“There’s not enough bulldozers in this country to clean up all the places like this,” he said.
“Don’t matter none,” LaCouture said. “So long as it’s clean around here, that’s all I care about.”
“What about the people? What happened to them?”
“Trespassers all,” LaCouture said. “Those Long boys took care of ’em. Sent off to some transit camps, far away from the newsreel boys come summit day.”
Sam’s witness, Lou Purdue, had lived here, but he knew that wouldn’t get any sympathy from LaCouture. To the FBI, that matter was done.
LaCouture said, “All right, then, tell me what you got for me today.”
Sam took out his notebook, flipped through the pages, started telling LaCouture what he had learned. After a minute, LaCouture held up a hand and said, “All right, all right, type up your notes and pass it along. We’ll deal with it later.”
Sam closed the notebook. The smoke and the flames were finally dying down. The bulldozers and their operators had moved off to the side, the diesel engines softly rumbling. Talking with the Long’s Legionnaire, Groebke laughed, tossed his cigarette into the smoldering embers.
LaCouture leaned back on the fender. “You don’t like me, do you, Miller?”
“I don’t know about that,” Sam said. “You’re here, I’m working for you. Why don’t we leave it at that?”
“You know, I don’t give a bird’s fart if you didn’t vote for the Kingfish, but he is my President and yours, too, no matter if you don’t like him or me. Just so you know, I grew up in Winn Parish, down in Louisiana. You know Winn Parish?”
“That’s where Long came from.”
“Yep,” the FBI agent said. “That’s where he came from, and man, he never forgets that. I grew up in Winn Parish, too, barefoot, poor, Momma dead, and Daddy, he never finished grammar school. Could barely read and write. Worked as a sharecropper, barely makin’ it year to year. And that was gonna be my life, Inspector, until the Kingfish came to power.”
“You were lucky, then.”
“Yeah, you can call it luck if you’d like, but when Long became governor, he started taxin’ Standard Oil and the other fat cat companies, and he got me and my brothers free schoolbooks, built hospitals and roads. You got good roads up here. Down home, it was dirt tracks that became mud troughs every time it rained. When the Kingfish became our governor, there weren’t more than three hundred miles of paved road in the entire state, and when he became senator, that had changed to more than two thousand miles. He took care of his folks in Winn Parish, he took care of the great state of Louisiana, and believe you me, he’s takin’ care of this great country.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “Lots of new roads, lots of new labor camps, and lots of new railway lines to help fill ’em up.”
LaCouture’s eyes flashed at him. “The voters here wanted change. They wanted to make things better. If that means some losers get put away, that’s the way it’s gonna be. And for those of us he helped, those of us who got an education and got to be somebody, there’s nothin’ the Kingfish can do wrong. Maybe I serve two masters, Long and Hoover, but they both are doin’ what’s right for this country. Don’t you forget that.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” Sam answered.
On the coals, the child’s doll burst into flame.
“Good,” LaCouture said. “You talk to your marshal when you get back to the police station, Inspector Miller, and you tell him to contact Randall at Party headquarters. It’s on for tomorrow night, and that’s all you need to say. Your marshal can figure out the rest.”
Groebke joined them, smiling. He gave a crisp nod to Sam and said in English to the FBI agent, “That was nice, very nice. Herr Roland, over there, has just returned from a term of service with the Waffen-SS George Washington Brigade. He spent some time on the Estonian front with other Legionnaires, getting needed experience.”
Sam turned away from the smoldering pile of debris and wreckage that had meant so much to people who had so little. “Yeah,” he said. “Takes a lot of experience to burn things.”
Groebke gave him a stiff nod. “Fire is wonderful. It cleans, it purifies, it makes everything… clear.”
LaCouture grinned at his counterpart. “Christ, we get a job done, you get all philosophical on us, Hans. Inspector, you believe in philosophy?”
“Not today,” Sam said.
Minutes later, he was back at the police station pushing past people moving in and out of the lobby, newsreel cameras already setting up shop outside, reporters buttonholing him as he went inside. He shrugged them all off and went upstairs. Mrs. Walton said, “He’s busy talking to the governor. And when he’s finished with that call, the governor of Maine wants to talk to him. So he can’t see you for a while.”
Sam went back to his desk and started going through the top stack of file folders and—
File folders.
Records.
Dammit. Sean had wanted to talk to him.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he called out to Mrs. Walton. He took some satisfaction in ignoring her when she called after him.
The records were kept in the basement. Sean’s desk was empty. Stretching out into the darkness were file cabinets and boxes, and Sam heard a squeaking noise approaching him. Clarence Rolston, the janitor and overall handyman for the police station, was coming toward him. A bucket of water on rollers was before him, and he was pushing it forward with the mop inside.
Clarence was the older brother of a city councilman. He’d once supposedly drunk some poisoned rotgut during Prohibition, and his brain had been slightly scrambled ever since.
Sam said, “Clarence.”
The man looked up. His gray hair was a tight ball of fuzz about his head. “Sam… I’m right, aren’t I? Sam.”
“That’s right, Clarence. Good job. I’m looking for somebody.”
The janitor shook his head. “My brother Bobby? I tell people all the time, I can’t help you. I can’t get you to see Bobby. Bobby does his own thing and I do my own. If you need a job or relief, then I can’t help you, I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine, Clarence, I’m not looking for your brother.”
“Oh.” The janitor looked relieved. “What is it, then?”
“I’m looking for Sean, the records clerk. Can you tell me where I can find him?”
A shake of the head. “I can, but I shouldn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they told me not to say anything, that’s why.”
“Who?”
“The G-men, that’s who.”
“Are you telling me that Sean’s been arrested by the FBI?”
“Darn you, you tricked me. You tricked me into saying something I shouldn’t’ve. Oh, darn it, I’m going to lose my job…”
Tears were trickling down Clarence’s cheeks. Sam grasped his upper arm gently. “Clarence. Look at me. I’m the police inspector here. And I know a lot of secrets. This is going to be one more secret, all right? I won’t tell anybody I was here, won’t say a word about you. You won’t lose your job, your brother won’t get into trouble, nothing like that’s going to happen. Just calm down.”
Clarence was smiling as he wiped away the tears. “That’s nice. That’s right nice of you to say something like that, Sam. Thanks a lot.”
“Not a problem,” Sam said.
Back upstairs he was pleased to find Hanson alone, no phone up to his ear. Sam took a seat and Hanson said, “Tell me what you’ve got.”
Sam spent the next fifteen minutes describing the requirements of LaCouture and Groebke. When he finished his briefing, Hanson pushed aside his notes and said with disgust, “Glorified travel agents and traffic cops. That’s all the damn feds and Krauts need us to do. All right, we’ll do what we’re told. Not like we have any goddamn choice in the matter. Anything else?”