SERIOUSLY...?: A Lou Fleener Thriller

by Duane Lindsay

  Damn it, Lou thinks as he trudges to the next door house. If she wasn’t a victim and old and bossy…

  The front door is locked, so Lou goes to the back. It’s locked as well but shaded by several trees and bushes in the yard so he doesn’t have to worry about somebody spying on him. Except his client, of course, who’s now back at the kitchen window, urging him on.

  Thirty seconds to pick the lock and Lou’s in the kitchen looking back at his client. He can see her, only a few feet away, almost quivering with eagerness that he find something He gives her a small resigned wave and begins to search the house.

  Start with the bedroom because that’s where most people hide stuff. Lou steps through the living room, as small as Mrs. Podalack’s, turns down a narrow hall and enters a typical bedroom. It’s big enough for a single mattress and Lou’s wondering how that fits a guy as large as the one he saw here. There’s a dresser shoehorned in here and a closet with three suits and a hat on the upper shelf. A bedside table and a lamp with a wind up alarm clock.

  Lou goes to the table a fishes around in the drawer, finding, as expected, the usual junk. A comb, a couple of matchbooks, some loose change. Nothing suspicious, nothing Un-American.

  The bathroom’s got a damp towel on the floor, some cheap shampoo and an old fashioned straight razor by the sink. A toothbrush in a plastic glass and a shaving brush. A toilet with a slow but steady leak into the bowl that could run into a serious water bill if the guy stayed here another century or two.

  The living room is the size of Mrs. Podalack’s and only slightly less packed. There’s a huge and hideous couch squatting under the front window like a red dragon that’s going to come to life and eat your cat some night. A big armoire of dark wood, mahogany or teak, with curlicues and swirling feet and way too much carving. Lou fingers through the drawers of the monstrosity, finding, again, the usual junk.

  No sign of a nest of Nazis. No television either which Lou finds odd. The machines haven’t been around all that long but the nation’s already gotten addicted to I Love Lucy and Uncle Miltie, Milton Berle’s Texaco Comedy Hour.

  There is a brown wooden cabinet radio under a tall floor lamp, though, so maybe the guy’s just old school.

  Still, it’s dark in here with the drapes pulled and all this furniture and Lou’s getting tired of looking at nothing. Mrs. Podalack’s got it all wrong. There are no Nazis.

  The kitchen is last, because who hides anything in a kitchen? And Lou finds, as he expected, nothing but kitchen stuff. A percolator, newer than his, a four-burner gas stove, an older white refrigerator that he looks through, finding waxed paper wrapped lunch meat, a six pack of Hamm’s (the beer that Milwaukee famous!) in brown bottles.

  It’s only nine-twenty in the morning but it’s hot in the house. Lou mutters, “Oh, what the hell,” and takes one. He finds a church key in the typical catch-all drawer and pops the top.

  As he’s taking his first sip the door opens and the blond man walks in. Erich Klaussner.

  Awkward. Lou slowly lowers the bottle as the two men hold eye contact. The violated homeowner, as expected, speaks first, and loudly.

  “What are you doing in my house? Who are you?” He advances quickly as he yells this, obviously intending to intimidate. Lou holds his ground.

  “I’m a city inspector,” he says with easy calm. The best way to ease aggression is to be non-aggressive. He hopes.

  Erich, still a few feet away, looks puzzled. “An inspector? How did you get in?”

  “The front door,” says Lou. “It wasn’t locked.”

  “But it was.” The man does have a German accent, Lou thinks, though, except for movies, he wouldn’t really know. All he can say for sure is, the guy ain’t from around here.

  “I always lock the doors.” Eyes narrow in suspicion. “And why are you drinking my beer?”

  “Health inspector?”

  “You are lying.” Erich turns and glares out the kitchen window and Lou sees Mrs. Podalack’s curtain fall. “She sent you.” He turns back to Lou, furious. “That witch next door, always spying on me, watching me. Well, no more.”

  Now he advances those few feet between them, thinking, no doubt, that this pudgy man in his kitchen will be easy to hurt. He reaches strong fingers, curled into claws toward Lou, who puts a thumb on the beer, shakes it vigorously, and sprays it in his face.

