He drained the rest of his liquor and extended the glass to Mike. "Now why don't you do something useful and pour me some more of this godawful stuff? Did I tell you some sainted soul in Bamberg is trying to distill sourmash whiskey? Of all the things I miss about Ye Olde Up-time, Jack Daniels is right at the top of the list."
Chapter 42
Magdeburg, central Germany
Capital of the United States of Europe
When Rebecca finished her analysis, there was silence around the table for a moment. Then, Anselm Keller cleared his throat.
"Are you sure you are not . . . ah . . ."
Rebecca smiled. "Overinterpreting my husband's radio messages?"
The member of Parliament from the Province of the Main made a face. "Ah, yes. You did give us the exact working of the messages, after all. Most of it seemed . . . well . . ."
"Personal? Innocuous?"
"Well, yes."
Constantin Ableidinger had been slouched in his chair. Now, he sat erect. "Don't be naïve, Anselm. How else should we interpret phrases such as ‘Axel seems extraordinarily vigorous despite the king's condition,' and ‘I've noticed the prime minister and the chancellor are spending a lot of time together'?"
Matthias Strigel grunted. "Not to mention: ‘Lennart seems to share some of my misgivings, but the council feels we are obliged to respect Gustav Adolf's last wishes. So it's off to Bohemia I go. As soon as possible, the prime minister has instructed me.' "
Melissa Mailey spoke. "You're all missing the key phrase. Even Becky."
Everyone looked at her. "Which is?" asked Rebecca. She was simply curious, not offended.
Melissa looked down at the sheets of paper in her hand and shuffled through them. "It's . . . this one. On page four." Her voice got that little singsong pitch people often fall into when they quote something. "Wilhelm seems in quite good health. But I can't help notice how much he's starting to look like my uncle Billy Conn as he gets older."
Rebecca nodded. "Yes, I did wonder about that. He's never mentioned this relative to me before. Or any relative with that surname, in fact."
Melissa chuckled. "Mike Stearns doesn't have an uncle by that name. It's an allusion he must have figured would escape any down-timer's notice—even yours—but I guess he figured I'd be able to decipher it. Although why"—she drew herself up a little—"he would imagine for one moment that I would be familiar with the sordid details of the history of such a brutal so-called sport is quite beyond me."
Rebecca smiled. "Perhaps he assumed Ed Piazza would be here. He has quite low tastes, you know." Her smile widened. "But since you apparently do know these sordid details—this particular one, at least—why don't you share it with us?"
Melissa looked slightly embarrassed. "Well . . . It happened back up-time at some point during the 1930s or 1940s, I don't remember the exact date, and, yes, I realize how preposterous it seems to refer ‘back' to a year that won't come for another three centuries, but there it is. Anyway, the heavyweight champion boxer at the time was a man by the name of Joe Louis. He was, among other things, a tremendously powerful man who ended most of his fights by knocking out his opponents. Ah, that means punching them so hard that they are knocked down for a while, and sometimes unconscious.' "
She took a breath. "Billy Conn, on the other hand, was a smaller boxer—what they called a ‘light heavyweight'—and one whose great skill was boxing itself. He would often win bouts by outscoring his opponents rather than knocking them out."
Ableidinger frowned. "How do you score something like that?"
"Never mind. Just take my word for it. Billy Conn challenged Joe Louis for the heavyweight title. To everyone's surprise, he won the first twelve rounds—there are fifteen rounds to a championship match, by the way—by outmaneuvering Louis, avoiding his powerful punches and scoring many points with his own much lighter punches. Coming into the thirteenth round, he was far ahead on points and on the verge of winning the match."
She took another breath. "But then Billy Conn got overconfident. He decided he could win the match with a knockout—always the more prestigious method. So he started mixing it up with Louis, as the expression goes. Trading punch for punch, blow for blow."
"Ha!" boomed Ableidinger. "And thereby lost the match, because the Louis ogre knocked him out."
Melissa scowled at him. "Joe Louis was not an ogre. He was . . . Well. A very important man in the history of the United States, for reasons I'm not going to get into here. But, yes, that is what happened. Billy Conn didn't even make it to the end of the thirteenth round."