Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” Eddie slapped the dash, then D.J.’s shoulder hard enough to wish he hadn’t. “It worked!”

  D.J.’s mustache rose above a smile that pushed his scarred cheeks high enough to wrinkle his eyes. “Edward my man, congratulations. I do believe you’ve done it.” He slapped Eddie’s knee. “Your gas may actually kill the right people someday. Be the blood in Roosevelt’s veins if we can get it to the deservin’.”

  Eddie didn’t want to think about “killing the right people,” just that his gas hadn’t killed anyone today. “Wish our RAF boys would wait till I worked out the kinks.”

  “No time.” D.J. frowned. “We’d all be living in the Hoovervilles and speaking German.”

  The Spitfire topped a second climb and dove toward the water. Eddie held his breath. The Spitfire . . . pulled out. Eddie shuddered. “Jesus Christ, man, park that thing. I can’t take another dive.”

  The pilot did a third dive, survived, banked, and landed. Eddie let his head roll on his neck. D.J. put the convertible in gear and tapped the accelerator. Eddie’s bodyguard/pal/desert-swami drove them onto Shaikh Hamad’s nearly finished causeway. Ultimately, this drive wasn’t just to watch this morning’s test flight away and apart from those it might kill, it was also another father-son chat. Eddie’s mouth had placed him in a pickle and he had respectfully declined D.J.’s offer, then demand, to intercede.

  D.J. was not partial to unaccepted wisdom. He tapped the pistol on the seat between them, then inhaled to begin his “grow the fuck up” speech and his “operational plan” for how this would be accomplished.

  Eddie looked away—never a good idea to antagonize a mountain lion. Eddie hid a grin, checking the Gulf that didn’t require checking. The gas worked. We did it. Eddie patted D.J.’s arm. In spite of D.J.’s temperament on days like today, D.J. was the difference between how bad it was and how bad it could be. He was mysterious when it suited him, disappearing into thin air when oil company executives from the USA were visiting, then reappearing without explanation. According to letters from Eddie’s mom, D.J. had repeatedly reached deep into Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to help the Owen family and even some of their neighbors, and D.J. had never mentioned that, either. He was always armed, asked for no quarter, and gave none when challenged. D.J. was a pal—that was for sure—but a pal who, unfortunately, saw a cold-blooded, merciless future with the absolute clarity of an Oklahoma tent shouter.

  D.J. tapped the pistol again. “I’ll be taking your notes and papers for safe keeping. Anything you got written down, give to me.”

  Eddie saluted.

  D.J. frowned. “Pay attention, wiseass. We’re settling tomorrow, today.”

  Eddie braced for the discussion of his immediate future. Avoiding D.J.’s grim predictions for mankind while building a refinery that would aid in this extinction had been easier than avoiding the endless Indian and Irish friction with the Brits. Eddie had not proven adept at minding his own business. The Sinn Féin–related arguments usually turned violent, always slowed construction, and, in the end, had snared Eddie a second time.

  Eddie focused on the Shaikh’s steel rigging, not “tomorrow’s business.” The Shaikh’s suspended steel and concrete causeway was a staggering achievement, lauded as one of the new wonders of the Arab world. And who wouldn’t agree? There was nothing like this in Dallas or even Chicago. Maybe the new bridge spanning San Francisco Bay, but it was only nine months old and having trouble, and loads of smart money was betting that the “Golden Gate” Bridge couldn’t/wouldn’t hold.

  “You can’t fight him,” D.J. said, breaking the silence. “Ryan Pearce will kill you. And you know I can’t let that happen; we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  Eddie settled into the leather and casualled an arm over the convertible’s door. Casual lasted two or three seconds until, just ahead of them, armed Royal Marines signaled them to stop.

  D.J. stopped the convertible.

  Eddie said, “Someone has to fight Pearce, but you shooting him isn’t an answer I want any part of. Not ’cause of me.”

  D.J. sniffed one side of his lip.

  Eddie said, “The man’s a bully. Just plain mean. And not as tough as y’all think. Make it a fair fight and I can handle him—”

  “Fair fight?” D.J. spit tobacco juice as the Marines approached. “It’s bare-knuckle here and you know it.” D.J. showed Eddie blotchy, knotted hands. “Like the picket lines. Better you get on one of these airplanes like Bill Reno said, ‘head to Bakersfield, pick some fucking fruit.’”

  “Like you’d let me? Hell, I haven’t been in a car in a year and a half. I’ve been handcuffed to a refinery cracking tower.”

