Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories

by Elmore Leonard

  "Only cost me a buck." He reached around Louly to get a towel off the vanity. He wiped his face and said, "Look up here." Louly looked straight up at him bending her head bac k a nd he kissed her till she reached up and took his face in her hands.

  After that tender moment he said: "They gave us the carbine and a steel helmet. Once in a while they'd announce general quarters over the P. A . and we'd go down to the beach and wait for something to happen. The thing the helmet was good for, it held two cans of beer in chipped ice we'd each take to the show at night. We're Seabees, so we made seats with arms and a back that would hook on to the plank nailed to a log -- rows of hard boards going back from the screen. It rained it didn't matter, we'd go to the show. One night I was with this young Seabee, George Klein from Chicago, in the rain watching Lauren Bacall in her first movie, 'To Have and Have Not,' where she tells Humphrey Bogart if he wants anything just whistle? Lauren Bacall says to him: 'You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You put your lips together and blow.' And George Klein went crazy. At that moment he fell in love with Lauren Bacall and kept saying: 'We're the same age. You know it? Look at her. Lauren Bacall and I are the exact same age.'''

  ''How'd he know that?''

  ''I don't know, but you could see she was a kid. Listen, the guy working the projector -- I made him put the same reel back on as he was changing reels so we could watch her say it again. Sitting in the rain.''

  Louly said: ''Are you coming to where you got shot? I think you said in the letter you were in a boat?''

  ''A duck,'' Carl said, ''it was green and looks like a 30-foot open boat but has wheels. You drive out of the water and keep going. We'd take it across a stream separating us from Manus, Los Negros was that close, and go to the supply depot for stores and 60 cases of beer. All the cans olive drab, it didn't matter what kind. On our base we kept them in a walk-in cooler and handed out two or three cans per man every other day. Naval Air Transport pilots always had whiskey and they'd sell it for 35 to 50 bucks a fifth if they needed money. Or sometimes they'd trade a bottle for a case of beer.''

  ''You were in the duck,'' Louly said, ''when you got shot. . .''

  Carl was in the bathroom rinsing, now drying his face. He said: ''We were coming back from Manus with our stores. Crossed the stream to Los Negros, up the bank and into some growth, and the Nip hit me wit h a rifle shot." Carl stepped into the bedroom pinching the love handle above his left hip. "George Klein was with me and a big boy from Arkansas named Elmer Whaley. I remember he and I sucking on Beech-Nut scrap that trip. There were more shots as I dove for cover in the stern and saw George and Elmer Whaley go down. Not shot, taking cover. I listened to that rifle fire again in my head and held up two fingers to my mates. I said: 'We don't know where they are. We have to wait till they come to us.' I said, 'You're dead, so don't move.' George said they didn't have thei r c arbines. I didn't have mine either." Louly said, "You go armed, 'cause something like this could happen?" "No," Carl said, "the island was secured. The First Cavalry swore, no live Japs left. Over 3,000 killed. The First Cavalry lost something like 300 killed and 1,100 wounded. The war on Los Negros was over. No, we brought the carbines for fun, fire off a fe w r ounds." "Where were they, the guns?" "Up front, at the bow. George was crawlin g t oward them." "By then you must've had your .38 in yo u h and," Louly said. "The one with the front sight filed off?"

  "I believe it was," Carl said, starting to grin. "The same one I used to save my husband's life?"

  Carl was grinning in the vanity mirror.

  "You have the hammer eared back?" "I believe I did." "You hear them coming through the growth?" "Taking forever. They're both off to the left, so I held the .38 on the port-side gunnel where I though t t hey'd appear, judging from the noise they're making coming through the growth. I see an Oriental face in a dirty cap appear above the gunnel -- he's bringing up his rifle as I shot him. Now the other one, taller than the first guy, appears and I see him aiming at me as I'm looking right at him, his face pressed against the stock of his rifle. I shot him a half-second before he fired and it threw him off. I got hit in the leg instead of between the eyes.''

  ''My hero,'' Louly said, head lowered to brush her hair, her eyes raised to Carl in the mirror. ''I remember you got your medals and your honorable discharge and quit limping.''

  ''I'd served my country,'' Carl said.

