Joe Steele Read online

  When he did go in there, he commonly found John Nance Garner perched on his usual barstool. Joe Steele ran the country. Joe Steele, in fact, ran most of the world that wasn’t Red. The USA was the only big power that hadn’t had its economy ravaged by war. The American economy had boomed louder than American guns. Anyone who wanted help had to keep the President happy.

  John Nance Garner presided over this tavern and the United States Senate. Comparing the time he spent in the Cabinet to the time he spent here, Charlie knew which part of his little domain mattered more to him. Well, with things as they were in Washington during Joe Steele’s fifth term, the bartender here held more power than the Senate did.

  When Charlie walked in on a mild spring afternoon, Garner greeted him with, “Hey, if it ain’t Charlie Sullivan! How are things out in the real world, Sullivan?” A cigarette in his hand sent up a thin strand of smoke. The full ashtray in front of him said he’d been here a while. So did the empty glasses.

  “The real world? What’s that? I work in the White House,” Charlie said, and then, to the bartender, “Wild Turkey over ice, please.”

  “Comin’ right up, suh,” the Negro replied. Charlie slid a half-dollar and a dime tip across the bar. Prices had climbed after the war; not even Joe Steele could keep them down, any more than King Canute had been able to hold back the tide.

  Garner puffed, chuckled, and puffed again. “Hell, I wouldn’t know. Damned if I remember the last time I went inside there. Joe Steele don’t want me around. I’m a poor relation. I embarrass him.”

  “If you embarrassed him, he wouldn’t put you on the ticket every four years,” Charlie said. He didn’t think that was the problem at all. The need to have a Vice President reminded a President of his mortality. These days, Joe Steele’s own body was giving him reminders like that. He didn’t need John Nance Garner around to rub them in.

  “Sonny, the only reason I stay on there is ’cause he knows I don’t make waves,” Garner said. It had to be one reason; Charlie didn’t think it was the only one. The Veep went on, “If he put me out to pasture back in Uvalde, wouldn’t break my heart, not one bit.”

  “Oh, come on. I don’t believe that,” Charlie said. “You’d been in Washington a long time before you started running with Joe Steele. You have to like it here, or at least be used to it.”

  “I’m used to it, all right.” Garner screwed up his face. “That don’t got to mean I like it, though.”

  “Okay. Sure.” Charlie wasn’t going to argue with him. If he said anything about protesting too much, Garner would just get mad. He finished his drink and held up a forefinger to show he wanted another.

  Garner had another one, too. After so many, what was one more? After the Vice President died, if he ever did, they really needed to take out his liver and donate it to the Smithsonian. It was a national treasure, if not a national monument.

  “Another term,” Garner said with a maudlin sigh. “And then another term after that, and maybe another term after that.” By the way he used the word, he might have been talking about stretches in a labor encampment, not the country’s second highest elected office.

  But the difference between highest and second highest was even starker in politics than it was in sports. Charlie was pretty sure he could rattle off every World Series winner from 1903 to this past October. He was much hazier on the teams that had lost. Who wasn’t?

  The difference between President and Vice President, though, wasn’t the difference between winning and losing. It was the difference between winning and not getting to play. Joe Steele could order two-thirds of the world around. John Nance Garner could order . . . another bourbon. And he had.

  Shakespeare chimed in Charlie’s head, as Shakespeare had a way of doing.

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  To the last syllable of recorded time;

  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

  The way to dusty death.

  He didn’t come out with the quotation, though he expected Garner would have known it if he had. Anyone who’d been educated in small-town Texas before the turn of the century would have been steeped in Shakespeare the way a tea bag was steeped in hot water.

  Before Charlie could say anything at all, Garner went on, “I never reckoned I’d be in this slot so long, you know? When I said I’d run, I thought I’d have me a term or two, and that’d be it. Joe Steele would lose, or he wouldn’t run for a third term, or whatever the hell. Shows what I knew, don’t it? The things I’ve seen since . . .” He shook his big head. “The things I’ve seen my whole life, I should say. I was born three and a half years after the States War ended. Ain’t many left who can say that.”

