Up in Honey's Room (10 page)

“That'll sell papers,” Carl said, “but they're the ones I'm talking about. They made half-ass civilian suits from uniforms and drove out of the camp in a truck delivers movies.”

Walter said, “Well,” sounding to Honey like he was giving up. But then he said in an offhand way, “Do you happen to know their names?”

“It was a while ago,” Carl said. “The girlfriend had a weird name I'd never heard before, but I can't remember hers either.”

Walter said, “Why didn't I read the two officers were captured?”

Not giving up if he could help it. Honey waited for Carl to explain, if he could.

“I think there was a question of whether they should prosecute the girlfriend,” Carl said, “for giving comfort to the enemy, if you know what I mean. But since she did turn them in, the U.S. attorney decided not to prosecute, keep her neighbors from throwing eggs at her and cutting off her hair. No more news about the escape was good news for the girlfriend. Pretty soon the papers stopped asking about the two guys.”

“The ones you say were captured,” Walter said. “Where are they now?”

“Back in camp. The one guy's Waffen-SS. I think they're the SSers in the military. The regular SS are the guys who run the extermination camps, shove live people into gas chambers. Am I right about that, Wally?”

“Do you have to call me that?”

“What? Wally?”

“My name is Walter.”

“You ever go by Walt?”

“It's
Walter
.”

“I tried calling him Walt,” Honey said, “he had a fit.”

“How about a nickname?” Carl said. “What'd your mom call you when you were a kid?”

Honey knew but waited for Walter. He shook his head and Honey said, “His mom called him Buzz.”

“Where'd that come from?”

“He was his sister's little buzzer,” Honey said, “the one that quit talking. She was learning English and had trouble saying
brother
. He told me his dad never called him anything but Valter.”

“I was wondering,” Carl said, “you asked if I knew their names, the guys that escaped?”

Walter hesitated. “Yes…?”

“What're the names of the guys you were thinking of?”

Honey squeezed his arm as he was raising it, slipping his hand into a coat pocket.

She thought Walter would stall, blow his nose or start coughing, at least clear his throat.

He didn't, he said, “I hesitate because it's been so long since I read about them in the newspaper. I thought if you said their names it would refresh my memory. But you offer me no help.”

Honey watched him shrug, then look up as Carl stepped toward him, a marshal's card in his hand.

“This is my Oklahoma card, but I put the Detroit FBI office phone number on it. In case you remember the names of those boys. You understand I live down there. I knew 'em pretty well.”

T
hey were on Ten Mile Road again driving back to Honey's, what was left of a red sky behind them. Carl turned on the headlights. Honey, comfortable, her legs crossed, lighted a cigarette and held it out to Carl, a trace of lipstick on the tip.

He said, “Not right now, thanks,” and turned to look at her. “You were funny, talking to him about his sister.”

“His sister the sister,” Honey said. “I thought we did all right.” She opened the vent window and flicked the ash from her cigarette. “I loved Walter asking if you happened to know their names.”

“He had to ask, didn't he?”

“You said you didn't remember, but they were picked up in a couple of days. Now he was confused. Wait a minute—are we talking about the same guys?”

Carl said, “I was hoping he'd ask if I meant Jurgen and Otto. If he'd said their names I would've handcuffed him to that ugly chair he was sitting in and taken a look around. That's not a bad place for the Krauts to hide out.”

Honey was grinning now. “You threw it back asking
him
for the names. That was beautiful, it sounded so natural. But he got out of it and didn't seem too concerned after that.”

“He thought he was off the hook. He gave himself away when he asked if I happened to know their names, like he was only curious.”

“I thought you'd tell him, get right to it. But you didn't.”

“If I had, what would Walter say? Never heard of 'em. But who else were we talking about, busted out of a camp in Oklahoma last October?”

Honey said, “That doesn't mean they're with Walter.”

“If they aren't, he knows where they're staying. The G-men'll get a warrant that says something about suspicion of subversive activity. We'll put Walter on the rack, stretch him out and ask about the spy ring.”

