by Marvin Kaye
Hutchins knew Britney Womack from more than just her mugshot, however; from on-the-job contact. “Out jogging at this late hour, Britney? In this neighborhood?”
“There’s no law against it, is there, Officer Hutchins?” the woman responded politely. “I like to keep in shape. And it’s such a beautiful warm night.”
“Uh-huh. And you wouldn’t know anything about a roll of cash that was just lifted off a man in an alley near here a few minutes ago, would you?”
Womack smiled. “Do you see a roll of cash anywhere on me?”
The two officers studied the woman’s skimpy, skin-tight exercise outfit, didn’t see anything but the normal bulges.
“We could search you,” Garza stated.
“If you have probable cause,” Womack countered.
Hutchins said, “Well, I guess it was just a coincidence that you happened to be in the same area when this mugging went down.” He was looking at the woman’s feet, her bright white sneakers with the pink laces tied up in neat bows. “Okay, Britney, take a walk.”
Garza started to protest, but Hutchins held up his hand. “Go on, Britney,” he said. “Walk.”
The woman hesitated. Then she slowly turned, started walking away down the sidewalk, limping slightly on her right.
Hutchins commented, “I’d say we have a probable cause for a body search now, wouldn’t you, Officer Garza?”
Garza blinked, then grinned. She ran over to Womack and took hold of the woman’s arm.
“She’s got the money hidden in her sneaker,” Officer Garza stated. “How did you know for sure, George?”
“Just trained observation from years of experience,” Officer Hutchins replied modestly. “You see,” he pointed, “the shoelace bow on Britney’s right sneaker is smaller than the one on her left sneaker, indicating she has something in that shoe which is pushing her foot up higher. Like a hidden roll of stolen cash.”
Garza nodded. “Time to do the perp walk, Britney. Back to the stationhouse.”
THE KILLING OF GENERAL PATTON, by William E. Chambers
My dreams have been haunted by the accident intermittently since December of 1945 although each year they occur less frequently than the year before.
Sometimes I wake up feeling lost and anguished, sometimes feeling peace, occasionally even elation that the ordeal’s behind me. The Nazi camp or Stalag where I served my imprisonment as guest of the Third Reich was liberated during an intense battle in which barbed wire fences were crushed under the treads of American tanks behind which flowed a stream of infantrymen triggering bayoneted M1’s and blazing Thompson submachine guns. Between the first and second waves of infantry stood a man in the rear of a top down Jeep firing white handled Colt revolvers at Nazi soldiers in desperate retreat. This near surreal personage who never flinched as bullets whizzed around him bore the markings of a General on his helmet. That was my first glimpse of George S. Patton.
Disbelieving my own eyes I watched this spectral figure, defiantly mocking an enemy most of the world dreaded, shrink into drizzled fog and clouds of gun smoke then vanish before the wave of foot soldiers advancing behind him. The rest of the afternoon was a cacophony of clatter: bursting grenades; the rattle of the Thompson; and the distinct single shot snap of the M1 mingled with cries, moans, and curses—followed by an abrupt and utter silence right after nightfall. Staring into the darkness through my barred window I inhaled the acrid fumes of battle and felt as though the God of War had ordered an immediate ceasefire.
I lay in my bunk staring up at nothing and tuning out the fear and hope distinguished in the chatter of my fellow POW’s. I had learned through the past eight months to expect only the worst and now I refused to drop my psychological guard. Hopes cannot be dashed if you have none. Somehow while that phrase kept circling my mind I dropped off to sleep. When I sat up it was with fists cocked and teeth clenched. I didn’t recognize the sounds coming from my throat. A rugged but kindly face addressed me, “Easy soldier.”
My eyelids fluttered like the wings of a horsefly. My mouth moved but no words were formed. The tall muscular man under the general’s helmet turned to a sergeant and said, “Give this man some water.”
“Yes sir.”
My hands shook so as the sergeant pressed the canteen into them that he placed his palms against my wrists and brought the spout up to my lips. At first the water seemed to boil in my throat then a refreshing coolness overcame my first swallow. When the canteen was drained I felt steadier and handed it back. The general gently rubbed my shoulder and said, “You’re safe now, son…”
* * * *
A little more than a week ago a phone call brought those dreams back full force and I’ve awakened every morning for the last week only lost and anguished—elation denied. The voice on the other end of the line spoke fluent English, no trace of an accent at all, “Mr. Burton Wells?”
“Yes. Who’s calling?”
“Vitali Darahofsky.”
“That’s absurd…” A chill ran through me. “I read his obituary.”
“It was only printed in the Russian newspapers, but then again you do read and speak Russian, don’t you?”
“I—uh,” Very few people knew that. This caller caught me off guard. I should have said nothing. “Who—uh—who is this really? And what do you want?”
“It’s difficult to explain over the phone. I’m on assignment in Ukraine at the moment but I should be finished anytime now. Then I’m coming to the States and I’d like to pay you a visit in your Greenwich Village brownstone. I must go now.”
