Back in the USSA

by Kim Newman

  "Remember," Purvis said, imitating Bissonette's distinctive drawl, "Bissona^j/j/)/."

  Among the interviewees was Bertha Thompson, who had slipped off the freight and legged it to the camp. Ness felt sort of ashamed at having

  Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman

  misrepresented himself to the girl but she was sunnily forgiving. "You're the first fellas in over a year willin' to put food in my mouth 'thout expectin me to take anythin' else in there," she had explained. "This burg could purely do with a few more parasites shaped like her," Deputy Gabby had commented. Boxcar Bertha had even taken that in good part, although Ness had felt his skin redden at the clod's crudity.

  Tom Joad wasn't in Nowhere, but everyone expected him to show. The squatters had made it to this hole in the Sierra Nevada, using up the last of their food and gas. Now they sat around and waited. Autry was going crazy because some stole food from the local collective farms and, worse, people's gardens. The Sheriff had a bum named Robert Elliot Burns, a run-away from a Southern Re-Education Camp, in jail, not so much for filching a scrawny chicken but to protect him from the Comrades' Vigilance Committee, who were shrieking to be deputised and turned loose.

  They'd heard enough Tom Joad stories to fill a book. Everybody had at least one. Ness remembered Johnson's comment that stories told about the agitator were mostly refurbished tales about other characters. The most popular version of the fight in which Joad won his scar had him stepping in to defend his friend Casey from a Deputy who was about to bring him down from behind. Quite apart from the fact that this exact story, with Eugene V. Debs standing in for Casey, was one of many told about how Al Capone got his scar, it seemed obvious to Ness that this was a disguised Robin Hood story, with Friar Tuck turned into Preacher Casey.

  This was not a job for I-Men but for collectors of folk-lore. Ness wondered how many times these tales had been dressed up. In the USSA, one face could do for Tom Joad, Abraham Lincoln, Frank James and Wyatt Earp.

  Ness began typing the last page of the interview summaries.

  "Sounds like a machine gun," Purvis said.

  "I can do more damage with this than with a gun," he told his partner.

  "Damn straight," Purvis said, sloshing whiskey into a paper cup from Autry's water-cooler. "How many did you put away in Chi with Parasite Regulation?"

  "When Joseph Kennedy's ring was broken, there were 895 arrests, 763 convictions. Seventeen illegal breweries, five distilleries, and 105 outlets closed down. Over a hundred thousand cases of liquor seized."

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  "This is probably from that batch," Purvis said, raising his cup. Deputy Hayes had got him the bottle. "I hear most of the hooch went missing from the PR warehouse."

  Ness said nothing. It was true: little of the goods impounded during the Kennedy raids had been destroyed under supervision of his old unit. He'd been transferred and his successors proved lax.

  "You did a good job, Untouchable. Too good, right?"

  Ness squared up the typed sheets on the desk.

  "Like me," Purvis continued, swilling more whiskey. "I did a good job. Dillinger and Floyd, Baby Face Nelson. Ma Barker and Her Killer Sons: Floyd, Mad Dog, Ronnie and Clive. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Got 'em all. Lined 'em up and gunned 'em down in the name of State, Party and Frigging Bureau."

  "You shouldn't drink."

  Purvis crumpled his empty cup and missed the waste-paper basket. He took another and filled it. The smell caught in Ness's nostrils. His partner had been drinking steadily.

  "Why not? I've a trunk of Socialist Hero citations, and I'm still just outside Nowhere. Literally. Know Hoover's favourite commandment? 'Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods But Me'. The USSA's only got room for one Top Cop. I was reprimanded for 'encouraging bourgeois individualism' by walking around as a reminder of the way Hoover sets his fat ass in Debs, taking the credit for everything every field agent does. This is my punishment, Untouchable. The quest for the one People's Enemy there's no chance of me actually catching." You mean us.

  "I was letting a tendency to encourage unproductive hero-worship cloud my mind. I mean us. Hoover loves you too."

  "I regard this assignment as an honour."

  Purvis laughed bitterly. "I saw your file, Untouchable. PR dumped you on Hoover and this is his way of getting you out of his hair. We're official heroes, but the USSA doesn't need any more heroes. Joe Hill was a hero, but he had to go to Bohemia. Even that wasn't far enough, as you'd have noticed if you paid attention to Canadian radio."