Honey said, “You're only interested in Jurgen and Otto, aren't you?”

“The Bureau thinks they could be helping the spies. It's okay with me. We locate the two boys, I'm taking 'em back to their home in Oklahoma.”

He glanced at Honey. “You see how Walter was looking at you?”

“He still loves me.”

“I could've stepped outside, give you a chance to reminisce.”

“Tell him a joke?”

“Ask him how he's doing. His piles still acting up? You're right, that's why he thought your piles joke was funny. He's dropped his drawers in the doctor's office, knows the scene.”

“Walter hasn't changed one bit. He was born an old man and he's stuck with it.”

“You want to see him again?”

“For what?”

“He looks like he needs a pal, somebody he can tell his innermost thoughts to.”

“See if I can get him to spill the beans?”

“What do you think?”

“How would I approach him?”

“He still loves you, tell him you're sorry for the way you walked out, not saying anything, not giving him a reason. You were just a kid, still immature.”

“Do I have to kiss him if he wants to?”

“I think once you two're alone you'll know what to say. Keep talking, it'll come to you.”

“Where does this take place, in his meat market?”

“Find out when he's out here and drop in. You don't have to ask him for a date.” Carl stared at his headlight beams on the country road. “We can have supper if you want. Get hold of Kevin, see what he's doing.”

Honey said, “Are you afraid to be alone with me?”

He looked over. She was taking a cigarette from the pack. “You want me to come right out and tell you?”

She said, “Of course,” and flicked her lighter.

“I don't think it's a good idea, you and I start keepin' company.”

She snapped the lighter shut and drew on her cigarette before saying, “If that's how you feel, okay, let's call Kevin.”

It was quiet in the car for a couple of minutes, Honey waiting for Carl to say something. It was his turn.

He surprised her.

“When you told Walter we met on a train—”

“I thought of it as I said it.”

“You ever meet somebody on a train?”

“I sat in the club car on the way to New York, for the Bund rally. Walter stayed in our seat to take a nap. He can sleep sitting straight
up, like he's at attention. I had a cocktail and began thinking of myself as a mystery woman, the guys in the club car wondering who I am. I'm wearing sunglasses and a nifty cloche down on my eyes, I must be
some
body. A couple of different guys offer to buy me a drink, I say no thank you. I'm reading
Newsweek
. Finally a guy sits down next to me I think is interesting. He's in his forties, not bad-looking. He's wearing an expensive pinstriped suit. He tells me he's a real estate investor in New York City, and for the next couple of hours he buys me cocktails, whiskey sours in the afternoon, while he guesses what I do and why I'm going to New York.”

“Did you tell him?”

“He wanted to see me. I told him to stop by the German-American Bund rally at the Garden, he'd get to hear Fritz Kuhn talk about Jews and Communists.”

“The real estate guy's Jewish?”

“Yes, he is. So then I had to tell him about Walter and the reason I married him.”

“What'd he say to that?”

“He still wanted to meet me, so we did. We met for a drink and talked. He wanted me to leave Walter and stay with him in New York.”

“He's married?”

“Divorced.”

“You trusted him?”

“He said I woke him up. Made him feel alive again.”

“I imagine so,” Carl said and waited while Honey took her time.

“I went back to the Garden to see Walter
sieg heil
ing Fritz Kuhn and I thought, What's wrong with me? Outside of being young and dumb.”

They were quiet again.

She said, “You know Kevin's had his supper by now.”

Carl said most likely, his eyes on the road.

“Are you taking me to supper or dropping me off home?”

“We'll stop somewhere.”

“I ask since you don't care to have fun with women other than your wife.”

“If I can help it,” Carl said.

J
urgen watched the Pontiac creep past the front of the house, a green four-door, out of his view for several moments, now it appeared on the far side of the house and the trees in the yard, turning onto the road Darcy had made coming through the field with his trailers of cows. Jurgen watched the Pontiac coming across the barn lot now to creep past the stock pen. Then stop and back up. So the ones in the car could look at the cows? He watched the window come down on the passenger side and saw a young woman's face, quite a lovely face, smoking a cigarette. He couldn't see the man who was driving. Only his hat.

