Larry considers this, “So there’s a threat to the Hotel?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You shoulda led with that. I’ll get you the list.”
Back at Monk’s an hour later. Bonnie’s gone home to change and eat and not be near Monk until she gets her head around what’s happening. She’d like to be there when—if—Lou and Cassidy get back but her mixed emotions send her away.
Monk’s at the table where they left him, more somber with her gone but still poring over the plans. Cassidy heads for the kitchen and opens a lot of cabinets while Lou drops a typed stack of papers on the table.
“The list for the next month of regular bookings,” he says. “We’re in luck. Place like the Ambassador doesn’t do walk ins. Reservations are usually for a month, sometimes two, in advance. Larry tells me they almost never have cancelations.”
Monk looks up, interested. “Larry? Bowen? He works there?”
“Yes, he does.”
Monk nods, “So that’s your guy. He still writing poetry?” Monk’s known Lou for a couple of decades; there’s not a lot about him he’s missed, especially 300 pound poets who do security work.
“Says he’s published, gonna be a book.”
“Well, good for him.” Monk’s always considered writing a book, feels he could whip one out any time but that time never seems to arrive. He’s years past the idea that he’s never going to actually sit down and do it. Still, it’s nice to imagine.
From the kitchen, Cassidy muttering, “Don’t you have food? Any food? Monk, there’s literally nothing here.”
“Of course there’s something” says Monk. “Gotta be. Did you check the pantry?”
“Yes. The cupboard is bare.”
“The fridge?”
“Ditto.”
“Well, there’s no food. You guys have anything downstairs?”
“Yes,” says Cassidy. “The address to several restaurants. We’ll go to one of them. They’re bound to have food.”
Monk looks up at Lou who agrees. “Bound to.”
“But the list. I want to go through it. Check out names,”
“It’ll be here when you get back. Hey!” Lou says like it’s a sudden thought, not one planted hard by Cassidy several times on the drive back. “Why don’t we invite…invite…” He’s snapping his fingers when the aggrieved voice comes from the kitchen.
“Bonnie. Invite Bonnie. For God’s sake.”
The restaurant is called Franklin’s. It serves, pretty much exclusively, meat, and almost all of that is bovine. You can get salads and they have a good wine list, but if you want something substantial it’s going to be from a cow.
Fortunately, all four are starved. After waiting an hour for Monk to dither and finally call, and another for Bonnie to get ready and get picked up, it’s nearly eight when the waiter, a tall slim man in black pants, white shirt, black thin tie and a thick Cuban accent arrives with several pounds of meat on a large silver platter.
“Oh,” says Bonnie, looking a bit faint at the size and quantity. “My.”
Cassidy grins. Being from Wyoming, she’s used to large steaks served with thick potato fries and a bottle of ketchup. Being from Wyoming, she was also used to knowing the person who personally killed the cow, so she’s not overawed by this display.
“Dig in, boys and girls.”
“Monk?” asks Bonnie. She’s holding her steak knife a bit gingerly as she contemplates how to begin. She glances at Cassidy who’s already sliced hers into strips suitable for feeding a small village. “Have you looked at the list yet?” She’s still having trouble believing that Lou—this guy here, the pudgy gnome putting away several thousand calories of beef with at least three beers to drown them—is capable of doing the things Monk says he can do. Even the things she’s seen him do—fighting all those men and now getting the list, seem so out of character.
He looks up to see her staring, and says, “What?” He dabs his face with an already smeared napkin. “I got a smooge?”
“You’re fine dear,” says Cassidy. “She’s having the appearance problem thing.”
“Ah.” Lou finishes chewing, holding up a finger to say wait, takes a long swig of beer, looks like he’s going to belch, doesn’t belch, and explains.
“It’s like this. You look at me and see somebody on the shortish side, a little heavy…”
Cassidy snorts, Lou looks stern.
“A little heavy, maybe he’s a bookie or a shoe salesman. But you hear these stories. Lou can dance like Astaire, Lou can beat the pants off of guys twice his size, Lou’s great in the sack…”
Another snort. “Don’t push it too far, Lou.”
