The Americans

by John Jakes

  Queasy all at once, Carter nodded. He was beginning to realize what had almost happened to him.

  Under the broken table, Ortega was floundering as he tried to raise himself. Suddenly his bleary eyes fixed on Carter.

  “Cagão!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll see you again, that I swear.”

  A tankard came flying from the back of the room, where the Greek woman had pressed herself against the wall. Royce raised the poker and batted the tankard aside like a ball player. In the distance Carter heard clattering hoofs and shrill whistles—a police wagon on the way.

  “Get out of here and don’t come back for a while,” Royce urged. Carter needed no more prodding. He turned—and in dismay saw half a dozen men fighting between him and the door. He turned sideways, slipped between two of the men, absorbed a glancing blow from a third, gut-punched a fourth, and finally made it into the damp darkness as the police wagon came charging toward the head of the pier, the manes of its two heavy horses standing out behind them.

  Carter ran the other way, miscalculated, and plunged off the edge of the pier.

  He dropped into the icy water with a great splash, went numb as the water closed over him, and in panic, fought his way to the surface.

  He broke into the air, sputtering and splashing loudly until he realized how much noise he was making and strove to keep quiet. Fortunately the commotion up at the Cod— cursing, shouting, whistles blasting—smothered his own sounds. He paddled to a slimy piling directly under the edge of the pier and clung there, out of breath. He shut his eyes and shuddered. He’d almost lost his life in that damn place. How in God’s name did I get into this?

  He knew very well. He’d gotten into it by being a failure at Harvard, and by coming to a dive like the Red Cod. Before, he had always enjoyed observing the sometimes violent doings at the tavern. Tonight he’d involved himself in them to help a friend—and quite suddenly, the Red Cod’s atmosphere of violence was not titillating, but terrifying. He’d never go back to the place. Especially not after the Portugee’s warning.

  Carter pulled himself up out of the water and slipped away, shivering. He was too soaked to go home to Beacon Street. Trying to put the frightening memory of Ortega out of his mind, he headed instead for the dormitory room of his best friend, Willie Hearst. He could get a drink there. And Willie was always happy to hear about his escapades. And Carter was sure that when he described the scheme for vengeance which he’d conceived, Willie would be delighted by it.

  Of course, the prank was risky. But Carter hated Eisler so much, he no longer gave a damn.

  CHAPTER III

  CAUGHT

  i

  CARTER WAS RIGHT. WILLIE Hearst had loved the scheme. But he’d bet his friend twenty-five dollars that he would never go through with it.

  Now, sixty days later, Carter, was finally ready to undertake his revenge against Eisler. By this time Willie was accusing him of cowardice, and demanding his twenty-five dollars. Carter assured him he had no intention of paying. Eisler would get his comeuppance, and precisely according to plan.

  All the elements had to be right, though. That took time. First he had to hire equipment for a particular night. A bakery was willing to rent its delivery wagon and the horse that pulled it, but because Carter was a student, and told the bakery owner he wanted the wagon so his social club could take an excursion in the country, the price was double what the bakery man first quoted him. Harvard students were not famous for respecting property—their own or others.

  Carter found it a bitter experience to have to pretend he was a member of a Harvard club. He hadn’t been chosen for the Institute, the quasiliterary organization which dated from 1770, and which inducted about thirty-five percent of the sophomore class every year. The chosen ones were grouped into tens, and the tens were ranked. This ranking was posted at the college, and also published in the Boston papers. The social elite at Harvard were not destined to remain anonymous.

  Rejection by the Institute meant there was no chance for Carter to be taken into D.K.E., the secret society that represented the next step up the social ladder; all the members of Deeks, as it was sometimes called, came from the Institute list.

  Willie was a member of D.K.E., of course. He would advance from there to one of the waiting clubs—most of which were chapters of national fraternities—and then to the pinnacle: one of the two final clubs, A.D. or Porcellian. Willie wanted Porcellian. And here Carter was only able to pretend that he was a member of that elite. He played the role well enough to convince the bakery man, which only enhanced his bitter feelings of isolation. But those feelings made him more determined than ever to pull off his prank.

