importance, sir.”
“I see,” Hanson said, writing something down. “Well, I won’t press you for your source. But I’ll tell you I don’t know anything about a crackdown, and you know how your father-in-law and I feel about it, that being one of the few things we agree on. It’s the federal government’s mess. Not ours. And speaking of your father-in-law, go see him right after you get out of the building. The honorable Lawrence Young is being a pain in the ass and requires an immediate visit from you.”
“But the case—”
“The man’s dead right now, he’ll still be dead an hour from now, but your father-in-law will still be a poisonous bastard today and tomorrow and for some time to come. So go see him and solve something, and get him off our collective asses. And Sam—after tonight’s meeting, I want you to plan to become more active in the Party. It would be a great help to the department and to me personally if we knew what was going on with the mayor and his allies. Just… information, that’s all. There are factions, groups within the Party, jockeying for funds and influence, and any information you could provide about the mayor would be very helpful to me and my friends. Do you understand?”
Sure, Sam thought with cold disgust. Be more active in the Party and be a rat as well.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I don’t know, but I promise I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Now get out. You’ve got a full day ahead of you.”
As he left, Sam noticed the smile on Mrs. Walton’s face. She had no doubt listened to every word.
Outside, the sky was gloomy, threatening more rain. Sam walked up Congress Street, where he passed a man setting up a table on the sidewalk with a rough wooden sign that said HOMEMADE TOYS FOR SALE. He didn’t look long at the man—who had two well-dressed little girls in blue dresses and cloth coats with him, sitting on wooden milk crates—for guys like that came and went like the seasons, selling apples in the fall, gadgets and toys during the spring and summer, and—
“Hey, Sam,” came a voice. “Sam Miller.”
He stopped and looked back. The toy peddler had on a coat that was a size too small, a battered fedora, and his sunken face was unshaved. Sam stepped closer and, with a flush of embarrassment, said, “Brett. Brett O’Halloran. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
Brett smiled shyly. “That’s okay, Sam. I understand.”
Sam looked to the table and picked up one of the toys, a wooden submarine. Brett told him, “I get scrap wood from here and there, carve it at night, then paint it. Not a bad piece of work, huh?”
“No, Brett, not a bad piece of work at all.” He balanced the submarine in his hand, not wanting to look at Brett. He had been an officer in the fire department until last year, when someone found a pile of magazines and newspapers in the bottom of his locker at the fire station. PM, The Nation, The Daily Worker—just printed words, but by the end of the day, he was gone.
Brett said, “Relief ended a long time ago, so I do what I can. I mean, well, nobody wants to hire me, considering I’m trouble, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Sam said, throat tight, and Brett said, “These are my twin girls. Amy and Stacy. They were in the same class as your boy… Toby, right?”
“That’s right.”
Brett reached over and rubbed the top of the smaller girl’s head. “They should be in school, but I sell more if they’re out here. Tugs at the old heartstrings. Not a fair trade, but—”
Sam reached into his pocket. “How much?”
“Free for your boy. He always treated my girls okay.”
Sam shook his head. “No dice.” He laid down a handful of coins, pushed them across the table, slipped the wooden submarine into his coat pocket. “It’s really good work, Brett. Really good work.”
The coins were scooped up with a soiled hand. “Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that. You get along now, okay? And my best to your boy.”
Sam walked away, looked back one more time at the former city firefighter. His pretty girls, perched on either side of him, gently rocked their legs back and forth, lightly kicking their heels against the crates.
Two blocks away from the police station, the toy submarine weighing heavy in his coat pocket, Sam reached a storefront that had a green and white sign hanging overhead: YOUNG’S FINE FURNISHINGS.
The dangling bell on the door announced his presence, and once again, he was struck by that soul-deadening smell of new furniture. He wasn’t a snob, he knew people needed furniture, but having to spend hours in a showroom like this, deciding what fabric went with the wallpaper and between that sofa or that settee… Christ, he’d rather be hauling drunken sailors stained with piss and vomit back to the Navy Yard. On a counter by the door was a pile of President Long’s own newspaper, The American Progress. He ignored the papers and looked around, saw a customer come out of an office at the rear of the store, holding a brochure.
Sam tried not to smile. The man was dressed in a shabby brown suit with dirty brown shoes, the old soles flapping as he walked. His gray hair was a mess, and as he went to the door, he noticed Sam.
“Inspector,” he said. Sam nodded back, as Eric “The Red” Kaminski made his way to the door. Eric was a passionate rabble-rouser, passing out leaflets or holding up a sign in front of the post office protesting the government, though a stint last year in a Maine labor camp had cut back on his public appearances. He was also the brother of Frank Kaminski, the principal at Toby’s school, and a source of unending frustration for his straitlaced brother. One day Sam should have a cup of coffee with the principal, he thought, maybe trade frustrating brother stories.
“Eric,” Sam said, holding the door open. “Didn’t know a man of the people needed new furniture.”
As he went past, Eric said sharply, “You don’t know me, and you don’t know shit about the people, Inspector.”
“You’re probably right,” Sam replied cheerfully as Lawrence Young came out of the office, wearing gray slacks, a crisp white shirt, and a black necktie. His thick black hair was sprinkled with gray about the temples. As always, a little thump of irritation jumped up in Sam’s throat. From day one Lawrence had never hidden his dislike that Sam came from a poor family and wanted to marry his only daughter. Over the years that dislike had only grown.
“It’s about time, Sam,” he said.
“Larry,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, Inspector Miller—or should I say, Probationary Inspector Miller?—I was hoping you could give me an update on last month’s burglaries.”
The thump of irritation was now beating in him as if it were an extra heart. “Like I told you and the other store owners, it doesn’t make sense to have the best locks on your front doors and a hook-and-eye fastener for the rear door.”
“So it’s our fault that our stores are being robbed?”
