Amerikan Eagle

by Alan Glenn

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The time driving back to the coast seemed to fly by, for he was thinking things through, knowing what he was going to do, what had to be done to make it all right. When he got back to Portsmouth, he passed through one checkpoint without any difficulty, then drove to the police station and parked nearby. Run in, see if there were any important messages, and run out. It was going to be a long and dangerous night.

  In the lobby, he gave a quick wave to the desk sergeant, who was talking to a drunk hobo going on about how he’d like to join the George Washington Brigade overseas and fight those Bolshies, and why couldn’t he sign up here, there was good money and hot meals and so forth. There was also a slight woman in a long coat and pink scarf about her head, speaking with a British accent, trying to get the sergeant’s attention.

  By the stairs, Clarence Rolston was sweeping. “Sam! Am I right? Sam, good to see you.”

  Sam knew the seconds were slipping away, but he stopped. “Good to see you, too, Clarence. How are you?”

  Clarence blinked and smiled, a dribble of saliva escaping. “Doing good. And thanks about that other thing. I didn’t get into trouble. Thanks a lot, Sam.”

  “Glad it worked out. Take care now, okay?”

  Sam sprinted up the stairs. The door to Marshal Hanson’s office was closed. He looked up at the clock. Nearly seven P.M. He went to his desk, saw a pile of yellow message slips, all of them in Mrs. Walton’s neat cursive, and all saying the same thing: Agent LaCouture of the FBI needs to talk to you. The messages were an hour apart. He flipped through to see if there was anything else, like a phone call from Lou Purdue, but no.

  Just the FBI. He would take care of LaCouture later.

  He crumpled the message slips, tossed them in a trash can.

  The door to Hanson’s office swung open. He came out, staring at Sam. “Inspector,” he said tonelessly.

  “Sir,” Sam said, cursing himself for being stupid enough to get caught like this. Dammit, the man was getting ready for the Long-Hitler summit, of course he’d be working late.

  “In my office, if you please.”

  Sam walked in, and Hanson gently closed the door behind him.

  Hanson went around his desk, sighing loudly and running a hand across the top of his hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he sat down heavily. “How’s it going, Sam?” he asked.

  God, what a question. And what kind of answer? Sam said, “It’s been a busy day.”

  “I’m sure. Look, do you smell anything unusual?”

  Sam waited just a moment. “No, I don’t.”

  Hanson said, “Well, you should. You should smell something charred. The phone lines between here and the Rockingham Hotel have been burning up all day with the damn FBI and his Gestapo buddy looking for you. What the hell is going on?”

  Sam said, “I’m doing my job.”

  “Your job right now is doing what the FBI tells you to do.”

  “Which is what I’ve been doing,” Sam replied. “LaCouture told me this morning he was busy. He told me to come back later. He didn’t say when.”

  Hanson stayed quiet, gently rocking his chair. Then he said, “So what were you working on? Besides being a wiseass.”

  “Other cases. Trying to catch up. As you’ve instructed me.”

  The room was so quiet, Sam thought he could hear a clock ticking somewhere else in the building. Hanson seemed to stare right through him.

  A slow creak-creak as Hanson moved his chair back and forth. “Then it’s your responsibility to tell the FBI where you’ve been today. Not mine, is it?”

  Sam thought, Nice job, Harold. Sam was the FBI’s boy now, and Hanson was all hands-off. If he was going down for anything he did today, Hanson wouldn’t be next to him.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Very well. When this summit is over, you’re going to catch up on your casework. In addition, you’re going to run for the district council for the Party later this month, and you’ll win.”

  Sam bit at his lower lip. “I … I’m not sure I’ll have the time to be more active.”

  “You’re going to find the time,” Hanson told him. “Let’s avoid all the bullshit, all right? Sam, you’ve caught some people’s attention. People you don’t want to irritate. Some Legionnaire officers find it curious that two of their people in Portsmouth had their car vandalized, and the same two were later beaten up. Both events happened when you were in the vicinity. Do you have anything to add to that?”

