“The Gable Girls?” Father Donlevy says after I ask for the key to the church basement. “I thought you were done with Clark Gable.”
“Oh, no, I was thinking of another club, you know, something to maybe support the war?”
“Like the SCOUTS?” he asks. I can tell by the look on his face that he isn’t big on them, either.
“No, not like them. They say we’re going to have to ration and stuff and maybe, well, who knows what? I thought a group of us girls could just have a club and meet and sort of, you know, do stuff.”
“Stuff? That covers a lot of territory.”
I haven’t put a lot of brainwork into this part of my plan. Father Donlevy is usually so easygoing and never asks many questions. “Um, maybe we could roll bandages and I don’t know—whatever people do in a war. You know, war work.”
“Sure, why not? Girls need clubs. I’ll get you the key and tell Mrs. O’Leary it’s okay for you girls to be coming and going. Just remember to keep things quiet. Turn out the lights when you leave and make sure that toilet isn’t running.”
“Thanks!”
“And remember, Jewels, if you girls make any money on whatever ‘stuff’ you get going . . .” and he points to the polished brass donation plates stacked on a side table. “Always nice to remember the Founder of our feast.”
“Oh, I’ll remember him, all right,” I say. I know he means God. But he doesn’t know I mean Tommy Kaye, who sure as heck founds lots of folks’ feasts and payrolls that end up in those very same collection plates.
I start with Cabin 39, the one farthest away from ours. I use the cleaning cart and just make like I’m tidying up inside. But what I’m really doing is pilfering a little of this, a little of that, from each one. And no, I am not stealing. I’m on the ol’ Robbing Peter To Pay Paul program. Perfectly legal.
Then I box the things up and use the hand cart to haul them down to the church basement. Things are going pretty smoothly. Everyone’s too busy with their own war work to bother with me.
Until now. I’m hauling down a box into the church basement and stop dead in my tracks when I see her shadow.
“Whatcha doin’ down there?” a voice calls down, pointing to the two boxes of this and that in the hand cart at the top of the steps.
It’s Little Janie Johnson, working on a sucker, glaring down the stairwell at me.
• • •
Egad, why does it have to be her? Daughter of Bea Johnson, town gossip and all-around know-it-all. Janie’s about eight and has buck teeth, big thick glasses, frizzy hair, and a dim future. The other strike against her is she’s Eldon Johnson’s little sister and she’s learning the art of bullying from the expert. Anyway, she’s a spoilt-rotten brat, and I stop cold when I see her.
“Buzz off, termite,” I say.
“I don’t hafta! You moving in down there?”
“No, I’m making a clubhouse, not that it’s any of your beeswax,” I say, coming upstairs and grabbing another box.
A lock of her hair blows onto her sucker and she unsticks it with dainty fingers, then asks, “What kind of club you making?”
“A big girls’ club. Don’t you come down here, Janie! It’s dangerous!”
She backs up a step and calls down, “Can I join?”
“No!”
“Aw, I never get to join any club. Eldon won’t even let me be a SPORT.”
“You don’t want to be a stupid SPORT,” I say.
“You don’t know what I want,” she says. “What’s your club do, anyway?”
I think of something I know she won’t like. “A book club.”
“I like books.”
“Books on politics.”
The sucker goes back in her mouth and it bobs as she talks, “What’re politics?”
“You know, government and news and, well, I said you wouldn’t be interested.”
Janie’s sucker smacks as it comes out of her mouth. “I know some news.”
I put the box back into the cart and look down at her. “Do you? What’s that?”
“We got us a live turkey. Eldon found it, and Momma’s gonna feed him and get him all fat for Easter. Then we’re gonna eat him. I kinda wish he found a pig ’cause I like ham and not so much turkey.” The cherry sucker makes her lips gooey and red.
“That’s nice,” I say. Well, at least Sailor the Turkey made it through Christmas with his drumsticks intact.
“I got some other news.”
I put the box down. “I’ll bite. Shoot.”
