“You’re quite kind. It’s been so very long since I’ve seen him.”
Something in her voice touched him. “You must still be proud of him, a hero pilot and all that.”
Tears were in her eyes, but her face was puzzled. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Your husband. Reginald. A pilot in the RAF. You must be quite proud.”
She said, “You’re quite wrong, Inspector. Reggie was never a flier. Not ever.”
Now it seemed as though the crowd had vanished, that it was now just the two of them, staring at each other in disbelief. “You showed me his photo,” Sam said incredulously. “In uniform. He told me he was a pilot. And so did Walter.”
A firm shake of the head. “I think I bloody well know what my husband did in the service. He was not a pilot.”
Sam stared into her determined face. “What was he?”
“Royal Engineers.”
“Royal Engineers? Doing what?”
When she told him, he broke free, shoving his way through the crowd.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Running across the street, he almost got hit by a speeding Chevy as another motorcade roared by, this one carrying reporters and newsreel photographers. When he got to the post office, out of breath, Sam elbowed his way almost viciously through the crowds, feeling the same urgency and despair that had seized him yesterday when he was trying to reach his brother.
Where in the hell was Walter?
The writer had disappeared. Sam ran up the steps, looked around. There. Walter was going down the street, joining the streams of people, heading to the B&M railroad station to bid the successful President farewell.
Jobs, jobs, jobs. At long last, the Depression seemed to have met its match.
He rejoined the crowd, forcing his way through, holding up his badge, saying over and over, “Police business, move! Police business, move!” But it was like some damn festival, the people were so happy and wouldn’t get out of the way. Elbows were sharply jabbed into his ribs, and once a heavyset woman stepped on his foot with a high heel, but by the time the station came into view, he was close.
He spotted the pudgy shape moving ahead. Sam took a breath, pushed his way past an older couple, almost causing the woman to fall.
He grabbed Walter’s coat collar.
“Hey!” Walter called out, and Sam spun him around. A bout of nervous laughter came from his tenant. “Oh, Sam! Christ, what a fright you gave me. I thought I was being robbed. Or even arrested.”
Sam had his hand on Walter’s coat and dragged him to a hardware store and its doorway. He pushed Walter in and, breathing hard, said, “You’ve got one minute to tell me what the hell is going on here, or I’ll turn you over to the feds. Let’s see how your college background helps when they give you an ax and a fifty-foot pine to cut down.”
Walter tried to laugh again, but the nervous sound seemed to strangle in his throat. His white shirt was wrinkled, and his red necktie was barely tied about his plump neck. He glanced around and said, “Really, Sam, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Walter, where’s your valise?”
“My what?”
“Your valise. Your briefcase. Where the hell is it? It never leaves your side. You’ve told me that often enough.”
“I suppose I left it at home this morning when I—”
Sam slapped his face. “Don’t lie to me!” he raged. “I saw you carry it into the post office, and you were carrying it when you left with Reggie Hale!”
Tears were streaming down the bewildered older man’s face. Sam grabbed his shirt collar, twisted it, shoved him against the doorway. “He’s not a pilot, is he? He’s in the Royal Engineers. Bomb disposal unit. That’s how he lost his leg. Not being shot down by a German fighter plane. Injured when a bomb went off as he was trying to—”
The valise was gone.
Reggie Hale was gone.
An expert in explosives.
Heading to the train station.
“You…” Sam left the sentence unfinished, and ran back out to the crowded sidewalk. Now Walter was there, desperately clinging to him, trying to hold him back.
“Sam! Please! It’s too late! Sam!”
Sam tried to punch Walter, but this time the exprofessor surprised him by ducking his head and then coming back up and pleading, “It has to happen! It has to happen this way! There’s no other choice!”
“You… you’re going to kill the President!”
In a stunning move, Walter struck him, and Sam rocked back on his heels. “No!” Walter shouted. “Not a president! A dictator, an emperor: A fraud who just pledged our lives, our sacred honor, to help one of the great monsters of our time to slaughter millions. That’s what’s out there, about to leave Portsmouth. Washington, Lincoln, Wilson—those were presidents. Not that freak of nature, that accident of circumstance!”
Sam broke free, plunged again into the crowd.
What to do?
A phone in this chaos?
He looked around. No cops. No National Guardsmen.
Where the hell was LaCouture when you needed him?
The crowd swept him closer. There was the platform, and the President stood up there, waving his hat, wrapping up a speech whose words couldn’t be heard, and cheering. Sam felt his body go rigid, bracing for the platform to disintegrate in a cloud of flames and broken wood.
Bang.
He flinched.
The band started playing a Sousa march, the bass drum banging. There were more cheers, and then Long moved out of view and Sam’s throat clenched up.
This was the man who had imprisoned his brother, had imprisoned and killed so many others, and whose thugs found great joy in using his brother as a pawn to be tossed away, destroyed when he was no longer needed. Walter was right. The man wasn’t his President. He was a criminal.
And Sam’s wife and son were in a prison controlled by this man and his people.
But let him die, to stand here and let it happen… A rush of emotions surged through him, led by revenge. Let the goddamn Kingfish get killed. Why not? The bastard deserved it as much as Hitler did.
He stood still, frozen, among the happy, jostling crowd.
And yet… and yet…
There were thousands and thousands of Jewish refugees alive in the United States because of Long. Tens of thousands of Jews who hadn’t been killed, hadn’t been gassed, hadn’t been shot. And thousands more were on their way.
But Long was the key, as his boss had said. Without Long, there was no agreement. With Long dead—maybe things would improve. Maybe.
But with Long dead, thousands more—without a doubt—would die.
Sam kept moving, shouldering through the crowd, holding up his inspector’s badge, pushing ahead, seeing in his mind’s eye poor Otto, starved and beaten and away from home, Otto and his barracks mates, depending on Long’s decision, depending on the Americans, depending on Sam, goddammit.
On the platform there was a knot of people at one end, waiting to get onto the Ferdinand Magellan. The Portsmouth cops let him through, thank God, and now he was on the platform, running, the stench of fear and burnt coal in his nostrils, and up ahead were men carrying submachine guns under their coats, other people, newsreel men, and waving a boater, President Long, whooping it up, laughing—
Joining the crowd, walking deliberately, limping, Reginald Hale, carrying Walter’s old valise, walking straight toward Long and the crowd of people—
A Secret Service agent, large and wide in a black suit, shoulder holster visible under his coat, tried to block Sam, who shouldered him aside like the football player he once was, and he elbowed and spun—
“Hale! Stop! Right there!”