Amerikan Eagle

by Alan Glenn

  “I’m sure, but I’m here to see Agent LaCouture of the FBI.”

  “Name and identification?” the MP on the right said.

  “Sam Miller. Of the Portsmouth Police Department.” He showed his inspector’s badge, his police identification card, and just for the hell of it, his officer’s commission in the New Hampshire National Guard. All three were scowlingly examined by the MP on the right while his companion checked the clipboard and nodded. “Yeah, he’s on the list. ID check out all right?”

  “Sure enough,” the other MP said, passing the identity cards back to Sam, who pocketed them. The lobby was chaotic, with piles of luggage, army and navy officers in full-dress uniform, and newsreel and radio reporters all thrust up against one another. He slipped through the crowd, went upstairs, and knocked on the door of Room Twelve.

  Agent LaCouture opened the door, dressed for the day in shirt and tie and seersucker suit. Groebke was sitting at the room’s round table, a pile of papers in front of him. The Gestapo man was dressed plainly again, in a severe black suit with a white shirt and black necktie.

  “Glad to see you, Inspector,” LaCouture told him. “You’re early.”

  “Want to get a jump on the day,” Sam answered. The room smelled of cologne and stale tobacco and strong coffee. He wondered what the two of them talked about when they were alone together. Did they trade war stories about the Kingfish and the Führer?

  LaCouture went to the desk, picked up a set of papers. “Here,” he said, handing them over. “Your task for the day. Here’s a listing of restaurants, hotels, and boardinghouses in your fair city. I want you to go to each of them, see how many people they can feed and house on a daily basis, get a master list together, and be back here by five o’clock. Got it?”

  Sam looked at the papers. “This looks like something a clerk can do.”

  “I’m sure, but this particular clerk I’m looking at is a police inspector and thereby knows everybody he’ll be talking to. And this particular clerk will know if someone is bullshitting him. So yeah, Inspector—a clerk can do this job, but I’m giving it to you.”

  Sam said nothing, just folded the papers in half. The Gestapo officer was grinning. LaCouture said, “You don’t like it, do you?”

  “I’ve had worse jobs,” Sam replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The day became a long slog of going through most of Portsmouth. As much as he hated to admit it, LaCouture was right: Anybody else would have been faced with some bullshit talk about availability and prices, but such crap wasn’t going to fly with him today. From the Irish landlady to the White Russian exile to the descendant of the first family into Portsmouth from 1623, he knew all of the lodging house owners, and he got the information he needed about the number of available rooms.

  He was chilled at how quickly the checkpoints had been set up. It was like a newsreel from occupied Europe: soldiers with rifles over their shoulders, standing in the streets, mobile barriers made of wood and barbed wire blocking intersections and sidewalks. Several times he saw people held apart at the checkpoints as their papers were checked and rechecked by FBI or Department of Interior agents in dark suits with grim faces.

  Now, having given the list to LaCouture, who appeared to have a phone receiver permanently attached to his ear, with Groebke sitting next to him, scribbling furiously with a fountain pen … well, he could now head home.

  But home to what?

  He went back to the police station, back to what he knew was ahead for him, another long night.

  He had a dinner of fish chowder and hard rolls at his desk, watching the clock hands wander by, waiting and waiting. He had tried to call Moultonborough three times through the New England Telephone operator, and each time the call was interrupted by a bored male voice: “All long-distance phone calls from this county are now being administered by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Is this an official military phone call?”

  “No, it’s a call from—”

  Click, as the line was disconnected.

  Two more tries, using his police affiliation, got the same result.

  So he gave up.

  The marshal’s office door opened and Harold Hanson came out, his suit and shirt wrinkled, eyes puffy behind his glasses. “Time to ride, Sam,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”

  Sam got up from his desk, wiped his hands on a paper napkin, and followed the city marshal to the station’s basement. He smelled gasoline and fuel oil from the department’s maintenance garage on the other side. There was a crowd of off-duty cops, all wearing civvies, talking in low voices. Large cardboard boxes were set by the near brick wall.