  ''And I'm just starting.'' Louly quit brushing. ''Tomorrow I'm the lady marine at a war-bond rally.'' ''What do you do?''

  ''Smile, act cute in a military kind of way. Roy Eldridge and Anita O'Day'll be there, and some others.''

  '''Let Me Off Uptown,''' Carl said. ''Roy an Anita don't need any others. I'll try to make it, but first I have to supervise a new guy, Gary Marion. You want to picture him, he's one of those tough little bull riders from the rodeo.''

  ''What's wrong with him?''

  ''I have to settle him down before he start shooting Germans.''

  There was a coal miner named Joe Tanzi from Krebs, who started digging coal when he was a kid, 13 years old but big for his age. On his 44th birthday, still going down in the mines, he told his wife he wasn't going to work anymore. He was going to hitch a ride to McAlester and rob the first bank he came to on Choctaw Avenue. Two weeks before this at Osage No. 5 an explosion sealed off Joe Tanzi for four days wit h f our dead miners and five lunch pails. Joe didn't eat much, the smell of the dead miners made him sick. He decided he was through with mines.

  His kids were grown by then. The boys had left Krebs for Tulsa and the oil fields, and the girls were married and keeping house. His wife locked the front door and went to her mother's.

  That morning of his birthday Joe Tanzi had put on a clean shirt and pants with his worn-out suit coat, his cap, hitched the ride to McAlester and walked in the bank. He took out a pistol he'd bought for $6 off an old guy who was supposed to have been a Black Hand assassin in his time, and robbed the bank of $7,700 of miners' payroll.

  What he did then, he got on the interurba streetcar and rode it 20 miles to Hartshorne, the end of the line, where he was arrested the next morning at the home of his oldest sister, Loretta, who was known as Grandma Tanzi and made a living brewing and selling Choc beer to coal miners. They asked Joe Tanzi, all right, where was the money? Joe Tanzi, one of thos e b ig guys who didn't talk much, said, "What money?" They had bank people identify him an d h undred witnesses who saw him riding the streetcar with bank sacks. They asked him where he'd hid it. He wouldn't answer. They asked him using blackjacks on his kidneys till he was peeing blood and he still wouldn't tell them. For several days they searched his sister's house, her car, her property and adjoining lots. They brought dogs to the sister's house to sniff out in all directions. Once they gave up, knowing he'd never speak a word to them, they brought Joe Tanzi to federal court, charged him with bank robbery, found him guilty in five minutes and, mad as hell, sentenced him to 25 years of hard labor. This was in 1928.

  In 1933 Joe Tanzi was one of six convicts in a work crew repaving Stonewall Avenue from McAlester's business district to the prison. He heard the signal as they were coming to the Barnett Memorial Church, a wolf whistle, and the six convicts took off in all directions. Joe Tanzi ran for the church hearing gunfire from the guards, but none of it coming at him. He got around back of the church and inside, the door unlocked, a man in there playing the organ, booming through part of a hymn when he heard the gunfire, went to a window to see what was going on. It allowed Joe Tanzi to get behind the organ in time to hear the guards coming, shouting, and heard the organist tell them nobody came in here, he'd have seen them. That night Joe Tanzi got pants and a shirt still damp off a clothesline, burned his prison stripes and walked two full nights to Hartshorne and dug up his bank money buried six feet deep in the middle of Grandma Tanzi's cornfield. The two thought they ought to move to Arkansas and that's what they did: paid $900 for a dinky farm near Mulberry, on the road east of Fort Smith.

  "I guess they missed living in Oklahoma," Carl said
to Gary Marion, "'cause now they have a farm near Idabel, close to the Red River. Cross it you're in Texas."

  They were riding in the '41 Chevrolet seda with 180,000 miles on it but good tires, Gary driving, Carl watching the ex-bull rider staring straight ahead at the highway. "You start to see a lot more dogwood s y ou know you're coming to Idabel." Gary said, "This convict'll be armed?" "I don't know. He might be." "He robbed the bank he was armed."