“Fine. But you’re thinking, ‘how can this be true? He doesn’t look like he could do these things. It simply doesn’t add up.’”
“Like Larry what’s his name? The big guy at the hotel, writes poetry, looks like a small mountain range,” says Cassidy.
“How come I got to remember her name, you can forget Larry’s?”
Cassidy smiles and pats his cheek. “I’m me; you’re you.”
“Ah. That explains it.” Back to Bonnie. “So I’m not what you’re used to thinking of as somebody who can do those things…”
“Or marry so well…” says Cassidy.
“Or that,” agrees Lou, who does know it. At the end of the Duke Braddock gang wars he’d almost lost her to her own avarice and her not seeing the real him; exactly what he was trying to explain now.
“So take Monk here, for example…”
“No,” says Monk. “Do not take me for example.”
Lou does anyway. “Monk looks great. He’s tall, he’s beautiful. He gives Michelangelo second thoughts about carving David so plain in comparison. He’s the smartest guy in every room he goes into. Perfect catch, right?”
“Oh God.” Monk’s leaning so far into the table his head’s touching his plate. He’s got a small dab of ketchup on his forehead. “Stop. Please, stop.”
But no. “Monk’s great on the outside, and he’s about the best person I know on the inside, but there’s a layer of; what would you call it, Cass?”
“Klutz,” she says. She has a piece of steak on her fork that could feed the homeless. “Monk is awkward and shy and makes a terrible first, second and third impression…”
“Please stop,” says Monk.”
“But you get under that,” Cassidy continues unchecked. “And he’s a sweetheart.”
“He’s pretty good to be kidnapped with,” says Bonnie softly and Monk looks up in surprise.
Gently she dabs the ketchup off his head with her napkin.
The waiter, still a tall slim man in black pants, white shirt and black thin tie, though a bit more bedraggled after hauling around sides of beef all evening, arrives with a silver carafe of coffee which he pours into fine white china cups with stately grace. Several people arrive to cart away dishes and thick glass ashtrays are placed by each diner.
Cigarettes are lit and the list is—finally!—placed on the table. Monk reads it in silence while the others all pretend they’re not dying of curiosity. There’s twenty-five names on each page, and three pages but the name that makes Monk sit up straight in his chair is second from the top on page two.
“My God,” he whispers, while Bonnie and Lou reach for the pages he’s dropped.
“What?” says Cassidy, watching his face turn white. “Who’s on the list?”
But Monk is gone, eyes focused on the chandelier, seeing only the possibilities of what the name implied.
Lou and Bonnie are leaning toward each other, trying to read, until Lou takes both pages—he has to tug—and hands one to Bonnie. She accepts it with minimal grace and immediately starts scanning the names.
Several moments later she shrugs, tosses the page across to Lou, who does the same with his. Page three is still on the table where Monk dropped it.
Lou reads and finishes first, grabs the remaining page and scans it and shrugs. “I got nothing. Ne
ver heard of any of these people.”
Cassidy is watching Monk, ignoring the pages. She’s already figured out that he’s gotten something from the list and doesn’t see the need to show off her own ignorance by looking herself. So she leans over, snaps her fingers in front of his nose and says sharply, “Yo!”
Monk reacts by nearly falling backwards in his chair and saying “Ben-Gurian.”
Lou, interested, says, “Gesundheit,” which Monk doesn’t seem to notice.
“Ben-Gurian?” says Bonnie, ignoring Lou. She’s already decided that Lou is one of those people who say things to amuse themselves and should therefore be ignored.
Monk focuses on her. “David Ben-Gurian. He’s the Prime Minister of Israel.”
“Ok,” says Bonnie. “What about him? I mean, I get the Nazi-Israel connection, but why is this guy important?”