  Sam looked evenly at his boss. “Not a thing.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Hanson said. “But if these same officers see an enthusiastic, active, and respectful Sam Miller involved in the Party, it would ease their concerns. It would also be helpful to me and not helpful to your father-in-law. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t want to understand,” he said. “I just want to do my job.”

  “You’re going to keep doing your job, and you’re going to be active in the Party, and you’re going to succeed at both. You know why? Because you’ve shown me what you can do. You ignore rules when you don’t like them. You go out on your own. And when push comes to shove, you’re not above administering a bit of street justice. All skills that the Party could use. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sam said. “Absolutely one hundred percent wrong.”

  Hanson smiled. “You may fool yourself into thinking that, but I know better. So when the summit is concluded and you’ve caught up on your casework, you’re going to take a little time off. There’s a special training session for up-and-coming Party members down in Baton Rouge. And when you come back, I’ll make sure you win the council election. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds like nonsense,” Sam snapped. “I’m not leaving Portsmouth, I’m not going to Baton Rouge, and I’m sure as hell not becoming a whore for the Party.”

  “Too bad it sounds like nonsense,” Hanson said evenly. “But in the end, it’s going to sound very good to you, your wife, and your son.”

  “Leave my family out of it.”

  Hanson’s eyes bored through him. “I’ll leave your family out of it if you will.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Hanson said slowly, “You know exactly what I mean, and we’re going to leave it at that. That way we both can deny later that we discussed such a forbidden topic, even though your promised report on the demise of the Underground Railroad station hasn’t yet reached my desk. A subject I know that you’re intimately familiar with. Care to say anything more?”

  Sam knew exactly what Hanson meant. The Underground Railroad. The marshal knew. Had always known.

  “No,” he said slowly. “Not at the moment.”

  “Very good.” His boss nodded. “And when the summit is over, I expect and will receive your enthusiastic participation in the Party, correct?”

  Hating himself, Sam said, “Yes. Correct.”

  Hanson opened his top drawer, reached in, and tossed something across at Sam, who looked down, saw the despised Confederate-flag pin. “And you can start by showing your loyalty, Probationary Inspector Miller.”

  Sam picked up the pin. He looked over and saw the marshal’s suit coat hanging on its rack, the same pin on its lapel.

  With his fingers trembling, he put the pin in his lapel. “There,” he said. “Satisfied?”

  “Quite. Now get the hell out of here and make the fucking FBI happy, all right?”

  Sam did just that.

  * * *

  He barely made it down the stone steps of the police station before ducking into an alleyway. The spasms were hard, sharp, and the lousy diner meal splattered against brick. When he was done, Sam pressed his forehead against the cool brick. Busted. The marshal and the Legionnaires knew about the Underground Railroad station at the house, had known for some time.

  So why hadn’t it been shut down? And Sarah and he arrested?

  Because they wanted more. They wanted a compliant and obedient Sam Miller, son-in-
law to a connected politician, someone they could use for more important things down the road, helping out the Nats, disrupting the Staties in the Party structure.

  He took out a handkerchief and wiped at his lips and walked out onto the sidewalk. He looked down at his lapel. Now an official member of the oppressors. How delightful. Sarah would be so goddamn proud.

  There was singing. Across the street, four Long’s Legionnaires stumbled along, laughing, drunk. They were spread across the sidewalk, bumping people—hell, neighbors who paid his salary—out of the way as if they were worth nothing. Any other night, he’d chase after those clowns, pull them up short, and show them what the law was all about, what they couldn’t do in Sam’s hometown. Make them go back and apologize to everyone they had bumped and jostled.

  Any other night.

  He looked down at his lapel.

  But on this night, he was one of them.

  * * *

  He got into his Packard, started the engine. Waited. Before coming to the station, he had plans.

  Yeah, plans, he thought. But the good police marshal Harold Hanson had plans of his own.

  So what now?

  Go home and be a good boy?

  Or …

  He reached up, gently undid the lapel pin, and dropped it in his pocket. He shifted the Packard into reverse, then into first gear, and went back to being a cop.