“No, Larry, it’s not,” he answered evenly. “What I’m saying is that you’ve all got to do your part to cut down on the opportunity. I’ve asked the shift sergeants to increase patrols, I’ve interrogated the pawnshop owners up and down the seacoast, and I’ve talked to your fellow businessmen. If we all do our part, we’ll cut down on the crime.”
“I see,” Larry said.
Sam checked his watch. He was going to be late for the county medical examiner. “Larry, that’s nothing new, and you know it. So now, if you’ve proven your point, I’ll get back to work.”
His father-in-law offered him a chilly smile. “And what kind of point is that?”
“The point being that as mayor, you can haul my ass over here any time you want.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But there’s other work that needs to be done. As important as your position in the police department. Political work.”
Sam counted to five silently before he said, “I’m not interested.”
“Too bad. I’ve received assurances you’ll be at the Party meeting tonight. That’s good. Your past absences have been noticed, and I’ve gotten a fair amount of grief about how my son-in-law doesn’t meet his obligations to the Party.”
“Larry, I do my job, and I go to Party meetings when I can. What else do you guys want?”
“You should be more active. Take part in the county or state committee. Make a name for yourself. I could put you in touch with the right people, and—”
Sam turned. “I’ll think about it, okay? But I’ve got real work to do.”
Larry called out, “Then think right, and think of Sarah and Toby. Think what might happen to them if you don’t get your promotion, if you’re demoted or even lose your job. I may be the mayor, Sam, but I don’t control the budget committee. The police department is always a favorite target.”
At that he swiveled. “A threat?”
“It’s a recognition of what’s going on. Who you know in the Party is going to be more important than the job you do. Even if the commission approves your promotion, it makes good sense to have important allies in your corner. And I could use you a man like you in the department… letting me know what the marshal is up to.”
“I don’t care about politics, I just care about my job,” Sam said, thinking, Oh, Christ, what a world, asked to be a rat twice in one day.
“Yeah, well, politics will sure as hell care about you. Better think about it, Sam. Do more with the Party: It’s a good career move.”
Sam stared directly at the man’s smug face, remembering a time last year when that face hadn’t been so smug. Sam had been across the river in Kittery, accompanying the cops and the Maine state police when they raided a house that had hourly paying guests. One of the guests being led out had been his father-in-law, and after Sam had a quick word with a Kittery detective, the cuffs had come off and Larry had run into the shadows. For Sarah’s sake, Sam had kept his mouth shut about what he had seen.
“Like I said, I don’t care about politics. I’m going to just do my job.”
Larry shot back, “If you don’t cooperate, if you end up losing your job, if bad things happen to Sarah and Toby, it’ll be your fault. I’m trying to be a reasonable man and show you a path to a brighter future, and take care of my daughter and grandson.”
“No, Larry, you’re trying to be a jerk.”
Out on the street, it seemed as if Larry yelled something out after him. Sam kept on walking.
In the daylight, the crime scene looked smaller and less sinister. He kicked a stone onto the railroad tracks, frustrated after his drive here. His meeting with his father-in-law had made him late to see the county medical examiner, who was now down the coast in Hampton, looking at a body that had washed up from the Atlantic. So the autopsy report would have to wait until tomorrow. He stood on the tracks, saw the gouges in the mud where the funeral home boys had retrieved the body. How in hell did his guy end up here, dead and alone?
Funny, he thought, how John Doe was now his guy. Well, it was true. Somehow he had turned up dead in Sam’s city, and Sam was expected to do something about it. He was going to find out who this guy was, and his name, occupation, and what had killed him. That was his job.
9 1 1 2 8 3.
The newly disturbed mud yielded no clues. He started walking in a slow circle, staring down at the dirt and the grass. An hour later, all he’d come up with was an empty RC Cola bottle, four soggy cigarette butts, and a 1940 penny. He kept the penny.
Now what?
Two men emerged from behind one of the small warehouses, moving deliberately up the railroad track. Both wore tattered long cloth coats and patched trousers. They stayed to the side of the tracks as they came closer.
Sam looked around. He was alone.
“Got any spare change, pal?” the man on the left called out.
“No, I don’t.”
“Here’s the deal, pal. You turn out your pockets, give us your wallet, your shoes and coat, and we’ll let you be.”
The first man moved his hand from behind his coat, showing a length of pipe. “Or we don’t let you be. Whaddya think?” The second man grinned, showing gaps in his teeth, and also the length of the pipe he was carrying.
Sam pulled his coat aside, reached up to his shoulder holster, pulled out his .38-caliber revolver. Then, with his other hand, he took out his badge. “I think we’ve got another deal going on here.” The men froze, and Sam said, “Am I right, guys?”
The one on the left gave a quick lick to his lips. His companion said, “Yes, sir, I guess we do.”
“Then drop the pipes, why don’t you. How does that sound?”
“Hey, bud,” the one on the left whined as his pipe length dropped to the ground. “We was jus’ foolin’, that’s all.”
“We’re jus’ hungry, that’s all,” the second man said. “That a crime now? Bein’ hungry?”
Sam kept his revolver leveled on them. “Here’s our new arrangement. Lucky for you clowns, I got a busy day ahead of me. So I’m not going to haul you in. But you two are going to turn around and start walking. You ever show up here again in Portsmouth, I’ll shoot you both and dump you in that pond over there. You got it?”
He could see them looking at him, evaluating him. Then they turned away. He kept his revolver up to make sure they weren’t going to change their minds. Only when they had gone about fifty yards did he return the gun to its holster.
Christ, he thought, what a week.
To the east he could make out the roof of the B&M railroad station and its sister freight station. There was also a smell of smoke in the air, and he looked down the tracks, away from Maplewood Avenue, down by the grove of trees.
He started walking.
