American Empire_ Blood And Iron Part 37

"And isn't that the sad and sorry truth?" his boss replied. "Whoever wins, though, the work has to get done. What do you say we do it? After all, if we don't make a few million dollars today, we'll have to beg for our suppers."

That would have been funnier if it weren't so true, too. Reggie dusted the shelves with a long-handled feather duster. He put out fresh bottles and boxes and tins to replace the ones customers had bought. He kept track of the prescriptions Harmon compounded, and set them under the counter to await the arrival of the people for whom the druggist made them. When customers came in, he rang up their purchases and made change.

Ringing things up wasn't so easy. The cash register, a st.u.r.dy and ma.s.sive chunk of gilded ironmongery, dated from before the Great War. It was a fancier machine than most of that vintage, and could handle a five-dollar purchase with the push of but one key. Had Reggie had to do all the pus.h.i.+ng he needed to ring up something that cost $17,000,000-and a lot of things did this week, give or take a couple of million-he would have been banging that five-dollar key from now till doomsday.

Everyone wanted to talk politics, too. Women couldn't vote, but that didn't stop them from having opinions and being vociferous about them. "Isn't Mr. Featherston the handsomest man you ever saw in your life?" asked a lady buying a tube of cream for her piles.

"No, ma'am," Reggie answered. In the back of the drugstore, Jeremiah Harmon raised his head. He didn't want to lose customers, regardless of Reggie's own politics and opinions. Reggie thought fast. "Handsomest man I ever saw was my father," he told the woman. "Pity I don't take after him."

She laughed. Bartlett's boss relaxed. Reggie felt some small triumph. Even if he'd sugarcoated what he said, he hadn't had to take it back.

He tried to gauge the shape of the election from conversations with customers. That wouldn't prove anything, and he knew it. He kept trying anyhow. From what he saw and heard, Jake Featherston had a lot of support. So did Wade Hampton V. Only a few people admitted to backing Ainsworth Layne and the Radical Liberals. Reggie hadn't expected anything different. He was disappointed just the same.

When six o'clock rolled around, he said, "Boss, I think I'm going to get myself some supper somewhere and then head over to the Richmond Examiner Richmond Examiner. I reckon they'll be posting returns all night long."

"I expect they will," Harmon answered. "While you're there, do try to recall you're supposed to come in to work tomorrow." The druggist's voice was dry; he had a pretty good idea that Reggie was liable to be up late.

Supper was greasy fried chicken and greasier fried potatoes, washed down with coffee that had been perking all day. Reggie's stomach told him in no uncertain terms what it thought of being a.s.saulted in that fas.h.i.+on. He ignored it, shoved a few banknotes with a lot of zeros on them across the counter at the cook, and hurried on down Broad Street to the Examiner Examiner's offices, which were only a few blocks from Capitol Square.

Like the Whig Whig and the and the Sentinel Sentinel and the other Richmond papers-like papers across the CSA-the and the other Richmond papers-like papers across the CSA-the Examiner Examiner was in the habit of setting up enormous blackboards on election night and changing returns as the telegraph brought in new ones. When Reggie got there, the blackboards remained pristine: the polls were still open throughout the country. Because of that, only a few people stood around in front of the offices. Reggie got an excellent spot. He knew he might have to defend it with elbows as the night wore along, but that was part of the game, too. was in the habit of setting up enormous blackboards on election night and changing returns as the telegraph brought in new ones. When Reggie got there, the blackboards remained pristine: the polls were still open throughout the country. Because of that, only a few people stood around in front of the offices. Reggie got an excellent spot. He knew he might have to defend it with elbows as the night wore along, but that was part of the game, too.

A man came up, loudly unhappy that all the saloons were closed on election day. "Bunch of d.a.m.n foolishness," he said. "Fools we've got running this year, we need to get drunk before we can stand to vote for any of 'em." By his vehemence, he might already have found liquid sustenance somewhere.

At half past seven, a fellow in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and green celluloid visor came out with a sheaf of telegrams in his hand. He started putting numbers from states on the eastern seaboard in their appropriate boxes. Earliest returns showed Hampton ahead in South Carolina and Virginia, Jake Featherston in North Carolina and Florida, and the Radical Liberals-Reggie clapped his hands-in Cuba. The numbers meant hardly more than the blanks they replaced. He was glad to have them anyhow.