  Just a goddamn cop.

  * * *

  It took a few minutes of driving in an upscale section of town before he found what he was looking for, a turn-of-the-century Victorian house with light yellow paint. He parked in front and went up to the front porch, turned the doorbell, and waited.

  A man opened the lace-curtain-covered door. Pat Lowengard, manager of the Portsmouth office of the Boston & Maine railroad.

  “Oh,” Lowengard said, crestfallen, as though he’d been expecting anybody but Sam. “Inspector Miller.”

  “Pat, you don’t look like you’re happy to see me.”

  “We’re about to have supper, and my mother is visiting, and—”

  Sam stepped in, forcing Lowengard back. Sam said, “I need a few minutes of your time. Then you can go back to supper and your happy family.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “It certainly can’t. Now, we can talk here, or I can drag you down to the station. Your choice.”

  A woman’s voice called out. Sam couldn’t make out the question, but Lowengard yelled, “It’ll only be a minute, Martha! Just a bit of business to take care of.” Lowengard closed the door. “This way. My office.”

  The station manager led Sam down a carpeted hallway. Sam looked at the nice furniture, the framed photos on the wall, and a thought came to him—that old phrase about how the other half lived. During these tough times, it was more like how the fortunate few lived.

  At the end of the hallway was an open polished wooden door, and inside the small room were bookshelves, a desk, a typewriter, and two leather chairs. On the bookshelves were a collection of model trains and some leather-bound volumes, and on the floor was a small leather suitcase. After Sam entered the room, Lowengard closed the door and sat down and said, “Inspector, please, make it quick. What do you need?”

  “You know trains, Pat, am I right?”

  “Yes, I know trains. Is that why you came here? To ask me a stupid question like that?”

  “Special trains.”

  “What?

  Sam put his hands on top of Lowengard’s desk. “Special trains. And don’t bullshit me, Pat. I’m talking about trains that don’t officially exist, trains that have no outside markings, save some yellow stripes. Trains that move at night—trains full of people. What are they?”

  Lowengard’s face seemed to pale, as though the blood had suddenly stopped flowing to the skin. He licked his lips and said, “Sam, please … I could end up in a camp. Or someplace worse.”

  “The other camps, right? The ones that are worse than the labor camps. Where are they? You must have an idea. The trains, where do they come from?”

  “I … I can’t say anything, Sam. Please. I’m begging you …”

  This close, Sam couldn’t help himself. He struck Pat across the face, the sound of the blow sounding sharp and loud in the small room. Pat gasped and brought his hand up to his cheek, and Sam said, “I’m investigating a homicide. And you’re impeding my investigation, which is a crime. Now. You may or may not get into trouble by telling me what you know, but I can guarantee you a shit-load of trouble right now unless you talk to me. It’ll make me very happy to drag your fat ass out of this nice, comfortable house and toss it in a county jail, or a state jail, or, if I get enough dirt on you, a labor camp. Think a guy in your shape will like cutting down trees at sunrise every morning?”

  “Sam, please—”

  Sam reached into his pocket, took out the flag pin, stuck it on his lapel. “Check it out, Pat. Know what this means? It means I’m part of something that’s not a goddamn club like the Elks or the Kiwanis. Something powerful. Something that can put you in a world of hurt if I just say the word. So. Should I say the word?”

  Pat slowly rubbed his cheek, looking like a chubby child who could not believe what Daddy had done to him. “I … I’ll talk. Just for a few minutes. And you never tell anyone you talked to me, and we’re done. All right?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. We’re done.”

  Pat blinked, and Sam saw tears in his eyes. “The trains … they started a few years ago. Top priority, we had to clear tracks and sidings for them, no delays, no questions. They departed from navy installations up and down the East Coast. You hear things, you know? In this business, you hear things.”

  “Was the shipyard one of the departure points?”

  “Yes, but not often. Maybe two, three times.”

  “Who are in the trains?”

  Pat shook his head. “People. That’s all.”

  “Where do they come from? And where do they go?”

