Harry Turtledove: Joe Steele

They balloted through the night again. In the votes before midnight, Joe Steele forged ahead, a few votes this round, a few more the next. But when the wee smalls rolled around, FDR started gaining again. He kept gaining till the sky lightened once more. This time, Stas Mikoian moved to adjourn.

Roosevelt’s backers didn’t object-they had to eat and drink and sleep (and perhaps even piss and bathe) like anyone else. But they were jubilant as they walked out into the new day. Things finally looked to be rolling their way. The people who liked Joe Steele most seemed glummest.

Charlie shoehorned himself into that diner for another breakfast. At the counter next to him, one delegate said to another, “If Long throws his weight FDR’s way. .”

“Yeah,” the second man said miserably. “I’d almost sooner keep Hoover than see Huey as VP. Almost.”

“If Huey is, Roosevelt better watch his back but good,” the first fellow said. His buddy nodded. So did Charlie, not that they paid him any mind. Anyone who trusted Huey Long needed to have his head examined-and his life insurance paid up.

One cup of coffee turned into three. Three turned into a trip to the men’s room. The diner had pay phones on one wall of the hallway leading back there. Vince Scriabin fed quarters into a telephone as Charlie walked by: a long-distance call.

There were lines at both urinals. Plenty of Democrats unloaded the coffee they’d taken aboard the past few hours. Charlie waited, then eased himself. He got out of the john as fast as he could; the aroma didn’t make you want to linger.

At the telephone, Scriabin had got through. “Yeah,” he was saying. “Take care of it-tonight. You let it go, it’ll be too late.” He sounded like a politician. Tomorrow was always too late. He added, “That son of a bitch’ll be sorry he ever messed with us.” Then he hung up and headed for the restroom himself.

Anybody thought twice before crossing Joe Steele. Ever since he got on the Fresno city council, he’d been his friends’ best friend and his enemies’ worst enemy. Charlie wondered who was getting paid back now. He also wondered whether Scriabin thought he needed to hurry now because his man trailed. If Roosevelt won, Joe Steele’s revenge wouldn’t be anything to fear so much.

The fight wasn’t over yet, though. FDR had come back to take the lead. Joe Steele could rally, too. Mikoian and Kagan and Scriabin would do everything they knew how to do to make that happen. Charlie wondered if Joe Steele’s men knew enough.

They’d be at it again tonight, out there in Chicago. They’d already gone through fifty-odd ballots. You had to wonder whether the Democrats owned a death wish. They claimed they’d run things better than the GOP had. Considering how deep the Depression was, that didn’t seem like a high bar to jump. But if they couldn’t even settle on a nominee, didn’t you have to wonder what kind of job they’d do once they finally wrapped their sweaty palms around the steering wheel?

Some people would say so. Herbert Hoover sure would, as often and as loud as he knew how. But who’d believed Hoover since Wall Street rammed an iceberg and sank on Black Tuesday? Mike Sullivan knew he didn’t. Precious few people did.

So here he was in Albany, still keeping tabs on FDR for the Post . Reporters from half the papers in the country seemed to be here. They jammed hotels and boardinghouses. They filled the town’s indifferent restaurants and technically illicit saloons. They followed one another around, each hoping the next was on to something juicy. They told one another lies over card games and in barber shops.

Roosevelt was coy about the invasion. Except for the press conference, he stayed secluded with Eleanor on the second floor-the living quarters-of the State Executive Mansion. The way it looked to Mike, staying secluded with Eleanor Roosevelt was within shouting distance of a fate worse than death. If you had to seclude yourself, couldn’t you at least do it with somebody cute?

Had he been back in New York City, he could have watched the Yankees or the Giants or the Dodgers (well, actually the Giants were out of town). Here, the Albany Senators of the Eastern League were taking on the New Haven Profs at Hawkins Stadium on Broadway in the village of Menands, a couple of miles north of downtown Albany. Ticket prices ran from half a buck in the bleachers to $1.10 for the best seat in the house.

He went to a game that night. Hawkins Stadium had something Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field couldn’t match. They played baseball under the lights in Albany (um, in Menands). The big leagues didn’t want to put them in. This was the first night game Mike had ever seen.

The crowd was somewhere around 4,000-not half bad for a midseason game between two Class A teams going nowhere. The second-division Giants might not have drawn as many. They were so rotten, John McGraw had finally called it a career after thirty years at their helm.

New Haven won the game, 6–4, sending the local fans home unhappy. Mike had no rooting interest in either team. The night game was enough of an attraction all by itself. He looked at his watch as he left the ballpark. Half past ten. He’d walk down Broadway and be back at his hotel a few minutes after eleven. It had a radio in the lobby. He could listen to the bloodletting from Chicago for a while. If they chose Roosevelt there, the new nominee would almost have to make a statement in the morning.

He was nearly to the hotel-just south of the state Capitol, as a matter of fact-when fire-engine sirens started wailing like damned souls. Three of the long red machines roared past him, one after another, their flashing lights warning ordinary cars off the road. Police black-and-whites followed hard on the fire engines’ heels.

The engines he saw weren’t the only ones he heard, either-nowhere close. Albany had itself a four-alarm fire, sure as the devil. And sure as the devil, he saw the flames ahead, a little farther inland from the Hudson than he was. He started to run. It wasn’t the story he’d come to cover, which didn’t mean it couldn’t be big.

Plenty of people were running toward the fire. “Isn’t that the Mansion?” one man called to another.

“’Fraid it is,” the second man said.

“Which mansion?” Mike asked, panting. They said cigarettes played hell with your wind. For once, they knew what they were talking about.

“Executive Mansion. Governor’s mansion. FDR’s mansion,” the two fellows said, not really in chorus. One of them added, “He’s up there on the second floor, how’s he supposed to get out?”

“Jesus Christ!” Mike crossed himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Mass or gone to confession, but sometimes what you took for granted when you were a kid came out at the oddest moments.

“Yeah, wouldn’t that screw the pooch?” said one of the guys trotting along with him.

“In spades, doubled and redoubled,” the other one put in.

Landscaped grounds surrounded the Executive Mansion, which stood well back from the street. Some of the trees near the Governor’s residence were on fire, too. But the big two-story building might as well have exploded into flame. Mike couldn’t have got there more than ten minutes after the first sirens began to scream. All the same, fire engulfed the mansion. Anybody could see it would burn to the ground, and soon. Flames taller than a man leaped from almost every window.

Silhouetted against that inferno, the fire engines didn’t look so long and impressive any more. And the streams of water the firemen aimed at the blaze also seemed punier than they should have. Eyeing that, Mike decided it wasn’t his imagination. He shoved his way through the crowd till he found himself standing beside a burly guy in a heavy canvas coat and a broad-brimmed rubber helmet. “Shouldn’t you have got more water pressure than this?” he shouted.