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Authors: Laurie R. King
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appeal now. I’d say they have a good chance of getting off, or at least getting reduced sentences. Hell, they’ve got half-decent alibis and there’s even another man’s confession floating around, they’re sure to get—”
“Stop!” Grey’s cry broke into the American’s monologue. He was cradling his head again, nursing its pain. “For God’s sake, man, if you don’t believe it, don’t say you do!”
Stuyvesant stared at the other man in bewilderment, which slowly edged into understanding.
He knows things,
Carstairs had said Saturday in Hyde Park.
He sees into people.
Well, Grey had just seen through the threadbare argument that Stuyvesant had held a thousand times over the past months, never quite managing to convince himself of its truth. The blunt fact was, Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were scapegoats who’d been loaded up with the country’s nightmares and driven in the direction of the execution chamber.
But if Bennett Grey could see through the determined self deception of a perfect stranger like Harris Stuyvesant, how could he possibly carry on everyday relations with his fellows? Was that why he lived ten miles from Nowhere? How could the poor bastard so much as go into town and buy a loaf of bread, if everyday guile hammered a tenpenny nail into his skull? “Sorry,” Stuyvesant said. “Yeah, you’re right. The truth is, I don’t know if those two’ll escape the electric chair. There’s a lot of people hot to make an example of them.” My boss, for one. “You know how it works—if you can’t find the real villains, find a couple of convenient ones and push them in people’s faces. I keep trying to convince myself that they’re going to win their appeal. I…I don’t much like feeling ashamed of my country.”
Grey relaxed a fraction. “Thank you. Now, you were telling me about your work.”
“Right.” Stuyvesant tipped back the lid of the kettle, decided the contents were close enough to boiling, poured water over the grounds in the pot, and was transported to another time and place.
Perhaps it happened because his mind was occupied with the matter of winning over this man, or because he felt momentarily safe from both the overt madness of London and the shadowy menace that seemed to accompany Aldous Carstairs. Or maybe there was something about his companion that evoked the memory, but at the crisp sound of water meeting coffee grounds and the rich uprush of aroma, Stuyvesant was abruptly standing in a place of eternal clamminess and muck, the weight of a helmet pushed back on his head, the awareness of lice in his armpits and groin, the ache of trench-foot on his toes. The rumble of guns was far away, not enough to bury the sound of Kowalsky reading aloud the latest drivel from his girlfriend in Sioux Falls, or the sound of the men up the trench playing poker, or the scraps of conversation Tim was having with Sergeant Jimmy DiCicco (nick-named The Padre because of his clean mouth), who was Stuyvesant’s partner in the business of Keeping Tim Safe.
Kowalsky was blown to pieces and The Padre took a bullet through the helmet when he poked his head over the parapet, and Tim…
The memory-moment held him, and his men were there, all of them whole and safe and immortal, while he brewed up coffee, in a calm moment, in the trenches.
Chapter Eight
S TUYVESANT BLINKED. The sandbagged walls vanished, replaced by a clean, dry, old-fashioned kitchen in the south of England. Boy, he thought, haven’t had a visitation of the past that strong in a long time. He pushed away the inevitable creeping sensation down the back of his neck and glanced at his companion, but Grey hadn’t noticed that his visitor was briefly out of the room. Where had the conversation got to? Oh yeah—work.
“Like I say, most of my cases have to do with Unions. This last year, I’ve been trying to run to earth rumors of what you might call outside consultation among the agitators. I mean, radicals
“Stop!” Grey’s cry broke into the American’s monologue. He was cradling his head again, nursing its pain. “For God’s sake, man, if you don’t believe it, don’t say you do!”
Stuyvesant stared at the other man in bewilderment, which slowly edged into understanding.
He knows things,
Carstairs had said Saturday in Hyde Park.
He sees into people.
Well, Grey had just seen through the threadbare argument that Stuyvesant had held a thousand times over the past months, never quite managing to convince himself of its truth. The blunt fact was, Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were scapegoats who’d been loaded up with the country’s nightmares and driven in the direction of the execution chamber.
But if Bennett Grey could see through the determined self deception of a perfect stranger like Harris Stuyvesant, how could he possibly carry on everyday relations with his fellows? Was that why he lived ten miles from Nowhere? How could the poor bastard so much as go into town and buy a loaf of bread, if everyday guile hammered a tenpenny nail into his skull? “Sorry,” Stuyvesant said. “Yeah, you’re right. The truth is, I don’t know if those two’ll escape the electric chair. There’s a lot of people hot to make an example of them.” My boss, for one. “You know how it works—if you can’t find the real villains, find a couple of convenient ones and push them in people’s faces. I keep trying to convince myself that they’re going to win their appeal. I…I don’t much like feeling ashamed of my country.”
Grey relaxed a fraction. “Thank you. Now, you were telling me about your work.”
“Right.” Stuyvesant tipped back the lid of the kettle, decided the contents were close enough to boiling, poured water over the grounds in the pot, and was transported to another time and place.
Perhaps it happened because his mind was occupied with the matter of winning over this man, or because he felt momentarily safe from both the overt madness of London and the shadowy menace that seemed to accompany Aldous Carstairs. Or maybe there was something about his companion that evoked the memory, but at the crisp sound of water meeting coffee grounds and the rich uprush of aroma, Stuyvesant was abruptly standing in a place of eternal clamminess and muck, the weight of a helmet pushed back on his head, the awareness of lice in his armpits and groin, the ache of trench-foot on his toes. The rumble of guns was far away, not enough to bury the sound of Kowalsky reading aloud the latest drivel from his girlfriend in Sioux Falls, or the sound of the men up the trench playing poker, or the scraps of conversation Tim was having with Sergeant Jimmy DiCicco (nick-named The Padre because of his clean mouth), who was Stuyvesant’s partner in the business of Keeping Tim Safe.
Kowalsky was blown to pieces and The Padre took a bullet through the helmet when he poked his head over the parapet, and Tim…
The memory-moment held him, and his men were there, all of them whole and safe and immortal, while he brewed up coffee, in a calm moment, in the trenches.
Chapter Eight
S TUYVESANT BLINKED. The sandbagged walls vanished, replaced by a clean, dry, old-fashioned kitchen in the south of England. Boy, he thought, haven’t had a visitation of the past that strong in a long time. He pushed away the inevitable creeping sensation down the back of his neck and glanced at his companion, but Grey hadn’t noticed that his visitor was briefly out of the room. Where had the conversation got to? Oh yeah—work.
“Like I say, most of my cases have to do with Unions. This last year, I’ve been trying to run to earth rumors of what you might call outside consultation among the agitators. I mean, radicals
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