  Obtaining the animal to be hidden away inside the wagon was more difficult. Carter canvassed the stables in the area and thus learned of a drayage firm that used mules for some of its wagons. He was eventually able to buy an old, spiritless donkey that had almost outlived his usefulness. Cost of the donkey and a stable stall for him—$22.

  Carter’s financial reserves were at this point exhausted. He was forced to ask Willie for a loan. Again complaining about stalling tactics, Willie nevertheless gave him the money.

  The final necessary element was a faculty meeting which would keep Eisler away from home most of the evening. After Carter had made all his other arrangements, he waited for such a meeting. Finally one was scheduled for late April.

  The morning of the meeting Carter left home in a state of excitement, having told Gideon and Julia that he’d probably be playing cards with Willie and some other students until very late.

  He skipped all his classes that day except Eisler’s. His hopes plummeted when the professor was even more ill-tempered than usual thanks to an aching tooth. Carter asked him about it. The teacher was instantly suspicious.

  “What’s this, Herr Kent? Sympathy? For me? How unusual. You’ll pardon me if I don’t take you seriously. Are you trying to delay class recitation because you’re unprepared again?”

  The professor threw his shoulders back and sniffed. “Be assured, Herr Kent, a little thing like a toothache will not incapacitate me in the least. Nor prevent me from asking to see the exercises you were to prepare for today—”

  Without warning, he whipped his cane down on the desk, inches from Carter’s hand. “I’ll see them now, if you please.”

  Hate in his eyes, Carter growled, “I don’t have them.”

  Eisler’s smile was more of a sneer. “I thought not.” He pivoted away. Silently, Carter cursed him. But he had the answer he wanted. Eisler was well enough to attend the faculty meeting. So tonight was the night.

  ii

  At a few minutes past nine, tense and perspiring, Carter turned the hired wagon into the mouth of the alley which ran behind Eisler’s modest residence on Berkeley Street, in Cambridge. The horse was docile, easy to control. The donkey inside the wagon was another matter. From time to time Carter heard hoofs slam against the rear doors. Old as the donkey was, he resented confinement.

  Slowly, making as little noise as possible, Carter drove the wagon down the alley, which was quite dark. The only illumination in the vicinity came from gas lamps burning in the back rooms of houses.

  The balmy spring night smelled of earth still wet from an earlier shower. Through a break in the trees, Carter discerned Eisler’s house not far ahead. Lamps glowed in the kitchen, front parlor, and two rooms upstairs. Of course the professor’s wife would be home—and his bitch of a daughter, too. Carter knew the latter for a certainty when badly played pianoforte music drifted from an open parlor window. The wretched music was a blessing of sorts. If he were careful, and the donkey gave him no trouble, no one in Eisler’s house would hear him.

  He held his breath as he approached the small outbuilding at the rear of Eisler’s large lot. Carter had surreptitiously inspected the building by daylight some weeks earlier. He knew the professor kept his horse and ancient buggy inside, and that the main doors opened onto the alley.

  Ju
st as Carter was reining the horse to a walk, the donkey kicked again, harder than before. The noise seemed to resound through the spring darkness like a gunshot.

  “Sssh, damn it!” he whispered. As if the donkey could actually understand him, the animal kicked the inside of the wagon again. Carter winced and begged whatever unseen forces controlled the universe to stop the donkey from being so cantankerous. Carter had accomplished nothing worthwhile in nearly two years at Harvard. He felt that if he didn’t succeed tonight, his presence at the school would have left no mark at all.

