when me and Harry Barker seen ‘em. ‘Here’s two more of ‘em,’ Harry yells, and we went after ‘em with our Louisville Sluggers. He hit one of ‘em in the back and that fella turned on him like a tiger, grabbed him and spun him around and wrapped an arm around his neck and snapped it with one powerful wrench of his arm. Harry went down and then the hobo grabbed Harry’s bat and he whales him and then he hits me a good one in the stomach. The other ‘bo, he says, ‘C’mon, we got to get outta here,’ and then the first one, he leans over and he pulls a knife out of his shoe— his
“Like a dagger?” Keegan asked.
“Yeah, a dagger. Anyway, I started to get m’feet under mc and I looked up just as he swung that damn bat as hard as he could and it got me right in the face, right in the eyes.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Remember? Are you kiddin’? It’s the last thing I ever saw. He was tall, maybe six feet, husky, black hair, and . . . the way he was dressed. He weren’t dressed like no hobo. Had on a flannel shirt, nice pants and what looked nice brand new boots. Hadn’t been a hobo for very long, else he stole the clothes he was wearing. And there was one other thing. He had different colored eyes.”
“Different colored eyes?” Dryman echoed, looking at Keegan skeptically.
“Yep. One gray and one green.”
Indian summer had settled over eastern Pennsylvania. The golden colors of fall were replacing the green of summer and a soft breeze stirred the trees in the cemetery. They walked down the rows of markers, looking for the grave of Fred Dempsey. Keegan was more convinced than ever that Dempsey was their man. Dryman, even though he had made the connection, was still skeptical.
On the flight from Indiana to Pennsylvania, Keegan had finally explained their mission to Dryman.
“C’mon, Kee, you really believe this bank clerk was a Nazi spy?”
“I’m convinced of it,” Keegan replied.
“Well, if it was him he’s probably been dead for five years. Probably floated up somewhere along the river and the dogs ate him,” Dryman answered.
“H.P., the railroad runs right past where the car went into the river in Drew City and ends at Lafayette,” said Keegan. “Now, supposing you had just faked your own death and you had to get out of town. How would you do it? You can’t drive, can’t take a bus or hitchhike. You can’t afford to be seen. But. . . you could hop a freight. And if Fred Dempsey jumped a rattler, he would’ve walked into the middle of that brawl at the Hooverville.”
“If, if, if,” Dryman grumbled. Then Keegan grabbed him by the elbow and pointed to a plot. It was well cared for, the grass neatly trimmed and small plot of flowers at the foot of the section. A large headstone was bracketed on either side by two smaller stones, one of which read:
“Convinced?” an elated Keegan cried.
Keegan was not satisfied with just one subject. Recalling what Tangier had told him, that people on the run sometimes set themselves up with more than one identity, he and Dryman checked the rest of that cemetery and five others in the city. They strolled through the rows of tombstones, jotting down the names of all male children born between 1890 and 1910 who had died within two weeks of their birth. By the end of the day they had the names of twelve male children to check. It was a long shot, Keegan agreed, but so was the search that had turned up Fred Dempsey.
They had little trouble getting birth certificates of all twelve. Death certificates were recorded on a separate floor in the courthouse. Eddie Tangier was right, the state made no correlation between life and death. The certificates were not cross-referenced. As far as the clerk in the vital statistics department knew, Fred Dempsey was alive and well. Little did she realize how alive and well he was.
Keegan met Mr. Smith in a small Chinese restaurant in Georgetown. By arrangement, Keegan arrived first and was ushered into a small private room in the back. Smith arrived ten minutes later, entering through a back door after taking his usual circuitous route. The tall, enigmatic dog robber listened patiently as Keegan described the trip to Drew City and Erie, Pennsylvania.
“So. . . we know our Mr. X assumed the identity of Fred Dempsey,” Keegan concluded. “He lived in Drew City for nine months, never caused any trouble and might have even married Louise Scoby if fate disguised as John Dillinger hadn’t walked into his life.”
“Seems to me you may be stretching a point, tying him to the killer in the hobo camp,” Smith answered.
“Why? It makes perfect sense.”
“But there’s no proof. .
“We’re not trying the son of a bitch in court, Mr. Smith. I assure you, if Fred Dempsey and Twenty-seven are one and the same, then he did not die. He’s alive and well. He is six feet tall, about one-eighty, green eyes. Obviously he was wearing those new-type colored contact lenses and he lost one in the fight at the Hooverville.”
“How do you know that?” Smith asked skeptically.
“We know this guy is a master of disguise. He had gray eyes when he lived in Drew City. Joe Cobb saw a man with one gray eye and one green eye. It’s obvious that Twenty-seven lost one of the gray lenses in the fight and his eyes are green. And since he went to all that trouble to change the color of his eyes and he’s German, my guess is he’s blond. He uses a gold cigarette lighter with a wolf’s head on the top, rolls his own cigarettes using Prince
