Joe Steele

by Harry Turtledove

  “Why do you work with him, then?” If he gave Charlie an opening, Charlie’d run through it.

  “Because he’s one of those people who can take care of things,” Mikoian replied.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What it says,” answered jesting Stas, and would not stay for more questions.

  VI

  Time went on, and time went on, and time went on some more. The papers had a field day with Joe Steele’s speech. They split pretty much down the middle between backing him and calling him a would-be Hitler or Trotsky. That amused Charlie. “I can see calling him one name or the other, but both?” he said to Esther. “If you call him both, then he’s somewhere between the two of them. Seems to me that’s the right place to be.”

  “Well, it’s hard to get left of Trotsky or right of Hitler,” his wife answered, which was bound to be true. Then she went on, “They’re both dictators, though, whether they fly the red flag or the swastika. I think that’s what the editorial writers were getting at, or aiming at, anyway.”

  “Huh,” Charlie said: a thoughtful grunt. He looked her over in a way unusual for him—altogether untinged by desire. “I sure didn’t marry a dummy when I tied the knot with you, did I?”

  “I hope not.” Esther left it right there. She would toot her own horn sometimes, but never very loud.

  After a while, the papers forgot about the speech. To a newspaperman, everything was a nine days’ wonder. You reported it, you screamed about it, and then you stopped talking about it because you were too busy screaming about the next nine days’ wonder. Charlie understood that a lot of what he wrote, he wrote on the wind. He didn’t let it bother him. His bills were paid, he didn’t owe anybody in the world a dime (Mike owed him fifteen bucks, and had since not long after the Treaty of Versailles. Charlie wasn’t holding his breath about collecting.), and he couldn’t think of anything he’d sooner be doing.

  He was at the AP office, writing a story about a Congressman from Mississippi who’d never heard of discretion, when the phone on his desk rang. He grabbed it halfway through the second chime. “Sullivan,” he barked, hoping for more dirt about the way the Congressman soaked up campaign cash like a greedy sponge.

  “Hello, Sullivan.” The voice on the other end of the line obviously knew him, but he didn’t recognize it right away. It didn’t give him a chance to, either, for it continued, “If you’re outside the north end of the Capitol tomorrow morning a little before ten o’clock, you’ll see something interesting.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?” he said, but he was talking to a dead line. He took longer to realize that than he might have, too. Swearing under his breath, he hung up.

  “What’s going on?” asked the newshawk at the next desk.

  “Don’t know. Crank call, I think.” Charlie didn’t want anyone else at the Capitol to see—and to write about—whatever there was to see.

  “Sometimes I hate telephones,” the other reporter said. “They’re handy and all, but Christ, they can be annoying.”

  “You got that right,” Charlie said. The other guy—his name was Zach Stark—kept on bellyaching. Charlie listened with less than half an ear. He kept playing the phone call in his mind, over and over again. He hadn’t recognized the voice, but he kept feeling he should have.

  He couldn’t place it, though, so he went back to the story of the Congressman on the take. His stomach rumbled. He was hungry—he should have knocked off for lunch twenty minutes earlier and headed for a diner.

  A diner . . . He remembered that one in Chicago going on two years earlier now, the one he’d gone to after the Democrats balloted through the night and broke up in the morning without a nominee. He remembered Vince Scriabin talking into the pay phone in the hallway when he went back to take a leak.

  Sure as hell, that was the voice he’d heard just now. So something was cooking, or would be at the Capitol tomorrow morning. The little guy they called the Hammer wouldn’t call just to pass the time of day. He wouldn’t waste time with a practical joke, either. Charlie could imagine Stas Mikoian doing that, but not Scriabin. As far as Charlie could tell, Scriabin had had his sense of humor surgically removed when he was nine.

  Somehow, Charlie would have bet the mansion he didn’t own that Scriabin had dropped a nickel in a telephone today, too. It didn’t sound like the kind of call that ought to come from the White House. It also didn’t sound like the kind of call that ought to be traceable to the White House.