  “No, there aren’t.” Charlie grinned at him. “Most of the ones who can would call it the Civil War.”

  “Damnyankees, the lot of ’em,” Garner said without heat. “Weren’t any cars or planes or phones or radios or records or teevees or movies or lightbulbs or any o’ that crap when I was a boy. We had trains an’ the telegram an’ gaslamps, an’ we reckoned we were the most modern folks on the face of the earth. An’ you know what else? We were.”

  “I guess so.” Charlie had grown up with most of the things Garner had seen coming in. But he remembered what a prodigy radio seemed like, and how the switch from silents to talkies changed film forever. Now, of course, television was changing the world all over again. That had only started. He could see as much, but he had no idea how it would turn out.

  “Tell you somethin’ else, though,” John Nance Garner said after a pull at his latest bourbon. “I got goin’ on eighty-two years on me now, an’ in all my time on earth, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like Joe Steele. And Sullivan?”

  “What?” Charlie said.

  “You can take that to the fuckin’ bank.”

  * * *

  Mike walked into Wakamatsu. By now the castle, which had been bombed by the USA in World War II and shelled by both sides during the Japanese War, was looking pretty much like its old self again. The Japs worked hard at putting their shattered homeland back together again. At least they did here in South Japan, where American aid helped them repair what American firepower had smashed. Things on the other side of the demilitarized zone were tougher. Trotsky cared more about what he could get out of North Japan than he did about putting anything into it.

  Because of that, Mike heard gunfire along the demilitarized zone every few days. Some North Japanese voted with their feet to show what they thought of their regime. Or they tried to, anyhow. Getting past the fortified border would have been tough even without the trigger-happy guards. With them, you literally risked your life. And, singly and in small groups, those Japs did.

  The other interesting thing was that not all refugees from North Japan were welcome on this side of the line. Not everyone who came over the border was fleeing Red tyranny. Some of the people who crossed were spies and agitators doing North Japan’s business in South Japan. And figuring out who was who with so many records burned or blown up or otherwise lost wasn’t easy, either.

  A woman walking up the street politely bowed to Mike as he came down it. He returned the bow, saying, “Konichiwa.”

  She smiled, covered her mouth with her hand, and burst into a storm of giggles. He hadn’t said or done anything funny. As he’d seen before, that was what Japanese did when you caught them by surprise. After she got over it, she returned the good-day.

  “Genki desu-ka?” he asked. He didn’t mind the chance to trot out more of his bits of Japanese with her. He thought she was in her mid- to late thirties, though it was often hard to be sure with Japanese women. However old she was, she wore it well. She had on a white cotton blouse and a black skirt: better in this hot, sticky summer weather than his uniform.

  In reply to his how-are-you? (actually, it meant something like Ar
e you bouncy?—genki was a tricky word), she spoke in pretty good English: “I am fine, thank you. And how are you?”

  “Just great, thanks.” Mike almost giggled himself; she’d caught him off-guard. He asked, “Where did you learn to speak so well?”

  “I am to teach English here in Wakamatsu. I studied it for years before the war. I am glad you think I speak well. For a long time, I did not use it much. You understand why?”

  “Hai.” Mike nodded. During the war, anything that had to do with America was suspected because America was the enemy. Even baseball, which the Japanese had enthusiastically taken to, got sidelined for the duration.

  Of course, the Japs hadn’t sent tens of thousands of Americans into labor encampments, the way Joe Steele had with Japanese in the States. Then again, the Japs hadn’t had the chance to do anything like that. Had they had it, chances were they would have taken it.

  The English teacher smiled at him now as if he was a human being, not just a curiosity. “How much of my language do you know?” she asked.

