But Colonel Shteinberg had to nod. Bokov also recognized a death-camp serial number. This fellow had seen hell on earth, all right. If he kept mouthing off, he might get to compare the Nazi and Soviet versions of it, too.
“And before they shipped me to Auschwitz, they had me digging their fucking mines for them in the mountains,” the Jew went on. “I go through all that, I live through all that, and your miserable shithead puts a hole in my leg. The way you talk, I should thank him.”
“Maybe you should,” Shteinberg said. “He could have hit you in the head.”
“Wait,” Vladimir Bokov said. Both Colonel Shteinberg and the DP looked at him in surprise. Bokov eyed the survivor. “You say you worked in the mines in the mountains. Down in the Alps?”
“That’s right,” the skinny man said. “What about it?”
“Were you just…digging out gypsum or whatever it was?” Bokov asked.
“No-tea with fucking lemon wedges,” the DP snapped. “What the devil else would I be doing down there?”
Bokov seldom faced such sarcasm, not from a man he was interrogating. The half-swallowed chuckle that came from Colonel Shteinberg didn’t help, either. Doing his best to ignore sarcasm and amusement, Bokov asked, “Did the Nazis care how much you brought up?”
“They cared how much I dug,” the wounded Jew answered. “If you didn’t do enough to suit ’em, you were a goner right there.”
“But did they care how much-fuck, call it gypsum-you brought up, or just how much you dug?” Bokov persisted, excitement tingling through him despite his best efforts to hold it down.
“Oh,” Shteinberg said softly. “I know what you’re driving at.”
“I sure don’t,” the DP said. Shteinberg had spoken Russian, not Yiddish or German. The DP still followed him.
That didn’t surprise Bokov, not after his earlier guesses. “Just answer my question,” he snapped, this time with an NKVD officer’s authority in his voice.
After frowning in memory-and, no doubt, in pain as well-the DP said, “As long as we moved rock, they didn’t give a shit. Some of us thought it was funny. Some of us just thought the Nazis were meshigge.”
“Nuts,” Shteinberg translated, adding, “That’s an ass-end-of-nowhere dialect of Yiddish he talks.”
“Who, me?” The skinny Jew sounded affronted. “I’m no dumb Litvak who goes fiss like a snake when he means fish.”
“Shibboleth,” Moisei Shteinberg murmured, which seemed to mean something to the DP even if it didn’t to Bokov. Shteinberg took out a clasp knife and cut some cloth from the DP’s already-ragged trouser leg so he could bandage the bloody gouge. Then Shteinberg frisked him. He found a small chunk of a D-ration bar and-much better hidden-a U.S. five-dollar and a ten-dollar bill. “Where’d you get these?” he asked. “Tell it straight the first time, or you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry? I’m already sorry,” the skinny man said. Before Shteinberg could say anything else, he went on, “Yeah, I know-I’ll be sorrier. You people know how to take care of that. The guys who gave me the money were a couple of American soldiers. Officers, even, I think. They gave me the chocolate, too. It’s not so great, but it fills you up. I’ve been empty a lot.”
“Americans, eh?” Bokov sounded less suspicious than he would have most of the time. His own thoughts were racing in a different direction. Eyeing the DP, he asked, “Were they Jews, too?”
“Yeah. They talked Yiddish to me, not German. Better than him, too-one of them sounded just like me.” The man sneered at Shteinberg. Captain Bokov wouldn’t have wanted to piss off an NKVD colonel, but the DP didn’t seem to give a damn. “They treated me a hell of a lot better all the way around, if you want to know what I think.”
“Fat chance,” Shteinberg said.
Bokov thought exactly the same thing at the same time. All the same, he asked, “This place where the Nazis had you digging-could you find it again? Could you show us where it is?” He leaned forward, waiting for the answer.
The DP said only, “It ain’t in your zone.”
“I understand that.” Bokov could be patient when he needed to. “But could you?”
“Maybe.” The skinny Jew wasn’t about to admit anything, not till he knew which way the wind blew.