  When he was honest with himself, he had to admit that his whole life up until this moment was eminently forgettable. He had been living in Boston since 1878 with his mother, his stepfather, and his stepbrother, Will—the only human being besides his mother that he truly cared about. His stepfather was a rich and successful businessman. He operated a local book publishing house as well as a daily newspaper in New York, the Union. Carter’s mother also had a career. The name Julia Sedgwick Kent was well known in the nation’s lecture halls. She spoke and wrote on behalf of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

  Thus Carter had grown up among people who amounted to something. True, the Kents would never be admitted to so-called Society. But they were accomplished and successful in their own way. Carter’s repeated failures were a galling contrast—and one of which he was very aware.

  As far as he could tell, he had only one talent: his facility for persuading others. He thought part of that talent was inherited, and part acquired from his surroundings. Gideon enjoyed his ability to sway opinion by means of the Union, and of the books he published. Julia did the same thing from the platform; several times, Carter had watched admiringly as his mother converted a hostile audience to an attentive one, and then to one which was noisily enthusiastic about female, suffrage—and about her.

  Equally important, Carter knew he was descended from a woman who had always gotten her way. His paternal grandmother, Amanda Kent, was revered in the family as driving and dominant—someone who didn’t know the meaning of failure. So perhaps he came by his talent naturally.

  He often daydreamed about finding a career in which he could wield power and influence as the elder Kents did. Realistically, he knew it to be a hopeless ambition. He couldn’t stand discipline, and his Harvard experience had taught him that he didn’t have a very good mind, at least in the formal sense. He could work hard if necessary, but he hated doing that. All he had was a certain canny understanding of what motivated people, and an instinctive, though as yet undeveloped sense of how best to play on those motivations with a word, a look, a smile—

  So success tonight was crucially important. If he couldn’t succeed in the classrooms of Cambridge, he could at least create a legend Harvard students might talk about for years to come.

  Sweating again, he braked the wagon, then tied the reins and climbed down. He crept toward the double doors of the stable. They were closed. Did that mean Eisler hadn’t gone to the faculty meeting? Carter’s heart pounded as he slid one of the doors aside. He winced when its rollers squeaked.

  He held his breath and looked into the dark interior. Finally his eyes adjusted. He grinned—

  Empty! The horse and buggy were gone. With his passion for order, Eisler had shut the doors after driving out, that was all.

  Carter allowed himself a moment of congratulation, then started around toward the rear of the wagon, and the hard part of the night’s work.

  iii

  Before opening the wagon doors he listened to be sure Eisler’s daughter was still assaulting the pianoforte. She was. If he made no unusual noise, he could pull it off. Suddenly soaring confidence told him that.

  When he opened one of the wagon doors, the donkey stamped and brayed. Not loudly, thank God. Murmuring soothing words, Carter reached in and removed the planks down which the donkey would have to walk. Then he lifted out the cardboard sign. With that in hand, he shut the wagon doors again.

  He carried the sign into the stable, whose interior he could discern now that his eyes were accustomed to the darkness. The place was far too tidy for its function— Eisler’s German temperament again. There was a single stall. The only light was a weak glow from under the narrow door leading to Eisler’s back lawn.

  He was surprised that he didn’t have to struggle to get the donkey out of the wagon. The animal didn’t balk or even bray. Perhaps he was glad to escape his confinement. Carter led him down the planks to the stable door and got him inside with so little fuss and noise that he began to think the gods were smiling on him at long last.

  He left one of the alley doors standing open. Carefully he tied the donkey’s rope to a post at the end of the stall. He felt sure this would precipitate more kicking and braying, and when it didn’t, he was almost beside himself with jubilation. All he had to do was hang the sign over the donkey’s neck and get away, and the thing was done.

  “Gently. Gently, now,” Carter whispered as he lifted the rope over the donkey’s head and long, floppy ears, admiring the Gothic lettering it had taken him so long to ink on the cardboard. But the final effect—the size and clarity of the message—was well worth it. Wait till Eisler opened the stable door and read it.

  Ich bin ein deutscher Esel.

  Jetzt gibt’s zwei unseresgleichen.

  “You certainly are a German jackass, my friend,” Carter whispered. “And now there are indeed two of you—here, hold still,” he grumbled as the rope slipped down over the donkey’s neck and the sign swayed under his muzzle. Unexpectedly, it was the touch of the rope—the feel of the sign—that ruined everything.

