“That’s what I think. They send information written in invisible ink and that makes them spies. I think the FBI keeps waiting for them to actually do something subversive, wishing they’d hurry up and make a move before the war ends.”
“Kevin told you about the Afrika Korps guys.”
“The ones you’re positive are here,” Honey said. “You don’t want to come right out and ask Walter about them directly. You said you want to edge around the two guys, try and surprise Walter into giving them up.”
He liked her remembering what he’d said at lunch, about edging around. “Will you stare at him?”
“Blow smoke at him. You can torture him,” Honey said, “it’s okay with me. I’ll help you.”
Carl said, “Pull out his fingernails?”
“I don’t know-he bites them down so close, gnaws on them like a squirrel. It’d be hard to get a purchase. You have a gun, don’t you? Stick the barrel in his mouth and ask him what you want to know. Walter’s the most serious person you’ll ever meet in your life. Tell him something outrageous with a straight face, he’ll buy it.”
“Kevin said you told him a couple of pretty funny jokes that sailed right by him.”
“Walter analyzes jokes. But he has no imagination, so he doesn’t think they’re funny. He won’t accept the grasshopper that goes in a bar and orders a drink. Or a guy being in love with a sheep. But there was one I did tell him-I might not’ve mentioned to Kevin-and Walter surprised me, he sorta laughed.”
Carl glanced toward the window as Honey said, “About a guy who tells his friend he’s got an excruciating pain in his bum.”
“Tell it in the car,” Carl said. “I want to see Walter’s place while it’s still light.”
They were on Ten Mile now, a narrow road that needed patches of blacktop, open fields on both sides, the Pontiac heading into the sun. Carl said, “The guy tells his friend he’s got an awful pain in his butt.”
“And the friend,” Honey said, “tells him he has piles and what kind of cream to use for it. The guy tries the cream but still has the awful pain. He runs into another friend and tells him about it. This one says no, creams don’t work. He tells the guy to have a cup of tea, then take the tea leaves and pack them up his behind like a poultice. The guy does it, has a cup of tea every day for a week and stuffs the leaves up his heinie. The guy’s still in terrible pain, so finally he goes to see a doctor. The doctor tells him to drop his pants and bend over. He looks up the guy’s keester and says, ‘Yes, I see you have piles. And I see you’re going to go on a long journey.’”
Honey grinned watching Carl, Carl laughing, smiling as he looked at her and then at the road again still smiling, saying he could see the little doctor with a flashlight, down behind the guy bent over the examining table.
“I know,” Honey said, “you can’t help picturing the doctor. I see him the same way, a little guy. I told Walter the joke and couldn’t believe it when he smiled. Then laughed-no, he chuckled a few times. I had to ask him, ‘You get it?’ Walter said, ‘Do I understand the doctor is reading the tea leaves? Of course.’”
“Maybe Walter’s been to fortune-tellers,” Carl said. “Or he has piles,” Honey said. They turned off Ten Mile onto Farmington Road and Carl said, “That must be the house up ahead.”
A pickup truck pulling an empty stock trailer came riding hard across a field raising dust, approaching them on Honey’s side of the road and Carl braked and shifted down. The truck came to a stop at the edge of the road they were on and Honey said, “Oh, my God,” as they rolled past. “I think that’s my brother driving the truck.”
It turned onto Farmington Road, Carl watching it in the rear view mirror, and saw it turn again as it came to Ten Mile. “When’d he get out of Eddyville?” Honey, sideways in the seat to watch through the rear window, came around to Carl.
“You know about Darcy?”
“Not as much as I’d like. His file’s right next to yours at the Bureau.”
Eleven
Walter came in the side door that led to the kitchen and went to the sink thinking of Otto, still thinking of Otto since trying to spot his homburg in the downtown crowd of people. Jurgen had been helping Darcy bring the three cows and a heifer out of the stock trailer and work them into the pen joined to the barn, the abattoir. Darcy spoke to Jurgen for a few minutes and left with his trailer. Jurgen would be in the barn now, he was no trouble. Otto was the problem.
They came home without him and Madi said in English, “Where is the Nazi?” To the old woman they were “Jurgen and the Nazi,” the Nazi demanding she and Rudi speak to him always in German and asked them one question after another, like an immigration official, to keep them talking. Rudi didn’t mind talking to him, the two sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey talking about the war, the Nazi telling Rudi of North Africa and Italian women.
She asked Walter, “Where is he, the Nazi?”
Walter saw hope in her eyes. He told Madi, reasonable with her since she was his aunt, they would have to wait and see if Otto could find his way here from downtown.
“He tell the police he’s lost,” Madi said, “they put him in jail? You should pin a note on his coat that say where he lives.”
This was earlier.
Peeled potatoes in a pan of water waited for Madi to light the burner. Walter could smell the pork roast in the oven. He drew a glass of water at the sink, stepped over to the oven to open the door, and threw the water over the roast. Madi came in from setting the table in the dining room and caught him. It wasn’t the first time. She would ask in English why he wet the roast. Walter would tell her it was burning. Madi would ask why he thought she wanted to burn a roast? More than half a century cooking every day of her life she had never burned a roast.
“You want me to cook for you good dinners? Stay out of my kitchen. Go see your visitors.”
Walter was drying his hands on a dish towel.
“What visitors?”
“The car drove up to the house while you throwing water on the roast.”
Walter left the kitchen, still holding the dish towel, moved around the dining table set for two, himself and Jurgen, to stand at one side of the dining room window. He moved the blinds apart and saw the Pontiac parked in the drive, no one in it.
The bell chimed.
Going into the living room Walter told himself this would be about Otto. They found him. They want to know if he lives here. Here? No, they inform him-this was better-they told Otto to stop but he kept running and they were forced to shoot him, and want you to identify the body. The FBI. They had already asked him if he knew Otto, and asked him again and again. They might try to trick him this time. All right, he would say as he always did, “Who?” and shake his head. “I never heard of this man.”
Walter unlocked the door thinking if they wanted him to identify Otto dead he still wouldn’t know him. He wouldn’t have to worry about him either, ever again.
He opened the door.
It wasn’t about Otto.
No, because he was looking at Honig standing not more than a few feet away, Honig smiling at him and saying, “Hi, Walter.” The man with her said his name and showed his identification in a leather case-not FBI-with a badge pinned inside, a star in a circle. The name, Carl something, meant nothing to Walter. My God, no, he was looking at Honig for the first time in more than five years.
Carl glanced at her. He said, “You’re right,” and looked at Walter again. “I’ve never seen two people look more alike. Mr. Schoen, you’re the spittin’ image of Heinrich Himmler.” Now he brought a folded copy of a
Walter didn’t say a word. He looked at the illustration and folded the page in his hands.
