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.He’d just taken it out of an envelope and unfolded it.In block capitals, it said, YANK SWINE, YOU WILL DIE!He supposed he ought to turn it over to the occupying authorities.Maybe they could find fingerprints on it and track down whoever had stuck it in the mail.Instead, Moss crumpled up the paper and chucked it into the wastebasket.For one thing, odds were anyone who sent a charming missive of this sort had the elementary common sense to wear gloves while he was doing it.And, for another, taking a crank like this seriously gave him power over you.During the war, Moss had flown observation aeroplanes and fighting scouts.He’d gone through all three years without getting badly hurt, and ended up an ace.After the real terror of aerial combat, a cowardly little anonymous threat didn’t get him very excited.He methodically went through the rest of his mail.The Bar Association reminded him his dues were payable before December 31.That gave him two and a half weeks.His landlord served notice that, as of next February 1, his office rent would go up five dollars a month.“Happy day,” he said.He opened another nondescript envelope.This one also held a single sheet of paper.Its message, also in untraceable block capitals, was, YOUR WIFE AND LITTLE GIRL WILL DIE, YANK SWINE!Seeing that, Moss abruptly changed his mind about the letter he’d thrown away.He fished it from the trash can and flattened it out as best he could.The letters in both were about the same size and in about the same style.Moss rummaged for the envelope in which the first threat had come.He set it next to the one he’d just now opened.“Well, well,” he murmured.“Isn’t that interesting?” He was no detective with a microscope, but he didn’t need to be to see that his address on the two envelopes had been typed with two different machines.Not only that, one U.S.stamp bore a Manitoba overprint, while the other had one from Ontario.The notes, as near as he could see, were identical.The envelopes not only weren’t but had been mailed from different provinces.(He checked to see if the postmarks confirmed what the stamps said.They did.One came from Toronto, the other from a town south of Winnipeg.) What did that mean?Two possibilities occurred to him.One was that somebody didn’t like him and had got his bother-in-law or someone of that sort to help show how much.Somebody like that was a pest.The other possibility was that he’d fallen foul of a real organization dedicated to—What? To making his life miserable, certainly, and, odds were, to making Canada’s American occupiers unhappy en masse.He’d hoped time would reconcile Canada to having lost the Great War.The longer he stayed here, the more naive and forlorn that hope looked.English-speaking Canada had risen once on its own, in the 1920s.More recently, the Empire of Japan had tried to ignite it again.Great Britain wouldn’t have minded helping its one-time dominion make the Yanks miserable, either.With a sigh, Moss put both sheets of paper and both envelopes in a buff manila folder.With a longer, louder sigh, he donned his overcoat, earmuffs, hat, and mittens.Then he closed the door to the law office—as an afterthought, he locked it, too—and left the building for the two-block walk to occupation headquarters in Berlin.Had he been in a tearing hurry, he could have left off the earmuffs and mittens.It was above zero, and no new snow had fallen since the middle of the night.Moss had grown up around Chicago, a city that knew rugged weather.Even so, his wartime service in Ontario and the years he’d lived here since had taught him some things about cold he’d never learned down in the States.He saw three new YANKS OUT! graffiti between the building where he worked and the red-brick fortress that housed the occupation authority.Two shopkeepers were already out getting rid of them.He suspected the third would in short order.Leaving anti-American messages up on your property was an offense punishable by fine.Occupation Code, Section 227.3, he thought.The sentries in front of occupation headquarters jeered at him as he came up the steps: “Look! It’s the Canuck from Chicago!” He wasn’t in the Army—indeed, most of his practice involved opposing military lawyers—so they didn’t bother wasting politeness on him.“Funny boys,” he said, at which they jeered harder than ever.He went on into the building, or started to.Just inside the entrance, a sergeant and a couple of privates stopped him.“They’ve beefed up security, sir,” the sergeant said.“Orders are to pat down all civilians.Sorry, sir.” He didn’t sound sorry at all.Moss shed his overcoat and held his arms out wide, as if he were being crucified.After he passed the inspection, he went on to the office of Major Sam Lopat, a prosecutor with whom he’d locked horns more than a few times.“Ah, Mr.Moss,” Lopat said.“And what sort of fancy lies have you got waiting for me next time we go at each other?”“Here.” Moss set the manila folder on the major’s desk.“Tell me what you think of these.”Lopat raised one eyebrow when Moss failed to come back with a gibe.He raised the other when he saw what the folder held.“Oh,” he said in a different tone of voice.“More of these babies.”“More of them, you say?” Moss didn’t know whether to feel alarmed or relieved.“Other people have got ’em, too?”“Hell, yes,” the military prosecutor answered.“What, did you think you were the only one?” He didn’t wait for Moss’ reply, but threw back his head and laughed.“You civilian lawyers think you’re the most important guys in the world, and nothing is real unless it happens to you.Well, I’ve got news for you: you aren’t the cream in God’s coffee.”“And you are—” But Jonathan Moss checked himself.He wanted information from Lopat, not a quarrel.“All right, I’m not the only one, you say? Tell me more.Who else has got ’em? Who sends ’em? Have you had any luck catching the bastards? I guess not, or I wouldn’t have got these.”“Not as much as we’d like,” Lopat said, which was pretty obvious.“We’ve torn apart the towns where they’re postmarked, but not much luck.You can see for yourself—all the Canucks need is a typewriter and a pen, and they could do without the typewriter in a pinch.If it makes you feel better, there’s never been a follow-up on one of these.Nobody’s got shot or blown up the day after one of these little love notes came.”“I’m not sorry to hear that,” Moss admitted.“You didn’t say who else got a—love note.” He nodded to Lopat, acknowledging the phrase.“I don’t have the whole list.Investigation isn’t my department, you know.I go into court once they’re caught—and then you do your damnedest to get ’em off the hook.” The military prosecutor leered at Moss, who stonily stared back.With a shrug, Lopat went on, “Far as I know, the other people these have come to have all been part of the occupation apparatus one way or another.You’re the first outside shyster to get one, or I think you are [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]