  “Hands up!” A British sergeant squared up to the convertible’s front bumper and jabbed with a big pistol. “Out!”

  D.J. showed his hands and craned around the windshield. “D.J. Bennett, from the refinery.”

  The sergeant sidestepped and wheeled the pistol at Eddie.

  D.J. yelled, “He’s okay! Calm the hell down.”

  “Move your arse, Yank. Bomb on the deck.” Five rifles behind the sergeant were pointed at the windshield. “Out! Now!”

  D.J. opened his door and nodded Eddie out. Eddie looked past the rifles to the uniformed Brits clustered farther up the causeway. “Blow this bridge? Jesus, it’s a work of art.”

  D.J. spit again. “Shooting that Sinn Féin, IRA motherfucker won’t send the proper message. One of us is fightin’ him now; put that in the goddamn book. He and his fucking mates ain’t blowin’ my refinery.”

  Two Royal Marines rode in the jeep’s front seats, Eddie and D.J. in the back. The borrowed convertible had been lost to impound and bomb search. Eddie built queasy on top of nauseated. D.J. broke twenty minutes of bumpy silence as they approached the refinery gate, “Brits and the Shaikh are some lucky sumbitches. Fifty sticks of dynamite and a bad blasting cap. As our Irish friends would say, ‘She’d have been a banger.’” Eddie focused on the refinery’s twelve-foot chain-link fence bristling with three shifts of BAPCO guards. All had rifles now and combat stances. Every worker who approached the gate was braced and searched. Eddie’s stomach rolled again. The jeep passed through the gun barrels and grumbling Arab day laborers queuing.

  On the paycheck side of the fence, nobody was working. The Brits stationed at the refinery’s working perimeter used bayonets to ring back anyone who stepped near. Intel officers questioned East Indians with loud rebukes and occasional punches. Unhappy Irishmen who weren’t already handcuffed inside interrogation rooms faced British officers and BAPCO guards outside who waved cocked pistols and wanted to use them. D.J. and Eddie’s escort delivered them to the infirmary.

  In the treatment room, the American doctor slapped Eddie’s back. “First class, Eddie. First class. It’s New Year’s Eve in the RAF barracks, pilots drinking your gas from champagne glasses.”

  Visualizing a glass of gasoline made Eddie’s stomach churn. The doctor tonic’d Eddie, then asked D.J. a question about the diffused causeway bomb that D.J. didn’t answer. The doctor commented on tomorrow’s fight with Ryan Pearce. “Your stomach will be fine. Tomorrow, though, that’s another thing entirely.”

  Eddie tried to chuckle. “Who’d you bet on?”

  “Gave the four to one. Sorry, I’ve stitched up eight or nine of Pearce’s disagreements.” The doctor bit on his lip. “Wouldn’t have provoked him, had there been an alternative.”

  “Provoked him? Those half-breeds were dumbass teenagers working the cafeteria. Pearce baited them into that fight for nothing more than them saying, ‘Talley ho,’ after he told them to button up waving a Union Jack patch. I stepped in because the whole goddamn tent was just watching him beat them half to death.”

  D.J. said, “What you ‘stepped’ in again was none of your damn business.”

  A snarling Bill Reno stormed through the infirmary door and glared at Eddie. “Now we all got your damn problem.”

  Eddie shook his head. “How is it that
the Brits are always the bad guy? Who the hell are the Irish to decide you get your butt kicked if you wave the Union Jack? Jesus, what about the Japanese? Or the Germans or the Russians? Assuming the newspapers are true, those fellows aren’t fooling around. Especially if you’re Chinese or your family goes to church on Saturday.”

  The doctor said, “The Nazis and Japs aren’t occupying Northern Ireland, and Ryan Pearce isn’t Jewish: good Papist boy, I’d imagine.”

  Eddie checked his hands. “Who took me at four to one?”

  Bill Reno answered. “Hassim took the four to one. Seems the sandys like you. Probably because them boys you saved got part Arab blood.” Reno looked at D.J. “We got us a situation here—to finish this refinery we gotta have labor and we gotta have sponsors. We can’t have bombs, can’t have labor fighting one another wholesale.” Reno nodded at Eddie. “Gotta have their champions fight instead. Our boy has to fight, or at least show up to fight. Up to you, Bennett, to see Eddie don’t die.” Reno looked at everyone in the room. “Y’all think today’s test was the beginning of the good times, don’chya?” Reno stopped at Bennett and said, “I know you know what’s coming. Be just goddamn swell if you took your foot off the gas long enough for us to get out of here alive.”