  Which meant . . . Who the hell could say what it meant? Had Scriabin wanted him to know, the cold-blooded little bastard would have done more explaining. No, Scriabin wanted him to come see for himself. And Scriabin knew damn well he would, too.

  Charlie didn’t like being so easy to jerk around. But he would have liked not getting that call even less. He didn’t want anybody scooping him. And he particularly didn’t want Vince Scriabin to help anybody scoop him. He knew too well the Hammer would be chuckling to himself while he did it. Screwing a reporter was almost as much fun as pulling the wings off flies.

  * * *

  Charlie stood outside of the Capitol, waiting for whatever he was waiting for. Inside, Congress was in session and the Supreme Court was deliberating, however little Joe Steele liked that. A new building especially for the court was going up a few blocks away, but it wouldn’t be ready to use for another year.

  Just on the off chance, Charlie’d brought a photographer with him, a stocky, bald guy named Louie Pappas. Louie had the habit of gnawing on a cigar without ever lighting it. Maybe he wanted to split the difference between smoking and chewing tobacco. Maybe he was simply on the peculiar side.

  “So what exactly’s going on here?” he asked Charlie.

  “I don’t know. That’s what we’re here to find out,” Charlie answered. “If it turns out to be nothing, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you,” Louie said. “Not freezing my nuts off out here, anyhow. Spring’s on the way.” The air was still cool, but did give promise of warming up some. Hopeful green leaves were starting to show up on what had been bare, bony twigs. Robins hopped across dirt, keeping an eye peeled for worms. Of course, they did that all through the winter, too, so it didn’t prove much. Louie pointed at Charlie’s watch. “What time you got?”

  “Quarter after nine—almost twenty after.” Like any halfway decent reporter, Charlie was compulsively early.

  A silver-painted panel truck stopped near them. A crew got out and pulled a newsreel camera and tripod from the back. “How about that?” Louie said.

  “Yeah, how about that?” Charlie echoed tonelessly. Vince Scriabin must have had more than one nickel in his pocket when he ducked into that telephone booth. Charlie still didn’t know what they were waiting for, but now he was sure it would be a story worth writing about.

  Louie pointed up Capitol Street. “Look—here comes the parade.” The dead cigar twitched in his mouth.

  Not all the cars were the same make. Some were Fords, some Chevrolets, while a big, lordly Packard led them. But they all plainly belonged together. They pulled to a stop with that lead Packard—surprise!—right behind the newsreel van.

  Doors flew open. Out of the lead Packard sprang the Hoover who wasn’t Herbert. He wore a dark blue pinstriped suit and a pale gray fedora that marked him as a commander like a ship captain’s white-crowned cap. In his right hand he carried a gleaming revolver.

  More men jumped from the plebeian cars. All their hats were dark. Some of them had pistols, too. Others cradled Tommy guns with big drum magazines full of death. Most of them looked to be advancing on forty. Unless Charlie missed his guess, they would have gone Over There in the Great War, and gone over the top, too. Their faces had that hard, ready-for-anything look.

  Hoover waved them forward. “Come on, men!” he shouted. “We’ll clean out that nest of vipers, all right!”

 
As the newsreel cameraman cranked away and Louie snapped photo after photo, Hoover and his followers (They had to come from the Department of Justice, didn’t they? Well, didn’t they?) charged into the Capitol. After a couple of seconds of dithering, Charlie charged after them. He didn’t think a gun battle would break out in one of the two great centers of the Federal government. He sure hoped not.

  Inside the North Small Rotunda, a cop who looked almost old enough to have fought on one side or the other at Pickett’s Charge wagged a finger at Hoover and said, “What do you think you’re doing in here with all that firepower?”

  “I’m doing the nation’s business, that’s what!” Hoover snapped. He waved a piece of paper that might have been a warrant or might have been his laundry list. “Get out of our way, pop, or you’ll be sorry.”

