Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

Jack Valentine opened the restroom door, a wadded-up paper towel pressed to the corner of his mouth. He stared stupefied into Bugsy Siegel’s face.

“Get back inside the john,” Siegel said, pushing him in the chest. “I’ve got some movie ideas I want to talk over with you.”

ONE WEEK LATER, I was back on the pipeline in Louisiana, down by Grand Isle, deep in bayou country. A singular phenomenon that occurs on a pipeline has always intrigued me and made me wonder not only about the molecular structure of steel but the physical composition of the universe. It has also made me wonder if atoms are more akin to living tissue than inert matter. When the pipe joint is welded, it rests on wood skids that elevate the pipe three or four feet from the ground. As the tack and hot-pass welding crews move down the line, they create a long snakelike creature, sometimes with a thirty-six-inch girth, that weighs thousands of tons, resting all day and night on the skids, right next to the trench dug by the ditching machine. The pipe, which is black and wrapped with a heavy protective coating of tarpaper, absorbs heat during the day and cools during the night. At about eight-thirty A.M., when the day begins to warm, the pipe will jump forward, like a snake shedding its skin, toppling the skids as far as the eye can see. The same constriction and expansion occurs in winter, although sometimes not as dramatically.

The illusionary nature of steel doesn’t stop there. The welded pipe is put into the ground by a side boom, which lifts it in the air and lowers it into the bottom of the trench. When the pipe is swung over the trench, it bends like soft licorice. Seconds later, down in the trench, it resumes the rigidity that characterized it before it was hoisted.

Watching this take place in the early-morning hours, in a swamp that was probably like the genetic soup from which we originated, made me wonder if the laws of physics were all they were stacked up to be. But speculation on the nature of creation is a luxury reserved for scholars. The rest of us have to deal with one another and ferret our way through the snares and pitfalls that we create for our fellow man. If I doubted that lesson, I was about to relearn it.

This particular morning it was cold enough to wear a canvas coat and gloves. Fog was rolling off the bay and lay three feet deep on the ground, as white and thick as newly picked cotton; the segments of pipe on the skids were beaded with drops of moisture as big as half dollars. Two men parked a Plymouth on the right-of-way and walked toward me, the fog puffing around their knees. I had no doubt they were lawmen, although I didn’t know what kind. One was short, one was tall. The short one was overweight and wore a windbreaker and a rain hat and had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “Are you Mr. Holland?” he said.

They had walked directly from their car and had passed several members of the crew without asking where they might find me. “Do I know you?” I said.

They opened their badge holders and gave their names, but I didn’t catch them. “You’re feds?” I said.

“Thought you might be able to help us out,” the tall one said. His face was lean, hollow-cheeked, as though some of the bone had been removed. One eyebrow was scarred, as if a piece of string had been drawn through it. He wore shined tan shoes speckled with mud. “Can we sit down somewhere?”

“Not unless you want to sit on the pipe and get your trousers dirty,” I replied.

He had an eight-by-ten envelope in his hand. He took out a photograph and handed it to me. “Are these friends of yours?”

“No.”

“But you know them?”

“I know who they are. I ran into them by accident.”

“You know that’s Ben Siegel and Virginia Hill?”

“I bumped into them at a hotel opening in Houston. Literally. They asked me to have a drink with them. I turned down the offer. What’s this about?”

“Benny is a pretty crazy guy,” said the man in the rain hat. He lit his cigarette and took it out of his mouth. “You punched out a guy in the crapper?”

“Must be a slow day at your office,” I said.

“Humor us and answer the question, please.”

“If a guy named Jack Valentine says I knocked his tooth out in a hotel restroom, he’s probably telling you the truth,” I said. “What else would you like to know?”

“Your wife’s application for admission to the United States contains perjured statements,” the tall man said. “The marriage certificate you provided is not a legitimate one.”

“You’re saying she’s here illegally?”

“I didn’t say that. An immigration officer might,” the man in the rain hat said.

“The certificate is signed by a priest,” I said. “The marriage is recorded in the Hotel de Ville in Paris.”

“Immigration says the good reverend is a defrocked drunk,” the tall man said. “You have another problem. You didn’t get permission to marry from your commanding officer.”

“I think you need to talk to Major Lloyd Fincher about that. He lives in San Antonio. I’ll give you his number. Were you all following me or Siegel when you took this photo?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said the man in the rain hat.

“That’s what I thought. So why is my wife a problem for you?”

“She didn’t mention to you that she’s a member of the Communist Party?”

“That’s because she’s not.”