Shteinberg made a fist and brought it down-on the cement next to the fellow’s wounded leg. “Then…maybe…we won’t have to get rough to find out.”
“Are you still thinking along with me, sir?” Bokov asked.
The colonel smiled a vulpine smile. “Maybe,” he said.
The Fourth of July had always been Diana McGraw’s favorite holiday-well, except for Christmas, which was a different kind of thing altogether. The Fourth went with picnics and beer and sometimes going to the park to listen to bands and patriotic songs and speeches and waiting through the long hot sticky day for nightfall at last and cuddling with Ed while fireworks set the sky ablaze above them and the kids went “Ooooo!”
And here was the Fourth come round again. Here she was in a park again, only in Indianapolis, not Anderson. The McGraws had gone to the state capital a couple of times before the war, to see if the fireworks were better. Once they were. They weren’t the next time, so the family didn’t go back.
Diana looked out at the throng of people in the park with her, at the throng of American flags, at the throng of placards. They stretched from just in front of the speakers’ platform to too far away to read, but the ones she couldn’t make out were bound to say the same things as the ones she could. If you were here today, you wanted Harry Truman to bring the boys home from Germany.
If you were here today…She turned to the Indianapolis police officer who stood on the platform with her and the other people who would talk in a while. “How big a crowd to you think we’ve got today, Lieutenant Offenbacher?”
Offenbacher’s beer belly and double chin said he spent most of his time at a desk. He didn’t look happy standing here sweating in the sun. Still, he shaded his eyes with a hand and peered out over the still-swelling mass of people. “From what I can see, and from what I’ve heard from the men on crowd-control duty, I’d say, mm, maybe fifteen or twenty thousand folks.”
Experience had taught Diana that cops cut the size of crowds by at least half-more often two-thirds-when they didn’t like the cause. By now, she’d had a good deal of practice gauging them, too. This one looked more like forty or fifty thousand to her. But even Offenbacher’s estimate was impressive enough.
“Just think,” she said brightly. “We’ve got rallies like this in every big city from coast to coast-and in a lot of cities that aren’t so big, too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lieutenant Offenbacher’s voice held no expression whatever.
They had governors and Congressmen and Senators speaking at the rallies, too. It had been less than two years since Diana started her movement. Back then, most politicians wanted nothing to do with it or with her. Jerry Duncan, bless him, was the exception, not the rule. But things had changed. Oh, yes, just a little!
And they also had actors and actresses speaking. It wasn’t bad publicity, not any more. They had singers. They had ministers and priests-next to no rabbis. They had baseball players. (Not all of them, of course. What Ted Williams told them to do with their invitation wasn’t repeatable in polite company. It wasn’t physically possible, either.) They had writers-newspapermen and novelists.
They had some of just about every kind of people who could make other people listen. No, Diana hadn’t known what she was getting into when she started out. She also hadn’t known how many others she could bring along with her.
And they still had people who hated their guts. The cops Offenbacher led weren’t just keeping the anti-occupation crowd orderly. They were also keeping counter-demonstrators from wading into the crowd with their own picket signs-and with baseball bats and tire irons and any other toys they could get their hands on. Some of the chants that rose from their opponents might have made Ted Williams blush.
> “Can’t your men arrest them for public obscenity?” Diana asked Offenbacher.
“Well, they could,” the boss cop allowed. “Maybe if things get worse.”
“Worse? How?”
“You never know,” Lieutenant Offenbacher said. Diana understood that much too well. The Indianapolis police sympathized with the counter-demonstrators. They wouldn’t do anything against them they didn’t absolutely have to.
Time to get the show on the road. Diana stepped up to the microphone. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, and paused while cheers and applause drowned out the noise from the opposition’s peanut gallery. “Thank you for coming out this afternoon. We’ve got some terrific people lined up to talk to you, and we’ve got one of the best fireworks shows in town waiting for you after the sun goes down.” More cheers, maybe even louder this time. As they ebbed, Diana went on, “But most of all, thank you for being here, no matter why you came. We still need to show Harry Truman and all the people in Washington with their heads in the sand that there are lots and lots of us, and we aren’t about to go away!”