  The flummoxed cop retreated. Hoover and his men advanced: north into the Supreme Court Rotunda and then, with no ceremony whatever, into the maroon-draped, semicircular Supreme Court Chamber. Charlie heard the lawyer arguing his case before the nine justices let out an undignified squawk and then fall silent. In that lawyer’s shoes, Charlie figured he would have shut up, too.

  Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes glowered down from the bench at Hoover and his gun-toting followers. “What is the meaning of this?” Hughes demanded, a normally meaningless question more serious than usual because it was plain he had no idea what the meaning of this was.

  Hoover waved that paper again. “I have warrants here for the arrest of four Associate Justices,” he answered, not without pride.

  Hughes stared at him. The Chief Justice’s reading glasses made his eyes look even bigger than they would have anyway. “You’re out of your mind!” he exclaimed.

  “The Devil, I am,” Hoover said cheerfully. “Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter. Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds. Associate Justice George Sutherland. And Associate Justice Pierce Butler.” He read out the names and titles with somber relish.

  All four men named yelled abuse at him till Charles Evans Hughes raised a hand and calmed the tumult. “This is ridiculous. Absurd,” Hughes said. “What possible charge could you bring against these men?”

  Was that the tiniest smirk on Hoover’s face? “Treason, your Honor,” he said, and turned back to his pistoleers and Tommy gunners. “Grab them, boys, and take them away.”

  * * *

  Supreme Court justices—almost half the court—handcuffed while still in their judicial robes and shoved into motorcars by Justice Department soldiers carrying trench brooms? Now that was a sensation! Louie Pappas snapped away. The newsreel guy slapped in a fresh roll of film so he could get all the juicy action.

  And Charlie interviewed Hoover. Hoover turned out to be John Edgar, and went by J. Edgar. “Yes, treason,” J. Edgar Hoover said in his high-pitched rasp. “They have given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. That’s how the Constitution defines treason.”

  “But . . . who are the enemies of the United States?” Charlie asked. “Last I looked, we weren’t at war with anybody.”

  “Not in the declared sense of the word. Not in the shooting sense of the word,” Hoover . . . admitted? No, he denied it, because he went on, “We have enemies anyway, Mr. Sullivan. There are plenty of countries in Europe that hate the American way of life and want to do everything they know how to do to tear it down. That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” He stuck his chin out even farther than usual, as if defying Charlie to disagree with him.

  Charlie didn’t, or not exactly. He was too busy wondering how this Hoover—J. Edgar Hoover—knew his name, and why. He also wondered some other things. “These Supreme Court justices, they’re in cahoots with countries on the far side of the Atlantic?”

  “That’s what the warrant says, Mr. Sullivan.” Oh, yes, Hoover knew his name, all right. That did worry him.

  “Are they in cahoots with the Reds in Russia, or the Nazis in Germany, or maybe with Mussolini?”

  “It will all come out in the proceedings against them, Mr. Sullivan. I promise you, it will all come out in the proceedings against them.” Hoover sounded very sure of himself. He turned to holler to his men: “Take them away! Take them to prison!”

  Off went the cars with the justices—the prisoners—in them. “How happy do you think the American people will be when they learn you’ve arrested close to half the Supreme Court?” Charlie asked.

  “I don’t think they’ll be happy at all,” J. Edgar Hoover said. “I think they’ll be angry that such important people could betray the country this way. I think that’s how anybody with even one drop of loyal American blood in his veins will feel.”

  Charlie hadn’t meant the question like that. Politicians made a living by answering questions in ways that worked to their advantage. Charlie hadn’t thought a Justice Department investigator would have learned how to be slippery like that.

  “Can you tell me how you found out that the justices did—or were supposed to have done—the things you’re accusing them of?” Charlie asked.

  “Information was developed. Leads were pursued. Evidence was accumulated—painstakingly accumulated. I can absolutely assure you that the investigation was one of the most thorough in the history of the Department of Justice. I can’t go into all the details, because I don’t want to prejudice the proceedings. When things start, you’ll be impressed. All of America will be impressed. I guarantee you it will.”

