by Andrew Gross
24
Two nights later, I stood across the street from Liz’s brownstone once again, huddled in the shadow beneath the staircase of the brownstone across from them. It was 10 P.M. If something was indeed taking place that night, I knew the when, but not the where, and I wanted to make sure I was early enough to witness whatever took place.
If something was indeed taking place.
This time I had a small camera I had plunked down forty dollars for, in order to document whatever I found.
It was raw that night—a chilly, damp, early December evening, and I huddled in my wool barn jacket and bounced on my toes to ward off the cold. Across the street, on the third floor, Liz’s lights were still on. I knew Emma was asleep in the next room; her shades were dark. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks now, and this was as close as I’d gotten in that time, alone, outside their apartment, in the dark and rain. Thinking of my little girl.
The Bauers’ lights were still on as well, but dimmed.
I waited.
At ten thirty, Liz’s lights went out, but the Bauers’ stayed lit. The sound of footsteps clattering on concrete came up beside me suddenly and I stepped back underneath the stairs as a couple, huddled under an umbrella, hurried by. I conjured up the fear of someone from the government spotting me standing outside the Bauers’ building. Someone who would come up to me and ask for my ID. Who was maybe watching their apartment as well. How would I explain that one away? But it was always only the footsteps of ordinary people passing by. A woman in a long cloth coat heading back to her apartment in the very building I was using as my cover. Making me step back into the shadows to keep from being seen. Or a couple, arm in arm, walking down the street, slanting into the rain. The occasional taxi whooshing by.
Around eleven, four Chesterfields into a new pack, a dark sedan drove slowly up the block.
I stepped back into the darkness.
It slowed for a second in front of the Bauers’ brownstone and then went on, and I thought nothing of it. Two minutes later, it came around again. No one got out. I watched closely, trying to make out whoever was inside. A Ford, it appeared to me. Dark gray. All I could see was the shape of a man in a hat behind the wheel. So I waited. A minute or so later the lights in the Bauers’ apartment suddenly went out.
I was either right about this—that something was indeed afoot—or they were merely turning in and I was in for a long, cold, unrewarding night.
The man in the car rolled down his window and flicked a cigarette onto the street. He turned toward me and a shiver traveled down my spine. I was sure he had spotted me there and was staring right at me.
I ducked back in the shadow of the staircase.
To my relief, he simply turned back and looked away.
In another minute or so, the front door of the brownstone suddenly opened and the Bauers came out on the landing. My heart sprang alive with vindication. Without even acknowledging the car, they took a long, watchful look up and down the block—I was sure, to make sure no one was observing them leaving. Spotting nothing suspicious, Willi took Trudi’s arm and they quickly came down the stairs and climbed into the backseat of the car.
It was 11 P.M. and they were heading out for the evening?
Something was happening.
The car door closed and the Ford drove off at a slow pace. Maybe making sure they weren’t followed. I tucked the camera inside my jacket and came out from under the staircase, about twenty yards behind. I followed it to the end of the block, where their car stopped at a red light on Lexington, signaling a left turn. I quickened my pace and grabbed a photo of the license plate as best I could. At the corner I spotted a free taxi slowing and put up my hand for it to stop. Before the light changed, I hopped in. “You see that car over there?” I pointed to the Ford.
“I see it,” the cabbie replied.
“Follow it. Wherever it goes.”
“You a cop?” The driver turned around, in a flat wool cap, plaid shirt, and woolen vest, and looked at me. “A gumshoe maybe?”
“My wife.” I looked back at him and shrugged, unable to come up with anything better. “Any problem?” I asked. “Money’s the same.”
“I don’t got no problem,” the driver said, turning forward. “No problem at all.”
“Just make sure you stay a ways behind,” I said, waiting for the light to change.
“Don’t get all antsy. Ain’t the first time someone’s asked me to play detective,” the driver said.
On green, the Ford pulled out and made a left onto Lex and then to Third, and at the corner, its turn signal went on again, signaling another turn. East.
My cab accelerated slowly, waiting for the Ford to make its turn, and when it did, the cabbie stayed about thirty yards behind and turned on Ninety-second as well, just making the light. When the light changed again, we followed him across to Second, and then all the way to First Avenue.
“I know what it’s like, buddy,” he said, seeing me lean forward, trying to get a look at it ahead of us. “I drove days, till I came home one day with a leg of lamb for Easter and found my wife with my … Well, why would you wanna hear all that? You got your own issues.”
“Sorry,” I said distractedly. I wasn’t listening. “Look, they’re turning. Stay behind them.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he said. “Not my first dance, mister.”
Crossing First, they continued toward the river. The cabbie waited till they had gotten halfway down the block, then he accelerated to make the light after them.
“Bad to let this thing take control of you, buddy,” he said. I ignored him. “It’ll turn your blood to rotgut. Next you’ll start drinking, and—”
“Look.” I saw the car pull up in front of a building halfway down the block toward York. “Let me off here,” I instructed him. We had just pulled up at the light. I stuffed a five in his hand for the one-fifty ride. “Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.”
“Hope you work it all out,” he called after me. “If you don’t you—”
I jumped out of the cab and shut the door.