He remembered a green four-door Pontiac at the camp in Oklahoma. Watching through the fence to see who was in it. As he was doing now, watching from the cattle entrance to the barn, the chute where the cows and heifer in the pen would be prodded inside later tonight to lose their hides, their heads, their hooves, and finally all their parts.

He watched the Pontiac make a wide turnabout and leave the yard in Darcy's tracks across the field, turn on to the main road and come this way, again out of view on the front side of the house. Jurgen waited. The Pontiac didn't come past the house. It must have turned into the driveway that circled and came out again. But the car didn't appear. It told Jurgen they had looked over Walter's cows and now they were going to drop in for a visit.

He didn't think they were friends of Walter's.

Walter had only three friends he ever talked about: Vera Mezwa, the Ukrainian countess, and her houseman Bohdan; Michael George Taylor, the doctor who supplied Vera with invisible ink; and Joe Aubrey, the official of the Ku Klux Klan who owned restaurants and a light plane. Months ago he had asked Walter, “You've told them about Otto and me?”

Walter said, “You know what happened to Max Stephan and the Luftwaffe pilot.”

Jurgen said, “‘Loose lips sink ships.'”

Walter said, “What?”

The girl in the car was too young to be Vera Mezwa. The guy driving, only his hat visible on the other side of the lovely girl, but something familiar about the way he wore it—of all the ways there were to shape a felt hat—and thought of the marshal, Carlos Huntington Webster, Carl at the table in the department store with another man and a girl who could,
yes,
very possibly be the girl in the car smoking a cigarette. He liked her beret. If this was the same girl, the one driving could very well be Carl, Carl coming closer each day. He had thought earlier, Where will you see him the next time?

Here, where he was standing at the chute entrance to Walter's slaughterhouse. Jurgen stepped inside.

Walter's cutters would arrive after dark and set to work on the cows and the heifer, have sides of beef hanging before morning. Darcy would arrive in his snub-nosed refrigerated van he'd bought at auction, and get the sides out of here before any government inspectors showed up with their meat stamps. He'd take the load to Walter's market where they'd hang and chill for twenty-four hours before Walter dressed them out. There were sides usually hanging in the barn's chill room, from cattle bought at legal sales for inspectors who dropped by unannounced.

“That's what they do,” Darcy said, “sneak up while you're trying to make a living.”

Jurgen had never met anyone like Darcy Deal, a former convict—they had imprisonment in common—who worked now as a cattle rustler and looked the part in his sweaty cowboy hat and run-down boots with spurs. Darcy had a hard, stringy build and seemed to prefer looking mean. Jurgen was hesitant the first time he approached him.

“Do you ride a horse?”

“You askin' if I can?”

“When you rustle the cattle.”

“I work afoot. Shake out a rope on the cow, put a feed bag on her and lead her to the truck, if I don't use a trailer.”

“Then why do you wear spurs?”

“I walk in a bar, they hear my spurs jingle jangle jingle they know who I am.” Darcy grinned, three or four days' growth on his face. “My boots are about worn through, but I never once had these can openers off 'em.”

Jurgen said, “I like the sound they make, that
ching
…
ching,
with each step you take.”

“You hear it,” Darcy said, “look out. They's a cowboy come in the bar.”

Jurgen smiled. “Instilling fear in the hearts of the customers, uh?”

Darcy said, “Somethin' like that.”

Jurgen asked him, “Do you know who I am?”

“You're one of the Kraut prisoners broke out of somewhere. Walter says you stole a truck and drove out the front gate in it.” Darcy said, “I never tried to escape. I looked at gettin' out in two years and I did, got paroled, but then busted my foreman's jaw—we're workin' down in a mine and he give me some lip—so I was thrown back in to finish my time. This prison's on a hill, two thousand yards from the Cumberland River, if you ever got a chance to see it from inside. Eddyville, named for a Civil War general.”

