Up in Honey's Room (5 page)

N
arcissa Raincrow, Virgil's common-law wife of thirty-nine years, called out supper was ready and served them fried chicken and rice with gravy at the round table in the back part of the kitchen. Narcissa, fifty-four now, had been living here since she was sixteen, hired to wet-nurse Carl when his mother, Graciaplena, died giving birth to him. This was in 1906. Virgil had married Grace and brought her here from Cuba after the war with Spain. Carl was named for Grace's father, Carlos. Narcissa, unmarried, had delivered a child stillborn and needed to give her milk to a newborn infant. When Carl first brought his wife, Louly, to the house he told her that by the time he'd lost interest in Narcissa's breasts, his dad had acquired an appreciation, first keeping her on as housekeeper and cook, finally as his common-law wife. Virgil thought she looked like Dolores Del Rio only heavier.

Narcissa said to Carl eating his chicken, “I got a letter from Louly you can read if you want. I write her, she always answers my letter.”

Carl said he talked to her on the phone every week.

Virgil said, “You tell the FBI agent your wife's a marine?”

“I tell everybody I meet,” Carl said, “Louly's a gunnery instructor at a marine air base. Shows recruits how to fire a Browning machine gun from the backseat of a Dauntless dive-bomber without shooting off the tail. Louly's having all the fun.”

“He misses the war,” Virgil said.

“He would still be in it,” Narcissa said, “he wasn't shot that time.” She said to Carl, “You lucky, you know it?” And said, “Virgil tell you the FBI man called?”

“I tried him, he was gone for the day,” Carl said, busy with his chicken and rice. “I'll see him tomorrow.”

“How come he asked for Carlos Webster?”

Carl saw his dad stop eating his supper to watch him.

“I told Kevin I was Carlos. I'm thinking of using it again while I'm in Detroit.”

“Nobody's called you that since you were a boy,” Virgil said. “Or up to when you joined the marshals and they started calling you Carl. You'd tell 'em you're Carlos and come near having fistfights over it till your boss calmed you down. You recall why you wanted to stick with Carlos?”

Carl said, “'Cause it's my name?”

“Still a smarty-pants,” Narcissa said.

“You were wearing it like a chip on your shoulder,” Virgil said. “You know why?”

“I know what you're gonna say.”

“'Cause a long time ago that moron Emmett Long took your ice cream cone and called you a greaser. I told you he couldn't read nor write or he wouldn't be robbing banks.”

“He said I was part greaser on my mama's side,” Carl said. “I told him my grammaw's Northern Cheyenne and asked him if having Indian blood made me something else besides a greaser.”

Narcissa shook her head saying, “Don't you want to hug him?”

“He told you it would make us breeds,” Virgil said, “me more'n you. Six years later with a marshal's star on your person, you shot Emmett Long for insulting your ancestry. That's how I tell it to the soldiers in the bar, the ones from the camp they got the Huns in. Then I say, ‘Or did the hot kid of the marshals shoot the wanted bank robber for taking his ice cream cone?'”

“The soldiers buy the three-two and the shots,” Narcissa said, holding a cold bottle of Mexican beer in each hand. “He tells one story after another and comes home looped.”

Carl said, “First he tells how he was blown off the
Maine
and held in the Morro for being a spy.”

Virgil said, “Once that's out of the way I tell how you shot the cow thief off his horse from two hundred yards, with a Winchester.”

Carl said, “You remember his name?”

“Wally Tarwater. I got all their names written down.”

“I see him moving my cows I yelled at him.”

“You were fifteen years old,” his dad said. “The marshals were ready to hire you.”

“I could see he knew how to work beef without wearing himself out.”

“Later on,” his dad said, “I asked if you looked at him as he's lying on the ground. You said you got down from that dun you rode and closed his eyes. I asked did you feel any sympathy for him. Remember what you said?”

“That was twenty-five years ago.”

“You said you warned him, turn the stock or you'd shoot. I imagine all the cow thief saw was a kid on a horse. You said to me later on, ‘Yeah, but if he'd listened he wouldn't of been lying there dead, would he?' I said to myself, My Lord, but this boy's got a hard bark on him.”

