Amerikan Eagle

There was the deep whistle of a train. The whistle sounded twice more, and then, coming down the tracks, belching smoke and steam, rumbled the Ferdinand Magellan, the official train of the President of the United States. The train ground to a halt in a storm of steam, and another Sousa march started up. There were cheers and shouts and waves, and he looked around at his fellow citizens and thought, Don’t you see it? Don’t you see what has come to us? There was no difference between this man here and that man out on his ocean liner. Both crushed and imprisoned their opponents, both had bloody hands, both did what they wanted. Both had Jews behind barbed-wire fences.

Didn’t these people see that?

There. Men filed off the train, and there was the familiar roly-poly figure with its florid face and shock of hair. President Huey P. Long, the mightiest Kingfish in the world. When he raised both arms in greeting, the crowd roared.

No, Sam thought. What they see is what they desire most. Jobs, safety, and a way of keeping the bloody fields of death out there on the opposite side of the oceans. Just end this damn Depression, get people back to work, stay out of war, and right now, President Long was promising that.

His father-in-law, Lawrence, came up to a microphone and said a number of words, most of them drowned by feedback and overamplification, and then he shook the hand of Long, and the President came to the microphone as though chatting with an old pal.

“My friends, my very dear friends,” he said in his rich gumbo-flavored voice, “I’m so very happy to receive this warm reception, even if you are a bunch of Yankees.”

There was laughter and more applause. The President started talking in his seductive voice, but the words had a sour sound. More blather about the Rockefellers, the Mellons, the Carnegies, the moneyed interests he had fought ever since Winn Parish in Louisiana, and how the rich parasites had tried to sabotage him in all his years, in all he wanted to do, merely to serve the people.

More blather. Sam forced his way back out of the crowd.

* * *

He made his way back to the center of the city, the sidewalks emptying as he got away from the train station. He was there as the President went by.

First were the sirens, and then a brace of New Hampshire State Police motorcycles came roaring up, followed by three convertible black Ford sedans, the tops rolled back. It looked like staff or newsmen were in the lead and following cars, for President Long was in the center car, waving to the few people on the sidewalk, and Secret Service agents were on the running boards, two of them holding submachine guns. Taking up the rear were two more state police motorcycles. The sound quickly rolled on, dust and newspaper scraps spun up by the speeding vehicles.

Sam reached the police station, looked up at the old building, and realized there was nothing there for him. He went to his Packard, started it, and went back to the Rockingham Hotel.

* * *

LaCouture looked as though he were being held together by coffee and cigarettes. His usual dapper style had left him; his clothes were rumpled and stained. Even Groebke looked exhausted. There was none of the manly banter or ballbusting or usual bullshit. LaCouture just looked up from his eternal paperwork and said, “Well?”

“Nothing,” Sam answered. “This place is so tightly sealed, I can’t see him gaining access anywhere to make a shot. I even went over to the Navy Yard. If anything, it’s tighter over there.”

“Friends? Acquaintances?”

“None. Tony pretty much kept to himself. And the Yard security chief said Tony’s not popular with most of the workforce. I just don’t know—”

Groebke said, “You wouldn’t be protecting him, eh, so that he could shoot our chancellor?”

“No, not a chance,” Sam said, his voice biting. “Getting him gets my family free, and if that’s what it takes, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Groebke’s pale eyes stayed on him. “Still, I know how you hate my country, hate my leader. I believe you would not mind seeing the Führer get shot tomorrow, even if it means your wife and son remain in prison. Perhaps such an exchange, a trade, would be worth it. Eh?”

“You’re right,” Sam said, keeping his voice under control with difficulty. “I wouldn’t mind seeing your Führer shot tomorrow. Or stabbed. Or drowned. But I’m a cop, a cop assigned to you characters, and I’ll do my job. Protecting Hitler, finding my brother, and getting my family free.”

LaCouture yawned, waved a hand. “Go on. Go home or go out on the streets again, but get out of here.”

“That’s fine,” Sam said. “What about tomorrow?”

“Come back at eight. We’ll figure something out then.”

Sam stood there, tired and soiled, and he said, “My wife and boy. I want to talk to them. Now.”

LaCouture shook his head. “Can’t do it.”

“Why the hell not?”