“There’s gonna be a big explosion.”
“A what?” I ask, now giving her a little more interest. “What kind of explosion?”
“Can I join your club?”
“Who said anything about an explosion?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“Janie, explosions are serious. If you know there’s going to be an explosion, you better tell.”
“I might. Can I join?”
“Ah, get lost, Janie. I’m too busy for games.”
But I stop again when she says, “Uh huh. I heard Eldon and Bully talking. Eldon said when word of this gets out, it’ll blow this town sky high.”
“Word of what, Janie?”
Her expression changes. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear that part, but can I join anyway? It’s not news now but it’s gonna be news. That should count.”
I bend down toward Janie’s face and say, sweet as her sucker, “Okay, tell you what, Janie. You can be our secret member.”
“Okay! What’s that?”
“Your job is to just do what you do best. Hang around and listen. When you hear of something, you come tell me. Especially what those stupid boy SPORTS are up to, okay?”
“Okay!” she says, her face now glowing. “And we’ll tell those FBI men to leave us alone. One is big and ugly and the other smells like cigars.”
“The FBI came to see you?”
“Sure. My daddy called them long distance all the way to Portland, and Momma was yelling about the money and Daddy said he was reversing the charges and told her to clam up. Is that news, too?”
“That depends,” I say, trying to act like I don’t much care. Janie Johnson can be tricky, even if she is only eight. “What were they talking about?”
Janie’s eyeing a framed photograph of the race horse, Man O’War, fresh off the bathroom wall of Cabin 13. “Gee, he’s pretty,” she says.
“Janie, what news did you hear from the FBI man?”
“I like horses.”
I hand the picture to her. “Here, take it. Now what did he say?”
“Um, I don’t know. Eldon has these keys.”
“Keys to what?”
“I dunno.”
“Give me the picture back.”
“No. Wait! I remember! Something about a bulldozer.”
“Huh? What’s a bulldozer have to do with blowing this town sky high?”
“I dunno. Maybe they meant blow the warehouse up.”
“Warehouse?”
“The warehouse they said the bulldozer is in.”
I think fast—then I remember the keys in the big safe. But a bulldozer? What the heck does that have to with anything?
“They have some big maps, too,” Janie pipes up.
I hand her back the picture. “Maps of what?”
“I dunno. They called it a bonker.”
I roll that word over in my mind. “Bonker? You mean bunco?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Can I join your stupid club or not?”
“Okay, raise your right hand,” I say. “No, your other right hand.” It goes up, sucker skyward. “Repeat after me.”
“After me.”
“Not yet. Wait till I finish. I, Janie Johnson, being of sound mind . . .” She repeats seriously.
“Do hereby swear to be a member of the secret, sacred society . . .”—I stop, not only to let her catch up, but to figure out our club name—“. . . of the Sea Park See Girls.”
“When do w
e meet?” she asks, sucker now back inside her mouth.
“That’s secret,” I say. “When you have some news, you find me. Got it?”
“Got it. Shake!”
I know how sticky that grimy little hand is, but to seal the deal, I shake.
I go back to my “war” work, thinking about the bonker. Janie must have meant bunco. That’s what the FBI is on to. That’s it. Mr. Kaye must be in some sort of bunco racket trouble. And I’m not even sure what a bunco is!
Which makes my mission all the more important.
CHAPTER 22
I continue to raid stuff from the cabins and think hard about my next step. Can I pull this off all by myself? We’ve learned plenty in the last few weeks about the Allies and Axis. The good guys are the Allies. That would be us—the United States, Canada, England, and I think France; and the bad guys would be Germany, Italy, and Japan. They’re the Axis. An ally is good; an axis is bad. When I think about it, we have our own little Allies and Axis tug-of-war right here in Sea Park. Most of the town is the Axis and just a handful of us are the Allies. And Tommy Kaye is the line in the sand we’re all tugging of war over.
