by Mark Helprin
“Okay. Thank you. We’ve done this before, both together and separately. We trained for it, we exercised, but when we actually did it we sometimes threw it together in seconds, and never once as I recall had we the benefits we have now. What I proposed is illegal, but, in light of the target, law enforcement won’t hold us to account. I’ve always assumed, and now people I trust have affirmed, that other than showing up at the scene, making a conjecture or two, writing a report, and looking good in the press, the police don’t actually investigate attacks on criminals, which would be for them sort of like bailing out a sinking boat by putting the water back in. As they see it, their job is mainly to clarify and limit the interest of the public, which fades after a day. Who ever got indignant when a gangster was killed? If anything, people are quietly delighted. We might offend some who live strictly by principle were it known that the gangster wasn’t killed by other gangsters but by regular citizens. In other words, if the wolves kill the wolves, that’s no problem, but if the sheep kill the wolves, then you have holy hell. Vigilantism is dangerous, of course, but that’s not what this is. We’re not a parallel system of justice. We’re confined to one case, my own, responding to a mortal attack and the threat of others—just as I would were someone smashing down the doors of my house. The danger is imminent, although its timing is deliberately unpredictable. The threat is constant. Protection on the part of the state is nil. This is self-defense.
“I harp on this because it’s against our instincts and upbringing to do what we’re going to do. Certainly against mine, but my instincts and upbringing never took account of being the target of a killer who enjoys the favor of authority.”
“We’re okay,” Sussingham said.
“Good,” said Harry. “When we ambushed a German convoy, the people we killed were likely more innocent than our targets now. And half the force on the battlefield was determined to prevent it and to take revenge. Now, within a ten-mile radius of where we’re going to strike there may be a dozen cops with pistols and a shotgun or two, whereas then we had to look out for far more interested, motivated, and skilled Wehrmacht divisions, or even corps, and their tanks, artillery, heavy machine guns, grenades, and occasional air support. And we’re not going to come in contact with the police. We’ll be finished and away long before they know what happened. We’re on the same side: we can’t harm them. You never know which cops are on the take, but most aren’t, so rather than fight I’ll surrender to them if it’s necessary, but it won’t be.”
“No one has done this kind of attack, with these weapons, in civilian life,” Bayer said.
“It’ll be an item of tremendous interest for a few days. And here’s where we may provide a public service. When the other crime families hear of this, to protect themselves they’ll seek out similar weapons.” Harry swept his hand over the heavily laden tables. “Evidently, there’s a parallel arm somewhere ready to supply them. The dealers are federal agents, and when the buyers are arrested the charges will weigh heavily against them because of their prior records.”
“Are we acting for the government, or not?” Bayer asked. “Because if we are, why don’t they do it themselves? Okay, they can’t, but they’re part of it anyway, right?”
“It knows,” Harry answered, “or a part of it knows, but it will never acknowledge. As to what exactly it is, apparently even it doesn’t know yet. It’s brand new.”
“But with a lot of resources,” Johnson said.
“That’s how we won the war.”
“With blood, too.”
“I know,” Harry said. Then he moved it forward. “It’s a road ambush. The target is named Verderamé, a gangster, as you know. He’s a creature of habit. The only variation we’ve observed in his timing is due to traffic. We have about a ninety-minute window in the worst case, so we don’t have to wait there all day, and that reduces the chances of discovery. We’ll advance, arrive, execute, and retreat in darkness. The area is heavily wooded. One side looks out over the Hudson, which at that point is just under two miles wide, a lake-like stretch called Haverstraw Bay. Only one road leads to the house. These days they return home from the south. There’s a lot of mud on the north side, and I think they don’t want to dirty the cars.
“We’ll blow a tree ahead so it blocks the road, drop one behind before they can back up, put a rocket into each vehicle, rake them with rifle fire. The machine gun will be placed so that anyone running from the house to help won’t know what hit them. Let me stress. These are murderers. There could be a dozen or more in the cars and inside the compound. They’ve got a lot of pistols, shotguns, probably some Thompsons. Most of them will go down in the first seconds. If any remain to put up a fight, they won’t even see us. We’ll shift positions right after opening fire, so they can shoot at the spaces where our muzzle flashes were. They won’t panic, but they don’t know how to fight as a unit and they’ve never been confronted by this kind of force. It should be over in a couple of minutes. The cars can’t run off the road: it’s too steep and treed. If there are women and/or children in the cars—I’ve never seen it—no one fires a shot, and we go home.”
“Positions?”
“Facing west, I’ll take center, Bayer on the far left to cover the rear-blocking, Sussingham near left. Johnson, with the machine gun, off to the far right to cover the gate and the walls of the house. Let me draw a schematic.”
Harry went to the blackboard and mapped out the site, taking pains to draw well. As he worked, Sussingham asked why they would bother to fell trees across the road and rocket the cars. Wouldn’t automatic fire from three or four points be sufficient? “The tires will run flat, like agricultural tires,” Harry answered. “And the glass is bulletproof, so that means that the car is probably armored. It’s very heavy and rounds corners like a boat—wanting, unlike Verderamé, to go straight.”