The encampment was built on a muddy stretch of ground, up against the marshland that bordered the shallow North Mill Pond. There were automobiles and trucks parked near the trees, and from the condition of most of the tires, it looked like the vehicles had made their final stop. Shacks made from scrap lumber and tree branches were scattered around, most with meager fires burning before them and women tending them. The children playing about were shoeless, their feet black with dirt. The women, with their thin dresses soiled and patched, looked up at him, eyes and expressions dull. It made him queasy, thinking about Sarah and Toby safe and warm back home. He shivered, knowing that one mistake, one bad run-in with a Long’s Legionnaire or some other screwup, could easily put his family here.
A skinny old man came over, his white beard down to his chest, his skin gray with grime, his leather shoes held together by twine. “What are you lookin’ for, fella?”
“Looking for Lou from Troy. Is he around?”
“Depends who’s askin’. You a cop?”
“I am.”
“Town cop, railroad cop, or federal cop?”
“Town cop. Inspector Sam Miller.”
The old man spat. “Haven’t seen Lou since yesterday. He in trouble?”
“No. I just want to ask him a few questions.”
“Huh. Sure. Well, he’s not here. Just me and the kids and the womenfolk. That’s it.”
Sam took in the encampment once more. “Where are the other men?”
“Whaddya think? Out in town. Day jobs. Looking for work. Other stuff.”
Other stuff, Sam thought. Rummaging through trash bins, looking for swill or food scraps. Or collecting bottles or cans. Or, like Lou, scavenging for coal lumps to cut the cold at night, when your wife and your children shivered in the rags as you lay there with them, in despair and rage, wondering again how you had ended up here, a failure as a father, a husband, a man.
“Look, last night, there was something loud coming from here… like gunshots. You know anything about that?”
The old man spat again. “A couple of fellas were drunk, got pissed at each other, fired off a couple o’ rounds. Missed, o’ course. But shit, you tell me you’re worried about that, somethin’ that happened twelve hours ago? Why didn’t you come earlier?”
Sam said, “Other matters had priority, and—”
“Yeah, that’s crap. You cops, you don’t give a shit. If you did, you woulda been here last night instead of comin’ out here the next day to pick up the pieces. Well, the hell with you.”
Without warning, the man took a swing at Sam, the blow landing hard on his left cheek. Sam, stunned, stepped back and, with two hands, shoved the old man in the chest. The old man fell on his butt, snarling, “Fuck you, cop. You and your kind don’t care about us. I was a stonecutter from Indiana, made stone that built this country, and look at me and my family—livin’ like animals, beggin’ for scraps. So get the fuck out of here, leave us be. Shit, better yet, you want to arrest me? Go ahead. I’ll be fed better and will sleep better tonight in your damn jail.”
Sam touched his cheek, then turned away. Suddenly, he heard a man laughing. From one of the shacks a man stepped out, buttoning his fly. A shipyard worker, probably, Sam thought. The man strolled away, whistling, lighting up a hand-rolled cigarette, and then a woman in a gray dress emerged from the shed, holding a dollar bill, an empty look on her tired face. When she saw Sam, she ducked back into the shack, and he heard her say something he couldn’t make out.
He looked at the rails again. Hearing that woman’s voice, a memory had come to him of a time when he had been a patrolman. Along these very tracks, not far from here, he’d been part of a search party seeking an old man who had wandered off when a train rumbled by unexpectedly. Not a B&M train, just a dark locomotive with a series of closed-off boxcars, and from those boxcars, Sam remembered hearing… noises. Voices. Scores of voices, crying out desperately as the train shuttled through the night, going God knows where.
Voices he couldn’t understand.
He looked back at the trampled spot where the dead man had been found.
“Who are you?” he said. “And where in hell did you come from?”
Then he continued back to his Packard, rubbing his sore cheek.
Dinner was a bowl of chicken stew and some chunks of homemade bread, and while Toby drew doodles on scrap memo paper from the department, Sarah sat on the other side of the table, silent and looking paler than usual. There was a faint crackle to the air, as though a thunderstorm were approaching.
When she spoke, there was a listlessness to her voice, as if she were preoccupied with something.
“You were out late last night with that dead man, Sam. You shouldn’t have to go out again tonight. The marshal should give you a break. Especially since you got in a fight. Your cheek is really bruising up.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight, and tonight’s a Party meeting,” he told her. “You know how it is.”
She spooned up some of the stew. The radio was playing a repeat sermon of the famed radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, out of Chicago. In his musical accent, Coughlin said, “The system of international finance which has crucified the world to the cross of depression was evolved by Jews for holding the peoples of the world under control…”
Sam frowned. He despised the priest. “Why are you listening to him? I thought you liked the music from that Boston station.”
“It went off the air yesterday. The FCC yanked its license.”
The priest went on. “…from European entanglements, from Nazism, communism, and their future wars, America must stand aloof. Keep America safe for Americans and the Stars and Stripes the defender of God.”
“I’m finished. May I be excused?” Toby asked breathlessly.
Sam looked to Sarah, and she said, “Yes, you may.”
“Thanks!” He pushed his chair back with a screech and ran for his room, and Sarah called out, “And no radio until your homework gets done, got it, buster?”
“Yep!”
With Toby gone, Sarah picked up her spoon. “Sam, are you sure you can’t stay home tonight?”
“Honey, I’ve missed two Party meetings in a row. I can’t afford to miss a third. I start missing meetings, then somebody will start looking in to me. And if that happens, maybe they’ll find out about your little charity work, right?”
“Sam, I know we called it charity work, but it was much more than that,” she said sharply. “It is—was very important to me. It was once important to you, too. You always supported me before. I don’t like that you’ve changed your mind.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. Other things have changed. And if I miss one more meeting, I can get put on a list. And I’m still on probation. You know where that toy sub came from, right, the one for Toby? An unemployed firefighter selling wooden toys on the street because someone ratted him out for reading the wrong newspapers. If there are cutbacks next budget season, I could lose my job. Or end up chopping down trees with my brother if they find out what’s been going on in our basement.”
