"They say you have the greatest tactical mind since General Miles or General Crook."
Tricky Dick dips his head modestly. "Well, I am not a Miles."
Maybe not, Stevenson muses. More like Machiavelli than a military man. Tricky Dick's genius lay in scheme, not rifles in the field. His band of operatives-known as "The Plumbers," because they worked to "plunge the crap out"-was probably a small, tight-knit band. Had to be, for the man to be seen so little when sought so much. "How'd you get Wallace to barricade himself in the schoolhouse?"
Dick has been polishing the bar top. He looks up, sees Stevenson's knowing, just-us-chickens smile. He folds the rag and tucks it in his apron cord. "Ol' George, he's a Romantic. What he sees in his mind are the heroic poses, the grand speeches; not the bayonet sliding into the gut, not the slugs ripping and tearing the flesh and splintering the bones. So, a bunch of them were in here yesterday, griping like they always do; and Wallace compares the way he's standing up to the Hun to the way Washington and them stood up to the Brits. So, I told him about the heroic stand the Irish made in Dublin back about the end of the Great War. It really inspired him."
"The Brits stomped the Irish good," Stevenson points out. "Those that weren't killed were executed."
The Dick wags a finger. "Ah, but it led to the revolution and the Republic. The inspirational value of martyrs," he adds with a wink. "Ol' George really thinks his heroic stand will inspire others to follow him."
"Like Custer."
Tricky Dick shrugs. "It really is inspiring, you know. If Wallace and his cause weren't a bucket of expletives deleted, it might be even viewed as a noble sacrifice. A man capable of such an act is capable of redemption-if the world allows his heart the time to change."
Stevenson has been memorizing Tricky Dick's face so he can describe it to Daley's police artists. The Dick's greatest asset until now has been his invisibility. A man can be hard to find when no one knows what he looks like. Even Dick's last name or his native state are unknown. It is part of his mystique. Revealing himself to Stevenson is a major misstep; but if every man has a weakness, Dick's lies in his own cleverness. It is not always what a man believes of others that makes him vulnerable, but often what he believes of himself. Pleased with his own cleverness, the guerilla leader has succumbed to the desire to preen before a mind capable of appreciating that cleverness.
"What I don't understand…" Stevenson leans over the bar and taps it with a stiff forefinger. "… is what you hope to accomplish. As far as I can tell, you're just making things worse by stirring the pot." By pushing the pride button, Stevenson hopes to elicit some careless revelations.
Tricky Dick takes Stevenson's now-empty glass and dunks it in a sink full of dishwater. "I have a plan," he confides. "A secret plan to end the Situation." He wipes his hands on a bar towel, then turns on a small radio on a shelf on the back wall. In a few minutes, the tubes have warmed up and he twists the tuner to put the receiver back on frequency. Stevenson catches a brief moment of "hepcat jive" in four-part harmony before the radio settles on a fainter, more distant signal playing nondescript dance tunes.
The sound of the radio makes Stevenson aware that the distant gunfire has fallen silent. When his head cocks, Tricky Dick makes a show of checking his watch. "Seventeen minutes," he says with some satisfaction. "A little longer than I expected, but Elvis will be back soon with a battle report."
Stevenson forms a plan. The Germans are just as anxious to lay hold of Tricky Dick as the Democrats. His raids and sabotage have come down hard on Wallace's supporters, and occasionally have frustrated King's dreams of vengeance; but his mere existence is an affront to the German sense of Law and Order.Alles in Ordnung is the most satisfied remark a German can make. German lovers tell each other that after sex.
The masterstroke slowly comes clear through the bourbon haze. A way to discomfit the League, please the Sparkman-Bankhead faction, neutralize Tricky Dick, mollify the factions he means to unite by showing them another common enemy.
Stevenson excuses himself and weaves his way to the jakes, where he takes care of business before stopping at the writing stand in the lobby on his way back and scribbling a hasty note: Tricky Dick is the bartender at the Stonewall Hotel. He places it in an envelope and seals the envelope with his tongue.
Then he pauses under the weight of a great sadness. In many ways, he and Tricky Dick are brothers, sharing a single vision. Outrage over the racial clearings; and distrust of Wallace's ability to control them. Sympathy for King's people; but not for vengeance and retribution. Satisfaction that the Germans have brought justice; but fierce anger at the violation of sovereignty. Had the dice rolled another way, he thinks, it might be "Agile Adlai," the "fighting perfesser," out there exacerbating the Situation while "Senator Richard" desperately seeks to bring the factions together.
Young Elvis comes dashing back in, breathless with news of the battle. Stevenson stops him and hands him the message. "Take this to Rommel. Quick. I forgot to tell him something earlier."
But the lad is not to be deflected. "I gotta tell the Man," he says. "You shoulda seen it! Ol' Wallace, he took a slug right in the spine. You shoulda seen him twist and shout before the Dutchies tied him into a stretcher and carried him out. That poor sumbitch'll be in a wheelchair for sure-if the Dutchies don't hang him first." And with that, he ran into the barroom to tell Tricky Dick.
And Stevenson runs into the lavatory, where he pukes his guts into a stained and smelly toilet. One rolling heave follows another until he is dry and his stomach is a shriveled cramp within him. Afterward he leans on the sink to steady himself, taking long, slow breaths. He stares at the reflection in the mirror, wondering who the bastard staring back is to have so calmly written other men's death warrants.
It's the times, he tells himself. Had the Situation not happened, he would have been a different man; just as King or Wallace or Tricky Dick. A better man, he hopes; something more than a hireling of Boss Daley. The Party needs a strong leader, who can tame both the machines and the Southern families. Franklin had had that dream-of welding the Party into a single, coordinated, national force. But the Great Panic had put paid to those dreams; and shortly after, the polio made running for office unthinkable.
Nuts. You play the hand you're dealt. Stevenson turns on the faucet and cups the water in his hands to rinse his mouth. He spits into the sink several times, but the sour taste does not leave his tongue.
Returning to the barroom, he sees that the boy has gone to run his errand. Shortly, the Germans will be coming to seize Tricky Dick. Best not to be here when that happens. "I'm calling it a night," he says, but the barman waves him over.
"Not without signing your tab, you're not." He shoves a paper at Stevenson and Stevenson scrawls his signature at the bottom. As he turns to go, the music on the radio cuts off abruptly and a faint, scratchy voice begins to speak.
"This just off our wire services: A major gun battle has developed in the town of Selma, Alabama, between a right-wing militia group apparently led by the state's attorney general, George Wallace, and the German peacekeepers. Details are not yet clear, but casualties are said to be heavy. More news as it develops. On a personal note, let me say that never have two combatants so deserved each other. Self-appointed partisans impatient with the considered wisdom of our leaders in Washington versus merciless militarists who came to bring justice to the oppressed, but did so with such callous brutality that people are apt to forget the true victims. All I can say is, 'There they go again. This is Dutch Reagan for CBS News Radio."