  "Hill was murdered by a Russian. Despite the European press, it was nothing to do with the Party."

  "Come on, Untouchable. Remember the date? Who is there apart from the Chairman who has people rubbed out on February the 14th?

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  Every year, regular as the Cannonball Express, there's a St Valentine's Day Purge."

  Ness looked around. The Sheriff was off addressing a meeting, trying to cool the local lynch-lawyers. Ness wasn't sure the office wasn't rigged with a concealed wire-recorder.

  He took out the last sheet from the typewriter. The report was complete. Now the agents had to add their own conclusions and suggestions.

  "Are we agreed?" Ness asked. "We recommend supplies of food and gas be brought up to the camp along with state militia."

  "Sounds jake," said Purvis.

  "We help everyone get wherever they're legitimately headed. Any left over, we clear out with the militia. They can be returned to their point of departure."

  "There's no case for letting them all into California," ventured Purvis, getting up to turn on the fan.

  "These people got into this mess through their own stupidity."

  "It's not good enough," sighed Purvis, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. "All we've said is, we can't find any Tom Joad here and we should use sticks and carrots to move these scarecrows along. Assistant Director Tolson's not going to buy that. We're not here to help people, remember. We're on a ghost hunt."

  "I see that," agreed Ness. "We have to finish by saying who and what we think Tom Joad is."

  "I'm all ears," said Purvis, head almost disappearing as he swung his feet up onto the desk.

  "Tom Joad is a myth," said Ness. "Black propaganda to spread discontent and disrespect for the Party. It's so simple but so devious. My hunch is the British are behind it. Maybe Sidney Reilly himself."

  "He was probably killed leading that cockamamie White Yank invasion from Canada in '24, but I like it otherwise. How's this play work?"

  "In London, a council of Secret Service Agents and American exiles dream up Tom Joad stories. Like that guy Lovecraft the Brits paid to write horror tales about Re-Education Camps. Agents over here spread the stories. They probably start by telling 'em to hoboes like Johnson. After a while, people invent their own Tom Joad stories. It's cheap, it's clever. That's why I guess the Brits, not the Russkies."

  "Untouchable, you're a genius," Purvis exclaimed. "It's so dumb they're sure to buy it in Debs. Fiendish Brits, a shadow-man, a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. I love it."

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  "You don't believe it?" said Ness.

  "That doesn't matter. I'm smart, and we're reporting to stupid men. What's important is what Debs can be made to believe. Go on, write it up. Put Reilly in: you and Hoover are the only people ever to take that fraud seriously. Hell, put Lovecraft in; he's certainly International Grapefruit Number One. I'll gladly sign anything that means I go back somewhere where they have hot water on tap."

  They stood by Autry's car on a road overlooking Nowhere. Ness scanned the camp with binoculars. In response to their report, Debs had cabled back this morning. The I-Men were to await reinforcements. The order had been signed by Tolson, but the reinforcements weren't FBI agents. Some special unit under the command of the Central Committee.

  "Food, medicines and gas are on the way," Autry said. "I can get five hundred State Troopers to the Reno railhead i
n twenty four hours. I reckon we can clear the place in two days."

  "Where's your authorization?" asked Ness.

  "I'm authorization, Untouchable," said Purvis. "The camp is a threat to law and order. I'm anticipating orders so we can move 'em on out as fast as possible when we get the go-ahead."

  "What in hell is that?" said Autry.

  A dozen long black automobiles hummed up the road, followed by a fleet of olive drab military trucks. The air was quite damp, but the convoy gave the impression of raising a huge cloud of dust. Purvis groaned, holding his hung-over head. The leading car, a Plymouth with official plates, rolled to a halt beside Autry's heap, a shark next to a hound-dog.

  A man got out, and adjusted his pearl-gray fedora. The sharp suit he wore was almost a uniform. All black, including the shirt, with a white silk tie. Even tailoring couldn't cover the way the suitcoat's armpit bulged. Ness recognised the man.

  "Frank Nitti," the fedora announced.

