Amerikan Eagle

He eased open the door to his son’s room. The night-light illuminated the narrow bed and a bookcase that held a cluster of books and toy trucks, one, he always noted with a smile, a police cruiser with Portsmouth markings. On the other side of the bookcase were a Gilbert chemistry set and a fossil collection.

From the ceiling, model aircraft hung from black thread and thumbtacks pushed into the plaster: Great War aircraft like a Sopwith Camel and a Fokker triplane, and a German zeppelin and U.S. Navy blimp. All made from balsa wood and tissue paper, each one carefully pieced together with his boy on lazy Sunday afternoons.

He sat on the corner of the bed and touched Toby’s silky brown hair with his hand. His boy stared up at him sleepily.

“Dad.”

“Hey, kiddo. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Toby yawned. “I wanna make sure you were home. That you were okay. That’s why.”

“Well, I’m back. And I’m okay.”

“Why did you have to leave?”

“There was a case I had to investigate.”

“What kind of case?” Toby rolled on the mattress, making a rustling noise from the rubber sheet underneath the cotton one. Just last week the boy had awakened screaming from a nightmare, having wet the bed.

“A… dead man was found. I had to check it out.”

“Was it a murder?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Oh…”

“Toby, are you scared of something?”

“I dunno. I worry sometimes about bad men. Spies, killers. Bad men hurting you. Hurting Mom. Stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid,” Sam said firmly. “But I promise you: No bad men are going to hurt you. Or Mom. Or me. Ever.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“Dad… I don’t like this rubber sheet. It’s for babies.”

Sam repressed a sigh. “Just a little while longer, pal.”

His boy turned his head. “Dad, you’re sure about that? That there are no spies?”

“There’s no spies,” Sam said firmly. “We’re safe, pal, you and your mom and me.”

How many fathers out there had had the same talk with their sons hours before being seized, arrested, their families broken up, their children sent to state homes? Sam thought, Oh, there are so many bad men out there, how in God’s name can I protect you from all of them?

Sam cleared his throat. “Now make us both happy and go to sleep, okay? And no more nightmares.”

“’Kay, Dad.”

“And keep doing good in school, okay? No more notes from your teachers, all right?”

“I’ll try, Dad,” Toby murmured, already falling asleep. Sam kissed the soft brown hair, got up, and went to the door. A small voice said, “Dad? Can I listen to my crystal set for a while?”

The crystal radio set, made as a project in the Cub Scouts. Let him listen to music or a western or a mystery… or no, his bright little boy would probably listen to the news of the bad men butchering little boys in Manchuria and China and Indochina and Russia and Finland and Burma and—

Sam felt adrift. What he really wanted to do was talk to his son, to tell him there was a time when the radio wasn’t full of news about wars overseas, that the President was someone to admire, that people had work and unemployment wasn’t approaching 40 percent. When newsprint wasn’t a rationed government resource. And that even though the country had managed to stay out of the bloody wars in the Pacific and in Europe, it now seemed to be endlessly at war with itself, with arrests and detentions and labor camps, all orchestrated by a man who wasn’t fit to inhabit the house once lived in by Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

But for tonight… “No,” he answered. “I don’t want you listening to your radio. You go to sleep now, okay?”

“’Kay, Dad.”

Sam closed the door behind him, softly.

CHAPTER SIX

The ham loaf had dried out, and the potatoes were cold, but he ate them greedily as Sarah sat with him and asked him about the body. He grunted in all the right places, trying to hurry things along so he could go to the upstairs apartment and fix the sink and get this long day and long night behind him. Once during dinner the phone rang—one long ring and three short rings—and they both ignored it. Their ring on this local party line was two long and two short; the other ring belonged to the Connors down the way.

He pushed his chair back, kissed her cheek, and said, “Back in a bit, girl. Boy’s asleep and—”

She started picking up the dishes. “Get along, Inspector. You still have work to do, and that boy had better still be asleep if you want to get lucky.”

“Lucky is the day you said yes to me,” he said, making it a point to look down the front of her dress when she bent to reach for his plate.

Another fleeting smile, and she moved her hand in a fluttering motion as if to shoo him away from leering. “You know what, Inspector? You are so right. Now make me proud and get to work.”