The Ford had stopped in front of a large building and I hurried across the street against the light, staying well out of sight. It was 11:20 P.M. now and traffic was sparse. I cautiously made my way down the opposite side of the street. I was able to see the Bauers climb out of the car and quickly head inside the building. Whoever was driving got out as well, in a hat and long coat, but he remained on the sidewalk by the entrance, hands in pockets, as if standing guard.
Something clearly was going on. A sixty-year-old couple didn’t head out at a time when everyone else was heading to bed. I only prayed I could get close enough to the building to see what it was.
I crept as close as I could without attracting attention, my heartbeat going rat-tat-tat, trying to stay out of the beam of the bright streetlamps across the street. Every time the lookout turned away—it was a cold and damp night, and he didn’t look happy to be there—I crept a little closer.
In front of the building, there was a folding, corrugated metal door to what looked like a delivery zone for two trucks.
I made out large, chiseled letters engraved in the stone above the entrance. ATIA.
ATIA?
It looked like a firehouse. Then I recalled what Trudi Bauer had told me about their business.
We still rent it out.
Creeping forward, I was able to make out the entire name. HELVATIA.
We were at their old brewery. What was going on here now?
Suddenly, the metal door shot up with a loud clatter and the lookout spun around. There was a delivery truck sitting in the loading bay, facing the street. The lookout, satisfied there was no one about, took a last 180-degree scan at the seemingly deserted street and went inside. Which gave me the freedom to run up a little closer, snapping a photo of the Ford on the street and the delivery truck’s license plate as well. I ducked behind a car parked across the street.
I felt my heartbeat thumping a
t twice its normal rate. What else could I do but wait?
A short while later, two men emerged from the building, rolling a pushcart with what looked like two large metal kegs on it.
Beer kegs, they looked like to me.
What were the Bauers up to here?
The truck had a loading ramp hooked up behind it and the man and the lookout wheeled the heavy kegs up the ramp and into the truck’s cargo bay. In the dim light of the loading area I finally got a glimpse of the second man.
My heart slammed to a stop.
It was Curtis. The brownstone’s janitor.
Nicest people in the world, he had said of the Bauers.
What the hell was he doing here?
Curtis and the lookout reemerged from the truck, the rolling cart empty, and headed back inside the brewery. No sign of the Bauers.
For a moment, the truck was left completely unguarded, the coast clear.
I was dying to know what was inside. By the time I’d be able to tell Latimer about this, whatever they were loading would be long disposed of, and I was pretty confident in saying this wasn’t your normal beer delivery.
Anyway, the brewery had been closed for over a year.
Crouched down, I scampered across the street and into the loading area, where I put myself behind a wall of boxes and crates that were piled high about ten feet away. From there, I tried to get a glimpse inside the open truck. I heard voices again. Bending low, I saw Curtis and the lookout, who was a large, dough-faced man, come back out wheeling another two kegs.
“You first,” Curtis instructed the man.
Dough-Face climbed up the ramp. They both grunted in exertion as they rolled the two heavy kegs inside the truck. Then, their footsteps heavy, they offloaded them inside; I heard the clang of each one striking the truck’s floor as they obviously stood them upright. Then they wheeled the rolling cart out again and after another couple of minutes, came out a third time and did it all over again. Now there were at least six kegs in the back of the truck. Beer? I doubted. It made no sense to me. All I knew was that it was after midnight, the Bauers were here, Curtis was somehow helping them. Something was going on.
As they went inside the building one more time, I decided I had to take a closer look.
I knew it was crazy. I had no idea how to explain it if they found me here. But I needed proof of what they were doing. And I was more caught up in knowing than I was thinking about the danger. I heard their voices trail off inside the building. My heart picked up again with anticipation. Now. I scurried out from my hiding place and up into the cargo bay of the truck. I was looking at two rows of four beer kegs and then another row of two, taking up about a quarter of the cargo space, with a large tarp resting on them. I racked my brain—what could they be doing delivering beer at this hour? The only answer I came up with, the only thing that made sense to me given the secrecy about what they were doing, was that they weren’t filled with beer—especially with Curtis and Trudi Bauer here. So what was it then? And why would it need to have been communicated in code, a code that only I had stumbled onto? Unless it was something far more sinister? I snapped off three shots of the inside of the truck and prepared to run back out and scoot back to my hiding place.
Suddenly the door to the adjacent office opened and I heard voices again. Close by.
This time, Willi’s and Trudi’s voices.
I froze.
If they found me here, I was cooked. I’d never be able to explain.
“You ride in the car, my dear,” Willi said. “Freddy will drive. I will go with Kurt in the truck.”
Kurt? No longer Curtis?
“As long as we all know the way,” Trudi replied.
“Kurt knows the way. He’s been there. Please, we have to get along now,” he said to all, loudly clapping his hands. “Schnell, schnell!”
Friedrich. Kurt? Schnell? What was going on?
I glanced at the truck’s open cargo door and knew I had no chance to get out now. I was trapped. Careful not to make a sound, I ducked behind the farthest row of four kegs, nearest the driver’s cab. There was a narrow window for the driver to peer into the cargo bay right above me. Hugging my camera, I took the edge of the tarp and lifted it over me.