More numbers went up as the hour got later. Hardly any of them made the people who awaited them very happy. The Examiner Examiner leaned toward the Radical Liberals, and it soon became abundantly clear that, whatever else happened, Ainsworth Layne would not be the next president of the Confederate States. leaned toward the Radical Liberals, and it soon became abundantly clear that, whatever else happened, Ainsworth Layne would not be the next president of the Confederate States.

That would have disappointed Reggie more had he thought going in that Layne enjoyed any great chance of winning. The Radical Liberals always did best on the fringes of the Confederacy; they were liable to win Sonora and Chihuahua, too, when results finally trickled out of the mountains and deserts of the far Southwest.

But the real battle would be decided between Texas and Virginia. Returns also came in slowly from the Confederate heartland. They hadn't seemed so slow during the last Congressional election, nor the one before that. Bartlett had been in no position to evaluate how fast the returns for the last presidential election came in, not in November 1915 he hadn't. Back in 1909, he hadn't cared; he hadn't been old enough to vote then.

"Hate to say it, but I'm pulling for Wade Hampton," a man about his own age said not far away. "I've voted Radical Liberal ever since I turned twenty-one, and I'd get into screaming fights with Whigs. But you look around at what the other choice is-" The fellow s.h.i.+vered melodramatically.

"I voted for Layne," Reggie said. "I'm not sorry I did, either. I'm just sorry more people didn't."

Off in the distance, somebody shouted, "Freedom!" But the Freedom Party muscle boys did not wade into the crowd outside the Examiner Examiner building. They would have paid for any attack they made; Reggie was sure he wasn't the only Radical Liberal packing a revolver in case of trouble from goons. building. They would have paid for any attack they made; Reggie was sure he wasn't the only Radical Liberal packing a revolver in case of trouble from goons.

More and more numbers went up. By midnight or so, they started to blur for Reggie. Strong coffee at supper or not, he couldn't hold his eyes open any more. Things weren't decided, but he headed back toward his flat anyway. He was glad the election remained up in the air. Only when he'd got very close to home did he realize he should have been sorry Jake Featherston hadn't been knocked out five minutes after the polls closed.

Jake Featherston yawned so wide, his jaw cracked like a knuckle. He hadn't been so tired since the battles of the Great War. It was half past four Wednesday morning, and he'd been up since first light Tuesday. He'd voted early, posed for photographers outside the polling place, and then headed here to the Spottswood Hotel at the corner of Eighth and Main to see what he would see. He'd wanted the Ford Hotel, right across the street from Capitol Square, but the Whigs had booked it first.

He looked down at the gla.s.s of whiskey in his hand. Yawning again, he realized he might not have felt so battered if he hadn't kept that gla.s.s full through the night. He shrugged. Too late to worry about it now. He wasn't in the habit of looking back at things he'd done, anyway.

Somebody knocked on the door to his room. He opened it. As he'd expected, there stood Ferdinand Koenig, his backer when the Freedom Party was tiny and raw, his vice-presidential candidate now that the Party was a power in the land...but not quite enough of a power. Koenig held the latest batch of telegrams in his left hand. His face might have been a doctor's coming out of a sickroom just before the end.

"It's over, Jake," he said-like Roger Kimball and only a handful of others, he talked straight no matter how bad the news was. "Our goose is cooked. We won't win it this time."

Featherston noticed he was still holding that whiskey. He gulped it down, then hurled the gla.s.s against the wall. Shards sprayed every which way, like fragments from a bursting sh.e.l.l. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he snarled. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h! I really reckoned we might pull it off." of a b.i.t.c.h! I really reckoned we might pull it off."

"We scared 'em," Koenig said. "By G.o.d, we scared 'em. You're still outpolling Ainsworth Layne. We took Florida. We took Tennessee. We took Texas. We've got-"

"We've got nothing," Jake said flatly. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it to f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, we've got nothing. During the war, we killed a million Yankees. Didn't do us one d.a.m.n bit of good. We lost. I didn't want to scare Wade Hampton the G.o.dd.a.m.n Fifth. I wanted to whip the Whigs out of office like the cur dogs they are."