  “Sukoshi.” He held his thumb and forefinger close together. In English, he went on, “I didn’t know any before I, uh, got here.” Before I jumped out of my landing craft and started killing people. That was what it came down to.

  “You must have a good ear, then. Is that right? You say, a good ear?”

  “Yes, that’s what we say. And thank you. Arigato.”

  “You are welcome,” she said gravely.

  “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you new in Wakamatsu?” he said. The place was big enough that she might not be, but he thought he would have noticed a nice-looking English teacher who’d lived here for a while.

  She nodded, though. “Yes. I am new here. I come from Osaka. With the new law that every city must teach English to the children, I came here. Not so many in the north of the Constitutional Monarchy speak well enough to teach. There is a needage for more.”

  She meant need, but he wasn’t about to turn editor. He saw the uses of the law. Hardly anyone outside Japan spoke Japanese, while English went all over the world. Learning English was also one more way to bind South Japan to the USA, of course. On the other side of the demilitarized zone, the North Japanese were probably having to come to terms with Russian.

  “Do you mind if I ask what your name is?” Mike asked.

  “No. I am Yanai Midori—Midori Yanai, you would say. We put family name first, personal name last. And you are . . . ?”

  “I’m Mike Sullivan.” Mike smiled. This was as much talking as he’d done with a woman since the Jeebies jugged him. Other things, yeah, but not talk.

  “I am happy to know you, Sergeant Sullivan.” She’d been around enough Americans to have no trouble reading chevrons. “Now please to excuse me. I am so sorry, but I must go.” She said that last with worry in her voice. If he didn’t feel like letting her leave, what could she do about it? Getting in trouble for abusing the natives wasn’t impossible, but it also wasn’t easy.

  But all he said was, “May I ask you one more thing before you go?”

  She nodded warily. “What is it?”

  “Are you married?” He held up a hasty hand. “I’m not proposing. I’m just asking.”

  She smiled at that—not very much, but she did. The smile didn’t last long, though. “No, I am not married. I am a widow, or I am sure I am. My husband was stationed in the Philippines. He did not come home. He was not one of those who laid down their arms in the surrenders after the Emperor died.” She cast down her eyes when she spoke of that.

  Some Japanese units in the Philippines had held out till the fighting in the Home Islands ended. They were a sideshow; the Americans hadn’t pushed hard after driving them from the bigger towns. “I’m sorry,” Mike said, and then, “I was never in the Philippines.” He didn’t want her to think he could have had anything to do with her husband’s death.

  “I understand,” Midori Yanai said. “I really do have to go now, so sorry. Please excuse me. Maybe we will see each other again. Good-bye.” She started away.

  “Sayonara,” Mike called after her. She looked back over her shoulder to show she’d heard and wasn’t ignoring him. He stood there watching her till she disappeared around a corner. Then he kicked a pebble down the street. He felt like a sixteen-year-old kid trying to figure out how the whole business of women worked.

  Well, no man would ever figure out the whole business of women, not if he lived as long as Methuselah. But godalmightydamn, wasn’t trying to unravel it the best game in the whole wide world?

  * * *

  Charlie walked out of Sears with a sour expression on his face. He kept not-quite-cussing under his breath. Esther set a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, honey,” she said.

  “Like fun it is,” he said. “The TVs they’ve got in there have bigger screens and better pictures than the one we bought a little over a year ago—and they cost a hundred and fifty bucks less. We wuz robbed!”

  “No, we weren’t. We just got one as soon as we could.” Esther was more reasonable than he was. She went on, “It worked the same way with radios and refrigerators, too, and cars when we were little kids. They all got cheaper and better in a hurry.”

  “Maybe we should have waited, then.” He still felt like grumbling.

  “Why? Okay, we paid more money. But we had the television, and we’ve been watching all the shows on it since we bought it. If we’d waited, yeah, we would have bought it cheaper, but so what? We could afford it, and we wouldn’t have got to see all that stuff.”