  "Sixteen years ago," Carl said. "You want him still holding a gun, don't you?" Earlier in this trip talking about Jurgen Schrenk, Gary maintained P. O. W.'s were no better than fugitive offenders. He said he walked in that cell and Jurgen was set on killing him. "Why would he care about you?" Carl said. "Jurgen's a combat veteran, a captain in the Afrika Korps. He doesn't even have to talk to you he doesn't want to. What we'll do is forget the whole thing."

  Approaching Idabel, Carl said: ''There are fugitive felons we can't wait to find, and there are guys like Joe Tanzi who dug coal till he couldn't dig anymore. Some parolee around here recognized him from prison and went to the county sheriff. Who knows why. Joe Tanzi's a federal fugitive, so the sheriff called Tulsa. Joe's 60 years old now, his sister's about 80. They say he bought a full section off a Choctaw was trying to grow cotton. Joe's letting a colored famil y s hare-crop it with him." "But he still owes us 20 years," Gary said "Commit the crime, you do the time." Carl could hear himself saying that when h w as 25. But even back then he wasn't anything like Gary Marion, Jesus, from some dinky town in East Texas.

  "We'll visit Joe and have a talk." "What about?" "See what he's calling himself." Carl stoppe and said: "When you were competing for rodeo money you had to stay on the bull eight seconds, right? You don't get any points for staying on longer, you're judged on your ride. You hear the buzzer you try to slide off without getting thrown. Then you want to walk to th e g ate without looking back, see what the bull's doing. Am I right?" "There's girls in the stands watching," Gar said. "You take your hat off to them and keep turning to wave it at the entire arena." "While you're checking on the bull." "Some you better." "It doesn't mean you're afraid of the bull." "No -- you're showing him respect is all." "It's the same kind of thing," Carl said. "You're a peace officer. You try to handle the bull and make it look easy." Gary turned his head to point his old-time Stetson at Carl. "What I think you're saying to me , leave the wop convict to grow his cotton and nobod y g ets hurt." Carl said: "Gary, you wear me out. I'm not sur e w hy, but you and I don't seem to communicate. What I get from the way you see this, you hope Joe Tanzi pull s a gun so you can shoot him." "He pulls," Gary said, "isn't that what you'r supposed to do?"

  Next week: The gangster Teddy Ritz comes to town.

  Chapter Seven

  Joe Tanzi, Fugitive

  South of Idabel they came to the crossroads Carl was looking for, a sheriff's car waiting by a patch of dogwoods. It was late in the day but still light for another hour or so.

  Two McCurtain County deputies came to Carl's side of the car and he got out to meet them and show his star. Gary Marion watched, still in the car, his hands hanging on the steering wheel. He noticed that the deputies seemed to defer to Carl, waiting for him to speak, ask them questions. One of the deputies said the man identified as Joe Tanzi hadn't left his property, down that way toward the river. He asked if Carl wanted them along for backup.

  Carl said he didn't want to alarm the man, put him on his guard, anymore than he had to; he thought he and Gary Carl turning to glance at him in the car--should be able to handle this one. He said, You check the name on the deed?

  Joseph Shikoba, the deputy said. According to his story, related to the Choctaw sold him the farm.

  But this convict on parole, Carl said, says he's Joe Tanzi. Why you suppose the con wants to send Joe back to prison? If we find out it is Joe Tanzi?

  The deputy said, It don't sound like they were friends inside, does it?

  How big a boy is Joseph?

  Big. Has a good hundred pounds on you.

  Gary Marion listened and wasn't going to say another word to Carl getting in the car, Carl telling him to go left down the road, it was only a couple miles now. But Gary couldn't keep quiet.

  You don't believe this guy is Joe Tanzi? I'll talk to him and find out who he is, Carl said. to my satisfaction.

  The con swore he's Joe Tanzi. He knew him five years inside the Walls.

  Carl said, Why does my wanting to give this man some slack upset you?

  *

  Was he kidding?

  Because Gary had read the book about the hot kid of the marshals service, joined up and couldn't wait to shake hands with Carlos Huntington Webster, who packed a Colt .38 on a .45 frame, the front sight filed off. Only this Carl Webster, back from the war in the Pacific, wasn't anything like the Carl Webster in the book.