A great roar swelled up from the crowd: “That’s right!”
“It sure is,” Diana said. “And now it’s my pleasure to introduce our first speaker, City Councilman Gus van Slyke!”
Van Slyke had a belly even bigger than Lieutenant Offenbacher’s. He’d made a fortune selling used cars. He hadn’t come down one way or the other on the German occupation till a friend’s nephew got wounded over there. That convinced him. (That he couldn’t stand Truman probably didn’t hurt.)
“We won the war. By gosh, we did,” he said. His voice was gruff and growly, like a bear’s just waking from hibernation. “Now enough is enough. What are we doing over there in Europe? We’re getting good young men, our best, killed and maimed. We aren’t accomplishing anything doing it. The fanatics are still there, no matter what we’ve tried. And how much money have we flushed away? Billions and bill-”
When Diana heard the sharp pop! it didn’t register as anything but a backfire. But Gus van Slyke fell over. Something warm and wet splashed Diana’s arm-she was wearing a sleeveless dress because of the heat. It was blood. She could smell it. She could smell something else, too-van Slyke had fouled himself. His feet drummed on the platform, but not for long. He lay in a spreading pool of his own gore.
Diana jammed a hand in her mouth to keep from shrieking. Out in the crowd, people did start screaming. Some of them tried to run away. They stepped on other people. No, they trampled them-they weren’t being polite about it. More screams and yells and wails rang out, which only led to more trampling as chaos spread.
Lieutenant Offenbacher stepped around the red, red pool as he strode to the microphone. “This assembly is canceled,” he declared. “This is a crime scene, a murder investigation.” That didn’t stop the panic in the crowd, either. If anything, it made matters worse.
The fireworks got canceled, too.
Official Washingtoncelebrated the Fourth of July on the Mall. The President made a speech. No doubt it was full of patriotic fervor. The fireworks display was second to none. With Uncle Sam footing the bill, they could afford to make it lavish.
Tom Schmidt wasn’t there. Somebody else was covering President Truman’s hot air for the Chicago Tribune. Unofficial Washington gathered in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, to tell official Washington what it thought of Truman’s German policy. Official Washington, of course, was hard of hearing.
“No,” Tom muttered as Clark Griffith, who owned the Washington Senators-first in boos, first in shoes, last in the American League-tore into Truman. “Official Washington is hard of listening.”
“What’s that?” another reporter asked him.
“Nothing. Just woolgathering,” Tom lied. He wrote the line down. Sure as hell, it would help the column along.
Griffith finally ran out of words and backed away from the microphone. Next batter up was Congressman Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Dirksen had kind of fishy features, wildly curly hair, and the exaggerated gestures of a Shakespearean ham actor. The combination should have made him ridiculous. Somehow, it didn’t. His baritone bell of a voice had a lot to do with that. So did the genuine outrage that poured from him now.
“Out in Indiana, they are killing us-killing us, I tell you!” he thundered, pounding a fist down on the lectern. “Councilman Augustus van Slyke tried to exercise his rights under the First Amendment of our great Constitution. He tried to peaceably petition our government for redress of grievances. And our government has a great many grievances to redress, but I shall speak of that another time. Augustus van Slyke tried to tell the truth to the powers that be, and what became of him? What became of him? He was shot dead, my friends, shot down like a dog in the highway, without so much as a bunch of lace at his throat!”
Something stirred in Tom Schmidt as he scribbled notes. That was from a poem. He’d read it in high school. “The Highwayman,” that was it, though he was damned if he could remember who wrote it. Well, he could check Bartlett’s when he got back to the bureau. Only somebody like Dirksen (though there wasn’t really anybody like Dirksen-he was one of a kind) would throw a poem into a political speech.
But it worked. The hum that rose from the crowd said it worked. Half the people there, maybe more, must’ve read “The Highwayman” or heard somebody recite it. Dirksen might be a crazy fox, but a fox he was.
“How dare they? How dare they?” He pounded the lectern again. “They are no longer content with lying to us. No, that does not satisfy them any more, for they begin to see that we begin to see through the tissue of their lies. And so, where words will not suffice them, they commence to argue with bullets. But will even bullets stop us, friends?”
