Amerikan Eagle

“In London, Prime Minister Mosley met again with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. The talks were conducted to review terms of the armistice agreement signed between Great Britain and Germany two years ago. One of the main areas of disagreement, according to Washington diplomatic sources, is the number of German troops that are allowed to be based in Great Britain and some of her overseas possessions.

“In Montreal, a surprise visit from a trade delegation from the Soviet Union raised suggestions in some quarters that the government of Canada may be seeking closer ties to its neighbor to the west.

“Closer to home, President Huey Long signed a bill today ensuring that all Americans receiving federal assistance of any type sign a loyalty oath to the government, guaranteeing, as the President said, that patriotism will continue to thrive during his second term. The bill, called the Patriot Enhancement Act, will be enacted into law immediately. A violation of the loyalty oath will mean an automatic prison term.

“On Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, fresh from his attendance at a meeting of the World Jewish Congress, was unsuccessful in his attempts to convince Congress to increase the number of Jewish refugees allowed into the United States this year.

“Also from Washington, unemployment figures released from the Department of Labor indicate that more Americans are working today than at any time before and that—”

Sam reached out and switched off the radio. News of the world. Mostly lies, half-truths, and exaggerations. Everyone knew that the unemployment numbers were cooked. Every month more and more Americans were supposedly working over a decade after the stock market crash. But he saw with his own eyes what was true, from the hobo encampments by the railroad tracks, to the rush of unemployed men at the shipyard gates when a rumor spread that five pipefitters had been killed in an accident, to the overcrowded tenements in town.

That was the truth. That desperate numbers of people were still without jobs, without relief, without hope. And nothing over the radio would change what he knew. He rolled over, tried to relax, but two thoughts kept him awake.

The thought of three stones piled up on his rear porch.

A series of blurry numerals, tattooed into a dead man’s wrist.

Both mysteries. Despite his job, he hated mysteries.

INTERLUDE II

Now he was back in the shadowy streets of old Portsmouth, where there were lots of homes from the 1700s, with narrow clapboards, tiny windows, and sagging roofs. He kept to the alleyways and crooked lanes, ducking into a doorway each time he saw an approaching headlight. When he got where he had to be, he crouched beneath a rhododendron bush, waited some more. He thought about these old homes, about the extraordinary men who had come from this place, had gone out to the world and made a difference. Did they feel then what he felt now? The history books claimed they were full of courage and revolutionary spirit. But he didn’t feel particularly full of anything; he was just cold and jumpy, knowing that behind every headlight could be a car full of Interior Department men or Long’s Legionnaires.

Across the street, the door of an old house opened and a man stepped out, silhouetted by the light. The man looked around, bent over, put two empty milk bottles on the stoop, then went back inside.