  Lou ducks under and away. Erich paws at his eyes but recovers and throws a wide swing in Lou’s direction.

  Lou spins out of reach and backs into the living room, looking for more space to maneuver. Erich follows. His shirt’s wet from the beer, his eyes are red from rubbing and his expression is murderous. He throws a lot of punches trying to hit something but Lou’s moving too quickly. The contradiction between Lou’s weight and general appearance and his lightning quick moves is confusing.

  Erich turns away toward the huge old armoire and pulls open a drawer.

  Lou thinks, How did I miss that? and dives as Erich pulls a heavy black Luger from the drawer.

  The gun goes off as Lou hits the hand holding it, twice more as Erich tries to shoot him. Lou grabs it to wrest it away and Erich takes his advantage; he gets a hand on Lou’s shirt and pulls.

  He’s way stronger than he looks and Lou gets jerked forward and head-butted. He kicks the guy someplace, hardly matters where, and gets let go. He staggers backwards, momentarily stunned.

  Another gunshot, this one touching his bicep, like a wasp sting and Lou dives behind this big sofa squatting in the corner. Three more shots and Lou’s remembering that a sofa isn’t very good cover, so he shoves it forward to get a little room, sits back against the wall and bends his knees with his feet on the back.

  With all of his strength he gives a mighty shove and the sofa goes flying across the room with Lou Fleener coming up and over it. He launches himself at the very started gunman and they crash to the floor together.

  Too close for comfort. Lou rolls off, rises and stomps on Erich’s gun hand. The Luger falls away and Lou kicks it under the armoire. They both get up and they face each other.

  “You are tougher than you appear,” says Erich.

  “You, too,” agrees Lou. “Want to call it a draw and let me walk away?”

  “No; I think not.”

  He’s at least six-four to Lou’s five-nine, and has to weigh two-fifty, and he’s thinking this advantage is enough because he advances slowly, arms raised in a boxer’s stance.

  “I don’t want to hit you,” says Lou.

  “Fine; we’ll wrestle.” Erich drops his hands and leaps at Lou, catching him by the collar. Lou’s thrown off balance but rolls away, twists with his momentum and spins back. Always do the unexpected, he thinks as he jumps on a very broad back.

  Erich, as strong as he looks, grabs Lou’s arm and twists until Lou has to let go. Still twisting, the guy forces Lou off him and slowly down to his knees to keep the arm from being broken. As Lou gets turned like a pretzel he uses his other hand to start pounding on Erich’s knee. On the sixth punch the big guy howls in pain and let’s go of Lou’s arm.

  Lou spins away, jumps to his feet and again they face off.

  “Can I go now?” asks Lou.

  “Who are you? Why are you in my house?”

  They’re circling each other in the small room. It’s the size that’s causing Lou’s problem; he doesn’t have space to move. He goes one way and Erich moves to block him. If he backs up the guy come forward. Lou’s trying not to get backed in to a corner where the guy’s size and strength advantage will win and as he circles past the armoire he reaches back and grabs a drawer handle. He lets the big guy close on him.

  Lou pulls at the drawer, hoping it’s the type that comes free, and when it does he swings it in a wide arc, catching Erich fully on the side of his face. Pens and paperclips and a stapler and other junk spew though the room and Erich falls like he’s been decked by Sonny Liston. Lou follows up, using the drawer as a hammer, pounding away until the drawer smashes in
to tiny pieces.

  Taking advantage of the attack he steps forward and immediately slips on the stapler. His ankle twists, sending a lightning bolt of agony up his leg and he falls to the floor clutching at it with both hands.

  Erich rolls over onto him, swinging heavy fists at Lou’s face and body. Lou’s grabbing at anything and gets a hold of a shirt which he twists like a towel in a wringer washer. Using it for leverage, he spins Erich over him and onto his back.

  The shirt rips as Erich keeps rolling until he can get up on his knees and Lou’s only got maybe a couple of seconds before he’s standing and Lou’s not, and with his ankle screaming at him that’s gonna be all she wrote, folks.