He’s important,” says Monk, already sounding like a college professor about to bore the socks off his class, “not because of any particular ideology, but because he’s coming here—to Chicago. He’s…”
The long-distance stare returns and Monk again drifts away. The others wait awhile, sipping coffee and smoking new cigarettes, waiting for his return.
Which takes a while. Lou’s on his second Pall-Mall, the waiter has returned to refill their cups and Cassidy is again considering the “Yo!” method since it worked so well before when Monk’s attention returns. He looks across the table at Bonnie and says, “I know what he’s going to do.”
19 - A Telegram is Always Bad News
Erich doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
Aldo is dead, the fat detective, Lou Fleener, has escaped with the hotel drawings, which means he could, possibly, figure out the plan, and half of the Nazi wannabees have vanished. Disappeared. Scurried into their holes like the cockroaches they are.
Erich’s in a small cramped motel room in Joliet, far from the events he’s intending to cause in Chicago. He’s been chain-smoking since he woke at five this morning. His eyes are red and his throat burns as he sips Jack Daniels Red Label whiskey from a thin plastic cup, swirling the ice from the rusted machine down the hall.
Outside, the sounds of children shrieking as they leap into the badly maintained swimming pool, and the occasional harsh scolding of mothers wanting to read and not have to pay attention to them, has given Erich a major headache. The bruises he suffered from that fat detective aren’t helping either.
Neither are the Vodka and cigarettes, some American brand with a Camel on the pack.
Aldo is dead. Aldo, his occasional friend, his trusted, guardedly, ally. The guy he intended to blow up along with the Israeli Prime Minister. Erich isn’t upset about Aldo being dead; he’s angry that the sadistic bastard is dead too soon. The bomb is scheduled to go off this weekend, just five days from now, if this is Monday.
Erich’s a little fuzzy on details, like the time (6:42 PM) or the date (April 1st.) The events of the last few days have left him angry and bitter and a whole lot more drunk than he should be, now that he needs a cool head.
Damn it! What the hell had gone wrong? It all started with that interfering woman next door, the woman from the camp who should never have survived long enough to plague him now. And what was he to make of the coincidence that had moved him into the house next door to her? How had their fates entwined from Auschwitz to their respective houses in Chicago?
She’s dead now, but so is Aldo. And he needs Aldo .
Without him, who’s going to blow up the Israeli Prime Minister? Whose bloody corpse will the police carve up in their morgue? Without him, who will be blamed, allowing Erich to get away?
A child screeches just outside his window, making Erich cringe and automatically reach for the Luger he keeps on his belt. But the Luger, like Aldo, is gone. His fingers open and close on nothing and he feels the weight of failure settle on his shoulders.
What will Mr. Klement say?
Wait. What will Mr. Klement say? If I ask him, what will he say?
Erich, despite the persistent pounding in his head, sits up straighter as this new idea washes around his brain like a shipwreck survivor dragging itself up from a sea of alcohol.
There are telegraphs, wire services; I can send him a message, tell him this latest setback and he’ll have no choice but to delay the plan, allow time to regroup.
Erich breathes his first easy breath of the day.
The clerk at the Western Union office says, “Argentina?” The room is long and narrow, split by a tall wooden counter that separates the customers form the workspace. Several Teletype machines clatter noisily behind a blue woolen curtain.
“Buenos Aires, yes,” agrees Erich with weary resignation. He’s been standing in line at this small shop on Adams street for two hours, waiting patiently behind men sending money to family, women sending messages to lovers, two slovenly young men begging their parents for money for bail. Erich has been listening to these people make their demands for so long that he’s numb when his turn finally arrives.
The clerk, a young man with acne and Brill-Cream hair pomaded to a thick greasy wave, looks like Elvis Presley before enlistment and a shower. His brown uniform is wrinkled and his teeth stained yellow from too many cigarettes and he’s eying Erich with a look of wonder.
“Buay-nose…” he begins and stutters to a stop.