  Gary said, You shot and killed one armed offender after another, starting with the cow thief you blew out of his saddle when you were fifteen years old. You joined the marshals and went after Emmett Long the deadliest bank robber of the Twenties, faced him in a farmhouse near Checotah, warned him if you pulled you'd shoot to kill, and you did. There was the time you faced David Lee Swick coming out of the bank in Turley, firing at you while holding a woman in front of him. You pulled and shot what you saw of him from twenty feet.

  Carl said, You know the woman fainted? For a minute I was afraid I'd shot her. He looked at the gravel road and said, Pull up here for a minute.

  Gary eased to a stop, not yet finished with what he was saying. According to your book you shot Peyton Bragg at four-hundred yards with a Winchester. At night, Peyton running from your posse.

  Carl said, You remember reading about the woman Peyton was seeing, Venicia Munson?

  Gary didn't answer, he had another one to tell.

  'You shot the four guys who drove their car into the roadhouse that time, all of them coming out armed and standing fairly close. One of 'em Nester Lott, the ex-federal agent gone bad, packed two .45s cinched to his legs. Nestor pulled on you and you shot him and turned and shot the other three. Gary paused.

  Carl said, This friend of Peyton's, Venicia Munson, was an old-maid school teacher who drank Peyton's wildcat whiskey and didn't care who knew it. We're sitting in her kitchen waiting for Peyton to show, she told me she was scared to death. I said, 'Well, that'll teach you to get mixed up with a bank robber.' She said, 'You're the one scares me, not Peyton. I can tell you'd rather shoot him than bring him in.' She said it was why I became a marshal, to get to carry a gun and shoot people.

  For a few moments there it was quiet in the car, Gary frowning, anxious to say something, Carl waiting for him to think of the words, Gary looking out the window now as he said, "You listen to a woman doesn't know what she's talking about?

  Except while I'm sitting there with her," Carl said, "I'm thinking I had a chance of adding Peyton Bragg to my list. At that time he'd be number four."

  "I can understand that," Gary said, nodding his head.

  "When I was younger," Carl said, "I'd see movies like 'Ace of Aces' and bite my fingernails watching Richard Dix flying a Spad or a Camel and shooting down Germans. You knew they were evil by the strange kind of goggles they wore and how they always looked arrogant. Richard Dix would get on the tail of a three-winged Fokker, give it a burst and salute the Kraut spiraling down trailing smoke. They'd add another German cross to his plane, under the cockpit. At one time, when I first became a marshal, I thought, They go up looking for enemy planes to shoot down and we go out to take wanted felons dead or alive."

  Gary was nodding again.

  "But their dogfights and our gunfights," Carl said, "aren't near the same. Theirs are aerial shows, graceful, their planes looping around in the clouds, killing from a distance, spinning down in slow circles with that trail of smoke. Ours, we get to see the ones we kill, dead eyes staring at us, blood staining the pavement. People shot to death aren't pretty, are they?" Carl took his time to say, "How many felons have you seen killed b
y law officers?"

  "Well, not any, Gary said, just yet. But I've seen people killed in car wrecks and they're an awful sight."

  They drove up to the farm house worn bare and rickety by sun and Oklahoma dust, a new washing machine on the porch. Now a man c ame out to stand with his hand resting on the washer. He was a size, more than six feet to see him there. Still in the car Carl said, "You see the old woman?" Gary, staring at the house, shook his head. Carl said, Look at the window. Those are the double ought holes of a shotgun parting the curtains. And I'm gonna guess there's a gun in that washing machine. That's how much they want to stay here and grow cotton. We get out, don't say a word. You got that?"

  Gary mumbled something.

  "Have you got that?"

  "I said yeah.

  They came out now to stand on each side of the car's headlights. Carl identified himself and Gary to the man on the porch, who hadn't said a word or taken his hand from the washing machine.

  "You're Joseph Shikoba?"

  The man nodded and said, "What do you want?"

  "You bought this property--"

  "From a man related to one of my uncles."

  "You're Choctaw."

  "Part of me."

  "Where you from?"

  "Here. All my life."

  "You planted yet?"

  The man shifted from one foot to the other. "Now is too late. Next year we gonna have cotton and the year after that, every year we gonna grow cotton."

  "I'll tell the sheriff," Carl said" "you're not the man we're looking for. I'm sorry we bothered you."