  Hanson stepped up on a wooden box, held up a hand. “All right,” he told them. “This isn’t going to be easy, but it’s something we’ve been ordered to do. This is a National Guard action. We’re heading out in a few minutes.”

  “Boss,” came a voice. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “The summit’s taking place in a few days. We’re under orders from the White House to clear out all undesirables in the city. This place has to look perfect for the radio, newsreels, and newspapers.”

  The basement was silent. Sam thought about that hobo encampment, bulldozed and burnt to the ground. What about Lou Purdue? Where in hell had he gone, with what he knew about a witness? One more loose end about Peter Wotan …

  “So that’s what we’re doing.” Hanson’s voice was hesitant, unlike his usual style. “We’ve got flophouses and other places to check out. Anyone who’s a refugee, anyone who doesn’t belong in Portsmouth, we’ve got to remove. That’s orders straight from the White House.”

  “Remove them to where, boss?”

  “Not our problem. The army will have transports set up, and they’ll be taken out to a resettlement camp.” He rubbed his eyes. “Look at it this way, guys. We’re just following orders. All right? Just following orders.”

  * * *

  From the cardboard boxes, military gear smelling of mildew was hauled out: old-style round metal helmets from the last war (Like one Dad probably wore, Sam thought), canvas web belting, wooden truncheons, and green cloth armbands that said GUARD in white block letters. He put his gear on, feeling as if he were dressing up for Halloween, and joined four other cops—Pinette, Lubrano, Smith, and Reardon—in an old Ford cruiser that took three tries to start up. He sat in the rear, silent, with the helmet in his lap. There was joking and laughing from the others about being in the Kingfish’s army, but he didn’t join them.

  Lubrano said to Reardon, “You know, I’ve always wondered how we got so many Jews and refugees in town. Bet you they paid off Long and his buds to look the other way when they got smuggled in.”

  Reardon laughed. “Too bad they can’t get their money back after tonight.”

  They pulled up at Foss Avenue, a narrow street about a block away from the harbor, with sagging buildings of brick and wood, dirty trash bins on the crooked sidewalks. Sam knew the street well: taverns, flophouses, and boardinghouses. A place for people struggling to make a go of it. The luckier ones moved on to better neighborhoods. The others never left except in ambulances or funeral home wagons.

  There was another reason for remembering this place, for something Sam had done on Thurber Street, two blocks over, just before he and his very pregnant Sarah had bought their house. Thurber Street. Even being this close to the street made him uncomfortable. He turned away. There was a wooden and barbed-wire barrier overseen by two regular National Guard troops in uniform, gear spotless, boots shiny, Springfield rifles hanging from their shoulders. Sam noted their grins as he and the others got out of the cruiser with their surplus gear. The real National Guard and the play National Guard.

  Sam hung back as other cops dressed in helmets and gear approached. From the gloom came a man in a dark blue suit, Confederate-flag pin on his lapel, carrying a small flashlight and a clipboard stuffed with papers. “Eddie Mitchell, Department of Interior,” the man said. “Listen up, okay?”


  Sam and the others gathered in a semicircle around Mitchell, a tall man with glasses who spoke with a soft Tennessee accent. “The other end of this street is sealed off, and we’ve got the alleyways covered as well. Y’all gonna be used as chutes. There’s a place down there, the Harbor Point Hotel. In about”—he put the flashlight beam to his watch—“ten minutes, we’re gonna have that place raided and trucks backed up to take the undesirables away. Y’all just gonna be flanking the front entrance. Just make sure nobody gets away. Got it?”

  A murmur of voices, but Sam kept quiet. He wished he was in his empty home, taking a bath and having a beer. Any place else than here.

  A rumble of approaching truck engines, and Mitchell waved a hand. The regular National Guardsmen pulled the barrier aside. Two army deuce-and-a-half trucks growled by, canvas sides flapping, diesel fumes belching. Mitchell yelled, “Let’s go, boys. Follow ’em!”