Koenig stared, then shook his head in rueful admiration. "You never did aim to do anything by halves, did you?"

"Why do you think we are where we're at?" Jake returned. "Anybody who settles for what he reckons is good enough deserves whatever happens to him. I want the whole d.a.m.n shootin' match. Now I have to wait till 1927 to try again. That's a G.o.dd.a.m.n long time. What the h.e.l.l's going to happen to the country from now till then? Christ, we aren't going to h.e.l.l in a handbasket, we're already there."

"You can come down off the stump for a few minutes, anyway," Ferdinand Koenig said. "The election's over, even if the reporters are waiting downstairs to hear what you've got to say."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n vultures," Featherston muttered. The election's over The election's over meant nothing to him. His life was a seamless whole; he could not have told anyone, himself included, where Jake Featherston the man stopped and Jake Featherston the Freedom Party leader began. He wished he had another gla.s.s to shatter. "All right, I'll go down. Maybe they'll all be pa.s.sed out drunk by then, and I won't have to make a speech after all." meant nothing to him. His life was a seamless whole; he could not have told anyone, himself included, where Jake Featherston the man stopped and Jake Featherston the Freedom Party leader began. He wished he had another gla.s.s to shatter. "All right, I'll go down. Maybe they'll all be pa.s.sed out drunk by then, and I won't have to make a speech after all."

Koenig was still trying to look on the bright side of things: "We picked up four, maybe five seats in Congress, not counting the Redemption League. Florida gave us a Senator; looks like we'll pick up the governor's spot in Tennessee, and maybe in Mississippi, too."

"That's all fine and dandy, but it's not enough, either." Even now, worn and half drunk and sorely disappointed, Jake knew he'd be happier in a few days. The Freedom Party had done very well. It just hadn't done well enough to suit him. He'd have to start building on what it had done, and to start looking ahead to see what it could do for 1923. He made a fist and slammed it into his own thigh several times. The pain was oddly welcome. "The reporters are waiting, eh? Let's go, by Jesus. Let's see how they like it."

Now his running mate looked faintly-no, more than faintly-alarmed. "If you want to get a couple hours' sleep, Jake, those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds won't care one way or the other. Maybe you should grab the chance to freshen up a touch," Koenig said.

"h.e.l.l with it," Featherston replied. "Might as well get it over with." He headed for the stairway. Had Koenig not jumped aside, Jake would have pushed him out of the way.

Down in the lobby of the Spottswood, the victory celebration for which the Freedom Party had hoped was a shambles now. A few young men in white s.h.i.+rts and b.u.t.ternut trousers remained on their feet and alert. They'd been detailed to keep order, and keep order they would. The task was easier than Jake had thought it would be when he a.s.signed it. Six more years of waiting. Six more years of waiting. The thought was as bitter as yielding to the d.a.m.nyankees had been. The thought was as bitter as yielding to the d.a.m.nyankees had been.

More Freedom Party men sprawled snoring on couches and chairs and on the floor, too, some with whiskey bottles close at hand, others simply exhausted. A lot of reporters, by the look of things, were already gone. Watching the Freedom Party lose an election so many thought it might win had been story enough for them. But half a dozen fellows in cheap but snappy suits converged on Jake when he showed himself.

"Do you have a statement, Mr. Featherston?" they cried, as if with a single voice.

"d.a.m.n straight I have a statement," Featherston answered.

"Jake-" began Ferdinand Koenig, who had followed him downstairs.

"Don't you worry, Ferd. I'll be fine," Jake said over his shoulder. He turned back to the reporters. "Reckon you boys are waiting for me to say something sweet like how, even though I wish I was the one who'd gotten elected, I'm sure Wade Hampton V will make a fine president and I wish him all the best. That about right? Did I leave anything out?"

A couple of the reporters grinned at him. "Don't reckon so, Sarge," one of them said. "That's what we hear from the Radical Liberals every six years."