  He uses those seconds to tear at the laces off his shoe, squeezing his foot out of it and holding the shoe by its toe. It’s the best he can do for a weapon. Erich’s on hands and knees now and he’s shaking his head trying to clear it when Lou uses his shoe like Nikita Khrushchev at the UN, pounding on the Erich’s hand and fingers.

  Erich pulls away, causing him to lose his balance and he falls over in Lou’s direction. Lou switches from the hand to the face, pounding away with his shoe.

  Lou’s up on his knees now, still swinging away, moving from face to stomach as Erich curls into a fetal ball to protect himself. Lou pauses for effect and the guy loosens up, probably thinking this is the chance he needs, but Lou’s waiting for the moment.

  He’s cocked his arm back, holding the shoe like a hammer and as Erich’s hands leave his face Lou leans in and swings with his whole body. The shoe connects with Erich’s temple, he goes out like he’s a steer at the Chicago stockyards and Lou’s momentum drops him across the guy’s chest.

  Lou takes a moment to breath in the manly smell of All-Spice cologne and sweat as he gets a close look at pectoral muscles the size of Montana. The chest is rising and falling, Lou with it and he sees a small dark mark in the guy’s armpit. Looking closer he sees it’s a four digit number tattooed beneath a tiny human skull.

  What the hell? He wonders, but only for a moment. Erich won’t stay out for much longer. Time to get out of here.

  Lou rolls to his knees and delicately gets to his foot like a long-legged, pudgy stork. He tries—just once—to put weight on his ankle, gasps at the response and hops to the front door. He pauses, one hand on the knob and studies the room. The armoire drawer is kindling, its contents spewed across the floor. The sofa is on its face with three bullet holes in it and there’s a very large, very possibly Nazi, unconscious guy laying on the floor with no shirt on.

  One guy, Lou thinks, and he almost beat me. Sure the small room put me at a disadvantage, but still; one guy.

  “Maybe I’m getting old,” he says to the room. Sighing, he turns the doorknob and stops. He hops back to the kitchen, takes another Hamm’s from the fridge and pops it open. He takes a deep pull and feels the cool liquid go down his throat and rolls the wet bottle across his forehead.

  Ahhhh.

  Satisfied, he hops back out to the door and out to the street, remembers his shoe and goes back, comes out looking for his car, that he remembers he left back in Lincoln Park because Cassidy said, “You don’t need a car; just takes the Ravenswood El.”

  Which is a swell idea until you’re hopping on a sprained ankle.

  Erich Klaussner, in his little bathroom, isn’t feeling very good. First, he forgot his wallet, realizing at the bus stop that he didn’t have the money to get to work. The walk home, muttering dark Germanic curses at the gods responsible for memory, seeing the old woman’s curtain sway against the glass and knowing that she was watching him again.

  What is her problem? She’s always at the window, hidden in the shadows, a shadow herself, insubstantial and somehow menacing. Erich’s considered a dozen times going over and confronting her, but some inner emotion keeps him away. She’s like a ghost from his past, silent and staring and frankly, she gives him the willies.

  Walking into his kitchen to find that man. The pudgy little man drinking his beer, searching his house, looking for…what? Erich’s no fool; nothing he values is in the house. But it’s still unnerving to have somebody invade it.

  Erich had planned to heave him out, but the little man proved so fast, so…formidable, that he shot at him and—again; how is it possible?—he missed, Four shots in a small room and the man keeps coming at him.

  Erich doesn’t remember how he was knocked out, only that his head ached and the little man was gone when he opened his eyes.

  Now, in the bathroom, jaw swollen and body aching nearly everywhere, he wonders how this is going to affect the plan.

  The plan. He squints at his reflection in the harsh glow of the unshaded hundred watt bulb and sees the outline of the younger man he once was looking back at him.

  One month more, maybe less. April 12th, 1960. The day the world changes.

  Cassidy’s with Monk today at his new office on Wacker drive. He’s leased a third floor suite in one of the newer buildings with a very prestige address. The rent is a brutal four hundred dollars a month for two rooms with carpeted floor, tasteful recessed lighting, a front desk for a receptionist should he ever get one, and a key to the executive men’s room on the fourth floor. It’s also got a key to the third floor toilet, to be used by that receptionist if he ever gets one or clients if he ever gets some of those. Or Monk, in an emergency.