I heard Curtis come back out and stand just outside the cargo cab, not ten feet away. “Ready, Herr Bauer.” Herr Bauer. He slammed the rear doors shut and suddenly everything turned completely black. Fear sprang up in me. I was trapped inside. No way out. I heard him wrap a chain around the outer latch of the door. For a moment I heard nothing but the pounding of my own heart, which I thought would give me away to anyone within twenty feet.
Wherever we were going, I was along for the ride.
A moment later, Curtis hopped in the front cab and got behind the wheel. Willi Bauer pulled himself into the passenger seat.
“Not made for people of your age, Herr Bauer,” I heard Curtis say, somewhat blithely.
“I’ll be fine. Do you have your gun, Kurt? Just in case? Though I doubt we’ll need it.”
His gun.
“Right here,” the janitor said, patting his chest. “Just in case.”
In a second the truck’s engine coughed to life. The vehicle inched a few feet into the street, where it stopped again, Curtis hopped out, and I heard the corrugated metal door to the brewery’s loading bay slam behind me.
Curtis got back into the cab.
“Two hours,” Curtis said. “Sit back and enjoy the ride, Herr Bauer. Operation Prospero is under way.”
25
OPERATION PROSPERO
What was he talking about? Prospero was rightful King of Milan in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, whose plotting brother abandoned him at sea for twelve years on an island.
An island like Manhattan?
I curled up there, the tarp over me, trapped. And petrified. Still, not so petrified that there wasn’t a tiny but insistent urge inside me to see what they were up to. Curtis had a gun. Clearly, if they found me back here, spying on them—spying on spies—he’d have no choice but to use it. Wherever we were going, I had no doubt Prospero meant something important.
And sinister.
The truck lurched and sputtered its way down the street. York Avenue, I assumed. It made a series of turns, until I felt certain, even without seeing, that we were heading south, maybe on Second Avenue. We continued for a while, pulling up at the occasional light. I couldn’t hear anything said in the cab above the engine, though it was only feet in front of me. How was I ever going to get out of here?
Do you have your gun, Kurt?
Whatever they were up to, the taciturn, muscular janitor with what I’d thought was a Scandinavian accent seemed like just the type who’d have no compunction using it on me.
It was a long trip, wherever we were heading, and I settled in. We stopped and started over what I took to be the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into Queens, then on all kinds of bumpy city streets in Queens until the truck accelerated and the ride smoothed out on what I took to be a highway. Forty minutes had gone by. It was now going on twelve thirty in the morning. At some point I crept out from underneath the tarp, careful to keep low in case one of them looked back through the window to check on the cargo, took a furtive glance through the small window into the front—and saw a green road sign ahead. Eastern Long Island. Were we on the Southern State Parkway? It was bumpy in there. I had nothing to hold on to but the tarp. I was tossed around. And it was cold. The floor of the truck made it feel like a meat locker. Behind the wheel, Curtis kept up a steady pace.
I looked at the door. How could I get out of here? There was an inside latch that I could possibly open, but the chain Curtis had affixed outside made trying pointless. Instead, I tried to think what I would do whenever they opened the door. Could I possibly hide in here? What would I say if I was caught? How could I alibi myself out of this? The inescapable fact was that I was trapped and there was no way out. And my captors were armed. It was clear whatever they were up to, the last
thing they’d want was a witness blabbing about it to the police.
I started to think Liz or Emma, or even Noelle, might never even know what happened to me.
The one thought I played with was to immediately bolt out the back and take off the second the door was opened. Catch them by surprise. Wherever we were, it would be dark. By the time Curtis drew his gun I could be twenty to thirty yards away. In the dark, he might not be able to hit me. That seemed my only chance, I resolved. And then what? Where would I go afterward? Who would I tell? Latimer? The police? And what would I say? What would I actually have witnessed? Nothing. What had they actually done? A beer delivery in the dark of night? I was the one who was spying on them. Truth was, I’d still have nothing.
A greater fear pulsed through me as I also realized that our final destination could well be inside, in an enclosed space. And then where would I run? There were at least two of them larger than me.
I wouldn’t get ten feet.
This could be my last ride.
An hour passed. Close to 1 A.M. The truck rumbled on. When I took another peek I saw road signs for Lake Ronkonkoma, and then the dual towns of Mastic/Shirley. Curtis and Willi seemed to have no plan to stop. Farther out, there were only beach towns on the far end of the Island. I had been out here only once before, to Southampton, to a fancy party on a huge estate a few summers ago, given by rich Gentile friends at Columbia. Everyone was dressed in blazers and white slacks and the women in nautical dresses and wide, white hats. Liz and I had never felt so out of place.
Until now …
At some point, the truck downshifted with a heavy jerk and we seemed to leave the main road. The road got bumpy, and suddenly one of the barrels toppled over and rolled on its side. Now it was rattling around under the tarp, making noise. I tried to reach over and stop it.
I lowered back down, sure that Curtis or Willi would be looking back through the window at it.
Instead, to my horror, Curtis pulled the truck over on the side of the deserted road.
