shotgun. Both alive, staring up at him, but not for long based on the amount of blood. Both looking at him surprised. Where’d he get the gun? In German Harry asked who’d sent them. Neither one answered. He could see blood bubbling out of their mouths, and then they were gone.
He tossed the shotgun in the trees, stepped over the third Blackshirt, and got in behind the wheel. The keys were in the ignition. He started the car and drove out of the woods, spun around on the shoulder and went right on the highway. He saw a sign for Munich, 10 km. Harry knew that everyone connected to him was at risk now. He stopped at a gas station on the highway, called Colette. No answer. And remembered her saying she was going to Nuremberg to interview a Jewish couple that had been attacked by Blackshirts two days earlier. He hung up, tried Cordell’s hotel, asked for him, let it ring a while and hung up.
Cordell had slept late, window open, cool night air coming in, all snuggly and such under the eiderdown comforter. Germans might be cold, but they knew how to stay warm. Didn’t want to get up. But at 10:04, he forced himself, got in the shower, stood under the hot water for fifteen minutes, thought he heard the phone.
Got out, dried himself, stood at the sink, towel around his waist, shaved, checked himself out in the mirror. Brown eyes, nice straight teeth, chocolate-colored skin. Afro coming back, had like two inches up there. He turned his face right and then left, admiring his jaw line, his profile.
Ladies grooved on him. Before the service he’d been bangin’ LaDonna, M’shell, Tifany, Bernita and Rochelle, shuffling them in and out of his crib, each thinking she the one. Now thinking back, it had been a lot of work. Maybe he didn’t need five at once. Did one, had to get ready for the next. Once, done all five the same day. Was so sore Mr. Johnson had to lay low, take some time off, Cordell horny all of a sudden, thinking about it.
He heard Marvin in his head, danced into the bedroom, took off the towel, threw it on the bed, reached in his duffel, grabbed a pair of boxers, slipped them on, singing:
Ain’t that peculiar?
A peculiar ality…
Now he was trying to decide what to wear, checking out his four leisure suits hanging in the closet. Wore powder blue yesterday. How about, go with the dark green today? Match it with the light green shirt had palm trees all over it.
Cordell had been thinking about leaving Munich. Had to get away from Harry, man was bad luck. Like upside- down horseshoes, broken mirror and a black cat all in one. Man needed a rabbit’s foot in a bad way. Was thinkin’ of takin’ the train to Amsterdam, smoke some of that high-powered hootch was everywhere. Check out the red-light district, see what the Dutch ladies was all about. Sample some Netherland pussy.
Phone started ringing, and then a knock on the door. He looked through the peephole, saw a white dude, face distorted. “Still in here. Come back later.” Phone kept ringing. He moved to get it, heard an explosion. Bullet blew through the door and the window behind him. Cordell ducked down behind the bed, got as low as he could. Two more rounds punched holes through the door. The phone was still ringing. Now the dude was banging against the door, putting his shoulder into it, molding splintering.
Cordell moved to the window, opened both sides all the way, got up on the sill in his boxer drawers. Door sounded like it was going to give. He bent down and squeezed through the window, standing on a narrow concrete ledge, looking down at the dumpsters below him in the alley behind the hotel, holding onto the window, afraid of heights, knees weak and rubbery. But he couldn’t stop, moved across the ledge, taking little bitty steps to the end of the building and reached around the corner, tried to grab the downspout but was too far.
Harry was driving like a maniac through the city, traffic surprisingly heavy for a Saturday morning. Cordell’s hotel was on Bayerstrasse just south of the train station. A few minutes later he pulled up across the street from Pensione Jedermann, a five-story building with a mansard roof, and saw four Blackshirts getting out of an Audi sedan parked in front.
Harry left the Mercedes at the curb, ran across the street and into the hotel. Saw the Blackshirts getting in an elevator. Harry crossed the small lobby, picked up a house phone, asked the operator to connect him to Cordell Sims’ room. It rang a dozen times. He put the phone down, ran back to the Mercedes, got in and drove around the block. He didn’t know what room Cordell was in or what floor he was on, or if he was even in the hotel at that time, but remembered him saying he had a great view of the alley. Harry drove behind the place, and there was a black guy in his underwear, standing on a narrow second-storey ledge. Behind him a Blackshirt with a gun was coming through the window. Cordell looked back at the guy, looked down at the dumpsters lined up below him and jumped. Harry heard him hit, saw him disappear under the trash. The Blackshirt aiming at the open dumpster, firing rounds that pinged off the metal.
Cordell rose up out of the garbage, flipped over the side, landed on his feet and ran down the alley out of the line of fire. He was fast. Harry followed in the Mercedes, clocked him doing twenty, pulled up next to him, side window down.
“Man, what you doing?” Cordell said, slowing down, stopping, body bent over, holding his knees, breathing hard.
“Need a lift?” Harry said.
Cordell went around the front end of the car and got in next to him, grinning. “Harry, you never cease to amaze me. Where the fuck you come from?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“In the neighborhood, huh? Where’d you get this?” Cordell said, nodding, eyes moving across the dash.
“I borrowed it,” Harry said, accelerating down the alley.
Cordell shook his head. “You somethin’ else, Harry.”
He glanced at Cordell’s boxers. “That a new look you’re trying out?”
“It’s part of my new Save Your Ass line. Like when crazed neo-Nazi motherfuckers try to bust down your door, don’t have time to get dressed.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you were a boxer man.”
“Why is that?”
Harry said, “They don’t seem fly enough.”
“Oh, fly, huh? ’Cause you now an expert? Got nothing to do with fly, Harry. Got to do with comfort. Freedom. Understand what I’m talking about?”
“I had my boxer period,” Harry said. “Switched back to briefs. I look better in them.”
“Better for who?”
“Whoever I’m with.”
“Listen to Mr. Vain himself.”
He took a left and a right on Bayerstrasse. Cordell’s hotel was behind them about a quarter mile. “We better go to the police.”
“We tried that,” Cordell said. “What do you think they gonna do?”
“Then we’re going to have to pick up an outfit for you. Head over to Maximilianstrasse.”
“Ever since I run into you, it’s been an adventure,” Cordell said.
Harry parked, took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to Cordell along with a pen.
“Yeah, Harry, I know where you work at.”
“Write your sizes down. Shirt, pants, shoes. I know what you like. I’ll see if I can find a Louis the Hatter. Pick you up a leisure suit, rhymes with pleasure, right?” Harry said, having a little fun with him. “Don’t go anywhere.” He was grinning when he got out of the car and walked down the street.
Hard to explain, Harry’d get him in trouble, show up get him out. Cordell didn’t know what he’d a done, Harry hadn’t come when he did. He checked the glove box, found the owner’s manual and car papers, Benz was registered to Friedrich Acker. Wondered if it was reported stolen? Wondered if the police were going to show up like they did last time? Cordell promised himself he got out of this mess today he would leave town, not look back. He sunk down in the seat watched people walk by the car, no one really paying much attention to him, brother sitting there practically naked.
When Harry finally came back, he was carrying two shopping bags, got in the car, slid them over to
