Allegiance (48 page)

The fever broke some time in the early morning and I woke soaked in sweat, wrung out like a rag. Clara smiled at me. “Better?” she asked. I had to tell her. I needed to know if it was true, I said. I wouldn't blame her.

Clara just shook her head. “I didn't say those things.”

“You were asleep,” I said. “I heard it.”

“You didn't. You were the one who was asleep,” she said. “That was a nightmare.
It happens with fever. I know because I sat up all night.” She showed me a piece of knitting. “I was watching you.”

It was beyond my comprehension then, and as I look into her eyes, it still is. I cannot put it all together; I cannot grasp the arithmetic of her. It eludes me, the sum of hair and eyes and lips, of fine high cheekbones and slender hands.

Her fingers stroke my face. “My boy,” she says.

• • • • 

And so we go on. Clara finds work as a typist, for which sixty words a minute will still get you twenty-five dollars a week. She sits at my table in the mornings and reads the paper. March turns to April; the Allies push on into Germany. Clara reads about figures in striped pajamas and wheelbarrows of the dead. She reads about hundreds of thousands of shoes.

Hoover makes us no more threats. His men catch up with Miller in a Santa Rosa alley and they shoot more accurately than I did that night in Tule Lake. I suppose he considers the matter closed.

I do not. I do not have FBI investigators anymore, but I use Biddle's connections at the SEC. It is an arduous process, sifting through all the trades in the stock of companies Gene Gressman identified, and harder still to trace it back to Joe or Cissy. Their complex sprawl of holdings masks responsibility. There is suspicious activity, but I cannot pin it on them. Not yet.

But with enough time I can, and it seems I will have that time. They will not try to stop me. For weeks after my return from Tule Lake I walk with one eye scanning shop window reflections, double back on my tracks. But no one is following me. Richards was right, I guess. No one is trying to kill me; for some reason, I have been spared.

Then comes the afternoon of April 12, when all the phones ring at once and a secretary runs through the halls crying out, “He's dead.” The
Times-Herald
has no words on the front page, just a photograph bordered in black.

The war does not wait. The day Roosevelt dies, the Ninth Army crosses the Elbe. By the end of April, Hitler is dead. The surrender is official a week later. That evening, for the first time since Pearl Harbor, lights come on atop the Capitol dome.

At Main Justice, another torrent of letters begins to arrive for the Alien Enemy Control Unit. The renunciants are changing their minds.

• • • • 

I signed against my will. My husband signed, and whatever he does, I have to be loyal to him.

I was a member of the Hoshidan and was told that unless I renounced, the US Army would draft me after the Relocation Authority forced us outside.

I never wanted to renounce. My parents wanted to take me back to Japan, and we heard Japan would not accept anyone who was an American citizen. They begged and cried. I gave in to make them happy.

The Hoshidan knew who had renounced and who had not. They threw rocks on the roof and through the window of our barracks. I was afraid for myself and my sisters.

I heard that all Japanese would be deported to Japan and the citizens forced to remain here. I did not want my family separated.

You put us there because you were scared. I forgive you for that. Can you forgive me nothing?

• • • • 

“You have to help them,” Clara says.

“There's nothing we can do,” Francis Biddle tells me. “It's the law. They did it willingly.”

Again I remember the terrified faces. The children of the picture brides. Pictures are what will be left, empty gardens, empty homes. “And we enforce the law, no matter what it is?”

“That's what the Department of Justice does, yes.”

At my office there is one addressed to me personally, from Harry Nakamura. His wife renounced, he reports.
Sachiko believed the rumors. She thought that if she did not renounce she would be forced to leave the camp. Fresno is a dangerous place now. I advised her not to. I commanded. I begged. Nothing would change her mind. She was hysterical.

Now she knows the rumors are false and that in a few moments of panic she has thrown away her happiness, her future, and her family. She tells me to go out and take our three children, that she will stay behind alone and commit suicide. She did not renounce out of disloyalty. She would never do anything against this country. Can you help us?
I am sitting at my desk, wondering how to answer that question, when my phone rings. It is Bill Richards.