Jurgen was thinking, General Eddie Vill?

“General H. B. Lyon,” Darcy said. “Eddyville's where he was from.”

Jurgen said, “Well, we both know what it's like to be a prisoner, don't we?”

Darcy said, “You don't hardly have any accent.”

“I try to improve my English.”

“What'd you do in the war?”

“I commanded a tank in the desert of North Africa, sat in the turret with field glasses and directed fire. Our sixty-millimeter gun could destroy a British Stuart at more than a thousand meters. Other times I flew a single-engine reconnaissance aircraft, looking for British tanks they would try to conceal, covering them with Bedouin tents.”

“Is that right?” Darcy said, sounding interested, though Jurgen doubted the cowboy knew what he was talking about.

Darcy said, “You must've killed some people.”

Jurgen said, “Well, when we hit a tank it would often go up in flames. Sometimes one or two of the crew would get out.” He
paused and said, “We would machine-gun them,” and paused again. “But not always.”

“I been shot at,” Darcy said. “Haulin' ass out of a pasture. I pick up steers from growers that set their price of beef high and wait for buyers who don't mind payin' it.”

Jurgen had to think about this. He said, “The butcher is told how much he can charge for a pound of meat. But the grower, or the feeder, can ask any price he wants?”

“That's how she works.”

“It doesn't seem fair.”

“Don't knock it, it's why we're in the black market business makin' a good buck.”

“I'm surprised Walter has the nerve.”

“You kiddin'? Walter's fuckin' the United States government, breakin' the law in the name of A-dolf Hitler, 'cause Walter's a hunnert percent Kraut.”

“You don't care he's your enemy?”

“Walter? The enemy's over across the ocean, Walter's my partner.”

“So you don't care you're breaking the law.”

Darcy looked surprised. “It's what I do. How I make my livin'. I round up cows in the dark of night. It don't have nothin' to do with the government, my gettin' back at 'em for puttin' me in jail. Man, I'm an outlaw. I been one since I was a kid. I stole cars, I sold moonshine, I hit guys and the fuckin' court'd call it ‘assault to do great bodily harm.' Damn right, guy gives me lip, I'm suppose to take it?”

Jurgen was nodding. “Yes, of course, you're an outlaw. You don't need motivation to steal cows in the dead of night, other than it makes money for you.”

“So I can eat,” Darcy said. “Listen, take a ride with me in my truck. I'll show you how to rope a cow and put her in the trailer.
Tell you what to say to her she won't start mooin' at you. You're keepin' an eye on the house, light showin' in a window upstairs. You're not nervous, but you wonder what the hell they're doin' they're not in bed asleep.”

“Or they're in bed,” Jurgen said, “and enjoy to become intimate with the light on.”

“My favorite place to screw Muriel,” Darcy said, “was on the squeaky glider on the front porch of her mom's house. Was before we're married. You ever met Honey?”

Jurgen shook his head.

“You ought to meet her. She's the smartest girl I ever knew and she's my sister. No, she
use
to be the smartest till she married Walter. He hasn't told you about her?”

Jurgen shook his head again. “You're married?”

“Sorta. I hardly ever see Muriel.”

“Children?”

“Listen, I spent every night of a year trying to knock Muriel up. It must be a female thing she can't have children. But if you want to go out with me some night, become the world's first Kraut rustler, lemme know.”

Jurgen said, “I don't have a cowboy hat.”

Darcy said, “I got hats, partner. What size you wear?”

 

Darcy stopped at a bar in Farmington and had a few shots with beer chasers thinking about his sister, wanting to know what she was up to visiting Walter. And who the guy was with her. Darcy hadn't called Honey since he'd come up here, he was still getting around to it. He said, Shit, go on over there and introduce yourself to your sister and see if the guy's with the law.

It was dark by the time he left the bar and drove past the house, pulling his trailer.

