Harry Turtledove - Joe Steele

Mike could only spread his hands. “It was a heck of a big fire, that’s what,” he said. “I have no idea what touched it off. I didn’t see it start, and I didn’t see anybody running away from the Executive Mansion if there was anybody.”

“They stole the nomination from Franklin,” the horse-faced man said bitterly. “They stole it, and they murdered him. That stinking Rooshan from California, he’s the one behind it. He learned from the Reds, I bet.”

“Sir, that’s the kind of charge it’s better not to make unless you can prove it,” Mike said.

“How am I supposed to prove it? You do something like that, you’d better be able to cover your tracks,” the mourner said. “But I’d sooner see Hoover win again than that Joe Steele so-and-so. Hoover’s an idiot, sure, but I never heard he wasn’t an honest idiot.”

“Don’t put Cousin Lou in the paper, please,” a svelte blond woman said. “He’s terribly upset. We all are, of course, but he’s taking it very hard.”

“I understand.” Mike didn’t intend to put those wild charges in his story. He’d meant what he said-unless you could prove them, you were throwing grenades without aiming. Things were bad enough already. He didn’t want to make them any worse.

As far as Mike Sullivan was concerned, dinner at Hop Sing Chop Suey was like meeting on neutral ground. Stella Morandini laughed when he said so. “You’re right,” she said. “No spaghetti, no ravioli-but no corned beef and cabbage and potatoes, either.”

“There you go, babe.” Mike nodded. “They’ve still got some kind of noodles here, though, so your side’s probably ahead on points.”

“Noodles doused in this waddayacallit? Soy sauce? Forget it, Mike-that’s not Italian.” Stella was a little tiny gal, only an inch or two over five feet. She wasn’t shy about coming out with what she thought, though. That was one of the things that drew Mike to her. He’d never had any use for shrinking violets.

Her folks were from the Old Country. They wanted her to tie the knot with a paisan , preferably with one from the village south of Naples they’d come from. Like Mike, Stella was no damn good at doing what other people wanted.

His folks were almost as disgusted that he was going with a dago as hers were that she was dating a mick. They weren’t just as disgusted because they’d been in the States a couple of generations longer-and because Charlie’s fiancée was Jewish. That really gave them something to grouse about.

Stella sipped tea from one of the small, funny handleless cups the chop-suey joint used. It wasn’t as if she might not have gone out with a sheeny or two herself. She was a secretary at a theatrical booking agency, and almost all the guys she worked for were Jews. She didn’t speak much Yiddish, but she’d learned to understand it in self-defense.

Mike waved to the waiter. “Can we have another couple of fried shrimp, please?” he said.

“Sure thing.” The waiter wasn’t Chinese. He was tall and blond and skinny as a soda straw, and he swished. Fruit or not, he was a good waiter. He hustled back to the kitchen and brought them in nothing flat.

Just as he set them down, Charlie and Esther Polgar walked into Hop Sing’s. Mike and Stella both waved; his brother and almost-sister-in-law sat down at the table with them. Esther had wavy red hair and a pointed chin. Her mother and father had brought her to America from Budapest when she was a little girl, bare months before the Great War started.

She grabbed one of the fried shrimp. Charlie snagged the other one. “Of all the nerve!” Mike said in mock indignation.

“Yeah.” Stella wagged a finger at Esther. “Those things aren’t even kosher.”

“They’re delicious, is what they are,” Esther answered.

“We’re gonna need a couple of more fried shrimp,” Mike told the waiter. “And another pot of tea, and more chop suey, too.” He glanced at his brother. “Unless you can make supper out of our scraps. That’s what you get for showing up late.”

“We get to have you watch us while we eat, too,” Charlie said. “Not that we care.”

The waiter hurried back to the kitchen again. He put a lot of hip action into his walk. If he wasn’t careful, the vice squad would land on him like a ton of bricks one of these days. He wasn’t a bad guy-not the sort of queer who annoyed normal people in the hope that they shared his vice. As long as he didn’t, Mike was willing to live and let live.

“Not much been going on since we saw each other last,” Charlie said. His smile lifted only one side of his mouth. “Hardly anything, matter of fact.”

“Joe Steele getting nominated? Roosevelt going up in smoke? Uh-huh-hardly anything,” Mike said.

“You forgot Garner getting the nod for VP,” Charlie said.

“Mm, I guess I did,” Mike said after a little thought. “Wouldn’t you?”

“You guys are terrible,” Esther said. “You’re worse when you’re together, too, ’cause you play off each other.”

“Now that you’re both here, I’ve got a question for the two of you,” Stella said. “The Executive Mansion burning down like it did-do you think that was an accident?”

“I was there, and I still can’t tell you one way or the other. Neither can the arson inspector, and he knows all kinds of things I don’t,” Mike answered. “As long as nobody can prove anything, I think we’ve got to give Joe Steele the benefit of the doubt. Herbert Hoover, too, as long as we’re talking about people who might want to see Roosevelt dead.”

He looked across the table at his brother. Stella and Esther eyed Charlie, too. Charlie kept quiet. He looked down at the crumbs and little grease spots on the plate that had held the fried shrimp. Silence till it got uncomfortable. At last, Esther remarked, “You’re not saying anything, Charlie.”

“I know,” Charlie said.

“How come?”

He started not to say anything again-or some more, depending on how you looked at the language. Then he seemed to change his mind, and made a small production out of lighting a cigarette. After that, he did answer: “Because a bunch of people here may hear me. They’re people I don’t know, people I can’t trust. Maybe after dinner we can find a cozy place, a quiet place. Then. .” His voice trailed off.

“Do you really think it matters if someone you don’t know overhears you?” Stella asked.

“Yes.” Charlie bit off the single grudged word.

There didn’t seem to be much to say to that. Mike didn’t try to say anything. He watched his brother shovel food into his chowlock. . much the same way he had himself not long before. Esther ate more sedately. When they got done, Mike threw a dollar bill, a half, and a couple of dimes on the table. The two couples walked out of Hop Sing’s together.

“Where now?” Stella said.

“Back to my place,” Mike replied in tones that brooked no argument. “It’s closest. And I don’t have any spies in there.”

“You hope you don’t,” Charlie said. Mike let that go. It was either let it go or get dragged into an argument that had nothing to do with what he really wanted to hear.

The Village was. . the Village. A Red stood on a soapbox and harangued a ten-at-night crowd that consisted of three drunks, a hooker, and a yawning cop who seemed much too lazy to oppress the proletariat. Posters touting Joe Steele and Norman Thomas sprouted like toadstools on walls and fences. Herbert Hoover’s backers had posted no bills in this part of town. They saved them for districts where somebody might look at them before he tore them down.

Under a streetlamp, a sad-looking woman in frayed clothes hawked a crate of her worldly goods in lieu of selling herself. Mike thought that was a good idea. She’d get more for the novels and knickknacks and bits of cheap silver plate than she would for her tired, skinny body, and she wouldn’t want to slit her wrists come morning.