“I'd like to chat,” he says. “But not over the phone.”

I agree that this is wise. At his suggestion, we meet at the round bar of the Willard Hotel. “Henry Clay made Washington's first mint julep here,” Richards says. He wipes sweat from his forehead. “Mixed it himself. There's no better summer drink.”

“I'm working.” This is not really true. There is nothing for me to do at Main Justice, nothing I want to do, anyway.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” says Richards, signaling to the bartender. “I have some news for you.”

“What?”

“Joe Patterson will see you.”

“When?”

“Up to you. But I'd recommend sooner rather than later. At your earliest convenience, I would say.”

I look around the room. At the round bar in the center, men in suits are drinking lunch. No one looks at us, in our black leather booth against the wall.

“What does he have to tell me?”

“I don't know.” Richards sips his drink and sighs in appreciation. A fleck of mint clings to his upper lip. “I tend my business; he tends his. He just said to send you over. If you're so curious, go now.”

I nod my head and get up without another word. “Good luck,” says Richards, raising his glass.

• • • • 

The man who answers the door at the Dupont Circle house has a different expression this time. I would not call it welcoming, but there is a note of approval. His overall tone is somber, though. When I am ushered upstairs to Joe Patterson's room I can see why, and why Richards recommended I visit soon.

Joe Patterson is not well. From the evidence of my eyes, I would say he is dying. He reclines on a chaise longue in a red silk robe, and where it falls away I can see wasted sticklike limbs. Something has happened to the texture of his skin.

“Calvin Coolidge stayed here for six months,” he says. The rasp in his voice is stronger. His face still has that pleasant quizzical expression, as though he wants to be my friend and can't understand what keeps us apart. “He fed his dogs on the dining room rug. Cissy was quite displeased.” He clears his throat with effort.

“I suppose you know why I've come.”

“Why I sent for you,” he corrects me. “I know well enough. I have principles, Mr. Harrison.”

“Sure you do,” I say. “Like creases in paper.”

His expression grows even more quizzical. “I don't follow you.”

“No, you don't. Never mind.”

“I have something to say to you,” he says. “And not much time to do it.” Something darker glitters in his eyes. “I swore I'd outlive that bastard Roosevelt, and I made it, by God.”

“So what is it?” I know I am being rude, but I do not much care.

“That I am sorry.”

“For killing my friends? For trying to kill me?”

“I am sorry those things happened. I could have stopped them, if I had kept closer watch.” He coughs, drowning in his own body. Soon he will escape it. “But my attention has wandered.”

“You mean it was Cissy? Is that what you're trying to tell me?”

“Cissy?” He sounds puzzled. Then he nods. “Ah, the parties.”

“Yes, the parties. You wanted to recruit me, is that it? Thought I'd join your little club?”

“We thought to sound out your views, yes.”

“And I failed your test.”

“You did not pass. You were under the sway of Drew Pearson and Francis Biddle.”

“I didn't know anyone here. They're from Philadelphia.”

It starts as a laugh, I think, but by the time it comes from his mouth it is a cough. “That means so much to you,” he says.

“It's something.”

“It is something. But perhaps not what you believe it is.”

“I'll take the State in Schuylkill over the Anti-Federalist Society, thanks.”

“Who says you have to choose?” He pauses. Again the laugh struggles with the cough in his throat. “We are not bad men, Cash.”

“You really think that?”

“Someday you may be grateful to us.”

“Why would that be?”

“We tried to influence the Court,” Patterson says. “And we failed. We could not stop Roosevelt. But we have learned.”

“You learned how to make a buck?”

He shakes his head. “We learned that the courts are not enough. We must plant ideas among the people. And we have. Seeds will sprout. You will see them, you or your children. When the next one comes, we will be ready. The next one who tries to crush liberty under the heel of government, to take what makes this country special. The people will be ready.”