“You won’t be on any list like that. You know that. Please knock it off. You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Don’t be so sure. And something else you should know. I saw the marshal and your dad separately this morning, and they want the same thing: me to be more active in the Party, so I can be a rat and tell them what the other’s up to. Isn’t that great? The marshal and your dad have such a high opinion of me that they both want me to be a rat.”
Sarah wiped her hands on a napkin. “Maybe you should be more active in the Party. I mean, with the Underground Railroad station closed, my friends and I, well, if you could tell us things ahead of time—”
“Dammit, woman, it’s bad enough my boss and your dad want me to be a rat, you want me to do the same for you and your half-baked revolutionaries and concerned schoolteachers?”
Sarah’s eyes flashed at him. “Don’t insult us by calling us that. It’s people like my friends who can make a difference. And I wish you would stop being so mean about my dad. I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like it, but you know he can be a jerk.”
“Jerk or not, he’s just trying to help his son-in-law, me, and our son. What’s wrong with that? You know how he helped us with the furniture, and he wanted to help with the down payment for our house. I still don’t know why you didn’t let him.”
“Because I don’t want to be under his goddamn thumb, that’s why!”
She glared at him, and noisily clattered the dishes together. “But it’s all right to sleep in a bed that he provided us at cost, isn’t it, Inspector Miller?”
“Look, Sarah—”
His wife made a point of looking up at the kitchen clock. “I don’t want to talk about it any more. You’re going to be late to your precious Party meeting.”
The meeting was held in American Legion Post #6, off Islington Street, nearly a dozen blocks away from the police station. The air inside was blue-gray with smoke. Most of the men were smoking cigars or cigarettes; the bar was open, and bottles of Narragansett and Pabst Blue Ribbon were held in a lot of fists. Sam went up to a table near the entrance, where he paid his fifty cents and his name was checked off a list. There, he thought, I’m here, dammit, and I won’t be back for another month, no matter what the marshal or the mayor wants.
There was a burst of laughter in the corner, and Sam noted a freckle-faced man holding court. Patrick Fitzgerald, father of his friend Donna. Remembering his chilly dispatch from home, he thought again of Donna and her sweet smile, and… Why hadn’t he asked her out back in school?
Frank Reardon came toward him, giving him a satisfied nod. Unlike the other night by the train tracks, Frank wore civvies and had an American Legion garrison cap tilted on his head, as did a number of others.
“Glad to see you made it, Sam. What the hell happened to your cheek?”
“Walked into a door.”
Frank grinned. “If you say so. Look, anything new about that body? Any ID yet? Or cause of death?”
“Nope,” he said. “Still working it. Should get a report from the medical examiner tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. But I bet you a beer that you find out that dead man’s a hobo who stole those clothes and got clipped by the train some way.”
“Maybe,” Sam agreed, and Frank said, “You watch. One beer.”
Frank wandered off, and Sam decided one beer was a good idea. There was a stir amid the crowd, and two young men came in from the rear of the room, laughing. Blue corduroy pants, leather jackets, and even in the crowd, Sam felt alone and exposed, as if he were in a crowded church and feeling like the pastor was staring right at him when sermonizing about the wages of sin. Long’s Legionnaires, the same creeps from the other night at the Fish Shanty. They dragged chairs over near an empty lectern and sat there, legs stretched out, arms folded. Here to keep an eye on the locals. Sam looked away and went up to the wooden bar, where he managed to get a Narragansett. Then there was an elbow in his side and a voice in his ear: “Inspector, I sure hope you don’t drink like that on duty.”
A short man with red hair stood grinning up at him. Sean Donovan, former ironworker from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and now a clerk at the department, who spent most of his days burrowed in the files in the basement, trying to clean up a backlog of misfiled papers and case reports. Most cops ignored him—what the hell was a guy doing in a broad’s job, anyway?—but Sam liked Donovan’s quick wit and ability to find some obscure bit of paperwork in just a few minutes.
“Didn’t know you were so interested in politics, Sean.”
“I’m interested in keeping my job, my belly full, and a roof over my head. That means decisions, compromises, and the occasional sacrifice that would make your stomach roll. If I was in Berlin, I’m sure I would be a fully paid member of the Nazi Party. If I was in Moscow, my party card would be red. In England, Mr. Mosley would have my allegiance; in Italy, Signor Mussolini; and in France, Monsieur Laval; but here I am in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, eager to once again swear undying fealty to the Kingfish.”
Sam clinked his bottle against Sean’s. “And then go home to curse him out in private.”
“You know me too well, Inspector. But I’m sure you’re not here out of any particular love or duty to the Party. Just here not to rock boats, am I right?”
“And now, because you work for the cops, you’re a mindreader?”
“You’ll be amazed at what I’ve learned. Ah, I see our boys from Baton Rouge are here to keep an eye on us.”
Sam looked again to the two young Southern men, and there was Marshal Harold Hanson, talking to them. Hanson went to the other side of the room, took a seat. Then one of the Legionnaires raised his head, and his chilly blue eyes seemed to look right through Sam. The Legionnaire nudged his companion, and now they were both staring at him. Sam raised his bottle in a salute and gave them a smile, and for that, he got frozen gazes in return. Fine. To hell with you bastards, he thought.
“Looks like two of Long’s finest don’t like your Yankee hospitality,” Sean remarked.
Sam kept a smile on his face. “The little crawfish bastards should crawl back to their bayous or swamps or whatever the hell they call them.”
“Now look who’s talking sedition. Hold on, it looks like the show is about to begin.”
A large man wearing a Legion cap and a dark blue suit that pinched at every seam stood behind the lectern. Teddy Caruso, city councillor and a Party leader for the county. Caruso’s loud voice carried out into the mass of men—the women had their own Party auxiliary, which met at a different time—and there were some grumbles from the crowd as he said, “Come on, come on, find a seat, find a seat, we wanna get going here…”
Lawrence Young walked in, with his sharp smile that suggested a fondness for the rough-and-tumble world of politics. He joined Teddy for a moment, whispering into his ear. Both made a point of smiling at the two Southern men sitting near them.