"To h.e.l.l with the Radical Liberals," Featherston said. "And to h.e.l.l with Wade Hampton V, too." The reporters scribbled. Jake warmed to his theme, despite Koenig's dark mutterings in the background: "To h.e.l.l with Wade Hampton V, and to h.e.l.l with the Whig Party. They led us off a cliff in 1914, they don't have the slightest scent of a notion of how to turn things around, and now they've got six more years to prove they don't know what the devil they're doing."

"If they're such a pack of b.u.ms, why'd you lose the election?" a reporter called.

"Don't you think you ought to ask, 'How'd you do so well the first time you tried to run anybody for president?'" Jake returned. No matter how he felt in private, in public he put the best face on things he could. "Christ, boys, in 1915 there was no Freedom Party. We didn't elect anybody to Congress till two years ago. And now, our first time out of the gate, we get more votes than the Radical Liberals, and they've been around forever. And what do you ask? 'Why'd you lose?'" He shook his head. "We'll be back. As long as Hampton and the Whigs leave us any kind of country at all, we'll be back. You wait and see."

"You really have it in for Hampton, don't you?" a man from the Richmond Whig Richmond Whig asked. asked.

Jake bared his teeth in what was not a smile. "You bet I do," he said. "He's part of the crowd that's been running the Confederate States since the War of Secession: all the fancy planters, and their sons, and their their sons, too. And he's part of the War Department crowd, like Jeb Stuart, Jr., and the other smart folks who helped the d.a.m.nyankees lick us. When I look at Wade Hampton and the Whigs, I look at 'em over open sights." sons, too. And he's part of the War Department crowd, like Jeb Stuart, Jr., and the other smart folks who helped the d.a.m.nyankees lick us. When I look at Wade Hampton and the Whigs, I look at 'em over open sights."

He'd let his journal by that name slip when the Freedom Party began to climb; the furious energy that had gone into the writing came out in Party work instead. Now, for the first time in a while, he might have some leisure to put his ideas down in paper. Have to look back over what I did before, Have to look back over what I did before, he thought. he thought. Pick up where I left off. Pick up where I left off.

"If you don't work with the other parties, why should they work with you?" the reporter from the Whig Whig asked. asked.

"We'll work with our friends," Jake said. "I don't have any quarrel with folks who want to see this country strong and free. People who want us weak or who try and sell us to the USA had better steer clear, though, or they'll be sorry."

"Sorry how?" Two men asked the question at the same time. The man from the Richmond Whig Richmond Whig followed it up: "Sorry the way Tom Brearley's sorry?" followed it up: "Sorry the way Tom Brearley's sorry?"

Though half loaded himself, Jake knew a loaded question when he heard one. "I don't know any more about what happened to that Brearley than I read in the papers," he answered. That was true; he'd also made a point of not trying to find out any more. "I do know a jury didn't convict the people the police arrested for burning down his house."

"They were all Freedom Party men." This time, three reporters spoke together.

"They were all acquitted," Jake said. The reporters looked disappointed. Jake smiled to himself. Did they think he was stupid enough to carry ammunition to their guns? Too bad for them if they did. He went on, "A lot of people like the Freedom Party these days-not quite enough to win me the election, but a lot."

"Are you saying you can't be responsible for all the crazy people who follow you?" The fellow from the Whig Whig wouldn't give up. wouldn't give up.

"There's crazy people in every party. Look in the mirror if you don't believe me," Jake replied. "And I'll say it again, on account of you weren't listening: the jury acquitted those fellows from the Freedom Party. I don't know who who burned Brearley's house, and neither do the cops. No way to tell if it was Freedom Party men or a bunch of riled-up Whigs." burned Brearley's house, and neither do the cops. No way to tell if it was Freedom Party men or a bunch of riled-up Whigs."

"Not likely," the reporter said.

Privately, Featherston thought he was right. Publicly, the Freedom Party leader shrugged. "Anything else, boys?" he asked. None of the reporters said anything. Jake shrugged again. "All right, then. We didn't win, but we don't surrender, either. And that's about all I've got to say." The newspapermen stood scribbling for a bit, then went off one by one to file their stories.

When the last one was out of earshot, Ferdinand Koenig said, "You handled that real well, Jake."