“A visit! Hold on now. I want to know—”
The phone went dead. I inserted it into the cradle, stood up and walked over to my living room bay window and looked down at lovers, gay and straight, arm in arm or holding hands, enjoying the spring night as my wife Megan and I first did sixty years ago. Then I turned and looked up at the oil portrait of a flaming haired, green eyed beauty in a spotless wedding dress that hung high up over the fireplace. She’s gone over ten years now but dwells in my memory every day.
My living room is a hodgepodge of overstuffed armchairs, a sofa, end tables, and a coffee and cream oval throw rug atop a blond hardwood floor. A small, portable bar adorns one corner of the room. A vintage German Luger removed by me from the dead body of a German soldier that I killed hangs by the trigger guard under my wife’s portrait above the fireplace mantel. Before I was captured I buried that pistol beneath an outsized boulder and retrieved it after my liberation. When I showed it to General Patton he said, “Son, you want this gun to go home I’ll see that it gets there. After what you’ve sacrificed for your country you certainly deserve it.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll include an explanation to my father.”
“Do that. He should be proud of you.”
I wrote the letter and gave it to the general who somehow avoided the wartime censors. The package arrived intact at my parent’s home through the regular US Mail. My two purple hearts and one Silver Star hang in a frame next to the weapon. Another great token of honor, the Order of Lenin, is buried inconspicuously at the back bottom of my wall safe behind Megan’s picture. It was presented to me in January of 1946 by the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrei Gromyko, at a midnight ceremony in his Sutton Place apartment. I was cautioned that this must remain a secret and therefore Stalin ordered that no written documentation be included. If ever the medal should be discovered, the Soviets would dismiss it as a fake. Now, however, I had the feeling that its secrecy might be endangered.
I was still pondering this situation when the chiming of the doorbell shattered my uneasy reverie. I buzzed back then walked into the brightly lit hall. The young man below sported a wide brimmed fedora hat, aviator eyeglasses, and a sweatshirt bearing Shakespeare’s face. He wore skinny legged black jeans. Real Hipster, I thought before sa
ying, “Can I help you?”
“Winding down jetlag, sir, long trip from Ukraine…”
“Ukraine? You’re…uh…my recent caller…”
“Vitali. Can we speak in private?”
“I live alone.”
“I know that.” His faux grin failed to mask the boldness of his tone. “May I come up?”
“Come up.”
“Thank you, sir.” He bounded up the long staircase two steps at a time then extended his hand. “Sure could use a drink. Got vodka?”
Though offended by his demeanor, I clasped his hand and read his shirt. The image of Shakespeare holding two foaming mugs with the caption, “Two beers or not two beers. That is the question.” was emblazoned in yellow across the otherwise dark material. At least my intruder had a sense of humor. At close range he looked a little older than the average twenty-something hipster. I said, “Come in. I’ve got vodka.”
Vitali glanced approvingly all around the room and stopped to admire Megan’s portrait while I walked over to the rolling bar. “Straight up or rocks,” I asked.
“Straight up would be fine.”
Saying nothing more, he shifted his attention to the Luger and the medals. When I handed him the oversized tumbler he noted, “You make a powerful drink.”
“Well, you’re a Russian, right?”
“Do I look like a Russian?”
“In that getup you look like central casting.”
This grin seemed more sincere than that first smile down the hall. He chuckled before answering, “Grandpa was in the NKVD which morphed eventually into the KGB. He told me to always fit in wherever I go. And this is ‘The Village,’ right?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
Vitali motioned with his glass. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Gave it up when I turned eighty. Keep stuff around for friends and…uh…others. Which one are you?”
“Lovely portrait of your wife. Medals are impressive, too.”
“Can’t answer the question?”
Vitali raised his drink hand up, tilted the fedora back with his thumb and actually rolled the tumbler across his forehead before answering, “Consider me a business colleague.”
As he lowered the glass I said, “With a flair for the dramatic.”
“Acting’s as necessary as food for survival, Mr. Wells. Convincingly presenting who you want to appear to be rather than whom you truly are is a prerequisite for success—even for survival. As you well know…”
I motioned to one of the sofas, “Sit down.”
He obliged, took a deep swallow and wiggled his empty glass in the air. I fetched him another then dropped back into one of the armchairs while asking, “What is the purpose of this visit?”
“Well, since you were a friend of my grandfather’s—a confidante even when he was your party boss—I thought I would discuss the good old days with you, or as they now say, discuss happenings ‘back in the day.’”
“Happenings.” I began to feel queasy. “What sort of happenings?”
Vitali removed his hat, dropped it on his knee and reworked the tumbler forehead act. Above his face, brown hair was thinning. Finally he answered, “There are many things to talk about. Perhaps we’ll start with the wood bullet.”
My mouth was closed but I felt like I swallowed something cold. “Wood—wood bullets…”
“Clever things those wood bullets,” Vitali’s voice took on a sing-song quality, “especially if they are made to look something like the cork in a child’s popgun. Then no one even knows it’s a bullet. ’Course in this day and age children have computer guns so they don’t need—they don’t even know about popguns at all. And the advantage to wood is it burns up in fires. It can be launched from a relatively noiseless air gun. It splinters on impact causing major bodily damage while literally disappearing to shreds—”
I interrupted in a very calm tone. Much like the voice level I employed before shooting that Nazi soldier when his Luger jammed. Rather than surrender at my urging he attempted to adjust the weapon, so I fired my M1. Now that self-protective killing urge was coming back to me. “Why don’t you cut the bullshit.”