“Aires,” says Erich, with less irritation than expected. In other days this cretin would be shot, or hung or gassed, after being beaten, starved and worked near to the death he deserves. But this is now and Erich settles for patience. He’s imagining, though, as the kid looks puzzled, opens a register and scans it for codes as if it’s written in German, shrugs and says, “I gotta call my supervisor.”
Erich’s thinking, that he probably needs to call his supervisor to get dressed in the morning, says calmly, “I shall wait.”
“But he’s not here,” says the clerk, waving an arm around the room to display no supervisor.
“When will he be here?”
“Um...this afternoon?” says the clerk, hopelessly over his head. He’s heard the word Argentina before, but he has no concept that it’s a real place, and couldn’t point to it on a map of Argentina.
Erich sighs.
“I’ll wait.”
‘This afternoon’ becomes ‘this evening’ before the supervisor, an overweight man in a dark suit and attitude, shows up and says, “Next,” to the room, empty except for Erich, sitting on a hard wooden bench. He stands up, knees creaking and back straightening like it’s made of some of that hard wood and he goes to the counter and says, “I want to send a telegram to Argentina.”
The supervisor has a look that Erich recognizes from the camps; a bully who’s found his own small place to rule. He is, Erich thinks, a man who would be comfortable beating a street bum for a nickel, satisfied that he has a position that allows him to show contempt to his customers.
He says, in a voice too low to be heard. “We don’t do that here,” and turns away, business concluded. If there had been any other customers he would have yelled, “Next again.”
Erich, not hearing the mumbled comment, says, “Excuse me?”
“I said,” he says, gleefully overstating each word like he’s talking to a dummy, “That we don’t do that here. You’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“Where?” says Erich.
“I can’t say,” says the supervisor. He turns his back to the counter.
“Can’t…or won’t?”
The supervisor turns back and shrugs. His sneer is one Erich himself has used in the past, intended to cower and humiliate, to show power and indifference. “Either,” he says. “Both.”
Erich studies him for several very long moments, considering his response. The supervisor stares back, himself amused, as if this large man is too stupid to understand the rules here.
Erich says, “What is your name?”
Surprised at the tone, the supervisor says, “Bruce…Meersman.”
&
nbsp; “Bruce,” says Erich, nodding. “Meersman.”
He seems to be testing the name, trying it out. He reaches into his jacket pocket and removes a thin brown wallet. Slowly, he takes out ten dollar bills and begins placing them on the counter. Bruce’s eyes are glued to them.
“One,” he says, his voice loud in the empty room. “Two…three…” stopping at, “ten.”
Bruce licks his lips, drags his eyes from the money and gapes at Erich who says, Argentina.”
“Yes, sir,” says Bruce, scooping up the cash. “What name?”
“Ricardo Klement.”
“What address?”
“14 Garibaldi street. Buenos Aires, Argentina.”
Bruce takes a pen from a holder on the desk and a thick pad with carbons from a drawer. He’s all efficiency and helpful, leaning on the counter, pen poised.
“Write ‘Aldo dead. Stop. Group scattered. Stop. Need advice immediately. End.’”
Bruce has been writing the words on the pad. Finished, he takes out a thick book from some recess, consults pages, marking them with a finger. He writes numbers on the pad and looks up. “Twenty-seven dollars,” he says, marveling at the number. “And thirty-four cents.”
Erich nods. “When will it get there?”
“The local office will have it within the hour. They can send a courier out immediately if you wish to pay extra.”
“I wish it.” He peels more cash from the wallet and tosses it on the counter. “I will come here each morning until I receive a reply.”
“Yes sir!” says Bruce, exactly as Erich knew he would. People like this Bruce Meersman, he thinks, are all alike. They are bullies when they can be, and groveling toads when they see their master.
He walks out into the early evening, dim under the raised tracks of the elevated trains, looking for a restaurant that serves alcohol.
He books a room at a local hotel, sleeps away the headaches and depression and returns the next afternoon to find Bruce Meersman waiting on an elderly man trying vainly to wire money to somebody in Boston.
SERIOUSLY...?: A Lou Fleener Thriller Page 22