  The more eager of the bunch followed the truck at a half-trot. Sam pulled up the rear, walking at a brisk pace, truncheon in hand, helmet hard and uncomfortable on his head. Ahead, voices were yelling, and there was a throng of people in front of the hotel, some wearing uniforms, others not. Flashlights were being waved around, and there were other guys in suits directing the flow of people, blowing whistles. The place was three-story, wooden, with a rotting porch out front, a blue-and-white wooden sign announcing HARBOR POINT. One of the trucks backed in, the tailgate rattling open. Sam took a position by the porch as lights blazed, as the other officers in helmets and webbed gear made up two lines leading to the truck.

  Amazing, too, was what followed. Wooden tables were unfolded, chairs lined up. It was strange, like seeing a voting booth set up in the heart of a riot. Then people started filing out of the grandly named hotel. They were old and young, the men clean-shaven or bearded, some women wearing colorful kerchiefs on their hair, some holding children by the hand. Most carried small suitcases, as though they had always expected this night to come.

  He heard a jumble of voices—French, Polish, Dutch, British—but the faces all looked the same. Pale, shocked, wide-eyed, as if they could not believe this was happening to them in this supposed land of liberty. All had the look of having been put through this before, but with soldiers in gray uniforms and coal-scuttle helmets, soldiers with crooked cross symbols on their vehicles, not white stars.

  A woman in a thin black cotton dress stared at him as she went by. She called out in a thick accent, “Why are you doing this? Why?”

  He looked away. He had no answer.

  At the nearest truck, a line had formed by the wooden tables. Paperwork was being checked, clipboards consulted. The men manning the tables shook their heads, made a motion with a thumb, and up into the rear of the truck the people went. As if they had practiced it before, the younger undesirables helped the older ones up.

  “Shit,” someone whispered. “This is like those damn newsreels from Europe, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam replied. “I guess we’re all Europeans now.”

  A motion caught his eye. A man came down the wooden steps alone, using crutches, one leg usable, the other cut off at the knee. RAF Lieutenant Reggie Hale, the guest of Walter Tucker. Staring straight ahead, moving slowly and deliberately, heading over to the examining table. Sam watched, hardly able to bear seeing the slow progress of the crippled pilot. Walter probably hadn’t gotten to him in time. When Hale got to the desk and started talking, the thought came to him of how the poor bastard would get into the rear of the truck.

  That was what did it for him.

  Sam left the line and went over to the desk, where Hale was speaking low and proper. “Old boy, I tell you, someone must have stolen my papers, because they were in my coat just last week.”

  “Yeah, fine, that’s only the sixth time I’ve heard that in the last five minutes,” replied the bored National Guard clerk. “Come along, up on the truck and—”

  “Hold on,” Sam said.

  The RAF pilot swiveled on his crutches, his face expressionless. The clerk said to Sam, “Fella, get back where you belong, all right?”

  Sam handed over his badge, not using LaCouture’s card, wanting to keep the FBI man out of this. “I’m Inspector Sam Miller of the Portsmouth Police Department. This man is Reggie Hale, right?”

  The clerk glanced down at his clipboard. “Yeah, so what?”

  “Hale is a material witness in an ongoing investigation I’m conducting. He’s to stay here.”

  “Hey, Miller, I don’t need—”

  “The name is Inspector Miller, pal,” Sam said. “And Hale stays here. Or I’ll go get the rest of the Portsmouth cops and leave, and you can see how well you do your job with twenty or so fewer men. How does that sound?”

  The clerk had a little Clark Gable mustache that twitched some. He handed back Sam’s badge with a clatter. “Fine, take the fucking limey. I’ll put your name down as the guy I let him go to. In case he shoots the governor or something, it’ll be your neck. Get back where you belong.”

  Sam walked back to the line, then glanced behind to see if Hale was following, but no, the RAF pilot had limped away and faded into the shadows.

  Well, he thought, how about that.

  One of his fellow cops said, “Sam, what the hell was that?”

