“Yeah,” I said. “Last couple of days have given me that impression.”
“No,” he said. “I mean the other one. The one that makes the papers.” He gave the case another shake. “And I hear Herr Hitler and his lapdog Himmler are rather fond of things like this. But you’re right—there’s a chill wind coming, Steve, such a wind as never blew on this world yet. It’ll be cold and bitter, and a good many of us may wither before its blast.”
I let him get to the apartment’s front door and open it before I asked him.
“Jesus Christ,” I said, nodding at the briefcase. “What are they?”
He gave me a look, like he couldn’t believe how ready I was to be the Abbott to his Costello.
“Were you not paying attention?” he said. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
SEVEN
Junior G-Men vs. the Whisperers in Darkness
I
A WISE MAN ONCE wrote that from even the greatest of horrors irony was seldom absent. Mitford’s irony was that its most pacific dreams were hatched through the cold incessant gnaw of paranoia. For these idyllic visions were only experienced on those nights spent in the tight, fear-stifled confines of bomb shelters, those buried safe spaces that the residents of Mitford had built in recent months as stirrings of a Red Scare thickened and encroached. The paradise each dreamer passed through was his or hers alone. The only unifying aspect to these hundreds of visions was beatitude, tranquility. No one dared speak of their dreams upon waking, so great was its empyrean peace. And after these dreams faded, much like the air-raid sirens that ushered them in, the people would crawl out from those tombs for the living and would go about their routines, if a bit less energetic after having paid the physical tariff for a night of deep reverie.
But Claude LeGoff always felt a bit melancholic after such nights. He had spent all of his sixteen years in the sluggish midwestern town, and its streets always seemed a bit paler after the golden roads he’d traipsed without his body.
As the one responsible for all reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering in the Junior G-Men, Claude felt that Mitford had transformed from a place rich in memories and associations to a timid creature cowering from the outside threats that seemed to be increasing daily.
This fear was no mere theory. Claude had witnessed it spreading through the town. Where there had once been block parties and town-wide picnics in Willowdown Park, there were now bomb shelters secreted beneath manicured lawns, and groceries were stockpiled rather than shared. Claude found the changes heartbreaking. In waking life his only real peace came from taking solitary walks along Mitford’s pastoral outskirts. But it was not the peaceful atmosphere that drew him there, not the majestic trees or the skittering wildlife . . . it was the Witch House.
In a town as staid and utilitarian as Mitford, the Witch House was a monument to not only decadence but the unworldly. On the margin of the town, it stood out like a smug, gaudy peacock among the flock of drab pigeons that were Mitford’s other dwellings.
The Witch House was properly called the Charles House, named after its designer and original owner, Anthony Charles, a nineteenth-century industrialist whose myriad business interests seemed uncannily immune to recessions. But it wasn’t the man’s fiscal prowess or his outré aesthetics that led to the rumors of his house being haunted, it was the fact that Anthony Charles had built his home in the thin valley between the ancient hills known as the Devil’s Humps.
Ojibwe legend told of those hills being formed by the breath of a Mother Spirit and the bones of a primordial Father. It was the European settlers who first gave the hills their diabolical name and set down accounts of the barbarous religious practices that had supposedly occurred on those hilltops. Claude had always regarded the Puritan’s records as colonialist hysteria.
Still, there were details about the area that seemed to betray something of a sinister aspect. Most markedly was the long and crooked trail that curved up from the valley and striped both hills. That this trail resembled a snake was plain to even the most unimaginative witness, for one end was meticulously tapered so as to resemble a tail and the other was capped with a rock whose size and chiseled features conveyed a serpent’s head. Along the trail a total of twenty-two flat rocks were embedded. Each rock bore a carven pictograph or symbol. Together these rocks lent reticulation to the entire trail, a pattern of scales the likes of which one would find on a snakeskin.
The settlers, being strict and boastful adherents of the Gospel, interpreted the serpent mounds as some kind of Satanic shrine, a celebration of the Serpent that connived Adam and Eve out of Paradise and lured them into the hell of terrestrial life apart from God.