Sean said, “I see your sainted father-in-law is up front, member of the ruling class, ready to oppress us workers. Why don’t you go up and give him a big ol’ handshake?”
“And why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Sam shot back.
“Tsk, tsk, it seems Mr. Young and his favorite son-in-law don’t get along,” Sean said cheerfully. “If that’s the case, take a number. You’re not the only one in the room who despises him. Like our boss, for example.”
“Really? I know they’re not best friends, but—”
“Oh, come on, Sam. There’s more to police work than being out on the street. You’ve got to look beyond the streets to the offices overlooking them and the men who inhabit them. Like our mayor and the marshal. Both men who crave power, who like being in the Party, and who neither trust nor like each other.”
“Even if they’re both Party members?”
“Especially if they’re both Party members.” Sean said it firmly. “Sam, m’lad, listen well and learn. In all fascist organizations, there are factions within that battle each other. Over in Germany, it’s the SS versus the Gestapo. Here, it’s the Nats versus the Staties.”
From the crowd came another roar of laughter. Sam said, “The Nats versus the what?”
“Nats and Staties. Nats are short for National, Staties slang for States. The Nats believe in supporting the Party organization no matter what, subordinating the needs of their states and their own people. The Staties believe in supporting their people and their state first and foremost. Hanson is a Nat. The mayor is a Statie. So there you go. The mayor thinks the marshal listens too much to the national organization, and the marshal thinks the mayor listens too much to the poor foot soldiers out there in the streets. They’re jockeying for position, Sam, looking for allies, to be in total control of the county Party organization and then, eventually, the state.”
The beer now tasted flat. He knew for sure what had been going on earlier with his boss and his father-in-law: As Sean said, both the marshal and the mayor were looking for allies to help them in their struggle, and why not have Sam Miller on the inside, working to betray the other?
“Too much politics for me, Sean. Look, let’s just find a seat, okay?”
Sean said, “Sure, Sam. Look. Let the dedicated ones go up front. We hang back, that means we’re the first ones out when this breaks up.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Sam said. He waited with Sean until most of the crew had taken folding chairs, and then they walked to the last row. Sean walked with a pronounced limp, revealing the true reason he worked at the police department instead of the shipyard. Two years ago, a falling piece of welded metal had crushed his left foot, putting him in the hospital for three months. As Sean once told Sam, that piece of metal had “accidentally” been tipped over by someone, someone whose brother took Sean’s job the very next day.
Sam took his seat, remembering something else Sean had said: When it comes to jobs or your life, always watch your back, Sam.
Once everyone in the hall sat down, they stood right up again as an overweight man made the audience stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Sam shuffled to his feet—a few rows up, there was loud cursing as somebody kicked over a beer—and looked to the far corner of the hall, where an American flag hung from a pole. Joining the other men, Sam held out his arm straight in the traditional salute as the ritual began.
“I pledge allegiance…
“To the flag…
“Of the United States of America…
“And to the Republic…
“For which it stands…
“Indivisible…
“With liberty and justice for all!”
As they sat, Sean leaned toward Sam’s ear. “Unless you’re an immigrant, a Jew, a Negro, a Republican, intellectual, communist, union organizer, or—”
“Sean, shut up, will you?” Sam snapped, and Sean sniggered softly.
Up front, Teddy pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket. “All right, c’mon, fellas, can I have some quiet back there? All right? Good. I hereby call the meeting of the Portsmouth District of the Rockingham County Party meeting to order. I move that the reading of last month’s minutes be waived. Is there a second? Good. All in favor? Good. Okay. Second agenda item, the Daniel Webster Boy Scout Council is looking for a donation of….”
And so it went. Sam crossed his feet and glared at the rear of the chair before him, stenciled with the A.L. #6 logo. He let his mind drift as Teddy went on, running the meeting as expertly as the Kingfish ran the Louisiana Legislature and then the Congress. Motions were made, seconded, and passed within seconds. He remembered reading somewhere—Time magazine, maybe?—that the record for bill passing was forty-four in just over twenty minutes, down in Baton Rouge, while Huey Long was senator and still running the state, before the assassination of FDR, the disastrous single term of Vice President Garner, and the triumphant election of Long in ’36 and his reelection in ’40.
He shifted in his seat. A cynical thought but a true one: Democracy might be dying, replaced by whatever was going on here and around the globe, but at least its death made for quick meetings. Teddy droned on, then said, “All right, only three more things left on our agenda tonight. First of all, we’re lookin’ for your help for some information.”
There was a stir in the room. “There are index cards being passed out now, okay? We’ve all been asked to write down on those cards three names of people you think need to be looked at. Okay? Neighbors, coworkers, people down the street, we’re lookin’ for anybody who talks out of turn, insults the President and his people, or anybody else that needs to be looked at because of subversive activities or words. Okay?”
Some murmurs, but nobody protested. Sam felt queasy, as though the chicken stew from earlier had spoiled. Sean whispered something about how stoolies were the only growth industry in this administration, but Sam ignored him. He was thinking about his own status as a stoolie, being pressed by both his boss and father-in-law to be a rat. And he thought suddenly about that terrified writer he had put into the hands of the Interior Department last night.
When a card was passed to him, he took out his fountain pen, scribbled down three names—Huey Long, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin—and then passed the card forward. There. Up front somebody laughed—“At last my idiot cousin will get what’s coming to him”—and then Teddy collected the cards, breathing a bit hard, and passed them to one of the Long Legionnaires.
“Okay, item number two, some remarks from President Huey Long that we’re gonna play right now. Hank? Got the Victrola ready?”
There was a smattering of applause. Sam sat still, thinking about the other names on those cards. Sixty or seventy city residents were going about their business tonight, not realizing or imagining that they’d just been put on a list, a list that would eventually destroy them. Just like that firefighter O’Halloran, carving toys from scrap wood, peddling them on the street. Something cold seemed to catch in Sam’s throat. Maybe his own name was on that list.
