The woman backs away from him. "No, he never. Even if some of the coloreds was helpin' out the SCLC like folks said, they was only a few. Most coloreds are good folks. Leroy, he said they should just arrest the troublemakers and leave the good ones alone. The night they- The night they- The night the fire broke out, he stood by the parlor window, cussin' and sayin' how they'd bring the Huns in for sure."
"But he didn't do anything to stop them."
She flinches at the accusation in his voice, but snaps in desperation. "What did you want him to do? One man? They'd call him a 'kraut-kisser' and a 'nigger-lover' and maybe burn our home down, too. But he never burned nobody, never shot nobody, never rode out at night."
No, Stevenson thinks sadly, he only stood by while others did. He understands, finally, the message in Revelation. Ye runneth neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. Therefore, I spew ye forth from my mouth. The devil gets his due, but those who will not choose sides get nothing but contempt. He remembers King's words about how men are measured.
Yet, such a sentiment might itself be too easy. When standing up means to risk everything-wife, home, life itself-how many would sit by in quiet impotence? The Northern bosses loathe the barbarism in the South. Their graft is impartial; green is the only color that matters. But in the end they had held Party unity more dear, so who is Adlai Stevenson to judge Leroy? He looks over his shoulder to the German HQ and thinks how evil may be done even in a good cause, and not only by Erwin Rommel. Stevenson knows he ought to do something for Leroy, if only because the poor son of a bitch is the closest thing to a liberal the town has.
Stevenson counts himself wise for promising nothing, but he needs most of the Old Crow before he can accept the truth. There is no time to call Daley for instructions; and the phones would be tapped in any case. Stevenson sits at the desk in his room and scrawls a note on the hotel's stationery, informing Rommel about Wallace and King. "Rigorous questioning" at the barbershop will reveal Wallace's whereabouts, he writes. King is hiding in Selma's Darktown, but might be lured out to meet with Rommel, who is a nominal ally.
Rommel, with a German's obsession for legal literalism, will try to arrest King for theft of contraband and King, just as certainly, will resist. Wallace, his head stuffed with Southern irredentism, will never surrender either. But by making clear to them the common enemy, Stevenson might yet engineer the alliance he seeks. Martyrs do wonders for unity; the brotherhood of death can weld hostile factions together.
He calls the front desk and has a runner sent up. When the boy knocks-it is the same wavy-haired, swivel-hipped lad he used before-Stevenson hands him another cartwheel and a sealed envelope. He tells him the message is a plea to release some innocent hostages and that he should take it to Rommel immediately. The boy runs for the stairwell. Stevenson closes the door behind him and returns to the bottle of Old Crow.
Everybody does it, he tells himself.
All's fair, he tells himself.
Wallace and King are both bushwacking killers, he tells himself.
It's for the greater good, he tells himself.
It will unite the factions, he tells himself.
Finally, he can stand the sound of his own voice no longer. And besides, the bottle is empty. So he walks with careful, deliberate steps down to the lobby, where he enters the barroom and orders another bourbon.
"You look like you've had enough," the bartender reproves him. He has jowls like a basset hound, darkened now by five o'clock shadow. His dark eyes flash under lowered brows.
Stevenson surveys an empty room. The bar has not so much business that the man can afford to turn customers away. Stevenson says so, and loudly; so the bartender shrugs and pours the drink. Stevenson suspects it is watered.
His hand shaking, Stevenson lifts the glass to his lips; but the sudden roar of trucks past the window causes him to jerk and the glass drops and rolls across the bar top, leaving a glistening pool of liquor in its wake. Stevenson turns in time to see a troop truck turn the corner in the direction of the barbershop. Elite storm troopers in Prussian blue face each other ramrod straight on two benches in the back. They look neither left nor right and might have been cast from steel.
When Stevenson turns his back to the sight, the bartender has replaced the spilled drink. "I'd hold on to this one tight, if I were you," he advises.
Stevenson's mind is a haze. "Why?"
The bartender nods in the direction the troop truck has gone. "Shooting should start… about now."
As if awaiting that very cue, the distant pop of rifles comes faintly through the window. Stevenson squints at the bartender. A thought lurks in the back of his mind, but it will not come clear. Shortly, the messenger boy dashes into the barroom, grabbing the doorjamb to stop himself. He pants for breath a moment before blurting out, "They's holed up in the high school. Ol' Wallace, he's barricaded hisself in the schoolhouse door. The Hun's got 'im treed."
The bartender shakes his head. "He's facing a platoon of the Regiment Groszherzogthum Baden. That's the gang that hit the beaches on Honshu. I doubt the high school is as impregnable as Tojo's fortress. What do you say, Stevenson? About fifteen minutes and it's over?"
Stevenson raises a shaky finger. "You. You're Tricky Dick."
The man smiles a devil's smile, but does not deny it.
"What are you doing here?"
"Everyone has to be somewhere." The guerilla leader is relaxed and confident, yet his gaze shifts constantly and he never looks Stevenson directly in the eye. Stevenson sets his glass softly on the bar top. What better place to sift for information than in a bar. A man will tell his bartender things he conceals from his wife.
"You've been behind all of this."
"Me?" The affect of great surprise. "Behind all of what?"
"Everything! The bombing… Rommel coming to town…"
Tricky Dick laughs. "You think I order provost-generals around?"
"You didn't order him. You lured him."
Dick's grin broadens into a smile. "I thought Wallace's attack on the guard shack brought Rommel here."
"And why did Wallace attack the guard shack? He's hot-tempered, but he's not stupid."
"Jury's still out on that. But if I have to guess, I would say the rumors about the guard threatening the baby and assaulting the wife must have outraged him beyond reason."
If he has to guess… Tricky Dick is as convoluted as a snake. A master manipulator. "And who spread the rumors?"
Tricky Dick pulls out a bar rag and begins wiping the counter top. "It's funny," he says. "When a man believes the worst of someone, he'll credit anything bad he hears. He won't even stop to ask if it makes sense or not. That's a man's weak spot. We all have one: King, Rommel, you… Wallace thought the Germans were the devil's spawn, profaning…" And here Tricky Dick places a solemn hand over his heart. "… the sacred heartland of the Southern people. You could have told him that the expletive-deleted Huns ate Belgian babies or burned people in ovens and he would believe it. He didn't need me to feed him rumors."
Stevenson has actually begun to admire Tricky Dick's lies. There is an artistry to them that excites respect. He is a master of prevarication. Never so uncouth as a straightforward, bald-faced fabrication, his lies are fashioned by intaglio, the lie lying in what is not said, questions answered by the manner in which they are dodged.
"I know it was you who told King to steal the contraband weapons."
A shrug of dismissal. "That's always been his strategy. All I passed on was when and where an opportunity lay. Like I said, if you tell people what they want to hear, they're more likely to act on it."