"But this'd suit you best." Willard Sloan didn't make it a question.
"If you've done a halfway decent job since I left, the owners'll keep you on," Dover said. "I bet they're paying you less than they paid me." Would he work for less than he had before? Damn right he would. But he didn't tell Sloan that.
"Yeah, they jewed me down pretty good," the present manager agreed. "What can you do, though?"
"Not much," Dover said. What could he do? He could let the owners know he was around. He'd likely taken care of that just by showing up here. If they wanted him back, they'd get word to him-and too bad for Willard Sloan. If they didn't…he'd have to figure out something else, that was all.
T hick wire mesh in the Houston jail's visiting room separated Jefferson Pinkard from the new damnyankee officer the U.S. authorities had chosen to defend him. As he had with Isidore Goldstein, he growled, "Dammit, I didn't do anything in your country. I didn't do anything to anybody from your country. I didn't do anything the people in my country didn't want me to do, either."
The damnyankee-he was called Moss, and he was about as exciting as his name-shook his head. "None of that counts. They're charging you with crimes against humanity. That means you should have known better than to do that stuff even if they told you to."
"My ass," Jeff said angrily. "Goddamn coons always hated the Confederate States. They fucked us when they rose up in the last war.
Hell, first time I went into action, it wasn't against you Yankees. It was against Red niggers in Georgia. You reckon they wouldn't've done it again? Like hell they wouldn't. Only we didn't give 'em the chance this time around."
Moss shook his head again. "Women? Children? Men who never did anybody any harm? You won't get a court to buy it."
"Well, shit, tell me something I don't know," Pinkard said. "You assholes are gonna hang me. Anything I say is just a fuckin' joke, far as you're concerned. Why'd they even bother giving me a new lawyer when Goldstein got hurt? Just to make it look pretty, I bet."
"I wish I could tell you you're wrong," Moss replied, which took Jeff by surprise. "Chances are they will hang you. But I'll fight them as hard as I can. That's my job. That's what lawyers do. I'm pretty good at it, too."
Jeff eyed him through the grating. He still wasn't much to look at: a middle-aged man who'd been through the mill. He did sound like somebody who meant what he said, though. Jeff knew professional pride when he heard it. He thought Moss would do the best job he could. He also thought it wouldn't do him one goddamn bit of good.
"Can you give me anything to show there were Negroes you didn't kill when you could have?" Moss asked. "That kind of thing might help some."
"Nope." Pinkard shook his head. "I did what I was supposed to do, dammit. I didn't break any laws."
"How many Negroes went through your camps?" Lieutenant Colonel Moss asked. "How many came out alive? How many had trials?"
"Trials, nothing," Jeff said in disgust. "Trials are for citizens. Niggers aren't citizens of the CSA. Never have been. Never will be now, by God." He spoke with a certain doleful pride. He'd helped make sure of that.
"Even there, you're wrong," Moss said. "There were Negro citizens in the Confederate States-the men who fought for them in the Great War. They went into your camps just like the rest. U.S. authorities can prove that."
"Well, so what? They were dangerous," Jeff insisted. "You leave out the ones who learned how to fight, they're the bastards who'll give you grief down the line. When we take care of stuff, we do it up brown."
The Yankee sighed. "You aren't making it any easier for me-or for yourself."
"What the hell difference does it make?" Pinkard demanded. "You said it yourself-they're gonna hang me any which way. I'll be damned if I give 'em excuses. I did what I was supposed to do, that's all."
"Are you sorry you did it?" Moss said. "You might be able to persuade them to go a little easier on you if you make them believe you are."
"Easy enough to leave me alive?" Jeff asked.
"Well…" The military attorney hesitated. "You are the one who started using trucks to asphyxiate Negroes, right? And you are the one who started using cyanide in the phony bathhouses, too, aren't you?"
"How'd you know about the trucks?" Jeff asked.
"There's a Confederate official in Tennessee named…" The lawyer had to stop and check his notes. "Named Mercer Scott. He told us you were responsible for coming up with that. Is he lying? If he is, we have a better chance of keeping you breathing."
Jeff considered. So Mercer was singing, was he? Well, he was trying to save his neck, too. Chances were he wouldn't be able to do it, not when he ran Camp Dependable after Jeff moved on to Camp Determination. The trucks first showed up at Camp Dependable. They made life a lot easier for guards than taking Negroes out into the swamps and shooting them. Was the mechanic who'd made the first one still alive? Jeff didn't know. It probably didn't matter. Other guards back at the camp by Alexandria would be able to back Mercer up. As for the cyanide, he had plenty of correspondence with the pest-control company that made it. If he tried to deny things there, he was screwed, blued, and tattooed.
And so, with a heavy sigh, he shook his head. "No, I did that stuff, all right. I did it in the line of duty, and I don't need to be ashamed of it."
"You were trying to kill people as efficiently as you could," Moss said.
"I was trying to dispose of niggers as efficiently as I could, yeah," Pinkard said. "They were a danger to the Confederate States, so we had to get rid of 'em."
"Jake Featherston could have settled on redheads or Jews just as easily," the lawyer said.
"Nah." Jeff shook his head. "That's just stupid. Redheads never did anything to anybody. And Jews-hell, I don't have a lot of use for Jews, but they pulled for us, not against us. Look at Saul Goldman."
"He's under arrest, too," Moss said. "They'll hang him for all the lies he told and all the hatred he stirred up."
Jefferson Pinkard laughed. "You dumbass Yankees reckon we need to get talked to to hate niggers? We can take care of that on our own, thank you kindly. And so can you-all. Otherwise, you would've opened up the border and let 'em all in back before the war. Sure as hell didn't see that happening."
Moss wrote himself a note. "I'll bring it up at the trial. Some of the Negroes' blood is on our hands."
"Think it'll help?" Jeff asked.
"No," Moss said. "It'll just make the judges mad, because they'll aim to lay all the blame on you. But I'll get it on the record, anyhow."
"Hot shit," Jeff said.
The lawyer shrugged. "I can't promise to get you off the hook, not when I don't have a chance in church of delivering. They're going to do what they're going to do. I can slow them down a little and piss them off a little, and that's about it."
"It ain't fair," Jeff said. "You can't blame me for doing what my country wanted me to do. It's not like I broke any of my laws. You're changing the rules after the game is over."
"You're probably right, but so what?" Moss answered. "Millions of people are dead. Millions of people got killed for no better reason than that they were colored. The government of the USA has decided that that's a crime regardless of whether it broke Confederate law or not. I can't appeal against that decision-they won't let me. I have to play by the rules they give me now."
"Well, I had to play by the rules they gave me then. What's the goddamn difference?" Jeff said.
Moss reached into his briefcase and pulled out some photographs. He held them up so Pinkard could see them. They showed the crematorium at Camp Humble and some of the mass graves back at Camp Determination. "This is the difference," Moss said. "Doesn't it mean anything to you?"