“No!” the crowd roared. That cry must have rattled windows in the White House. Harry Truman wasn’t there to hear it-he’d be speechifying to his friends right now. If he had any friends. To his supporters, anyhow. Maybe he’d hear it on the Mall, too.
Hammier than any actor, Dirksen cupped a hand behind one ear. “What was that?” he asked mildly.
“No!” That oceanic crowd-roar came again, even louder this time. Tom’s ears rang. A little nervously, he wondered how many people here carried guns. Some pulp horror writer-Schmidt couldn’t come up with his name, either, and it wouldn’t be in Bartlett’s-once advanced a rule about raising demons. Do not call up that which you cannot put down. Had Everett Dirksen ever heard of that rule? The White House was right across the street. If the crowd tried to storm it, Councilman van Slyke wouldn’t be the only one who got shot today. Unh-unh. Not even close.
“They say, in Indianapolis, they have yet to find the murderer-to find the filthy assassin.” Dirksen hissed the last word with poisonous relish. “He shot a man dead in broad daylight, before witnesses uncounted, and they have yet to find him? My friends, how hard are they looking?”
Another roar rose up from the throng gathered together in the hot, sticky July night. This one was wordless, and all the angrier for that. Suddenly, Tom Schmidt wasn’t just anxious any more. He was scared green. Politics was what you did instead of shooting people who didn’t think like you. But once you started shooting, where did you stop? Anywhere?
If the Second Revolution-or maybe the Second Civil War-starts here, it’s a hell of a story, yeah, Tom thought, but am I gonna live long enough to file it?
And then he caught a break. Maybe the whole country caught a break-he was never sure afterwards, but he always thought so. Over on the Mall, the super-duper fireworks show began.
The noise was like gunfire, but the polychrome flameflowers and torrents of blazing sparks exploding across the velvet-black sky proclaimed by their beauty their peace. Everett Dirksen looked over his shoulder at them. That was probably sheer reflex to begin with, but he seemed transfixed by the spectacle-he couldn’t look away.
At last, he did. He lifted his glasses with one hand and rubbed at his eyes with the other
. Then, softly at first but with his great voice swelling as the words poured out of him, he began to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was a bitch of a song to sing, but he did it. He raised his hands, and the crowd joined in.
Tom Schmidt started singing before he quite realized he was doing it. He couldn’t carry a tune in a sack, but it didn’t matter right then. None of the reporters nearby sounded any better than he did. Chances were most of the people in Lafayette Park wouldn’t run Alfred Drake or Ethel Merman out of business any time soon, either. That also turned out not to matter. Added all together, they sounded pretty damn good.
“The bombs bursting in air…” Tears ran unashamed down Everett Dirksen’s cheek, glistening in the spotlights. Did he mean them, or could he bring them on at command? With Dirksen, you never could tell. But half the hard-bitten newshounds near Tom were sniffling, too, as bombs did burst in air. And nobody stormed the White House.
XXV
NKVD Lieutenant General Yuri Pavlovich Vlasov wore a permanent scowl. I would, too, Vladimir Bokov thought, warily eyeing Vlasov’s pinched, pulled-down mouth and angry, bristly eyebrows. The assistant chief of the NKVD’s Berlin establishment was cursed, and would be cursed till the day he died, with an unfortunate family name.
Red Army General Andrei Vlasov was the worst traitor the USSR had had in the Great Patriotic War. After surrendering to the Nazis, he’d commanded what Goebbels called the Russian Liberation Army, a Fascist puppet force of other Soviet traitors. And, after the Wehrmacht surrendered, he’d been captured and shot, and better than he deserved, too.
Yuri Vlasov had no family connection to him; the surname wasn’t rare. But the stench that went with it lingered. No Soviet citizen could say the word Vlasovite without feeling as if shit filled his mouth. Vlasov met the problem the same way Captain Bokov would have were he stuck with it: by acting ten times as tough as he would have otherwise.
The Man with the Iron Heart Page 45