  Ten goddamn hours. Bill Reno snarled into his coffee. Good, goddamn these sons-a-bitches. An entire day wasted to wrestle control of his goddamn refinery from Brit and BAPCO officers. A bunch of uniformed piss squeezers whose only corporate authority to impede him was their numbers, weapons, and willingness to use them. And the Irish couldn’t be outdone. Hell no, the mick bastards were threatening to strike, maybe kill them a foreman, too. Again, all because of Eddie goddamn Owen.

  Reno frowned till it hurt. Eddie goddamn Owen. Ten thousand miles west in the Carbon and Carbide Building, Eddie Owen wasn’t a fucking white-knight idiot; he was a goddamn hero. The coded field report Reno had submitted this morning on Eddie’s Mixture 41 had generated confetti parades on Standard Oil’s executive floors. And when the test rumors hit Wall Street later today or tomorrow, those execs and stockholders would be neck deep in AvGas money. If the sons-a-bitches got their air war, they’d be the richest men on the planet.

  Bill Reno surveyed his refinery from his trailer’s window. After Eddie and Bennett left the infirmary, the Royal Marines had gone after them a second time. The RAF group captain got the Marines to stand down before Bennett could shoot the Marine hostage he’d taken. Within minutes of the group captain cutting Bennett and Eddie loose, the Royal Marines began arresting all members and associates of Sinn Féin. Every goddamn one of the Irish bastards. Eddie Owen’s release had nothing to do with the Brits’ Sinn Féin dragnet, but that was a fact no Irishman in camp would ever believe. An hour ago the Brits had pronounced the refinery clean of bombs, then finished the Sinn Féin arrests by beating twelve Irishmen unconscious and almost to death.

  Reno rubbed feeling into his face. Somewhere in the day’s “lesser” events were options he was having trouble locating. Bahrain was a British protectorate, an important detail a guest or guest worker wanted to remember when King Georgie felt threatened. Tomorrow would be worse than today, the micks swearing blood for their jailed and beaten mates. Allowing Eddie’s fight was bad; canceling it would be worse. Fucking Okie had to square up on Ryan Pearce over some Arab kids no one gives a damn about in their own fucking countries . . .

  Reno paused. A bad thought trumped other bad thoughts.

  What if it had been Pearce who picked Eddie? Pearce wasn’t a flag waver, for Ireland or anyone else. Ryan Pearce was a hard-knuckled line boss who worked for money, fought for money, and probably killed for money. A fucking mercenary. Reno’s stomach knotted. Better stop the fight; the fight could be some kind of diversion . . . Sabotage? Like the causeway bomb? Who? Arabs? A family squabble—princes taking down the Shaikh? Hell, it could be Nazis. No, today’s successful test wasn’t known when Pearce’s fight started, but it for damn sure put this refinery on every chessboard from here to Iceland . . . True enough, but no Nazis would ever get in past the BAPCO and Royal Marine guards, not now or tomorrow during the fight.

  Reno yelled for Hassim, standing just four feet away and waiting. “We got work to do. Make sure there’s plenty of whiskey drunk in the canteen tonight. I wanna see boys with hangovers. Make noon tomorrow as painful as possible. You read me, Hassim?”

  Hassim nodded and extended an empty palm. “This will cost. The Irish have a strong thirst.”

  Eddie hadn’t slept well. High-noon sunlight ricocheted off the sand behind the infirmary. A homey West Virginia drawl lingered in his face. Eddie listened and wished he’d made other choices.

  “Ring’s leveled out and ready. Gotchya four fifty-five-gallon drums, brand-new posts cemented in their centers. Those are the corners. Stay out of ’em. Them drums’ll break a bone. Crowd’ll be close and just as dangerous.”

  Those bits of bare-knuckle wisdom belonged to a cauliflowered Logan County miner-turned-pipe-fitter, scarred arms and torso not much tighter than the steel cables Eddie had admired on the causeway. Eddie flexed his hands. The pipe fitter unwrapped Eddie’s knuckles, the smell of pickle brine so strong it made everybody’s eyes water.

  “Use his body.” The pipe fitter threw two soft punches at Eddie’s gut and glanced at D.J., frowning agreement. “Won’t break your hands on the body. Bust up his breathing apparatus. Step back and knock his block off. Simple as that.”

  Eddie nodded, staying with the fantasy that he could beat the Middleweight Champion of Europe.

