Aubrey.”
“The way we planned it.”
“Yes, bury him.”
“He’s quite bloody, his clothes?”
“I suppose. I shot him and closed the door.”
“You have to put him in my car, don’t you?”
“I can wrap him in a blanket.”
“Bo, don’t take anything.”
“I won’t.”
“Perhaps the Lugers. But you understand it isn’t to look like a robbery.”
“Leave the Schmeisser?”
“The doctor called it that?”
“I did. So he’d think I’m an oaf.”
“Bring the Schmeisser if you want.”
“Anything else?”
“Be sure to clean the powder room.”
Vera had learned that if she screamed at Bohdan, sometimes only raised her voice, he’d sulk. He’d stop talking to her and she would have to wait for him to get over his funk or let him wear one of her cocktail dresses. She loved Bo; she did. When they were having fun in bed or on the floor or the stairway and Bo’s mind was set on giving her pleasure, she adored him. This lovely boy from Odessa who killed with ease having seen hundreds and hundreds of people gassed, shot against walls, shot with pistols against their heads, hung from streetlights, locked in rooms and burned alive, all of it a part of Bo’s coming-of-age. She would ask him, “Will you always love me, Bo?” And he would tell her she was his life, his reason for living.
She wished she’d had more time to spend with Jurgen, another lovely boy, at first thinking he might be a bore or a tragic figure after North Africa, instilled with war, and she would have told him to wake up, we’ve all been to war. But he was never tiresome. He let you know he was alive, happy to be in America, and he was inquisitive. He accepted her being a reluctant German agent and in another day or so they could have been in love. At least lovers.
But along came Honey, the cheeky
Vera loved the way Americans spoke in their different accents and the expressions they used. One of her favorites was “on the make,” which meant flirting. She loved Honey saying, “You think he’s a shit-kicker till you look in his eyes.” Telling so much in a few words about the federal policeman, Carl, the one Honey had her eye on.
The day they arrived in Detroit she told Bo, “We are going to listen to people, the way they pronounce words and the slang they use. We are not from the South or New York City, we live in Detroit and speak the way they do here.”
At that time Bo said, “I have one. ‘So is your old man.’”
Bo was a natural. He liked to imitate people on the radio, Walter Winchell, Gabriel Heatter, Jack Benny. He could do Rochester. Vera laughed because he was funny and she loved him, this boy who told her she was his life.
But if the time came he had to make a choice, give her up or go to prison?
He’d give her up.
In the courtroom Bo would gaze at her with tears in his eyes- he could do that, cause his eyes to fill-and testify for the prosecution. Bo would create for her daring acts of espionage, and the newspapers would make her a star, World War II’s Mata Hari, without citing a single reference to what Mata Hari did for the Kaiser. Or did she spy for the French? Vera wasn’t certain, perhaps both, but knew she was better-looking than the Dutch woman- huge thighs but no tits-whose stage name was a Malay word for “eye of dawn.”
If offered the same choice, would she give up Bo? Regretfully. Though it would never come to that. Or Bo in a courtroom testifying against her. She would shoot him first. Love in a time of war had only moments. But awfully good ones. Even Aubrey wasn’t that bad.
Twenty-two
Carl’s dad phoned at 6 a.m. waking him up.
“How you like Detroit?”
“All right. It’s big. They say it’s our third-biggest city, but I heard Philadelphia was.”
“It don’t mean a thing to me,” his dad said. “How’s the hotel?”
They’d go through this until his dad came to the reason he was talking to Carl long-distance.
“A guy called last night saying he was a buddy of yours and wondered where you were. Narcissa talked to him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Vito Tessa.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“No, I said Vito Tessa.” His dad being funny.
“Didn’t the name sound familiar? He’s the kid gangster with the big nickel-plate and the zoot suit, the jitterbug, the night before I left.”
“The one, his brother’s Lou Tessa?”
“Yeah, it’s another one of those brother things. What’d Narcissa tell him, I’m in Detroit, uh? Or you wouldn’t of called.”
“Yeah, I guess she did. And where you’re staying.”
“I thought she knew better.”
“He told her he was in the Seabees with you. How would he know that?”
“Every time I talk to a writer he wants to know what I did in the war.”
“The kid gangster read up on you.” Virgil said, “Wait a minute, Narcissa’s standing here listening.” Virgil came back on saying, “I told her one time shipmates stand together, and she believed the guy was a shipmate of yours. Hold it again.” This time Virgil said, “Narcissa says he told her his name, Vito Tessa. And if we talk to you, let you know Vito Tessa is coming to see you. Why’d he say that if he’s out to shoot you?”
“The brother tried to shoot me in the back.”
“This one wants to try face-to-face?”
“I’m not sure. Marvin the doorman at the Mayo said, ‘Uh-oh, the man’s got a gun,’ and I turned. Now we’re face-to-face, but he didn’t want any part of it. I don’t know what he’s doing giving you his name.”
“Showin’ off,” Virgil said.
“But it doesn’t mean he won’t try to surprise me. I’m gonna have to call Tulsa police, find out who he is and why they turned him loose. They had him for possession of a firearm. I can’t see the kid gangster with a license to pack. He might be smarter than I gave him credit, but not that different from his brother. Now I have to keep looking over my shoulder while I track the Krauts and get ’em home. One of ’em I believe took off, Otto, the SS guy, but hasn’t been gone long.” Carl said to his dad, “Well, I guess my day has started.”