“How’d you find this out?”
“I inspected the car in the parking lot near where Verderamé holds court.”
“No one was watching it?”
“A kid was. I pretended I was excited to see a Cadillac. I had to do it after I watched it drive, because either they were transporting pig iron or the thing was armored.”
When his diagram was completed, Harry continued his presentation. They would get there in the hay truck, two in front and two secreted with the weapons and the boat in the back. “The boat, do we really have to go across the river?” Bayer asked. They had all been wondering.
“After the attack we have to avoid police dispatched to the scene and to block the roads; possible reinforcements called in by someone in the house; and witnesses who might see us and the truck. We have to get back here and then disappear. We can’t just disperse, because there are very few trains at night going south. They sleep at the Harmon yards, ready to carry commuters to the city in the morning. This is by far the best way. All it is, is crossing a river, which we’ve done before.”
“We crossed, we never went back.”
“I know, but it’s the best option, we have only so much time, and that’s the way it is.”
“What if we’re stopped in the truck,” Johnson asked, “by a traffic cop?”
“I have a forged license,” Harry answered. “I’ll be driving. If I can’t drive, someone else will use it. Read it before we jump off.”
“We won’t have identification?”
“You’re farm hands. You won’t be expected to.”
“Draft cards.”
“The war’s over. No cop is going to ask you for your draft card or your orders. The roads are deserted on the east side of the Hudson. From a spot on the river between High Tor and Haverstraw, we’ll paddle over in the dark. To the right of the target about a quarter of a mile there’s a railway signal light that’s always on. That’s our reference point. It’ll take less than an hour to cross. We leave the boat, climb the bank—no one will be there at night—and when we’re done, paddle back, drop the weapons in the deepest channel of the river, where they�
�ll be scattered by the current and the tide, cut open the boat and sink it, and drive south with a truckload of hay and nothing else.”
“What if there is someone on the bank?” Bayer asked.
“Then we turn around. We don’t kill innocent people.”
“But he will have seen us.”
“It’s all right. We won’t have done anything. We’ll say we’re duck hunters.”
“Some ducks,” Bayer said, looking at the weapons. “And if it’s a goon?”
“If we can’t kill him quietly before he fires a shot or sounds an alarm, we’ll retreat.”
“Who’s gonna kill him quietly?” Johnson asked.
“I’ll have to” was Harry’s reply. “But I’m sure there won’t be anyone. I’ve been there.”
“And the people in the cars, exactly?” Sussingham wanted to know.
“His soldiers. They’re the ones who shoot people in the head, beat them to death, stab them in the temple with ice picks, kidnap children for ransom, and dismember bodies. That is, when they’re not burning down houses or raping young girls.”
“How do you know this?” Sussingham pressed.
“He reads the papers,” Bayer told him, “and he lives in New York. Their protection is supposed to go all the way up to O’Dwyer. Who knows?” To Sussingham’s puzzled look, Bayer responded, “The mayor.”
“He’ll be quite surprised,” Harry added, “if it’s true. But everyone will think it’s a gang war in which one side escalated.”
Using the diagram, they went over the plan second by second, which was not so difficult, as the action was supposed to run for no more than a few minutes. Each man knew his part, his place, and the part and place of the others. They weren’t nervous about forgetting the details, for not only were they practiced but they knew they could improvise as they had many times before. This led to a question, over lunch, that had to come up. Johnson was the one who raised it.
“Casualties,” he said.
“I would hope we can do this safely,” Harry answered. “We’ll have surprise, superior armament, cover, darkness, and whereas we’re practiced in assault they have no experience in defense. But if there are casualties, we have medical kits, we evacuate the wounded, bring him, or them, here, where they will be treated by a surgeon who will be waiting.”
“And killed?” Johnson asked.
“We’ll bring him out. I have cards for you to complete: next of kin, where you want to be buried, that kind of thing.”
“I want to be buried in Arlington,” Bayer said. “Do they take Jews?”
“Of course they do,” Sussingham said, “but not you. You’re too big.”
“And your wills,” Harry said. “Informally. Nothing will see a judge.”
“I don’t need a will,” Sussingham declared. “I don’t have anything to leave or anyone to leave it to.”
“You’re insured,” Harry told him. “We all are.”
“They thought of everything,” Bayer said. “How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“For all of us together?”
“Apiece.”
They were astounded. “That’s three big houses, Harry,” Bayer said.
“Six in Wisconsin,” Johnson added.
“I told you, I don’t have anyone to leave it to,” Sussingham insisted.
“What about the pretty girl in the apartment on the first floor? She’s apparently all you think about.”
“Yeah, I’ll leave it to her. That would make me feel. . . . It would almost be like kissing her, which I always wanted to do.”
“Then kiss her,” Harry said.
“I’d leave it to my sister,” Johnson announced.
They looked at Harry. “My wife, Catherine. She doesn’t need it, but as you said, it would be like kissing her. She’d be moved, I know. It would be as if, for a second, I was there.”
Then they all looked at Bayer. “No one,” he said. “Absolutely, no one.”