  “That was a lesson,” he answered. “Sometimes you do a favor and you don’t get anything in return. Except pissed-off people.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  He stood there, the wooden truncheon cold in his hand, as the arrests continued, as the trucks backed up with their growling diesels, the children crying, the whistles blowing, seeing it all, not wanting to see it, not wanting to hear it, but forcing himself to do it just the same.

  After about an hour of watching the refugees get processed, the coffee he had drunk earlier had percolated through his kidneys and bladder. He said to Lubrano, “Hey, do you know anywhere a guy can take a leak?”

  Lubrano shrugged. “Dunno. There’s an alley back there I used a couple of minutes ago.”

  Sam left the line of police, found the alley. He went down the narrow stretch between two tenements, stinking of trash and urine. He found a couple of ash cans, propped up his wooden truncheon against the far wall, and unzipped his pants, did his business. Damn, what a night. After he was done, he zipped up his pants and—

  Someone was singing.

  There was a sharp moan of somebody in pain.

  He picked up his truncheon, went down to the other end of the alley, heard some laughter. On the sidewalk, a streetlight illuminated a scene that froze him. A man lay on the sidewalk cowering, dressed in tattered clothes. Standing over him were two younger and better-dressed men, kicking him, laughing. Both wore short leather coats and blue corduroy pants. Two of Long’s boys hard at work, handing out their brand of street justice. The pair from the Fish Shanty, the guys whose car tires had been slashed.

  “C’mon!” one yelled. “Let’s hear ya sing, ya drunk mackerel snapper!”

  The other man laughed, too. “C’mon, sing! You know how to sing, don’t ya? Sing our song!”

  The first one tossed his head back. “ ‘I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.’ ”

  The man on the ground cried out, “Please, please, stop … I’ll … I’ll try! Jesus … just give me a sec … ow!”

  It seemed as if time were passing by at a furious pace, with no time for thinking or reflection. Sam stripped off his helmet and his armband, dropped them on the ground. With his truncheon, he hammered the skull of the nearest Long’s Legionnaire, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The other one looked up, startled, scared, and the astonished look on the Southerner’s face brought Sam joy.

  “Here,” Sam said. “This one’s for you.”

  He slammed the wooden truncheon into the side of the man’s skull. The Legionnaire stumbled and Sam followed, hitting him twice in the stomach. The Legionnaire tripped
over his companion and stayed down. Sam helped up the old man they had been tormenting.

  His face was bloody, his hair white and stringy. “Ohhh … ohhh … thank you, thank you, I—”

  “Go. Get going.” Sam gently pushed him away.

  The man stumbled down the street. Sam went back to the Legionnaires. He gave them both a swift kick to the ribs. Both yelped in pain.

  He couldn’t resist one. He sang to them: “ ‘Yes, we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom!”

  Then he left them, like trash on the street, and picked up his discarded helmet and armband.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When Sam got home, exhausted, all he wanted to do was grab a beer and take a hot bath and let the dirty memories of the night soak away. If he had been lucky, all those Southern clowns saw was some guy with a big stick. All right, a pretty stupid stunt, but still, he felt good about it. He felt even better about letting that hobo get away. A beer to celebrate sounded pretty fine.

  But when he got through the front door, the radio was on in the darkened living room, “Sarah?” he called out, confused.

  “Nope, ’fraid not,” came a voice, and Sam thought, Oh, great. After hanging up his coat, he flicked on a switch, lighting up the room. Tony sat on the couch, muddy feet splayed out in front of him.

  “Thought I left the house locked this morning.”

  Tony grinned, “Learned a lot of skills in labor camps, Sam. How to take your time cutting down trees. Best way to stow your gear without one of your bunkmates stealing it. And how to break into a house, even one belonging to a cop. You should have better locks.”

  “And you should have better sense. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Tony crossed his feet. “Man, there’s so many feds and National Guard troops crawling around, I had to get someplace safe, even for a little while, and this was it. You know, when we were kids, it’d take about ten minutes to get to this neighborhood from Pierce Island at a good trot. Tonight it took me almost an hour. Can you believe that?”