"Said I would, didn't I?" Jake answered. "Christ, I spent three years under fire. d.a.m.n me to h.e.l.l if I'm going to let some stinking newspapermen rattle me."

"All right," Koenig said. "I was a little worried, and I don't deny it. Hard loss to take, and you are sort of lit up." Again, he told Featherston the truth as he saw it.

"Sort of," Jake allowed. "But h.e.l.l, you think those fellows with the notebooks are stone cold sober? Not likely! They've been drinking my booze all night long."

Koenig laughed. "That's true, but n.o.body cares what they say. People do care what you say. What do you say about where we go from here?"

"Same thing I've been saying all along." Jake was surprised the question needed asking. "We go straight ahead, right on down this same road, till we win."

As she did any evening she was at her apartment by herself, Flora Hamburger waited for a knock on the door. All too often, the quiet, discreet knock didn't come. There were times these days-and, especially, these nights-when she felt lonelier than she had when she'd first got to Philadelphia almost five years before. That it was a few days before Christmas only made things worse. The whole city was in a holiday mood, which left her, a Jew, on the outside looking in.

She sat on the sofa, working her way through President Sinclair's proposed budget for the Post Office Department. It was exactly as exciting as it sounded. Did the president really need to revise the definitions for third- and fourth-cla.s.s post offices? At the moment, she hadn't the faintest idea. Before long, though, the bill would come to a vote. She owed it to her const.i.tuents-she owed it to the country-to make her vote as well informed as she could.

Someone knocked on the door: the knock she'd been waiting for, the knock she'd almost given up expecting.

She sprang to her feet. Pages of the Post Office budget flew every which way. Flora noticed, but didn't care. She hurried to the door and threw it open. There stood Hosea Blackford. "Come in," Flora said, and the vice president of the United States did. She closed the door behind him, closed it and locked it.

Blackford kissed her, then said, "You'd better have something to drink in this place, dear, or I'll have to go across the hall and come back."

"I do," Flora said. "Sit down. Wait. I'll be right back." She went into the kitchen, poured him some whiskey, and then poured herself some, too.

"You are a lifesaver," he said, and gulped it down.

Flora sat down beside him. She drank her whiskey more slowly. "You look tired," she said.

To her surprise, Blackford burst into raucous laughter. "G.o.d knows why. All I do is sit in a corner and gather dust-excuse me, preside over the Senate. There's not much difference between the two, believe me. I've spent most of my life in the middle of the arena. Now...now I'm a $12,000-a-year hatrack, is what I am."

"You knew this would happen when Sinclair picked you," Flora said.

"Of course I did. But there's a difference between knowing and actually having it happen to you." Blackford sighed. "And I wanted it when he picked me. The first Socialist vice president in the history of the United States! I'll go down in history-as a footnote, but I'll go down." His laugh was rueful. Flora thought he'd ask for another whiskey, but he didn't. All he said was, "I feel like I've already gone down in history-very ancient history."

"If you have so little to do, why haven't you stopped by here more often?" Flora's question came out sharper then she'd intended. After she'd said it, though, she was just as well pleased she'd said it as she had.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want me here crying on your shoulder every night? I can't believe that."

"Of course I do!" she exclaimed, honestly astonished. And she'd astonished him-she saw as much. She wondered if they really knew each other at all, despite so much time talking, despite lying down together in her bedroom.

"Well, well," he said, and then again, in slow wonder: "Well, well." He reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. She didn't know whether to pull away or clutch him to her. Deciding she was lonelier than angry took only a moment. She reached for him at the same time as he reached for her.

Later, in the bedroom, she moaned beneath him, enclosed in the circle of his arms, his mouth hot and moist and urgent on her nipple. His hand helped her along as he drove deep into her. Her pleasure was just beginning to slide down from the very peak when he gasped and shuddered and spent himself.

He kissed her again, then got off her and hurried into the bathroom. From behind the door came a plop as he tossed the French letter he'd been wearing into the toilet. He was careful not to leave them in the wastebasket for the maid to find. Usually, that wet plop made her laugh. Tonight, it only reminded her how wary they had to be. She was a mistress, after all, not a wife.