He folded his arms tight as the man named Hank fiddled around with a Victrola set up in the corner, and from two speakers set up on chairs, there was a crackle of static and then the familiar Southern drawl of the thirty-third president of the United States:
“But my friends, unless we do share our wealth, unless we limit the size of the big man so as to give something to the little man, we can never have a happy or free people. God said so! He ordered it.
“We have everything our people need. Too much of food, clothes, and houses—why not let all have their fill and lie down in the ease and comfort God has given us? Why not? Because a few own everything—the masses own nothing.
“I wonder if any of you people who are listening to me were ever at a barbecue! We used to go there—sometimes one thousand people or more. If there were one thousand people, we would put enough meat and bread and everything else on the table for one thousand people. Then everybody would be called and everyone would eat all they wanted. But suppose at one of these barbecues for one thousand people that one man took ninety percent of the food and ran off with it and ate until he got sick and let the balance rot. Then nine hundred ninety-nine people would have only enough for one hundred to eat, and there would be many to starve because of the greed of just one person for something he couldn’t eat himself.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, America, all the people of America, have been invited to a barbecue. God invited us all to come and eat and drink all we wanted. He smiled on our land, we grew crops of plenty to eat and wear. He showed us in the earth the iron and other things to make everything we wanted. He unfolded to us the secrets of science so that our work might be easy. God called: ‘Come to my feast.’
“Then what happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up and took enough for one hundred twenty million people and left only enough for five million, for all the other one hundred twenty-five million to eat. And so many million must go hungry and without these good things God gave us unless we call on them to put some of it back…”
Sam kept his hands fisted in his pockets as the record ended and most of the men in the room applauded. Not moving his hands was a small protest, but it was the best he could do. Sean sat next to him, head nodding forward, and Sam jabbed him with an elbow.
“Huh?”
“Speech over,” Sam said. “Look suitably enthusiastic.”
Sean covered a yawn. “Sorry. Dozed off. Must’ve listened to that same speech a half dozen times, starting ten years ago. Rockefellers and Morgans too rich. Everybody else too poor. A new Homestead Act. No man a slave, every man a king.” He looked about at the mostly smiling faces. “The same blah-blah-blah. If the Kingfish wants to get elected next year to a third term, he’s gonna have to do better than reusing the same old speech.”
“If it works, it works.”
Teddy, the Party leader, came back to the lectern and took another folded sheet of paper from his coat. “All right, all right, all right. Last item on tonight’s agenda. I gotta list here of some names. When I read out the names, you can leave the hall. For you, the meetin’ is over. We’ll see you next month. Okay, here we go: Abbott, Alan, Courtney, Delroy…”
It was as if the temperature in the hall had abruptly dropped. Sam saw that the others near him felt the same way, moving in their seats, looking around. No matter what Teddy said, this was unusual, this wasn’t right. Sean whispered gleefully, “That’s how it happens in the occupied lands. You get separated out. One group lives, the others get shot. Wonder what group we’re in.”
“Sean, nobody’s going to get shot.”
“Maybe so. But you got your revolver with you?”
“Why?”
“If there’s shooting, I want to be next to you. I get the feeling you wouldn’t go without a fight.”
Sam kept his mouth shut. He knew where his revolver was. Safe back at home. Teddy droned on, “Williams, Young, and Zimmerman. Okay, get a move on, get a move on.”
The sound of chairs being scraped and men walking away and the doors swinging open quieted down, and Sam saw that about a fourth of the room had filed out. Now the place was so quiet, he could hear a steam whistle blowing from the shipyard.
Teddy cleared his throat. “Okay. Now. The rest of you fellas, get ready for somethin’ important, okay?”
Sam looked at the rear door. It was unmanned, no sergeant at arms standing by. He could bail out right now and hit the street and—
Teddy carefully unfolded another sheet of paper. “Okay, these orders come straight from Party headquarters in Concord and Washington. Understand? Good. It’s been decided that the National Guard has to be expanded for future challenges. All the men that left, they’re already members of the Guard. You fellas aren’t. So you’re gonna volunteer this evening to join the New Hampshire National Guard. Understood?”
A voice came from the back. “Hey, Teddy! The hell with you! I got a bum knee! I ain’t gonna join the Guard, march around, and sleep on the ground. The hell with that!”
Teddy nodded, fat lips pursed. “That’s your right, then. And you know what happens next. We take note of who gets in and who doesn’t, right? Right. And then things happen. Maybe your uncle gets kicked off relief. Maybe your kid doesn’t get a summer job from the city. And maybe your boss, maybe he gets word that you’re not cooperative, that you’re not part of the team.”
The silence fell across the room like a cold, wet blanket. Teddy was right: Everyone knew what the threat meant. Not being part of the team, not being cooperative, meant you could get fired. Just like that. Whatever thin thread you were living by could be cut in an instant. No job, no government relief, no charity, and in a manner of weeks, you and your desperate family would be scratching out a living in the hobo camp out by Maplewood Avenue. Or selling cheap toys on the sidewalk.
Teddy looked about the hushed room. “Good. That’s more like it. I don’t want the word to get out that the Portsmouth district didn’t get one hundred percent enlistment. Good. Now. All you guys, stand up, raise up your right hand.”
There was the barest hesitation among the men, and Sam felt like here and now maybe somebody would make a stand, maybe somebody would push back. But nobody did. The room was still, and then one man got up, looking at his feet. He was joined by the man sitting next to him. A third man stood up, and another, and then the rest of the room joined in. Sam stood up with the rest, thinking, Not right, this is not right, and he realized with a sour taste in his mouth that it was just another step in that long descent into whatever was now passing for civil society, where you were conscripted and it was called volunteering, when the poor and homeless were called bums, and when you lied over the radio and it was called a frank talk with the American people.