They met twice more in Newark, going over the details again and again; stripping and cleaning their weapons so that they would feel wed to them once more; and getting back to what they had been. In the eyes of a soldier whose life may end at any time, the things that weigh upon him heavily are vivid in proportion. If much is lost, much is gained.
They were going to go on Thursday, the thirtieth of October, arriving in Newark at two and driving north an hour later, but it didn’t work, because there was a fire in the Hudson Tubes and they couldn’t get across on time. When Johnson and Bayer got to the station it was closed off and smoke was issuing from the doors. This was just as well, as heavy rain might have thrown them off schedule anyway. High tides and street flooding paralyzed traffic, shut down air operations at La Guardia, and made Friday uncertain in terms of both what they could do and the effect upon Verderamé’s usual punctuality. Also, Friday had been ruled out in general not only because they wanted a business day for the day following their strike, but because it was more likely that on Friday Verderamé might stay in town for dinner or go to a show. And had they set out that Friday they would have been frustrated yet again. The Tubes were flooded at times and the ferries backed up, their crossings made difficult by high winds, and boats that had broken from their moorings and were running unmanned on unusually powerful currents.
They decided to go on the first good day of the first week in November. Everyone except Harry went back to his routine. Sussingham went to a lot of movies and ate repeatedly at the White Turkey, alternating from one to the other out of embarrassment that despite the thousands of restaurants in New York, all he wanted to eat was turkey. Johnson settled into the library and ate mostly at the automat. Bayer went back to work on Thursday, again on Friday, and, receiving various clients, noted that their umbrellas held so much water that as the owners sat talking to him the umbrellas would drip for half an hour, that water ran off people’s hair onto their shoulders as if it were raining indoors, and that his windows streamed perpetually as sideways rain was swept against the glass. Everything was gray and wet, and when darkness came it was worse.
Harry and Catherine had agreed that she would stay with her parents and not return home until it was over. He told her, and it was true, that if she were with him beforehand he might not be able to come out safely. He had to leave behind her world and everything feminine. To do what he had to do, he could not think at all of things that were tender or of what he loved. He had seen too many men disengage from the rhythm of war and then die for their want of ferocity and fighting grace. Though the best of them fought to return to love, to return to it they had to put it out of their minds.
The delay was not propitious. It is true that had Catherine been with him he would have been thrown off, but in her absence he could not help but think of her, and the more he thought of her, the more he missed her. As he read, he saw her on the page, more beautiful than anything that was ever written. And when he slept, he dreamt of her.
At the beginning of the week, when the weather was still a problem, he was sitting in the living room at dusk. Lights across the park came on a score at a time until thousands lit the stone cliffs of Fifth Avenue. They twinkled gently, as they were for the most part just table lamps, shaded in silk, glowing in warm apartments. A burst of sun beneath the clouds momentarily washed the off-white façades with an orange-tinged red the color of molten steel. Behind this, the sky was blued as purple and black as a gun, and the trees in the park, leafless and thin, were for a moment like flames the color of white gold.
Although he had always been unwilling—so as not to tempt fate—to have his picture taken or write a farewell before going into battle, he decided to write to Catherine. He had in mind a short note, like that which would have announced that he was going out to buy groceries and would be back at such and such a time. But though it would be short, he thought to leave something rather than nothing. He wanted it to be almost breezy, certainly informal, and not too serious. He wouldn’t be away for long, and wo
uld see her on the Esplanade at eleven o’clock on the day after the action. That was set in stone. He didn’t want her in the apartment. It wasn’t safe. They would meet in the park and then see how things played out, what the papers said, how it felt. He would be seeing her soon enough, so just a paragraph or two, if only because writing it would be as if she were there.
He searched the house for the right paper upon which to write. Though it might be casual, it couldn’t be like a telephone message or a grocery list. On the other hand, stationery was too somber and out of the question. At first he searched mentally, thinking about what could be where, and then he got up and started opening drawers. Since Catherine had moved in, these held many surprises. She carried things from home or from elsewhere, and, being neither as neat nor as organized as he, simply threw them into anything that might hold them. In one of the compartments of a breakfront she had installed in the hall, Harry found a half-depleted pad of musical notation paper. Six by eight and stiff enough to fold into a card that would stand on the marble-topped table in the entryway, it was printed with staffs only on one side, and he would write on the other. Whether it was from the music department at Bryn Mawr, a long-ago voice teacher, or the theater, didn’t matter: it was a small part of the many things that had made Catherine’s song.
He sat down to write, intending not to touch upon anything too grave, and aware that were things to turn out well, he and Catherine would return to the apartment together and there would be no need for a note—a note that, despite Harry’s wishes, and though by necessity it was short, became a letter.
He folded it in two and stood it up on the oval marble top of the table that had been near the front door since Harry was a child. She couldn’t miss it, especially because she had left a bracelet there, abandoning it on the way out perhaps because she discovered that it was not right for her outfit. Or perhaps because the clasp had broken. It lay as she had left it, open and empty, the fragile safety chain of almost gossamer gold links lying bereft on the cold marble, not quite glowing in the light that came from over the rooftops and across the deeply shadowed courtyards.