  The miner-turned-pipe-fitter glanced at D.J. again, then Eddie. “Norfolk Railroad brought in fellas like ol’ Pearce. Called ’em ‘detectives,’ used ’em to break our strikes.” He bent his head into Eddie’s face, then turned to D.J. “This boy ain’t you in the day, Bennett; hell, he ain’t even me today. Ryan Pearce gonna kill this young fella if you let him fight.”

  Eddie couldn’t help the smile.

  The pipe fitter eased back from Eddie’s smile. “Funny? Them Belfast fellas think you yellow-dogged ’em to the Brits. They got kin beat half to death, others jailed up in that Naval Yard suffering God and Mother Jones knows what. Sure as I’m standin’ here, that Irishman’s gonna beat those Oklahoma kidneys outta your body.”

  “No he ain’t.”

  Eddie glanced up at D.J.’s comment. D.J. winked. “You stay away the first two or three rounds, that mick motherfucker will be begging for a trip to the barn.”

  “And how’s that?”

  D.J. patted his stomach. “Something the dumb sumbitch just ate.”

  The crowd was loud, drunk, and Irish, except one tiny wedge behind Eddie’s corner. From Eddie’s corner the crowd looked like slaughterhouse workers who’d run out of animals. Across the ring and naked to the waist, Ryan Pearce spoke with his three handlers. The Middleweight Champion of Europe was about one eighty, only twenty of that fat and well distributed. His wide shoulders were marked and blotchy from backslaps and rope burns. When he turned, he broke into an honest, unshaven grin and his typical two-finger salute. A nice fellow from twenty feet.

  Eddie heard encouragement above the general bloodlust. He turned and glanced over his shoulder at Hassim ringed by six Arabs in traditional dress and Bedouin keffiyeh. Crushed in behind them were a horde of Irishmen and a few BAPCO guards. Beyond them at the farthest of the crowd’s backs, Royal Marines edged in closer from their posts. Hassim shook both fists above his head, yelling something in Arabic. Eddie winked, scared shitless but ready to execute Mr. Pearce if the opportunity arose. Eddie was the bigger man, probably stronger, too, but not the more skilled or confident. Bare knuckles wasn’t really boxing, it was a roadhouse fight without weapons. Eddie checked the crowd again and figured the next three minutes would prove somewhat painful.

  The bell wasn’t as loud as the roar. The referee tapped Eddie’s shoulder, then pointed at Ryan Pearce, his hands up and ring center. The pipe fitter peeled Eddie’s robe—Bill Reno’s memento bathrobe fro
m the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. Eddie went left; Ryan went right. Two steps and they were throwing.

  Pearce looped a feint disguised as a right and hooked hard with his left. The fist caught Eddie’s shoulder and jarred his spine. Eddie spun and set his feet. A straight right from Pearce landed high on Eddie’s chest, knocked him back a step, and helped him duck a left that could’ve broken his jaw. Eddie countered from his crouch, landed underneath, and threw a left high and hard for Pearce’s chin. A right dug deep into Eddie’s kidney. He buckled, tried to stagger back, and took a hook square on the temple. Big white flashes and Eddie was breathing dirt. He rolled to his shoulders. Sun stung his eyes. Boot tops and hairy white legs provided some shadow.

  “Four.” A hand went by his face. “Five.” Another hand. “Six.”

  Eddie rolled and made a knee. Blinks added less fuzz. “Seven.” Ryan Pearce materialized in his corner, arms over the ropes. “Eight.”

  Eddie stood, wobbled, blinked for depth perception. The referee checked Eddie’s eyes from kissing distance, paused, then waved at Pearce. Nice smile, hands up, and here he comes. Eddie waited. Pearce dallied leaving his corner. The crowd roar registered, as did the feeling in Eddie’s feet. Lots of information all at once.

  Son-of-a-bitch Irishman can hit, can’t he?

  Pearce circled. Eddie blinked. A jab snapped in Eddie’s face, then another. Eddie ducked the first, slipped the second, intending to eat the third. Would hurt but be worth it. Pearce’s jab landed; his timed follow missed. Eddie hooked him chin-high and hard, threw the follow right and another left. Bang, bang, bang. Pearce buckled, tossed a nothing right, and tried to unravel away on his heels. Eddie nailed a straight right that split Pearce’s eye. Pearce staggered into the ropes, blood gushing. Eddie charged. Pearce bucked off the ropes, bent low and head rising. The head butt caught Eddie under the chin. He was conscious, staring into the sun again. Both hands hurt. The blood in Eddie’s mouth made him cough and roll.

  “Two.” A hand in his face. “Three.” The damn hand again. “Four.”