The car Honey'd been in wasn't in the driveway. He cut through the field to the barn lot. The only cars here belonged to Walter's Kraut meat cutters. Shit. He could say to Walter, “My sister come to visit you, huh?” Get him to tell what was going on. He'd take a leak and stop in the barn first. See how the cutters were doing and kid with 'em. Those old guys and their six-inch blades they kept sharpenin', they could take the coat off a cow, Jesus, like it was buttoned on. There was only one area of their dressing down a cow where he disagreed with them. How they killed it.

 

Jurgen was watching the guy acting as the stunner this evening, holding a .22-caliber rifle in one hand he pointed at the cow's forehead, no more than a few inches from the end of the barrel, and shot it and the cow buckled in the chute, not dead but stunned, knocked cold.

Coming up behind Jurgen, Darcy said, “You see the cow lookin' up at the stunner? She's thinkin', The fuck you doin' with a .22? Use a man's gun. You want to kill me, fuckin' kill me, man. Get her done.”

Darcy, still talking, moved up next to Jurgen.

“Cruelty to Animals says you got to stun the girl, so she won't feel it when you hoist her up head-down and slice through her arteries and
look out,
take a quick step back. You aren't wearin' that rubber apron 'cause it's rainin' out. Split her down the middle from asshole to brisket, pull out her tummies, her bladder, her kidneys. Pull the esophagus up through her diaphragm and it frees the organs hooked on to come loose. Take out all the nasty stuff—”

“The offal,” Jurgen said.

“That's correct, what she was gonna make cow pies out of. Hell,” Darcy said, “all the time you spend in here watchin', it tells me you're thinkin' of becomin' a butcher once you're free.”

“I'm free now,” Jurgen said. “What I want to do is go out West and be a cowboy.”

 

Walter came in while they were talking about going out on a dark night, what Darcy called “the owl hoot trail,” Jurgen serious, wanting to know if they could ride horses, do it as they did out West. Jurgen serious but sounding like he was kidding.

He saw Walter approaching, Walter looking excited for a change, telling them, “Honig was here.”

Jurgen said, “The girl in the car,” to Walter, “your former wife?”

Walter said, “Yes, Honig,” and said to Darcy, “Did you see her?”

“Out there on the road,” Darcy said, “but I wasn't sure it was her.”

“They came in the back,” Jurgen said, seeing the Pontiac again, “and turned around.”

“My sis,” Darcy said. “I told you about her, Miss Sunshine? Use to be Walter's old lady.” He said to Walter, “What'd she want, see if you become American yet? I didn't recognize that guy she had with her.”

“He's a federal officer,” Walter said, “but is not with the Federal Bureau.” Walter's hand went into his pocket as he turned to Jurgen. “He's looking for you and Otto.”

“He told you his name?”

Walter's hand came out of the pocket holding Carl's card with the gold star engraved on it.

Jurgen could feel it between his fingers, taking the card and seeing
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL CARLOS HUNTINGTON WEBSTER
and thinking, You've found me.

He would be seeing Carl again and liked the idea of it, talking to him, smiling at things he said, but didn't want to go back to Oklahoma, not until the war was over and he could look up that marshal who had worked with Carl Webster, the one who'd been a bull rider in the rodeo before he became a marshal. Spend time with guys like that, and Carl Webster. Watch them and learn how to spit. There was a lot of spitting involved with chewing tobacco.

“He didn't want to search the house, the grounds?”

“It was time for supper,” Walter said. “He was hungry, so he left…with Honig.”

Jurgen thought he was going to say “with my Honey.”

“But he's coming back,” Jurgen said.

“We have to believe that,” Walter said. “He knows you. You must have told him you lived here at one time and of course have friends here?”

Jurgen nodded.

“Yes, he'll come back. I'm going to speak to Helmut,” Walter said, looking at the three cutters. They stood by the cow now hanging head-down, all three of them sharpening their knives. “Helmut, Reinhard and Artur, excellent men. Helmut will take you with him when he leaves.”

Jurgen said, “I'm going to live with Helmut?”