  Officially a Chicago Party Boss, Nitti was Capone's personal Enforcer. It was said that, if it came to it, he was the only man in the USSA with the power and the nerve to arrest J. Edgar Hoover.

  The line of official cars pulled up next to Nitti. The trucks carried on. Ness counted twenty of them and they were still coming.

  "Comrade, I'm Agent Ness. My partner is Agent Purvis, and this is Sheriff Autry. How can we help?"

  "Follow us in, I-Man," said Nitti, standing on his running-board.

  Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman

  Still the army trucks came. Further up, some left the road. Men in full combat gear jumped out. Some carried rolls of barbed wire, which they pulled around the perimeter. Far from herding people away from Nowhere, they were keeping them in. As the last truck rumbled past, the Party cars started again. Autry followed. Nitti held his fedora to his head.

  "He'd look funny if he didn't kill so many people," said Purvis. Autry flinched as if certain there were a microphone in his dashboard.

  The black convoy drove straight into the middle of Nowhere, pulling up in a ring in a large and fairly clear area. Already panicked by the soldiers, children cried and screamed while women ran around desperately gathering families together. Ness noticed Bertha Thompson, cleaned-up and in a dress, helping with a tribe of loose kids. She looked like an underfed schoolmarm.

  Inside the arena formed by the parked cars, soldiers with fixed bayonets pushed or kicked away a few wretched tents and shelters. After things had quieted down, Nitti got off his car. From each of the other cars emerged four or five men wearing exactly the same outfit as Nitti. They carried machine guns. Purvis groaned quietly. Ness tried to feel nothing. The black-clad men were highly-trained professionals, the paladins of socialism, America's best.

  Nitti was given a megaphone. "Come on out," his amplified voice sounded. "We can't feed you all but we've got candy-bars for lucky children."

  The previously-deserted area quickly filled. The most desperate came out first, the ones with least to lose. Nitti stood by his Plymouth, a no-man's-land of about ten feet between him and the scarecrow children.

  Nitti motioned the three of them over. "Still no sign of Joad?"

  "That's right," said Ness. "If you read the report we sent to Debs, you'll see we concluded Tom Joad is an apocryphal..."

  "I don't need no poxyful report," said Nitti. He pulled out a candy bar. "Who would like this?"

  If he expected a rush, he was wrong. These people were too weak to do anything fast. They were also surrounded by forty men with machine guns, not to mention a regiment of soldiers.

  "Please comrade," said a skinny teen-ager, raising his hand and taking a tentative step forward. He had a mess of freckles and big wide, sad eyes. "I'd like that candy bar."

  "If I gave it you," said Nitti, smiling. "What would you do?"

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  "Comrade, I'd share it with my family," said the kid, moving a little further forward. "There's a lot of us, and we haven't none of us eaten anything for days."

  "What's your name, boy?"

  "John."

  "John," said Nitti, "I like the way you don't just think of yourself. I'll give you a candy bar for every one of your family you can bring here in the next five minutes. We got a deal?"

  "I guess so, comrade," said John suspiciously. Then he made his mind up, turned round and ran, either to fetch his family or to hide.

  "Why it's Little Mel," said Nitti, turning back to the I-Men. He held out his hand. Purvis hesitated, then went forward to shake. "I haven't seen you since when? Must've been the Superstition Drive in Utah. Boy, we had some good times there, didn't we just? All them God-bothered crazies with the extra wives?"

  Purvis looked at the dirt.

  "So what's going down," said Nitti. "We gonna find Tom Joad? You and me should have a wager on who gets to whack the jackass? We should've brought reporters. They'd love that: Little Mel versus the Enforcer. America's top lawmen race to nail People's Enemy Number One."

  "He's not here, Frank," said Purvis. "Like Ness says, Tom Joad's a line, reactionary propaganda put about by the Whites and the limeys. He only exists in people's minds."

  Nitti reached into his overcoat and pulled out a cigar. He sucked and puffed a while. "Won't do, Mel. Won't do at all. We've busted our asses to get here. The Chairman wants this business cleared up. You had your chance. Now let's try it my way."

  John reappeared, along with three generations of his family. There were eight of them, and most looked worse than the kid. They all had freckles, and big glassy dog's eyes.

