Amerikan Eagle

At the nearest truck, a line had formed by the wooden tables. Paperwork was being checked, clipboards consulted. The men manning the tables shook their heads, made a motion with a thumb, and up into the rear of the truck the people went. As if they had practiced it before, the younger undesirables helped the older ones up.

“Shit,” someone whispered. “This is like those damn newsreels from Europe, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam replied. “I guess we’re all Europeans now.”

A motion caught his eye. A man came down the wooden steps alone, using crutches, one leg usable, the other cut off at the knee. RAF Lieutenant Reggie Hale, the guest of Walter Tucker. Staring straight ahead, moving slowly and deliberately, heading over to the examining table. Sam watched, hardly able to bear seeing the slow progress of the crippled pilot. Walter probably hadn’t gotten to him in time. When Hale got to the desk and started talking, the thought came to him of how the poor bastard would get into the rear of the truck.

That was what did it for him.

Sam left the line and went over to the desk, where Hale was speaking low and proper. “Old boy, I tell you, someone must have stolen my papers, because they were in my coat just last week.”

“Yeah, fine, that’s only the sixth time I’ve heard that in the last five minutes,” replied the bored National Guard clerk. “Come along, up on the truck and—”

“Hold on,” Sam said.

The RAF pilot swiveled on his crutches, his face expressionless. The clerk said to Sam, “Fella, get back where you belong, all right?”

Sam handed over his badge, not using LaCouture’s card, wanting to keep the FBI man out of this. “I’m Inspector Sam Miller of the Portsmouth Police Department. This man is Reggie Hale, right?”

The clerk glanced down at his clipboard. “Yeah, so what?”

“Hale is a material witness in an ongoing investigation I’m conducting. He’s to stay here.”

“Hey, Miller, I don’t need—”

“The name is Inspector Miller, pal,” Sam said. “And Hale stays here. Or I’ll go get the rest of the Portsmouth cops and leave, and you can see how well you do your job with twenty or so fewer men. How does that sound?”

The clerk had a little Clark Gable mustache that twitched some. He handed back Sam’s badge with a clatter. “Fine, take the fucking limey. I’ll put your name down as the guy I let him go to. In case he shoots the governor or something, it’ll be your neck. Get back where you belong.”

Sam walked back to the line, then glanced behind to see if Hale was following, but no, the RAF pilot had limped away and faded into the shadows.

Well, he thought, how about that.

One of his fellow cops said, “Sam, what the hell was that?”

“That was a lesson,” he answered. “Sometimes you do a favor and you don’t get anything in return. Except pissed-off people.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

He stood there, the wooden truncheon cold in his hand, as the arrests continued, as the trucks backed up with their growling diesels, the children crying, the whistles blowing, seeing it all, not wanting to see it, not wanting to hear it, but forcing himself to do it just the same.

After about an hour of watching the refugees get processed, the coffee he had drunk earlier had percolated through his kidneys and bladder. He said to Lubrano, “Hey, do you know anywhere a guy can take a leak?”

Lubrano shrugged. “Dunno. There’s an alley back there I used a couple of minutes ago.”

Sam left the line of police, found the alley. He went down the narrow stretch between two tenements, stinking of trash and urine. He found a couple of ash cans, propped up his wooden truncheon against the far wall, and unzipped his pants, did his business. Damn, what a night. After he was done, he zipped up his pants and—

Someone was singing.

There was a sharp moan of somebody in pain.

He picked up his truncheon, went down to the other end of the alley, heard some laughter. On the sidewalk, a streetlight illuminated a scene that froze him. A man lay on the sidewalk cowering, dressed in tattered clothes. Standing over him were two younger and better-dressed men, kicking him, laughing. Both wore short leather coats and blue corduroy pants. Two of Long’s boys hard at work, handing out their brand of street justice. The pair from the Fish Shanty, the guys whose car tires had been slashed.

“C’mon!” one yelled. “Let’s hear ya sing, ya drunk mackerel snapper!”

The other man laughed, too. “C’mon, sing! You know how to sing, don’t ya? Sing our song!”

The first one tossed his head back. “ ‘I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.’ ”

The man on the ground cried out, “Please, please, stop… I’ll… I’ll try! Jesus… just give me a sec… ow!”