The restaurant was decent, and surprisingly cheap. Charlie ordered sturgeon, which he’d never had before. “Straight outa the Tennessee River, suh,” the waiter said. “Mighty good, too.” It tasted fishy, but not quite like any other fish he’d eaten before. He didn’t think he would have called it mighty good, but it wasn’t bad.
A motorcade took the President and his aides and the reporters who covered his doings to the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium, where he would speak. The motorcade didn’t take long to get where it was going: the auditorium lay only about four blocks northeast of the hotel. Still, some people stood on the sidewalk to watch the President roll by. It was a mild spring day, nothing like the dreadful one on which Joe Steele’s second term started.
Here and there, a man or a woman or, most often, a child would wave an American flag. Most of the thin crowd seemed friendly, though one man shouted, “Who killed Huey Long?” as the President’s car went by. Charlie watched a cop run up and give the man a shove. The car he was in kept him from seeing what, if anything, else happened to the heckler.
The auditorium took up a whole city block. It wasn’t Madison Square Garden, but it wasn’t small, either-the main hall had to hold more than five thousand people. It was filling up fast, too. The President didn’t come to Chattanooga every day. Charlie wondered if a President came to Chattanooga every decade.
With the other reporters, he had a seat on the stage. They were off to the side and dimly lit, so the crowd would look at the man behind the lectern and not at them. Charlie noticed a low, broad wooden stool in back of the lectern. The crowd wouldn’t see that, but Joe Steele would seem taller than he really was. He chuckled quietly. Reporters noticed such things, but they didn’t write about them. Politicians got to keep some illusions.
Reporters also had the sport of watching the people who watched the President. The Washington Times-Herald’s Presidential correspondent nudged Charlie and whispered, “Check the soldier in the first row. He’s so excited, he’s about to wet his pants.”
He was, too. He was a young officer-a captain, Charlie thought, seeing the overhead lights flash silver from the bars on his shoulders. He wiggled like a man with ants in his pants. His eyes were open as wide as if he’d gulped eighteen cups of coffee. Even from a good distance away, Charlie could make out white all around his irises.
“And Joe Steele’s not even out there yet,” Charlie whispered back. “I wonder if he’s an epileptic or something, and getting ready to throw a fit.”
“That’d liven up the day, wouldn’t it?” the Times-Herald man said.
“Be nice if something could,” Charlie said. He’d been to too many speeches.
Out came the mayor of Chattanooga, to welcome the audience and the President. Out came the engineer who’d been in charge of the local dam, to tell everyone how wonderful it was. Unfortunately, he talked like an engineer-he was so dull, he might have exhaled ether. People applauded in relief when he stopped.
And out came Congressman Sam McReynolds, who’d represented Chattanooga and the Third District of Tennessee for years. He wasn’t-Charlie had checked-related to the late Justice James McReynolds; that worthy had come from Kentucky. Only a sadist would have made the brother or cousin of a man he’d executed introduce him to a crowd.
Introduce Joe Steele Congressman McReynolds did. “He pays attention to Tennessee!” McReynolds said, as if announcing miracles. “He pays attention to the little people, the forgotten people, of Tennessee. And here he is-the President of the United States, Joe Steele!”
By the oomph he put into it, he might have been bringing out Bing Crosby or some other popular crooner. And the crowd responded almost as if he were. That Army captain bruised his palms banging them together. No smooth, handsome, debonair crooner came to the lectern, though. It was just Joe Steele, hawk-faced, fierce-mustached, wearing a black suit that might have come straight off the rack at Sear’s.
He looked out over the audience from behind the lectern. Charlie could see the sheets with the text of his speech, though the people in front of the stage couldn’t. Joe Steele raised a hand. The applause died away.
“Thank you,” the President said. “Thank you very much. It is good to remember that the people care about me, no matter what the newspapers claim.” He won a few chuckles. That dry, barbed wit was the only kind he owned. “And it’s good to come to Chattanooga, because-”
“I’ll show you what the people think about you, you murdering son of a bitch!” the Army captain screeched. He sprang to his feet, pulled the service pistol from the holster on his hip, and started shooting.
Charlie thought the.45 barked twice before Secret Service men returned fire. He was sure the captain got off at least one more shot after he was hit. Red stains appeared on the front of his tunic. He fell over backward and fired one last time, straight up at the ceiling.
Several people near him in the crowd were shrieking and bleeding, too. Charlie had no idea how many Secret Service men tried to kill the would-be assassin, or how many rounds they fired doing it. One thing was all too obvious: not all those rounds struck the man they were aimed at. A bullet from an excited, hasty gunman was liable to go anywhere.
Joe Steele slumped down to one knee behind the lectern. “Jesus Christ!” the Times-Herald man said. “If that bastard killed him, John Nance Garner’s President, and God help us all!”
Charlie hardly heard him. The gunfire’d left him paralyzed. He hadn’t even had the sense to flatten out on the stage when the shooting started to make himself a smaller target-he didn’t have combat reflexes drilled into him from the Great War, since he’d got to France after the shooting ended. He’d just sat there gaping like everybody else. Now he made himself get up and run over to Joe Steele.
The President had both hands pressed to the left side of his chest. Between his fingers, Charlie saw blood on his white shirt. After a moment, he smelled it, too, hot and metallic. “Mr. President! Are you all right?” he bleated-the usual idiot question.
To his surprise, Joe Steele nodded. “Yes, or I think so. It grazed me and glanced off a rib. That may be broken, but unless I am very, very wrong it did not go in.”
“Well, thank heaven!” Charlie said. “Let me see it, please?” Scowling, Joe Steele took his hands away. Sure enough, his shirt had a long tear, not a round hole. Charlie unbuttoned a couple of buttons and tugged aside the President’s undershirt. There was a bleeding gash below and to the left of Joe Steele’s left nipple, but his furry chest wasn’t punctured.
“Did they get the asshole who shot me?” he asked-not a line that sounded Presidential, maybe, but one that was plainly heartfelt.
“Yes, sir. He’s got more holes than a colander,” Charlie said. “Some of the other people by him got hit, too.”
Joe Steele waved that back, as being of no account. “He’s dead? Too bad. Alive, he could have answered questions.” Charlie would not have wanted to answer questions of the kind that burned in the President’s eyes.
Somebody grabbed Charlie from behind and yanked him away. He landed on his tailbone on the waxed planks of the stage. It hurt like hell-he saw stars. But he bit down on the yip he wanted to let out. For one thing, the Secret Service guy who’d thrown him aside was only doing his job. For another, he was a long, long way from the worst hurt here.
“Is there a doctor in the audience?” the agent by Joe Steele yelled. Some medical men were there. Looking out, Charlie saw them doing what they could for the wounded close by the assassin. At the call, a tall man with a cowlick jumped up on the stage and hurried to the President’s side.
“Take a gander at this,” one Secret Service man said to another. “Look how the waddayacallit here has these chromed bars for reinforcement or decoration or whatever the hell.” He was pointing at the lectern. “And the bullet caught one of ’em and slewed, like. Otherwise, it might’ve hit the boss dead center.”