Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online

were true and righteous altogether, wouldn’t you also believe He had placed the impulse to roast FDR to a charcoal briquette in the arsonist’s mind and then allowed the bastard’s plan to succeed? Wouldn’t you believe God had let Roosevelt roast in his wheelchair so the world as a whole could become a better place?
    Mike Sullivan couldn’t make himself believe any of that. He had trouble thinking any of the mourners, or even the Episcopal bishop, could believe it. Accidents? Yeah, you could blame accidents on God—hell, insurance policies called them “acts of God.” Murder? Unh-unh. Murder was a thing that sprang from man, not from God.
    â€œLet us pray for the souls of Franklin and Eleanor,” the bishop said,and bowed his head. Along with the mourners and the rest of the reporters, Mike followed suit. He doubted whether prayer would do any good. On the other hand, he didn’t see how it could hurt.
    Down into the fresh-dug holes that scarred the green, green grass went the two caskets. FDR and Eleanor would lie side by side forever. Whether they would care about it . . . If you believed they would, you also believed they found themselves in a better place now. Mike did his best, and wished his best were better.
    Dirt thudded down onto the coffins’ lids as the gravediggers started undoing what they’d done. Mike’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a soundless snarl. He’d always thought that was the loneliest sound in the world. It left you all by yourself against mortality, and it reminded you mortality always won in the end.
    The pretty girl in the black veil spoke to her young man: “Sweet Jesus Christ, but I want a cocktail!” He nodded. If they weren’t feeling the same thing Mike was, he would have been amazed.
    He took a notebook out of his pocket and scribbled notes that only he and the God Who probably wasn’t presiding over this ceremony had any hope of reading. That told the people around him he was a reporter, not one of their prosperous selves. Some moved away from him, as if he carried a nasty, possibly catching disease. Others seemed intrigued.
    They were more intrigued when they found out he’d witnessed the fire. “What did you think it was?” asked a middle-aged man whose horsey features put Mike in mind of Eleanor Roosevelt.
    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.”
    â€œThey 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.”
    â€œSir, that’s the kind of charge it’s better not to make unless you can prove it,” Mike said.
    â€œHow am I supposed to prove it? You do something like that, you’dbetter 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.”
    â€œDon’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.”
    â€œI 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.

III
    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