Folks around Mitford had never understood why anyone would have put down roots in a patch so markedly sour. But Charles had purchased the land at a time when the township was nearly destitute. He also, much to the bewilderment and suspicion of the locals, met with the elders of the local tribes and assured them that he had no intention of even slightly altering the hills, their shrines, or the serpent trail. It was rumored that during this meeting the elders of the Ojibwe ceremonially Recognized Charles to the sacred role of steward of the hills.
Anthony Charles died in the mid-1930s. The Witch House had stood vacant since his demise. Claude often wondered at how apparently no one in Mitford, except him, ever stopped to marvel at the structure, to lament its neglect.
It was a radiant example of Second Empire architecture. Its trio of storeys were inlaid with numerous windows that hosted the sheen and tint of volcanic glass. Each pane was surrounded with cornices and filigreed metalwork. A vast rectangular tower rose like the crowned head of some primordial god-form. The mansard roof was tiled in undulating bands of nickel. Weathervanes spiked the cupolas and arches like iron grave markers. The wooden exterior wore a coat of regal colors: scarlet, purple, royal blue. The double doors that served as the house’s main entrance were difficult to espy through the baroque jungle that was the wraparound porch, but those that did cross the wide veranda were met with an entryway better suited to a vault than a homestead.
Thus, Claude’s shock was profound when he wandered down the Devil’s Humps and spotted moving vans parked before the Witch House.
For a moment Claude was too gobsmacked to do anything other than stare dumbly as men in coveralls lugged an array of expensive-looking furniture from the truck and into the main entrance. It was the first time Claude had ever glimpsed the interior. Distance smudged many of its finer details, but the walls appeared to be papered in emerald.
His attention shifted once he heard the low rumble of a car engine. A dark sedan came creeping toward the house. The lane it followed had been unused for so long that Claude had forgotten it existed. An inexplicable surge of panic led him to crouch low among the brambles and thickets that bearded the footpath. Through thorn and tangled bough Claude studied the trio of figures that exited the car. The driver was a tall, whip-thin man dressed in a charcoal suit. His hair was brush-cut. His long face looked ill-suited for smiling. He moved to a passenger door and opened it, allowing the couple to exit the backseat. They were elderly but conveyed an air of regality. This was due not only to their expensive-looking attire, but also to the proud manner in which they carried themselves. There was an aristocracy to their presence. They were conversing with their driver. Claude strained to eavesdrop as best he could, his fear having given way to his sense of duty as a Junior G-Man. This was no longer a simple stroll, it was reconnaissance. The conversation was not in English. Although Claude was hardly an expert in the language, he heard the word da repeated often enough to recognize that the trio was speaking Russian.
His insides went cold. The couple followed their driver up the steps of the great wooden porch. Claude could scarcely wait until they were inside the Witch House before he fled. His head was swimming.
Mitford moved past him in a blur. Claude ran and ran. What began as a stitch in his side quickly escalated to a searing pain that forced him
to stop and hunch over, pressing his palm against his belly.
The large clock before the town hall chimed twice, which allowed Claude a more informed guess as to where his comrades would likely be. Being Saturday afternoon, Leo and the other Junior G-Men would be taking advantage of Sheriff Bruckner’s standing offer of a quick weekly debriefing at his office.
He rounded the corner onto Apple Road and immediately spotted the Chevy pickup that bore the Grassi Brickyard logo. His guess had been correct. Claude slowed to a walk and gulped greedily for air. His lungs felt scorched.
Scaling the steps, Claude entered the station.
“There are moving trucks over at the Witch House!” he gasped. The Junior G-Men, Mitford’s most ambitious custodians of American liberty, were all huddled around the tombstone radio that Sheriff Bruckner kept in his office. The sheriff was seated behind his desk. He held a cup of coffee under his chin. His face was stony.