  “Wait a minute,” Charlie said. “Remind me again which one of us is the Jew.”

  She poked him in the ribs. For good measure, she added, “If you were a Jew, Buster, I would know it.”

  Charlie’s ears heated. He wasn’t circumcised. Pat was, not only because he had a Jewish mother but also because these days they pretty much did it to a baby boy unless you told them not to. They said it was cleaner and healthier. Maybe they were right, but Charlie liked himself fine just the way he’d come out of the carton.

  When they got home, Pat was watching Tim Craddock—Space Cadet. He didn’t care that the TV set cost too much or that the picture was little. He’d grow up with television, and probably take it for granted in a way Charlie never did. He would have trouble remembering a time when it wasn’t around to give him something to do.

  It was giving him something to do right now. Whether he’d done everything he was supposed to do . . . “Have you finished your homework?” Charlie asked him. “Tomorrow’s Monday, remember.”

  “Aw, Dad!” Pat said. “After the show, okay?”

  “Okay—this once,” Charlie said after a moment’s thought. “But from now on, you get it done before you start goofing off, you hear? You had all weekend to take care of it. Instead, you’ll have to rush through it at the last minute, so it won’t be as good as it oughta be.”

  He felt Esther’s eyes on him when he came out with that. He had trouble saying it with a straight face. As a reporter and as a speechwriter, he’d worked to the tightest of deadlines. Getting it done by 7:45 was more important than prettying it up. Well, if Do as I say, not as I do wasn’t a parent’s oldest rule, it ran a close second to Because I said so, that’s why!

  Pat’s face lit up. He didn’t care about the lecture. He cared about Tim Craddock and the Martians with antennae pasted to their foreheads. “Thanks, Dad! You’re the greatest!”

  Charlie wasn’t so sure about that. He feared he was an old softy. But hearing it did make him feel pretty good.

  When Charlie walked into the White House the next morning, a plump doctor was coming out. Tadeusz Pietruszka was Joe Steele’s physician. Charlie hadn’t seen him for a couple of years—in spite of moving slower than he had, both mentally and physically, Joe Steele never even came down with a sniffle. So Charlie heard the surprise and worry in his own voice when he a
sked, “What’s up with the boss?”

  “Nothing serious.” Dr. Pietruszka touched the brim of his fedora and went on his way.

  He might be a good doctor. If he took care of the President, he’d better be a good doctor. But he would have flopped as a politician. He made a lousy liar.

  Instead of going to his own office, then, Charlie headed for Vince Scriabin’s. He asked the Hammer the same thing he’d asked the doctor: “What’s up with the boss?”

  Scriabin sent him an Et tu, Brute? look. “It isn’t anything much,” he said. Charlie stood there and folded his arms. For once, Scriabin wasn’t going to be able to wait him out. “All right!” The Hammer sounded impatient. “He came down with a headache in the middle of the night. He took some aspirins, but it wouldn’t go away. Betty talked him into calling the doctor.”

  “Good thing somebody did! What did Pietruszka have to say?”

  “That he had a headache. That his blood pressure could be lower, but he’s not a young man.” Scriabin bared his teeth in what looked nothing like a smile. “None of us here is a young man any more.”

  Since Charlie had a bald spot on his crown and was graying at the temples, he could hardly call the Hammer a liar. He asked, “Did he do anything besides take his blood pressure?”

  “He gave him a sleeping pill. And he told him to call if he didn’t feel better when he woke up.” Scriabin bared his teeth again. This time, he didn’t even try to smile. A cat that looked like that would have been about to bite. “Not a word about this to anyone. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but I will anyhow.”

  “You know I don’t bang my gums,” Charlie said. “Did I start telling the world about uranium?”

  “Let people start worrying about whether the boss is well, and that will blow you up higher and faster than a pipsqueak thing like an atomic bomb.” Scriabin turned away to show the discussion was over.