“Testy…testy… No need for vulgarity. Fact is you recuperated fast from your ordeal in the prison camp despite the meager meals doled out by your captors. Your youth—only nineteen—probably helped. The younger the body, the stronger the body, the quicker the recovery, especially when you always kept in shape, am I right?”
I didn’t answer.
“Do you still exercise regularly?”
“Exercise?”
“Dynamic Tension, the lessons you learned from the Charles Atlas course your father ordered through a coupon in one of your comic books as a birthday gift when you were twelve. The same exercises you tried to teach your army comrades. Still doing them?”
“Matter of fact,” Vitali was making it clear he knew me inside out, “I am.”
“You look great. And I know for a fact that most of the veterans of your era are either feeble or dead. When my grandfather went he was a mere shell of the man he—”
Again I spoke evenly. “As I said before—”
“Cut the bullshit!” He placed his empty glass on an end table then raised outstretched palms in an imitation of supplication. “Forgive me. I do get carried away.”
Instinctively my eyes traveled toward the Luger. His glance bounced from me to the weapon and back. Then he grinned and said, “Not a good idea. You have too much to lose if anything happens to me. Now General Patton had a habit of reviewing the records of all the men he commanded and all the ones he liberated. If anything, he was thorough. That’s why he was labeled a Fascist and a Nazi for slapping a soldier he believed was a slacker. I understand he barely flicked the man’s face with his gloves but it made good press.
“Well, he reviewed your case too, PFC Wells. And he liked what he found. You finished high school at seventeen and signed up for the army on your eighteenth birthday. You excelled as an infantryman and then as a sniper. You tried to keep your fellow soldiers’s morale up even though you later confessed to Patton that there were times when you really believed all was lost. Your compatriots spoke so highly of your wartime exploits that he commended you for a Silver Star, which you were awarded. And he took you under his wing as an aide-de-camp to him personally.” Vitali let his voice drop to a stage whisper then drift off. “What he didn’t know…”
When I didn’t respond he gestured with the empty tumbler. This time I told him, “Get it yourself. You know where the bar is.”
Vitali propped his hat on the back of his head then stood up and threw me a false whisper. “What he didn’t know was that you morally opposed the war until Hitler double crossed Stalin. Shame…shame… That’s when you insisted on joining up to fight the Germans.”
While he headed to the bar with his back to me I thought of making a play for the Luger. I adjusted it to work properly back in my army days and kept it loaded and handy when home alone, which is most of the time, in the event of unwanted intruders. But I thought better of the weapon idea because in good shape or not, you slow down in your eighties. And if I did get the drop on him, what then? Without knowing what his game is I had no idea which authorities to contact or what the consequences of his sudden appearance in my life might mean for me or my loved ones. So I sat back and waited until he returned with another drink. Maybe alcohol saturation would loosen his tongue.
I noticed his eyes starting to shine beneath the Aviator glasses. The vodka was doing its work. When he took his seat I asked, “Are you comfortable?”
“I make a good living.”
My face involuntarily twitched from annoyance. “What?”
“It’s a joke. This businessman gets hit by a car. The ambulance attendant props him up and asks�
�”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes. Besides, it’s getting late. At my age I don’t know how much time I have left on this planet. Could we get to the point before my time is up?”
“Surly…surly…” He shook his head and gulped the drink, then continued, “Anyhow the general thought so much of you he let you be his gofer and chauffeur and such. You were even supposed to be with him the day he and his chief-of-staff Major Hobart R. Gay, known as “Hap,” went hunting pheasants in the German countryside outside Mannheim, but you begged off for a liaison with a non-existent fraulein. Patton was used to getting what he wanted but that was one motive he clearly understood would boost the morale of troops like you, thus he gave his blessing and assigned a technical sergeant named Woodring to drive in your place. So he went off on his pheasant hunt and you went off on a hunt of another kind. Correct so far?”
“You talk. I’ll listen.”
“Patton hated all totalitarian dictatorships and he was stating publicly that we should attack the Russian Communists before they could rebuild their armed forces. That attitude put him on Stalin’s death list. You were a marksman. Patton’s accident was a setup. A paid German civilian stepped in front of a truck driven by one Sergeant Thompson, who swerved to avoid an accident and hit Patton’s Cadillac. That’s when you fired the first shot of the Cold War, striking the general in the neck and damaging his spinal cord. The wood bullet broke up, making his wound harder for the doctors to treat. Had the road been clear of vehicles, a back-up car driven by communists would have plowed into Patton’s auto. The idea was not to start a world-wide commotion by an obvious assassination but to make his death seem like an accident. A Russian soldier was also dispatched from the Red Army to back you up in case something went wrong, but he never did his job and never came back to his barracks. Apparently he was a deserter who crossed over to the enemy. Grandpa was the Commissar in charge of this operation and he believed this deserter told the Americans about the assassination plan, but that the OSS covered it up for political reasons.