Usually, she managed not to think about that. Tonight, piled onto everything else, it hit her hard, harder than it ever had before. What had she done to her life, not even realizing she was doing it? While Blackford loosed a long stream into the toilet, she rolled over onto her belly and softly began to cry.

"I've been thinking," he said, and punctuated that by flus.h.i.+ng. Flora didn't answer. He opened the door, turned out the light, and stood there for a moment while his eyes got used to dimness again-or maybe his ears caught her quiet sobs first. He hurried over to the bed and set a hand on her back. "What on earth is the matter, dear?"

"Nothing!" Flora shrugged the hand away. She tried to stop crying, but discovered she couldn't.

"I've been thinking," Blackford repeated, and then, this time, went on: "I've been thinking we ought to figure out where we're going."

"Where are are we going?" Flora asked bitterly. "Are we going anywhere?" She didn't want to roll back over. She didn't want to look at him. we going?" Flora asked bitterly. "Are we going anywhere?" She didn't want to roll back over. She didn't want to look at him.

"Well, that doesn't just depend on me. That depends on both of us," Blackford said. He waited for Flora to reply. When she didn't, he shrugged; she felt the mattress shake. He spoke again: "We can't very well get married, for instance, unless you want to marry me, too."

Flora's head jerked up. She swiped at her eyes with her arm-she didn't want to see Blackford, or what she could see of him in the near darkness, through a haze of tears. Gulping to try to steady her voice, she said, "Married?"

Hosea Blackford nodded. She both saw and felt him do that. "It seems to be the right thing to do, don't you think?" he said. "Heaven knows we love each other." He waited for Flora again. She knew she had to respond this time, and managed a nod. That seemed to satisfy Blackford, who went on, "All over the world, you know, when people love each other, they do get married."

"But-" The objections that filled Flora's head proved she'd been in Philadelphia, in Congress, the past five years. "If you marry me, Hosea, what will that do to your career?" She didn't just mean, If you marry me. If you marry me. She also meant, She also meant, If you marry a Jew. If you marry a Jew.

He understood her. One of the reasons she loved him was that he understood her. With another shrug, he answered, "When you're vice president, you haven't got much of a career to look forward to, anyhow. And I don't think the party will ever nominate me for president-Dakota doesn't carry enough electoral votes to make that worthwhile. So after this term, or after next term at the latest, I'm done."

"In that case, you go back to Dakota and take your old seat back," Flora declared. "Or you could, anyhow. Could you do it with a Jewish wife?"

"I don't know that I particularly want my old seat back. It seems in pretty good hands with Torvald Sveinssen, and he'll have had it for a while by the time I'm not vice president any more," Blackford said. He reached out and put his hand on her bare shoulder. This time, she let it stay. He went on, "All you've done is talk about me. What about you, Flora? How will people in New York City like it if you came home with a gentile husband?"

"I don't think it would bother them too much-the Fourteenth Ward is a solidly Socialist district," she answered. "And you wouldn't be just any gentile husband, you know. You're a good Socialist yourself-and you're the vice president."

"It could be," Blackford said. "I can see how it could be that that would do well enough for your district. But I don't have a lot of family back in Dakota. What will your family think if you go home and tell them you're marrying a gentile?"

Flora rejected the first couple of answers that sprang to mind. Her family might indeed be delighted she was marrying at all, but Hosea didn't have to know that. And her father, an immigrant tailor, might indeed be so awed she was marrying the vice president that he wouldn't say a word even if her fiance were a Mohammedan-but she doubted that. Abraham Hamburger wasn't so outspoken as either Flora or her brothers and sisters, but he never had any trouble making his opinions known.

And the question Blackford had asked cut close to the one she was asking herself: how do I feel about marrying a gentile? how do I feel about marrying a gentile? Somehow, she'd hardly given that a thought while they were lovers. She wondered why. Because being lovers was impermanent, something she wouldn't have to worry about forever? She didn't think that was the whole answer, but it was surely part. Somehow, she'd hardly given that a thought while they were lovers. She wondered why. Because being lovers was impermanent, something she wouldn't have to worry about forever? She didn't think that was the whole answer, but it was surely part.

She ended up answering the question in her own mind, not the one Blackford had asked: "When we have children, I want to raise them as Jews."