Amerikan Eagle

Lawrence’s face was ghostly white, and he was trembling. Sam added, “Oh, and another thing I observed was the staff of that particular whorehouse. Young boys dressed as girls.” His father-in-law rubbed a hand across his face as if hiding his eyes. “So don’t tell me lies, okay?” Sam said.

“Look, can I get the hell out of here?” Lawrence’s voice was raspy.

“Yeah, you can go. And you know what? Don’t come back. Ever. I never want to see you at my house.”

“Why? Because you know one of my dark, deep secrets? Is that it? You too good to have secrets you’re not proud of, Sam?”

Sam clenched the flashlight tighter. “Go. Get out of here.”

“Some inspector. You think you know everything about me, everything about how I think and work. Kid, you know shit—”

Lawrence pushed past him, heading back to the parking lot, and Sam spent a fruitless hour longer on the dark island, looking for his brother.

INTERLUDE IX

He waited outside the Laughing Gull, one of the many bars near the harbor. The windows were blackened, and the wooden sign dangling outside was cracked and faded. Even with the summit crackdown, business was doing all right at this bar and its neighbors. Every time some cops or guys in good suits strolled by, he made sure to stay in the shadows. He waited, watching, in the spill of loud jazz music, the smell of beer and cigarettes and cigars. Sailors in dress whites came stumbling down the cobblestone lane, and when the laughing and singing group of men passed on, a man was standing at the street corner. He watched as the man took a cigarette out and tried to light it three times with a lighter that didn’t catch.

He walked across the street, offered him a book of matches. The man looked at him and said, “Thanks, mate.” His accent was English.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “That a Lucky Strike?”

“Nope, a Camel.”

“I see.”

The man lit the cigarette, gave him back the matches, took a drag, then dropped the lit butt on the ground. “C’mon, let’s talk private, all right?”

He followed as the man walked around the corner into another alley that stank of trash and piss. The Englishman said, “Not much time, so here it goes. Tomorrow’s the day.”

“I figured,” he said. The words seemed as heavy as stones coming out of his mouth.

“Good on you,” the man said. “But there’s been a change for tomorrow.”

The whole damn street seemed to tip on its side, making him feel like he was going to fall over. “What kind of change?”

“Target change.”

“The fuck you say.”

“Bloody hell, mate, I’m just the messenger, all right? All I know is, it’s got to be done, and I got to know, are you going to do what you’re told? Because that’s the deal you signed on for, right?”

He clenched his fists tight, then thought for a moment and said, “Yeah. That’s the deal I signed on for. You’re right. So what’s the change?”

The Englishman said, “We go for a walk. We see someone. You get told there. All right?”

He thought again of everything he had planned, everything he had gone through to reach this point, to hear it was all being altered.

“All right,” he said. “As long as what I’m doing tomorrow is not a waste.”

The other man chuckled. “Oh, it might be something, but it won’t be a waste. I got something going on as well… and I can’t say more than that. Another thing—your brother.”

“What about him?”

“You’ll be briefed about him and everything else, just so you’re not surprised.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, thinking, Sam, poor Sam, being part of something he knew nothing about.

The Englishman said, “C’mon, we’ve got to get moving. Look, can I borrow those matches again?”

“Sure,” he said, passing over the pack. The man lit a match, let it flare up in the darkness, then dropped it.

“What the—” Suddenly, it all made sense. “A signal?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And if you hadn’t lit the match?”

“That meant you didn’t agree with the target change.” The Englishman sounded apologetic. “And it meant that some nasty gentlemen watching from the other side of the lane here wouldn’t have let you live.”

“I see,” he said. “Nice to see you’re serious. All right, let’s get going.”

The Englishman led the way, limping slightly on one leg.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

At the station, Sam went to his desk and, seeing the time, went to the basement, where fellow cops and National Guardsmen were bunking on army surplus cots with scratchy green wool blankets. He claimed an empty cot and went in search of supper. The evening meal was apple juice and spaghetti with lukewarm tomato sauce, served by women auxiliaries of the American Legion post. He ate off a metal plate, grunted one-syllable answers to anyone who spoke to him, then went back to his cot, the scents of gasoline and motor oil in his nostrils.