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Arthur took a seat next to him and ordered a Coca-Cola.
“You’re late,” the man growled without looking over.
“I couldn’t get away.”
The man snorted. “I’ll bet. You responsible for that business at Marlowe’s mine?”
“You told me to gain their trust. To encourage them.”
“Well, you certainly did that.” The man took out a pack of Wrigley’s gum. He offered it to Arthur, who shook his head. “And what about Mabel Rose?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “What about her?”
“She’s the enemy. Or have you forgotten?”
Arthur sipped his soda. “You don’t know her. She’s a good egg.”
“She’s the daughter of muckraking socialists. She cavorts with Diviners and anarchists. I’d say that’s far from innocent. The Bureau wants her taken down, too. We get her, we get her parents. We get her parents, we get a whole load of socialists in jail.”
“That wasn’t part of my deal.”
“You
r deal was whatever we say your deal is,” the man said. “You avoided prison, Arthur. If you want to keep on avoiding prison, you’ll feed us the information we need until we round up every Red in this town. We still have your brother, you know. We could execute him at any time. We could take you back in. Blowing up Marlowe’s mine wasn’t in the plans.”
“I had to make a decision. Nobody got hurt!”
“Keep it down.” The man waited until the people around them had gone back to their booze. “I know you, you little agitator. You wanted to blow up that mine. And I suppose Miss Rose was part of that little excursion.”
“No. She didn’t know anything about it.”
“You lying to me, Arthur?”
Arthur stared the G-man down. “I’m telling you: She’s innocent.”
The man socked Arthur, bloodying his lip. People looked on, shocked. And then they looked away again.
“The Bureau wants an arrest. Mr. Hoover wants to purge this country of radical scum. Your job was to deliver the Secret Six, nice and neat.”
Arthur wiped his lip with his knuckles. “You already have my brother!”
“And now we want the rest. Minus you, of course. By the way, you might be interested in this. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper. Don’t disappoint us, Mr. Brown.” The man grabbed his brown hat, squaring it over his ears, and left the newspaper on the table.
Arthur read the front page. Then he went into the bathroom to throw up.
Arthur wandered to Washington Square Park, where he sat for hours, watching the cars drive under the arch, the newspaper still tucked under his arm. By the time he returned to his apartment, the Secret Six were there waiting for him.
“There you are!” Gloria said. “We were about to send out a search party.”
“Arthur, what is it?” Mabel asked, concerned. “And what happened to your lip?”
He swiped a mug from the sink, filled it with cold water from the tap and swallowed it all down. Then he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands, squeezing his fingers in his hair.
“Arthur?” Mabel said, softer this time.
He swiped a hand down over his face. “Early this morning, the militia boys went after the miners with guns. The women and children took cover in the holes they’d dug inside the tents.” Arthur paused. He was fighting for every word. Mabel felt as if he were speaking to her from very far away, as if she were in a dream and her one mission was to keep whatever he said next from coming out. “It was chaos in the camp. And then the lanterns caught on one of the tents. The wind was strong.”
“No,” Gloria whispered, burying her face in her hands. “No, no, no, no.”