Narcissa, who had nursed Carl for the first months of his life, placed the Mexican beers on the table and stooped to put her arms around his shoulders. Now she was touching his hair saying, “But he's a sweet boy too, isn't he? Yes he is, he's a sweetie pie.”

 

Finally they let Carl Webster step down as acting marshal of Oklahoma's Eastern District and gave the job to a marshal from Arkansas, an old hand by the name of W. R. “Bill” Hutchinson. He and Carl had tracked felons together and shared jars of shine over the years, each knowing the other would be watching his back. Today in the marshal's office was the first time Carl had seen him without a plug in his jaw, in there behind his lawman's mustache. Bill Hutchinson asked Carl if he was sure he wanted to go to De-troit.

“You know it's still winter up there. I've heard they have snow in May.”

Carl stared at the angle of bones in Bill Hutchinson's face, the creases cut into the corners of his eyes. Marshals had told Carl he reminded them some of Bill Hutchinson, that same look, only without the old-time mustache the marshal from Arkansas favored.

“I'm going after the Krauts,” Carl told him. “You can send me or I'll take a leave of absence and do it without pay. If you want to send me, let me have the Pontiac and enough gas stamps. It's the car I was using before I spent the past five and a half months sitting here with my feet on the desk.”

“What else you want?”

“Expense money.”

“You know those officers up north are different'n us, their manner of doing things, the way they dress up.”

“The agent I'm seeing is from Bixby, Oklahoma, if you know where Bixby's at. Directly across the river.”

“I imagine you'll observe the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit,” Bill Hutchinson said. “It shouldn't take you more'n two, three days. Can you tell me where you'll be staying?”

 

Not till Kevin Dean found him a place.

A thousand miles to Detroit from Tulsa through St. Louis, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, head for Toledo following cars on the two-lane highways moping along at thirty-five, Carl wearing himself out looking to pass, not able to bear down until it was dark and he took the Pontiac up to seventy through Indiana farmland, a five-gallon can of gas in the trunk just in case. Carl left Tulsa at 6:40
A.M.
hoping to make the trip in twenty-four hours, but it was eight the next morning before he was approaching Detroit from the southwest and going on nine by the time he was downtown looking for West Lafayette. Carl had a map in his head that showed him the general layout of Detroit's downtown streets with marks indicating the buildings where the federal courts were located and a few hotels, in case Kevin Dean from Bixby hadn't yet learned his way around. Carl turned onto Lafayette and came to the Federal Building, right where it was supposed to be, waiting for him.

 

He let Kevin take him through the FBI office introducing him as the Oklahoma deputy marshal the Hot Kid book was written about, Carl shaking his head at Kevin sounding like his press agent. It surprised Carl these boys all seemed to know who he was.

They had to wait a few minutes to see John Bugas, special agent in charge; he was being interviewed by a writer from the
Detroit News
. When he came out, a photographer trailing behind, the writer walked up to Carl standing in the hall and offered his hand saying he was Neal Rubin.

“Did you know John Bugas was your biggest fan?”

“You're kidding me,” Carl said.

“He's looking forward to meeting you. I asked him if he'd read the book about you and John said, ‘Every word.' He asked me if I'd read it. I said, ‘John, I reviewed it for the
News
and sent you my copy.' That was ten years ago and he'd forgotten where he got it. I asked him what the Hot Kid was doing in Detroit. He said he thought you were just visiting. But I'm betting you're after some wanted felon or escaped convict, aren't you?”

“I don't want to give anything away,” Carl said, “and spook him. Have him take off on me.”

“You know what my favorite part was? When you out-gunned that Klansman Nestor Lott, Nestor pulling his pair of .45 automatics. He was an oddball, wasn't he?”

“He was a snake,” Carl said.

Neal Rubin looked at his wristwatch.

“I got to get going. I'm meeting Esther Williams for lunch at the Chop House and have to change my shirt.” The one he had on looked like it was from Hawaii. He said, “Pick up the
News
tomorrow, I'll have something in my column about you.”

