Carl looked at the paper again and read a couple of stories he thought were funny. He got up from the sofa and began reading aloud from the paper as he approached the hall, Honey’s bedroom on the left, the bathroom on the right. “‘A woman was shot in her fashionable eastside home by a jealous suitor. The suspect said he did it because she had trifled with his affection.’ You think those were his words?” Carl said, looking up now at the bedroom door standing open.
Honey still had on the skirt to her suit but was bare otherwise, her breasts pointing directly at Carl. She said, “I can’t imagine anyone saying that.”
Carl looked at the paper again-Jesus Christ-and read another news item. “‘Barbara Ann Baylis was bludgeoned to death with an iron frying pan in her home in Redford Township. After several days of grilling, her sixteen-year-old son, Elvin, admitted he had slain his mother in reprisal for a scolding.’” Carl looked up.
Honey hadn’t moved.
She said, “Don’t you love the way they write? The boy goes insane, screams at his mom and beats her to death with a skillet. ’Cause she scolded him?”
Carl said, “I can imagine the scene”-closing the paper-“the boy going into a rage.”
Honey said, “Have you decided what you want to do?”
Carl said, “I was thinking we could have supper then drive by Vera Mezwa’s. Check on the cars there for the meeting and get the license numbers.”
Honey still hadn’t moved to cover her breasts.
She said, “That’s what you want to do, check license numbers?”
Seventeen
Bohdan came in the kitchen with Dr. Taylor’s glass, empty but with dregs, a maraschino cherry, orange rind and bits of melted ice Bo dumped in the sink. He said to Vera fixing a cheese tray, “The doctor’s turning into a chatterbox. He said the most I’ve ever heard come out of him at one time. All by himself in the parlor reading
“I forgot,” Vera said. “I forget everything he tells me almost instantly.” She repeated, “‘I’ve told Vera sweet cherries simply don’t agree with me.’ What’s that, ten words? It’s about average for him. Unless he’s telling us what the Jews are cooking up.”
“You left out he’s told you a hundred times, that makes thirteen words, but I haven’t come to the good part. Really, he couldn’t seem to shut up. I took the glass and said, ‘Doctor, it will be my pleasure to fix this one myself.’ He looked up and did a doubletake. I turned to walk away and he said, ‘Bohdan?’ with that sort of British accent he puts on, though not all the time. He waited for me to turn to him and said, ‘You look very handsome this evening. You’re doing something different with your hair?’ I said no, it’s the same, and shook my head so my hair would bounce around. I said, ‘How do you like this outfit on me? It’s pure cashmere.’ He said, ‘Oh, you’re wearing a skirt,’ as if he’d just noticed. I said, ‘Do you like it?’ He said, ‘It’s very chic, I like it with the sandals.’ He asked me to turn around, but didn’t say anything about my fanny.”
“His drug must be kicking in,” Vera said. “I told you he takes Dilaudid. That druggist, the one who flirts with me, said it’s more potent than morphine. The doctor prescribes it for a physical infirmity, his gallstones.” Vera was cutting wedges of hard and soft cheese for the tray, with soda crackers. “Walter will pout because there’s no King Ludwig beer cheese, or Tilsit.”
“There’s Tilsit in the fridge.”
“That’s mine, I’m not putting it out.” She said to Bo, “You decided against the black dress.”
“I love it, but it’s not me. The shoulder pads. I look like a footballer in drag.”
“This way you’re a little boy in drag. The pearls would look nice.”
“I’m easing the group into what I might do more often. Oh, Jurgen came down. He’s wearing his sports coat but no tie in sight. He could use a scarf, or one of my bandanas. I introduced him to Taylor. The doctor rose to his feet and saluted.”
“The Nazi salute?”
“The snappy one. But then looked embarrassed, sorry he’d tried it. Jurgen gave him a rather pleasant nod. He’ll have a whiskey with ice, no ginger ale. I’ll take care of the doctor.”
“I’m waiting for Joe Aubrey to see you,” Vera said. “Walter called. Joe took the train this time. Walter, his faithful comrade, met him at the station. I don’t understand their friendship, Joe is so crude.”
“But he’s the one with money.”
Vera closed her eyes and opened them. “I can’t imagine kissing him.”
“But if it gets you what you need-be brave, it won’t hurt you. Take off your dress and ask if he’ll make out a check payable to something German, Dachau? They need funds too, you know, repair the gas chambers, do a little redecorating.”
“In what amount?”
“One hundred thousand simoleons. Life will be bliss for at least ten years.”
“This is too spur of the moment.”
“Vera, take off your undies and get out the invisible ink. The bedroom’s dark. He writes in whatever amount the cheap fuck wants in invisible ink and we write over it what
“Please-”
“He’s here. He goes home, how do you get to Griffin, Georgia? Ask him to stay. You want to talk to him about going into some business, wigs, expensive wigs made of human hair. I see the little Oriental girl crying as they cut off her beautiful hair. Tell Mr. Aubrey I’ll drive him to Walter’s after, ‘after’ being whenever you’ve finished with him. He won’t stay the night, knowing Walter would give him the silent treatment, not offering a word, but willing to give his left nut to know what happened. So when you’re through fucking Mr. Aubrey, let me know.”
“Please, I don’t like you to use that word.”
“I love it when you’re a prude. You can’t say the word but go wild doing it.”
Jurgen stood with his drink waiting for Walter to arrive and deliver his statement, his plan, whatever it was, to a gathering of ersatz spies, Vera the only genuine one, a paid-at least at one time-espionage agent of the Abwehr, but never with her heart in it. She’d said to him last night, “There is nothing I can do for your people, it’s too late.” She said, “To tell you the truth I would have been more comfortable working for the British a few years ago, in 1938, ’39, when Germany began taking whatever it wanted. I’ve had to rationalize like mad to send information to Hamburg, trying to help the cause of your Führer.” Vera said, “I’ve given up. Still, I don’t want you to be caught. You’re here because Walter can’t be responsible for you and work on his plan. That’s the reason he gave me.”
“It’s enough,” Jurgen said. “But once I meet your associates I can’t risk staying. I don’t know these people.”
She told him about Dr. Michael George Taylor, an obstetrician who saw quite a number of German women in his practice. “He tells them, goes to their ladies’ groups and tells them about the tremendous leap forward the Nazis have made in the history of man. He doesn’t say what they’ve done for women, if anything. He loves Germany because he hates Jews. Don’t ask him why, he’ll recite his speech on the international Jewish conspiracy. I think what he tells anyone who will listen is seditious rather than treasonable, though he did give me information, at least a year ago, about a nitrate plant in Sandusky, where he’s from originally, in Ohio. In the late thirties the
