Allegiance Read Online Free Page B

is.”
    â€œMy great uncle Clum came up here some years ago.”
    I warm to the subject. “I hope he found it pleasant.”
    â€œCan’t say. He made it as far as Cemetery Ridge with Birkett Fry. Met some boys from the Second Vermont and didn’t come back. What can I help you with?”
    I am caught off guard. Old Uncle Clum was taking shape in my mind as an amiable itinerant, with muttonchop sideburns and a waxed mustache. Now the seersucker fades to rebel gray and a Bowie knife sprouts between histeeth. I push the image away to grapple with the question. “Help me with?”
    â€œThat’s what I said.” The stick flicks. Weeds fall. “I don’t hire clerks for what they can do for me. It’s what I can do for them. I won’t hire a man unless I can teach him something.” The stick moves a bit faster. “One fellow I taught to dress a little sharper, but I don’t think that’s your problem. One fellow I taught to stop calling himself by a letter. C. George Mann, he was. I made him see different.” I offer a small appreciative laugh. Black snorts. “You go by Cash, eh? Interesting name.”
    â€œIt’s a nickname.” We are back on familiar ground. “From Caswell.”
    â€œAnother interesting name. But that’s still not it. What do you want?”
    â€œTo be useful.” I have nothing better than this, but Black’s face suggests he is not wholly displeased. “To do the right thing.”
    Now Black snorts again. “So does everyone. Don’t get all vague and gauzy on me.” He pauses and looks at me for a long moment with those shrewd eyes. The stick circles in the air. Then it descends. “Well, every man’s got his purpose. Might be I could teach you yours. And I hear you’ve got a heck of a backhand.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    My mother holds me tight, and I can feel the relief as she lets go. I am leaving her, but I will be safe. Suzanne’s release is more reluctant. There is a smile on her lips, but the sparkle in her eye is a tear and her head drops down as I step away. “Just a year,” I say, and she nods without looking up.
    Judge Skinner just puts his hand on my shoulder. “My boy.” My father does not touch me at all.
    â€œHugo Black,” he says, in that way he has that makes everything sound beneath you. I know what he means. I am lowering myself; it is a disappointment; I should sit on my tidy shelf until something happens to Charles.
    â€œYes, Father,” I say. “Hugo Black. He doesn’t seem so bad after all.”
    The corners of his mouth turn down almost imperceptibly. “So you think,” he says. “Well, remember this. No man is a hero to his valet.”

CHAPTER 4
    THE JUDGE WAS right, it seems; the war is at the Court too. The FBI catches eight Nazi saboteurs come ashore from submarines; the President sends them before military tribunals. Their appointed army lawyers ask the Court to stop the trials, which, after due consideration, it declines to do. Six meet their end in the electric chair. In the mornings I read the newspaper accounts; at night as I lie in bed I imagine myself already inside the marble halls, debating the reach of the war power, the rights of the enemy.
    When I get there, weeks later, I find that Washington is not just at war; it has been invaded. Atop the insular local population, the New Deal has already dropped thousands of bureaucrats. Now the streets swarm with uniforms, too, and government functionaries of all descriptions. Any girl who can type can get thirty dollars a week, but no one can find a room to sleep in. I survey damp and airless basements; I chat with lonely old widows and lonely younger women whose husbands are away at war. Eventually I learn that the Japanese embassy staff has left some vacancies at Alban Towers, a large Gothic building at the intersection of Wisconsin and