So Sam raised his hand, his voice low and quiet, as he joined his fellow men in the American Legion hall in swearing to uphold and defend the constitutions of the state of New Hampshire and the United States, and to defend both the state and the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Teddy folded the paper. “Okay. Word is, a couple of weeks, you’ll report to the armory to get a medical exam and get issued gear. More training will happen down the road. For you guys with bum knees or whatever, don’t fret, there’ll be something for you to do. We all pull together and we’ll do just fine.” He went through the quick and formal phase of dismissing the meeting, and by then Sam was out of his chair, joining everyone else to crowd out the rear door.
It seemed there was one more bit of business left undone. Two Long’s Legionnaires were blocking the door, holding up their hands.
“Jus’ hold on a second there, fellas,” the one on the left said. “We got somethin’ special for y’all.”
The other Legionnaire reached under his leather jacket. There was a slight gasp from someone, wondering what was going on as the man’s hand slipped in, and Sam watched, the hand came out, holding a—
A paper sack.
The tall young man jiggled the paper sack, held it out. “As you leave, boys, take one, okay? Gonna be a nice way to find out who our friends are up here.”
The first man up put a hand into the paper sack, came out with a flash of metal. Sean whispered, “Oh, crap, look at that,” and Sam saw “that” was a Confederate-flag pin. The two Legionnaires grinned.
“Welcome aboard,” the one on the left said.
With the flag pin in his hand, Sam rushed out of the meeting hall, his stomach sick, his head aching. He stood on the sidewalk, sucking in the cool air.
“Can you believe this?” Sean demanded, holding the pin up. “Just like Russia, just like Germany. Show your loyalty to nation and party by wearing a bloody pin.” He dropped his pin in an open drain grate. Sam, without even hesitating, did the same thing. It felt good, hearing the clink as the pin fell into the shadows.
“And another thing,” Sean raged. “Did you hear the oath we just took? It’s not the foreign enemies I’m worried about. It’s the other half. The domestic. Pretty big fucking blank check, if you know what I mean. That’s one of the reasons why our fair President got to keep control in Louisiana when he started out. He had the Guard in his pocket. Now we’re part of his shock troops. We do his dirty work wherever he wants us.”
Sam knew exactly what Sean meant. The National Guard was a trained reserve to help out the army overseas during a war, but more and more, it was used for other things. Breaking strikes in the big industrial cities in Pennsylvania and Illinois and Michigan. Burning down hobo encampments when they got too large outside of New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. Shooting at mobs when the relief money ran out in Seattle and Miami and Detroit. And now he and the others in that smoky hall were part of it.
“Christ, Sam.” Sean’s voice was harsh with anger. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“Damned if I know,” Sam said, moving away, wanting to get away from the hall, to get away from Teddy, to get away from the Party and everything else.
Just to get away.
But when he got to his Packard, he was brought back to ground very quickly.
As he opened the door, the overhead dome lit the front seat, and there, lined up in a row, lay three bound grass stalks. He froze. He started to crumple them but then gently placed the stalks back in the car, got in, started up the big engine, and motored home.
Sarah and Toby were both asleep, Sarah with the radio on low, Toby snoring, cuddled tight against his pillow. Out there was the Party, out there were the hoboes, out there armies and air forces and navies were grappling in the dark, men and women and children blown up, shot, drowned, burned…
Here it was peace. Inside this little frame house in this old port city, here was peace. A peace built on illusions, based on him doing his job, keeping his head down, not getting involved, and so far, the illusions were working.
But for how long?
He walked into the living room to the small bookcase. Among the books was a well-worn thick paperback with a faded green cover. The Boy Scout Handbook. His very own, and one that Toby liked to look through even though the boy was only old enough to be in the Cub Scouts. He opened the flyleaf, saw the little scrawl. Sam Miller. Troop 170. Portsmouth, N.H. Nearly twenty years ago.
A small black-and-white photo slipped out, a photo of Sam and his brother, Tony, in their Boy Scout uniforms, standing in front of their house. Sam was smiling at the camera, Tony was glum, no doubt at having to share the photo with his younger brother. Sam was struck again by how alike they looked. There were only two years’ difference between them, but in the right light and at the right distance, they could pass for twins. Brothers who really got along probably could have had fun with that as they grew up, confusing teachers and friends. Sam never remembered having any such fun with Tony.
He put the photo back and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
Secret messages to your troop mates. Danger. To alert your troop mates of danger, draw three lines in the dirt.
Or pile three stones.
Or gather three bundles of grass.
He closed the handbook, put it back on the shelf, and went over to the rolltop desk where the checkbook and the utility bills were kept. He looked into one of the wooden cubbyholes and found the small collection of postcards, the newest one on top. The card was postmarked from last week. Like most places, Portsmouth got its mail delivered twice a day.
His address was handwritten in the center, and in the upper left was a preprinted return address:
IROQUOIS LABOR CAMP
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
FORT DRUM, N.Y.
He flipped the card over and reread the message.
There were three printed lines.
AM DOING WELL.
WORK IS FINE.
YOUR FOOD PACKAGES MOST WELCOME.
The postcards arrived once a month, with unerring regularity and with the same message. All outgoing and incoming mail at the camp was censored, of course. He rubbed the edge of the postcard and sat there in the darkness, hearing the frantic tap-tap from upstairs as Walter Tucker, former Harvard science professor, entered his fictional universes, a place where loyalty oaths and labor camps didn’t exist.
“Sam?” Sarah came in so quietly he hadn’t heard her. She was wearing a light blue robe, her hair tousled. “It’s late. How did the meeting go?”
“As well as could be expected. We were all drafted tonight.”
“Drafted? Into what?”
“Into the damn New Hampshire National Guard, that’s what.”
“How did that happen?”