  "Come forward," Nitti smiled to them. "Stand in a line."

  The family hesitantly lined itself up ten feet from Nitti.

  "Frank, for goodness' sake..." said Purvis.

  "Hush, Mel. Don't annoy me."

  "Okay," he addressed John's family, "can any of you good folks tell me where I'd find Comrade Tom Joad?"

  The oldest man growled about having told them it was a trap. John stepped forward. "We don't know where Tom Joad is. We were told he might be coming here, but we've not seen him."

  Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman

  "You're lying, boy," said Nitti. He jammed his cigar into his mouth and reached backwards with his right arm. One of the men in black placed a machine gun into it, stock resting on his bicep, grip slotting into his hand. Nitti swung the tommy-gun down.

  "I say again, you're lying. You must've been brought up wrong."

  "Okay, I was lying," said John, holding up his arms. "Tom Joad passed through the other night. Came and spoke to us, lots of us. Said he'd get us all out in a few days."

  "Now you're just trying to tell me what I want to hear."

  "Frank," said Purvis, "what the hell else would you expect him to do?"

  Nitti swung towards Purvis, pointing the gun. "I said it's my turn, Mel," he said evenly.

  He turned back towards the family. The crowd standing behind them was thinning.

  "Liar, liar, pants on fire..."

  Nitti cocked the gun, and, aiming low to compensate for the recoil, directed a stream of fire across the line. He fired short, controlled bursts of four or five shots to keep his aim steady, not the continuous burst they show in the movies.

  Ness flinched as a hot cartridge case hit his cheek. Autry shouted, but Ness's ears were too abused by the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat to make out what he was saying. Purvis looked away, hands over his ears. Bertha hugged children to her chest. The family danced, holes in their chests and heads gouting red.

  Nitti used every shot in the fifty-round drum magazine, but one of the family still moved. It was John. After handing the empty gun to his assistant, like a surgeon returning a used scalpel to a nurse, Nitti took a .45 from inside his coat and stood over the teenager. He fired a bullet through his head.

  "Good night, John-Boy," Nitti said.

  Two days later, his cheek-bruise was gone but Ness could still hear the rat-tat-tat-tat.

  "Getting to you, Untouchable?" Purvis had a
sked. "Try cotton in your ears."

  Nine o'clock, and Nitti had been drinking since noon. So had the rest of his paladins. The finest America had, upholders of the law: including the one against the transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages.

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  "We offed about forty this morning," Nitti was saying. "This screwy preacher says Tm Tom Joad, the man you want' like he had a death-wish. C'mon Mel, have another drink, don't look so blue, you're spoiling the party."

  Purvis didn't need a second invite. He took the one-third-full bottle and tipped it into his mouth until it was empty. They were in Saloon Bar of the Lake Hotel. The whole building, the only hotel in Carson City, had been taken over by Nitti.

  "No way was he Joad. I noticed these weird tattoos on his knuckles. On one hand he had the 'love', and on the other 'hate'. I keep up with this psychology you read about in magazines, and I figure here is a guy so sick at himself that he wants to die. Since I couldn't give him the satisfaction of killing him, know what I did?"

  "I can hardly wait," spat Purvis. The way he was sassing the Chairman's top torpedo you'd think he had a death-wish, too.

  "I had 'Greasy Thumb' cut off his fingers."

  Jake Guzik, the paladin they called "Greasy Thumb", chuckled at the happy memory, and waggled his own fingers like a cartoon character.

  "You're a sadist, Frank," said Purvis.

  "If that's a fancy way of saying I enjoy my work, you're right. But it's is the only language these folks understand. I'm going to keep going out to Nowhere every morning and shooting people until Tom Joad gives himself up."

  "What if there isn't any Tom Joad?" Ness asked.

  "We'll have had some fun," Nitti grinned. "And the USSA will be short a few parasites and reactionaries."

  When Nitti's Family showed up, the I-Men had accepted Sheriff Autry's offer of alternative accommodation and moved out of the hotel into rooms in the house attached to the city jail. Burns, the chicken thief, had been let out on his own sufferance, and quite sensibly skedaddled. Ness realised Autry's interpretation of the federal law was about as strict as his Deputy's interpretation of the English language.