Carl wasn't sure that was a good idea, but the writer and the photographer were already heading down the hall.

 

Kevin told John Bugas Carl had only left Tulsa yesterday in his car and was here first thing this morning. John Bugas didn't seem impressed. He asked Carl why he thought the two escaped POWs were still in Detroit, assuming they did come here.

Carl gave his stock answer. “'Cause Jurgen Schrenk used to live here and there's no word they've been picked up.” He told John Bugas his office had done a good job finding Peter Krug, the escaped Nazi flier, and sending the traitor Max Stephan to Atlanta.

“Nice going,” Carl said. “I think someone on your enemy alien list is helping out Jurgen and Otto, but isn't showing him off the way Max paraded the Luftwaffe guy around. I think they've found themselves a home and are waiting out the war.”

The writer had said Bugas was looking forward to meeting him, but Carl didn't get that feeling, Bugas standing at his desk since they'd entered the office, like he was waiting for them to hurry up and leave. John Bugas wished Carl luck, shook his hand again, and said if he located the POWs, let this office know and they'd decide how to handle it. “Call Kevin, he's your guy.”

Carl thought he was handling it, but didn't say anything.

In the hall walking toward the lobby, Kevin said, “He might not've acted like it, but he was anxious to meet you. Yesterday he told me to get you accommodations at the Statler or the Book. He said, ‘We want to show this man our respect.'”

Carl said, “He did?”

“When we started talking on the phone,” Kevin said, “I didn't know you were famous. I reserved a room for you at the Book Cadillac on Washington Boulevard. Across the street and down a couple of blocks you come to Stouffer's, the best cafeteria I've ever been in, even better'n Nelson's Buffeteria in Tulsa.”

This boy from Bixby was working out better than Carl could've hoped. Carl said, “But this place doesn't offer chicken-fried steak, does it?” and kept talking. He told Kevin he'd check into the hotel and sleep for a couple of hours. “Call Honey and tell her we're having lunch at her store and would like to have her join us. She won't have to put on a coat.”

“What if she can't make it?”

Carl said, “Why not?”

“I mean what if she's busy?”

“Doing what? Tell Honey we're expecting her there.”

“What time?”

“Say one-fifteen. Have her tell you where we're gonna meet.”

Kevin ducked into an empty office to use the phone.

 

The
News
photographer was taking pictures of the display case that showed some of the FBI's most wanted fugitives. He stepped aside with his big Speed Graphic as Carl approached the display. Carl nodded to the photographer, an older guy in his fifties.

“You finished here?”

“I got time. Go on and look if you want.”

Every one of the mug shots was familiar to Carl; he knew all the names from the photos. Jurgen and Otto were here,
ESCAPED PRISONER OF WAR
heading each of their wanted dodgers. A flash of light hit the glass covering the display and Carl turned to the photographer lowering his four-by-five.

“I see my picture in the paper,” Carl said, “you're in trouble.”

“I got you from behind,” the photographer said, “someone looking at the bad guys. There's no way you could be identified.”

Carl said, “You through here?”

The photographer said, “I guess so,” and walked out toward the elevators.

Kevin came in a few minutes later.

“These are the same shots,” Carl said, “on file at the camp. I told Jurgen one time he looked awful, like he was waiting for the end of the world. He said becoming a prisoner of war was dreadful at first. That was the word he used,
dreadful
. He said
what you have to do is turn the idle time to some advantage. Learn a language or how to do something constructive. I said, ‘How to escape and meet girls?' He could slip out of the camp anytime he wanted. He said what he meant was learn a trade. Learn to work on automobiles, leave the camp and get a job at a garage.” Carl said, “I think the reason you haven't been able to find him, that's what he's doing, working somewhere, a veteran back from the war. Who's going to ask him what side he was on? He figures out how to fit in somewhere and nobody notices anything alien about him.” Carl continued to stare at Jurgen behind the sheet of glass. “The shots don't do anything for him.”

“At the end of the trail,” Kevin said. They were typical mug shots, taken at the low end of the subject's appearance. “But he looks like he'd be a nice guy.”