No music filled the wood-paneled office. Instead it was the sonorous voice of a newscaster. Claude was only able to catch the words Korea and U.N. He surveyed the faces of his friends, which hung in the gloom like masks of despair. When the news gave way to Nat King Cole crooning “Mona Lisa,” Sheriff Bruckner leaned over and switched off the radio.
“What’s going on?” Claude asked.
“Oh, nothing too grand,” replied Leo, “just another world war!”
“What?” Claude felt the strength leaving his legs. He moved to a vacant chair and sat. “We only ended the last one five years ago!”
“Yessir,” Leo said, scratching the side of his wide face. “We jus’ heard it from Walter Klondike himself.”
“It’s Cronkite, genius,” Luna interjected, “but yes, I’m afraid things are looking grim.”
Claude swallowed. Hesitantly he asked, “Are we going to war with Russia?”
“Korea.” This time it was Tim Wight who spoke. “The United Nations is sending troops there to fight back the communist invasion.”
“Commies . . . ,” Claude mumbled. “So what are we going to do about it?”
“You kids aren’t going to do anything about it, understand?” Sheriff Bruckner’s voice was firm. “There’s nothing to be done. Not right now at least. Uncle Sam will handle that crisis. He always does. As far as the Junior G-Men are concerned, I need your eyes on Mitford, making sure everything here is status quo, understood?”
“But everything isn’t status quo,” Luna replied, “not anymore. My parents just finished having their bomb shelter installed. And Mayor Fenton has another air-raid drill scheduled for Friday. That’s not exactly business as usual.”
“Well, missy, we live in dangerous times, no denying that,” said the sheriff. “But it’s best to think of those kinds of things as precautions. Better safe than sorry and all of that. I think the trouble brewing in Korea and Russia is still a ways off from touching down in Mitford.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure . . . sir,” Claude said.
Prompted by Sheriff Bruckner’s expression of interest, Claude told what he’d seen.
“You’re positive they were speaking Russian?” asked the sheriff.
“Well . . . pretty positive.”
The sheriff nodded then reached for his desk phone.
The Junior G-Men stood awkwardly by while Sheriff Bruckner relayed Claude’s story to Mayor Fenton.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor.” Returning the receiver to its cradle, Sheriff Bruckner said, “Well, Claude, looks like you’ve got yourself an appointment at town hall. You best skedaddle. Me, I’ve got an appointment with my wife’s beef stew. The rest of you scamps keep out of trouble.”
Once outside the sheriff’s station, Leo suggested that the Junior G-Men meet at headquarters after supper in order to receive a debriefing on what the mayor had said to Claude. Tim and Luna piled into Leo’s pickup truck while Claude walked toward Main Street. His approach had all the reluctance of one condemned to the scaffold. Reporting to Sheriff Bruckner was one thing; Claude had known him since the age of two and regarded the sheriff as a favorite uncle. Mayor Fenton was an entirely different story. He’d only been in office since the previous fall, but he always exuded an air of more genuine authority rather than neighborly warmth.
Claude made his way past the stone lions that guarded the town hall. Mayor Fenton’s office was on the third floor. There was a security guard stationed at the head of the stairs. The man nodded stoically before parting the frosted glass doors that distinguished the mayor’s office from the lobby.
It was a cold environment with marble floors and columns, and a monolithic desk where the mayor was seated. He did not rise to greet Claude. A forest of strange standing lamps shone over the mayor’s shoulders like spotlights. Their position seemed strategic, as if to place any visitors under clinical scrutiny while Mayor Fenton sat in the dank embrace of shadows.
“Please have a seat.” The mayor gestured to the pair of leather chairs that were stationed before the great desk. “Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”
It was the first time Claude had ever heard the mayor speak unamplified. Without the aid of a microphone his voice was raspy, scarcely more than a whisper.
“Thank you for asking to see me, sir,” replied Claude. He was too young to comprehend how obsequious he seemed.
“Sheriff Bruckner tells me that you and your chums have been a great help to our town. I want to personally thank you and the other Junior G-Men for the service you’ve been performing—maintaining the American way of life.”