  It has two parking spaces in the underground lot that cost another twenty-five dollars a month and Monk, sitting behind his new executive desk in the larger of the two rooms, this one with a window looking over the Chicago river, is thinking that he’s already spent more on this place in two days than on his California bookstore in two years.

  Cassidy’s out at the stationary store on Wabash Avenue under the El tracks, spending more of that money on letterhead and business cards. Later they’re going out to get one of the new IBM electric typewriters.

  Monk, a devotee of research, has already subscribed to at least a dozen magazines and periodicals covering the stock investment industry. He’s been to the downtown library branch on Washington and State streets to study his competition, spending long hours in the tomb-silent reference rooms reading the Thomas Register of Businesses.

  He’s wearing a power suit from Brooks Brothers that cost another hundred dollars and shoes from a custom shop on Michigan Avenue. His hat, a fashionable Homburg, is on the coat rack by the door.

  He’s got everything he needs except clients.

  Later, when Cassidy returns from her shopping, they walk to a local restaurant for lunch served by a waiter in his nineties who’s probably been working their table since before Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. He’s bent and arthritic, dressed in a suit and tie as expensive as Monk’s but with a sparkling white linen towel folded over his arm.

  Cassidy’s the voice of enthusiasm. “This’ll work out great, Monk; you wait and see. You’ll get clients of the rich sort, Lou’ll get clients that need detecting and I’ll help you both with the office stuff. Speaking of which…”

  She fishes around in her purse for a steno tablet, skips past several pages. The lunch is over and the dishes are being bussed away and she says, “I found a service that supplies office help. I figured we’d try a few different temps on a trial basis until the business gets going and we decide on the right one.”

  “That’s great, Cass.” Monk’s feeling—except for the huge cash flow out—pretty good about this. The idea of offering advice is swell. After all, isn’t that what he’s been dishing out to Lou all this time? Knowledge is knowledge, he figures, and how hard can it be to go from crooks to stocks?

  Speaking of which; “I wonder how Lou’s doing?”

  “He’s out checking on Nazis.”

  “What?”

  Cassidy hasn’t talked about their visitor, Lou’s first potential client yet. “This old lady came by yesterday, said she thought her neighbor’s a Nazi.”

  Monk’s interested. He leans across the table to listen. “Why would she think that?”<
br />
  “I guess she’s a survivor of one of the concentration camps in Poland. She showed us a tattoo. She says she’s been watching her neighbor and he looks like a guard who used to torment her. Monk; do you think it’s possible? Can there really be Nazis in America?”

  “There are,” Monk says in his I-know-everything voice. Seriously; everything. Cassidy had tried once, on a bet with Lou, to stump him on anything. She’d asked about Etruscan chicken cookers and Monk—same voice as now—went on about them for thirty-five minutes. Evidently they had something to do with clay pots—Cassidy had zoned out at the three minute marker, leaving Lou grinning in his chair, toasting her with a beer and an I-told-you-so smirk.

  He’d won two nights of free sex on that one but she would have given him those anyway so they both came out ahead.

  Monk was easily smarter than those guys a couple of years back on the quiz show Twenty-One, Herb Stempel and that cute guy, Chuck Van Doren. Monk could win even without cheating. Cassidy’s thinking, if Monk had gone into game shows, we’d have our own washer set by now.

  Monk says, “While the bulk of the Nazi diaspora, if you will, after World War two was to Argentina, and a fair number of German scientists, particularly those involved in the rocket industry, were grabbed by both US and Russia for the ‘Space Race…,’” He made air quotes around space race and Cassidy jumped in before the waiter died waiting to give them the check.

  “I know about that.”

  “You do?” Was that thinly veiled amazement? Should she get angry with him? Nah. “The old lady told us. She also said that a lot of the lower level guys, the guards at the camps and the soldiers, got a kind of free pass to immigrate.”

  “Hmmm.” Monk says, doing that thoughtful pose thing. “I know that the US immigration policy is porous, at best—it’s said that Swiss cheese is more of a barrier—” Monk chuckles, like the Swiss cheese thing is humorous. “And it’s possible, perhaps likely, that a number of questionable people slipped in.”