A good question. How to explain that choking feeling in the smoky room, feeling desperately alone even in the midst of that crowd? “We all stood up like good little boys, raised our right hands, took an oath, and now I’m in the Guard. Along with practically every other able-bodied male in the city.”
Sarah sat down heavily on the ottoman. “And everyone went along? Nobody put up a fuss?”
“Sarah, your dad was there. Marshal Hanson was there. Hell, two of Long’s finest were sitting up front. It wasn’t a place for anyone to be brave.”
“Oh, Sam… And you’re not going to like this, either. We’re going to have a visitor tomorrow night. Sam, it’s just for the night and—”
He shoved Tony’s message back into the desk so hard the cardboard crumpled. “You heard what I said last night, right? No more. We’ve got Legionnaires in town, the Party and my boss know there’s an Underground Station here, and you want to keep shuttling people north? Sweet Jesus, Sarah, do I have to make it any clearer? I even went out on a limb today with Hanson, telling him I knew the station was shut down. Hell, what more do you want? Do you want to see me standing next to Brett O’Halloran, begging strangers to buy wooden toys?”
“No, I don’t want that.” Her voice was frigid. “I know you’re trying to protect me and Toby. But I told you there was one in the pipeline, and I couldn’t do anything about it—”
“Oh, come on—”
“What happened to that guy I knew back in high school? The one who kept on playing football even with a broken finger? Where did he go?”
“He grew up, Sarah, and got a whole bunch of responsibilities. Back then the worst thing would have been losing the finals. Now… Have you been to the hobo camp lately? Children barefoot in the mud? Moms and dads starving so they can give their kids whatever food they can scrape together?”
“I’ve been to the camp. All of us at school have, with used clothes and some extra food. We do what we can, to fight back, and part of that is our little cot down in our basement. I’m sorry, Sam, he’s coming. The last one, I promise. It’s an emergency and—”
The choking feeling was back, as if he had no choice in anything. “Fine. Last one. An emergency. Whatever you say.”
“Sam, please, keep it down. Toby—”
“Sure. Don’t want to wake him. Okay, one more, tomorrow night. Who is he?”
She said, “I don’t know. Some famous singer named Paul. On the arrest lists for sedition. Usual nonsense. He’ll be here tomorrow night; I promise he’ll leave before dawn. You’ll never even know he’s here.”
He looked at his wife, his very smart and pretty wife who would sometimes have afternoon card sessions with fellow secretaries and teachers from the school—“the girls,” she called them—where they would talk and gossip about marriages and births but also about politics and Long and Stalin and Marx. Her face was impassive, and for a terrifying moment, he looked at her and it was like looking at the face of his boss, Harold Hanson, not having a clue what was going on behind those eyes.
Sam took a breath. “So this guy, this stranger, is important to you. To get him to Canada, to keep him out of jail, is important enough to you to endanger my job, our house, and our son. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were tight, and he braced for the inevitable blowup, but instead she nodded and said, “Yes. He’s that important. And… I thank you. With him, we’re done. This Underground Railroad station is closed. I swear it to you.”
He waited for a heartbeat. Then he said, “How long have you known?”
“Sam?”
“This wasn’t a surprise sprung on you in the past few hours. So how long have you known?”
She hugged herself, seemed smaller. Her robe slipped open and he noted the long smoothness of her legs, felt a flash of desire despite his anger. “A… a few days. I told you about him being in the pipeline.”
“But you knew there was no way to stop it. And still you’ve kept it secret from me, haven’t you?”
“I… I was afraid you’d say no. So yes, I’m sorry. I kept it a secret.”
“I see. And you thought by letting me know now, in the middle of the night, that I couldn’t do anything but say yes.”
“Sam—”
“I’ve got to go out for an hour or so. Don’t wait up.”
“Why?” she asked, bewildered. “What’s going on?”
Sam didn’t look at her as he put his coat and hat on, reached for the door. “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s a secret.”
Twenty minutes later he was in his Packard, rumbling over a wooden bridge to Pierce Island, in Portsmouth Harbor. Earlier he had paid a quick visit to a truck stop on Route 1, just before one of the bridges going over into Maine. In the rearview mirror he could make out the apartment building where he, Tony, Mom, and Dad had lived years back. The Packard’s headlights carved the small brush and trees out of the shadows. The steering wheel shook violently as he turned off the dirt road.
He left the engine running and the headlights on as he sat there. Three stones. Three bundles of grass. Nothing much to anyone else, but… it meant a lot to him. And to somebody else.
Sam switched off the engine and stepped out onto the dirt. Crickets chirped in the darkness. He folded his arms and sat against the Packard’s fender. Out before him stretched the harbor and the lights of the city and the shipyard. The island was a piece of city property that had never been developed. Over the years it had been a popular place during the day and night for a variety of people and purposes. In daylight it was a destination for fishermen, for the young boys who climbed the trees and played along the shore, for picnickers who managed to enjoy the view while ignoring the stench from the mudflats and marshes.
At night a different crew came in. Hoboes. Drunks. Men looking for satisfaction from other men, needing secrecy and darkness to do their illegal business. Sailors from the shipyard who didn’t have enough cash for a room but had enough money for a quick fumbling date in a grove of trees. Every now and then the city council would bestir themselves to ask the marshal to clean up the island, and sure enough, there would be a handful of arrests, enough to satisfy the Portsmouth Herald and the do-good civic groups.
There was a thumping sound coming from the shipyard. Sam straightened and saw a shape by the dark trees. “You can come out,” he called. “I’m alone.”
The man stepped forward. Even in the darkness, Sam recognized the walk. Something in his chest seized up, and he was a rookie again instantly, facing his first arrest, a drunken punk from one of the harborside bars, wondering if he could do it, could actually make that leap from being a civilian to being a cop.
“Hello, Sam,” came the voice.
“Hello, Tony,” he answered, greeting his older brother: welder, illegal union organizer, and escaped prisoner from one of the scores of labor camps across these troubled forty-eight states.