  The donkey began to shy and pull against the rope. Carter tried to calm him, to no avail. Within seconds, the donkey was braying. Then he turned and kicked out against the side of the stall—bang! It sounded like a mortar going off.

  “Don’t do that,” Carter pleaded, his euphoria gone, replaced by desperation. The donkey replied with three more swift kicks—bang, bang, bang.

  “Oh, God,” Carter groaned.

  He heard another, more distant bang—a door—then someone’s voice. “Who is there? What is that noise?”

  Eisler! Surely that couldn’t be. Carter inched the backyard door open and then his heart seemed to hit the bottom of his stomach. The familiar haughty figure was silhouetted against the lamplit windows of the house. Eisler was storming toward the stable with his gold-knobbed cane in one hand and an ice bag in the other. He was holding the bag against his swollen jaw, and instantly, Carter knew that a foolish assumption had undone him. It was Eisler’s wife who was using the buggy—and contrary to the professor’s assertion, the bad tooth had kept him home.

  He turned to run to the alley. The donkey lunged forward so hard his rope broke. Carter stumbled against the frantic animal. Without thinking, he shouted, “Get out of my way!”

  Eisler, coming fast, heard him. “I recognize that voice. What are you doing on my property, Kent? What are you—?”

  The thunderous question broke off as Eisler yanked the door open. He loomed in the opening, a huge, frightening figure, somehow. Carter, frozen in place by fright, darted a look over his shoulder. Eisler’s pop eyes popped even more. He saw the donkey. He saw and instantly understood the sign—a moment before the donkey brayed one last time and ran away into the alley and the darkness beyond.

  “You damned arrogant whelp!” Eisler shouted, dropping the ice bag as he leaped inside. Holding his cane by the ferrule end, he whipped it into a hissing arc. The huge gold knob would have struck Carter’s temple if he hadn’t broken his terrible paralysis and stumbled backward. The knob hit the side of the stall and wood splintered.

  He’s crazy, Carter thought. He’s liable to kill me if I let him. The cane was swinging in another murderous arc. Carter ducked away, and out the door. He was halfway to the bakery wagon when Eisler emerged from the building and, with his long arm helping to extend his reach, smashed the knob of the cane against the back of Carter’s right leg.


  Carter cried out, falling against the bakery horse. The frightened animal leaped forward. Carter slid to the ground and the horse’s right front hoof nicked his forehead. He covered his head to prevent further injury as the horse tore away down the alley. Panting, Eisler reached for Carter’s shirt to drag him up—

  He was trapped—caught—an unbearable feeling. Like a man escaping a jailor, Carter pushed Eisler violently, and thus sent him spilling into a hedge bordering the alley. Eisler ranted and cursed—in German now.

  Carter struggled to his feet. He saw a sickening sight at the far end of the alley. The bolting horse turned left into the street but now there was no guiding hand to control the wagon. The traces broke. The wagon tilted on its side, crashing over and splintering apart as the horse ran away.

  Carter fled toward the wrecked wagon while Eisler’s bellowed threats filled the dark behind him. In nearby houses, windows were raised and people called out anxious questions.

  Carter’s chest began to hurt as he passed the wagon. It was in ruins. Everything was in ruins now. What the consequences of this night’s disaster would be, he didn’t dare contemplate.

  CHAPTER IV

  HEARST

  i

  CARTER RAN TO THE left along the darkened street connecting Berkeley and Garden. At Garden he turned right, dashing across to Cambridge Common. Ahead, old redbrick buildings rose in the darkness, most of them partially concealed by the huge trees of the College Yard. A mongrel yapped in the April night.

  Clouds were scurrying across the moon. A hack hurtled by, crowded with noisy undergraduates who had no doubt been over in Boston, gorging themselves on wine and lobster; Willie Hearst did that often. In the north, there was a brief peal of thunder.