The mayor tapped his lapel, which was decorated with an enamel pin of Old Glory.
“Now, please tell me about what you observed at the Charles property today.”
Claude obeyed. Mayor Fenton nodded periodically before ultimately asking, “This third man, the driver, could you describe him?”
The details he gave caused the mayor to lean forward. It was the first time Claude had gotten a clear look at him. He felt foolish that his first thought was that Luna had been right; the new mayor really did resemble the Hollywood actor Farley Granger. Luna had whispered this observation to Claude during a screening of Rope, when the Junior G-Men had all attended the Alfred Hitchcock film to celebrate their cracking a case where a college fraternity had been taking their hot rods for illicit drag races along Mitford’s beach strip.
“Claude,” he began, “I trust that as a Junior G-Man you know all about honor and discretion, yes?”
Claude nodded. The mayor rose from his desk and moved to the abstract oil painting on the wall. This he pulled back like a cupboard door. Claude heard the clicks and tumbles of a safe.
When the mayor returned, he placed a photograph on his immaculate desktop. “Does this resemble the man you saw this afternoon?”
“Yes! That’s him, sir. Absolutely, that’s him.”
Mayor Fenton exhaled slowly before moving back to his silhouetted chair. “I’m going to need your word that what I’m about to tell you remains strictly between us. No one else can know of this—not your fellow Junior G-Men, not Sheriff Bruckner, not even your parents. Have I your word, young master Claude?”
He gave the scout’s sign.
“Very good. What I’m about to disclose is not only of national importance. It is of global importance.”
Claude tried to swallow, but found his throat dry. “Am I . . . I mean, are we in danger?”
“Yes,” the mayor rasped, “and grave danger at that.”
II
Leo had gone home just long enough to eat supper and then returned with the truck to the Grassi Brickyard. His father, who founded the business, had donated the unused storage shed at the lot’s far end to be used as the Junior G-Men headquarters. The shed only had room for a desk, a filing cabinet, and four folding chairs, but it was enough.
While he waited for the others to arrive, Leo pondered the most useful way to spend his time, which he ultimately decided was to put his feet up on the desk and launch spitballs at the wooden ceiling.<
br />
He was on his fifth attempt to strike the ceiling lamp when there came a rapping on the headquarters door. He opened it.
“Since when do yous guys knock?” he asked the trio of shadows at his door. Luna was visible in the interior light. It was only after they entered that Leo realized the third figure that followed Luna and Tim into the headquarters was not Claude, but a tall, thin man in a suit and tie.
“You must be Leo Grassi,” the man said, “leader of the Junior G-Men.” His voice was sonorous and he wore his hair in a brush cut.
“Who might yous be there, Mack?”
The man flipped a wallet open, revealing a photograph of himself on a very official-looking identity card. Leo recognized nothing on the card beyond the US government seal. There were levels of clearance and sequences of numbers and letters, but nothing that really clarified who this man was.
“I’m Agent Telford McMillan. I work for a special security sector of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I’m hoping the Junior G-Men might be able to help me with a matter of urgent national defense.”
“You want our help?” Leo’s tone betrayed his shock. “Help with what?”
“Why don’t we all take a seat?” agent McMillan suggested. “This may take a while.”
Luna dragged the last pair of empty chairs from the corner and sat. “We’re listening,” she said.
“During the war, I was part of the secret service under President Roosevelt,” agent McMillan began. “I respected that man more than I can say. You’re all too young to remember his inaugural speech of course, but I’m sure you’re familiar with his statement that America has nothing to fear but fear itself?”
The Junior G-Men uniformly nodded.
“Unfortunately, Roosevelt was wrong. This country, this world, has a great deal to fear.”
“You mean the Reds?” asked Leo.
“Not entirely, no. Now, don’t misunderstand,” the agent said, raising his hand, “a lot of those dangers are very real indeed. But there’s far more to the story than what we see in the newspapers or hear over the radio. In my current job I’ve seen a great many things, things that have convinced me that there is one irrefutable truth about this world.”
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