  “Transport ships, that’s all I know.” Pat rubbed his cheek. “From there, they mostly go to small towns down south. A few out west. And just a while ago, a place in upstate Vermont. That’s it. The trains go to these towns, and poof, they disappear. As if Mandrake the Magician made them go away.”

  “What’s the name of the town in Vermont?”

  “Burdick. Up near the Canadian border. I know a couple of the special trains went there in the past year. And that’s it, Sam. I swear to God, that’s it.”

  Sam looked at the plump station manager, could smell the dread coming off of him. Something inside felt sour as he remembered how thrilled he’d been to be named an inspector, to better fight crime. And here he was, slapping a scared railroad manager, a man who had done nothing save what he could to keep his job and support his family.

  Sam said, “I’m leaving. But only if you can get me a round-trip ticket out to Burdick as fast as you can.”

  The man was almost pathetic in his eagerness as he picked up a pen and scribbled something on a slip of paper. “Of course, Sam, of course. Give me a call, seven A.M. tomorrow, and you’ll be all set.”

  Pat put the pen down and then burst into tears. He swiped at his eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry … it’s just that … when I was a kid, I loved trains. My uncle worked at B and M in Boston, managed to get me a job as a luggage clerk, and I worked my way up. God, I loved trains, and look where I am … and what I have to do.” He fumbled under the desk, came out with a handkerchief, honked his nose. “Look at me. A job I should love … and I hate it, Sam, hate it so much. Nobody loves trains anymore. They’re crowded, dirty, and share tracks with trains full of prisoners. See that?” He pointed to the suitcase by the door. “It’s gotten so bad, I’ve got a suitcase packed, just in case. Like every other station manager I know, one foul-up, one bad decision on my part, and I’m riding one of the trains I’m supposed to love to a labor camp.”

  He wiped his eyes and his nose with the handkerchief. Sam heard the voice of Pat’s w
ife calling. Ashamed at what he had done to the woman’s husband, he left as quickly as he could.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Sam stood in front of a three-story tenement building surrounded by others, all with light gray paint that was flaking and peeling. The air smelled of salt air and exposed mudflats, and radios blared jazz and swing from the windows, and somewhere, a baby was wailing. Clotheslines spanned the alleyways. There was shouting in the distance and a sharp crack as somebody fired off a revolver. He jumped a bit at the sudden noise, then ignored it. Another shot in the dark to be overlooked unless it was reported, and he was going to ignore it. He had more important things to do.

  Sam went up the front door of the building, which was open, the doorknob having been long ago smashed out. A single bulb, dangling from a frayed cord, illuminated the interior of the hallway and a second door. He went up to the door and knocked on it.

  No answer.

  He pounded with his closed fist. A muffled voice from inside, then the snapping sound of locks being undone. The door opened an inch, then two inches, held back by a chain. A woman in a dark red robe, her hair bristling with curlers, glared at him. “Yeah?”

  “Need to see Kenny Whalen. Now.”

  She said, “He’s not here,” and started to close the door.

  He jammed the toe of his shoe between the door and the frame and pulled out his leather wallet, showed the badge to the woman. “Kenny Whalen, dear, or if I think you’re lying, I break the door down, tear the place up, looking for him. And then you can ask the city to reimburse you for the damages I cause, and they might get back to you. By 1950 or thereabouts.”

  She muttered something, turned, and yelled, “Kenny! Get over here!”

  Sam spotted Kenny coming over, buttoning a flannel shirt over a soiled white T-shirt, his hair uncombed. “Ah, shit, hold on, Inspector.”

  Sam said, “I pull my shoe back, that door better be open in ten seconds. Clear?”

  “Oh, yeah, Inspector, I don’t want no trouble.”

  Sam pulled his shoe back, the door clunked shut, and there was a tinkling sound of a chain being worked. Before the door opened, Sam took the lapel pin off. Party membership, to a guy like Kenny, wouldn’t mean shit. Kenny stood there, managing a smile, but on his face the expression looked as inviting as that of a mortgage officer reviewing a foreclosure.