  He could assure and guarantee as much as he wanted, especially when he didn’t talk about the evidence to back his assurances and guarantees. Charlie tried again: “Who tipped you off? How did the Department of Justice find out about what you say the Supreme Court justices were up to?”

  “For obvious reasons, Mr. Sullivan, I can’t discuss our sources without compromising them,” Hoover said primly.

  “Okay. Fine,” Charlie said. “Let me give you a different question, then. Is it a coincidence that the justices you just arrested are the justices who voted against the President’s bills the most often and called them unconstitutional?”

  “No, it’s not a coincidence,” J. Edgar Hoover said. Charlie’s jaw fell; he’d looked for anything but that blunt agreement. A battering ram in pinstripes, Hoover thumped Charlie’s chest with a blunt forefinger and plowed ahead: “Those crooks have been working to tear down the country any way they can. Blocking legislation that helps us dig our way out of our hole is an important way to keep us weak and poor and divided.”

  “I . . . see.” Charlie scribbled in his notebook. This was explosive stuff—if they could prove it. “Is that the line of reasoning you’re going to present when the justices go to trial?”

  Hoover shrugged football-player shoulders. “I’m only an investigator, Mr. Sullivan. I’m not the prosecutor who will try the case. So I’m afraid I’m the wrong fella to ask about that.”

  Tell me another one, Charlie thought. If anything about J. Edgar Hoover was crystal clear, it was how much he admired J. Edgar Hoover. If he was po’-mouthing himself, he had to be doing it so he could duck the question.

  But Charlie didn’t see how he could push Hoover without putting his back up and making him pull his head into his shell. Sometimes the best thing you could do was quit while you were even if not ahead. “Thanks for your time, then,” he said. “Can we get a few more pictures, please?”

  Using please and thank you was more important than keeping your car well greased. Charlie waved Louie forward. Hoover grinned and smirked for the camera. He was much more alarming when he did that than when the usual scowl stayed on his blunt mug. The scowl, you felt, belonged there. The more cheerful expressions seemed as phony, and as nourishing, as a plaster-of-Paris ham.

  Hoover got back into the Packard. The driver whisked him away. “Holy crap, Charlie,” Louie said.

  “You said a mouthful,” Charlie answered. “You get some good shots?”<
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  “Oh, you bet I did,” the photographer said. “Only thing I’m worried about is if what’s-his-name—J. Edgar—busted my lens there at the end. Talk about homely!”

  “He won’t win Miss America any time soon,” Charlie agreed. “Don’t let him hear you say so, that’s all. Otherwise, you’ll wind up in the cell across the hall from the Supreme Court.”

  “Listen, Charlie, I done a bunch o’ stupid things in my time, but I ain’t never been dumb enough to give a flatfoot an excuse to work out on me. Too many times, them sonsabitches don’t even need one,” Louie said. “And that Hoover character, he’s a heap big chief flatfoot, him and his chrome-plated roscoe.” The photographer spat on the sidewalk to show what he thought of that.

  “There you go,” Charlie said. “Let’s get back to the office. You give ’em your pictures, and I’ll write the piece that goes with ’em.”

  * * *

  Naturally, the arrests of the Supreme Court Four caused banner headlines to flower in newspapers from sea to shining sea. Just as naturally, the papers split on party lines. The ones that backed Joe Steele called the justices the worst traitors since Benedict Arnold—if not since Judas Iscariot. The ones that didn’t like the President called him even worse.

  It came out . . . somehow . . . that the foreign country the justices were said to be working for was Germany. In Berlin, William L. Shirer asked Adolf Hitler what he thought of the justices’ arrest. The Führer, he reported, looked at him as if he’d lost his marbles. “Except for Hollywood, I pay no attention to the United States,” Hitler answered. “As for these judges, are they Jews?”

  “Not so far as I know,” Shirer said.

  Hitler shrugged. “Well, perhaps they need purging even so.” Not too much later, during the Night of the Long Knives, he showed he knew everything he needed to know about purges.