“That's a pretty speech,” I say. “But it's not what you were doing. I know about the cert grants. I found the stock trades. You killed people for money, that's all.”

“That was not my doing.”

“But it was done.”

“It was not me. I only wanted to tell you that. What happened to your friends, what happened in California, you must take it up with him.”

“Him?” I do not understand. “If it wasn't you, it was Cissy. Brutus and the Farmer.”

“No,” Patterson says. “The Farmer, I chose that name. Silly. But Cissy had no part.”

“Then who is Brutus?”

He shakes his head as though disappointed in me. “Why, the man who put you here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You still do not know?” His tone is gentle. “I thought you kept track of each other.”

There is a prickle at the back of my neck. “Who?”

Something catches in Patterson's throat and his next words are barely audible. At first I am sure I have mistaken them. “Who?”

Now the words are clear. There is a hiss to them, and a look on his face that says he no longer wants to be friends. Perhaps he has had his fill of us. “You Philadelphia boys.”

WASHINGTON TO PHILADELPHIA
is 130 miles or so, and you can do it in a little under three hours on a good day, with the sun out and the road dry and the engine humming along like it's glad to be on the way. Things are different if night is falling and you're half the time shaking with rage and blinded by tears the rest. And it is past dark when I knock on that familiar door in Haverford.

Judge Skinner looks surprised to see me, but he looks pleased, too. He has been out this evening but has returned. The stiff white shirt is open at the neck and he has taken off his jacket and thrown on a robe. “Cash,” he says, and his voice is warm. Then the smile weakens and the voice dips half a notch to indicate disappointment. “I'm afraid Suzanne is not in.”

“No, Judge,” I say. “I'm here for you.”

The smile returns in full force. “Well, then,” he says. “Come in, come in.”

I follow him to the library. There is the familiar smell of the leather-bound books, the slow drying and decay of the pages. It seemed beautiful in a sad sort of way when I realized that history itself sinks into the past, that even the law fades. It does not seem beautiful to me now.

“You must have been driving for hours,” says the Judge. He motions me to a red leather chair. “I'll wager you still drink Scotch.”

I do not sit. “Did you put me there?” On the way up I have given this conversation as much thought as I was able, and this is my opening move.

For the briefest of instants there is a different look on the Judge's face, one almost of alarm. Then it is gone, so completely that anyone would think it must have been a shift of the light and not something from the face itself. “Put you where, my boy?”

“The Supreme Court.”

The Judge chuckles, deep and comforting. “Cash, you overestimate me. You think I can make Hugo Black hire someone? Or Herbert Wechsler pick up the phone? You flatter me. Are you sure you would not like a drink?” I say nothing. “Well, I will have a Scotch. A visit from you is worth celebrating.” He turns to the crystal decanter.

“Did you put me there?”

He turns back, and his face is older. “You put yourself there, Cash. I only made a space for you.”

“So you manipulated the hiring,” I say. “You and your Anti-Federalist Society.”

There is sorrow on the Judge's face. Only someone who knew what he was looking for would guess that under it is relief. He purses his lips and exhales. For a long time he says nothing, looking down at his hands. Then, slowly, he starts to speak. “We were men like any others,” he says. “We loved our country.” He is making a clean breast of things. “We were alarmed by the direction it was taking, worried that what made America special might be lost.” He raises his head. “Francis Biddle invited Felix Frankfurter to address the Fly Club. Did you know that?”

“I heard.”

He shakes his head. “It would not have happened before Roosevelt. Some of us met elsewhere that night. We found that we shared concerns. Roosevelt was a Fly man himself, you know. One of us. Our responsibility, in a way. We agreed that we should do what we could to preserve our country.”

“You started a club.”

He smiles. “It is the Philadelphia way. We knew there were limits to what we could achieve. We hoped to strengthen the will of the Supreme Court. We failed, of course. The Court gave up; it let Roosevelt do as he wished.”