• • •
Saturday night. Usually Mom’s busy getting ready for a night out, which is occupying a barstool at Edna’s. Only, it’s weird, but I’ve noticed Mom hasn’t been doing much of that lately. But tonight I really need her to get out of the house if my mission is going to work.
“Thought you’d be all gussied up by now, Mom,” I say, peeking in at her. She’s filing a fingernail at her dressing table but is still in her robe. She’s gotten some work on the docks cleaning fish and Mr. Kaye’s been paying us for keeping things locked and clean and dark at the Stay and Play. So, it’s not as though we’re broke.
“Oh, thought I’d just stay in tonight. Play a little gin rummy with Tommy.”
“Not going to Edna’s? I heard the Oly Olsen Trio’s coming down from Astoria to play. You usually like to sing with them, don’t you?”
“Oh, these foggy old pipes can barely blow out smoke let alone a decent tune anymore,” she says, sort of wistful-like.
I do not want her playing any gin rummy with Mr. Kaye tonight.
“So, what are you doin’ tonight, Jewels?”
“Maybe call a meeting of the See Girls,” I say.
“You and your little clubs. Whatever happened to the Gable Girls?”
“Disbanded. The rat got married.”
She turns on her vanity stool and looks at me, frowns, and says, sort of sadly, “Oh, did you hear? Carole Lombard died in a plane crash yesterday.”
“Huh?”
“Yep, she was goin’ someplace for a War Bond rally or, I don’t know, something to do with this disgustin’ war! How do you like that? One minute on top of the world, big famous actress married to Clark Gable, and the next, planted into the side of a mountain because you’re raisin’ money for the war. You know, Jewels honey, this is one crazy world.”
“Which is why I think you owe it to yourself to go down to Edna’s and have yourself a high ol’ time.”
That brings her eyes to me in the mirror’s reflection. “You think? I have been a bump on a log lately, haven’t I? Can you see any roots?” She pulls back her hair and inspects the grow-out from last month’s henna rinse job.
“You look fine, Mom. Go on. I’ve been adding money to the toffee tin. Take some and go have yourself a good time.”
“What’s Rex up to tonight?” she asks, checking out more roots using the two mirror system.
“He’s probably off fixing something for Mr. Kaye.”
“Is it just me or does it seem like that boy doesn’t . . . I mean . . . ever since Pearl Harbor. Well, he used to be so social. Always had a date or that debate team of his.”
I’m not going to say anything if Rex hasn’t. “Everyone’s changed since Pearl Harbor.”
“Ain’t that the truth. He just seems, well, I guess mothers and their sons just grow apart sooner or later.”
“Mom, there’s lots of work to be done when there’s a war going on.”
She looks right at me. “Promise you and me won’t ever grow apart. You know what they say: a son is a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter for the rest of your life.”
That’s too far in the future for me to think about. I’m just thinking about tonight. “Okay, I promise,” I say. “Look, get dressed, and I’ll get the toffee tin.”
She comes out a few minutes later, perfumed, lipsticked, and looking not half bad.
She turns around. “Are my seams straight?”
“Give me a pen so I can connect all those dots,” I say. Mom’s stockings have polka dots of nail polish here and there where she’s tried to stop them from running. Silk stockings were expensive before the war and now impossible to get.
“Fine thing when a war gets in the way of a woman looking her best,” she says, reading my mind. Or maybe I was reading hers. Uh oh. Put that on my “worry about later” list.
“Well, how do I look?” She pulls out her ratty, secondhand fox stole from the closet, swirls it around her neck, and clips the fox’s mouth to its tail. I don’t care how much money I may have someday, I will never wear a dead fox biting its own tail around my neck.
“You look good, Mom,” I say, just as I’ve said nearly every Saturday night for the last how-many years. “Come on. I’ll drop you off.”
“It’s a good thing Sheriff Hillary is out of town or I wouldn’t be lettin’ you drive at night,” Mom says. Then comes the sheepish grin. “If things get roarin’, I’ll stay in Edna’s back room so’s you won’t have to come get me. And there’s that stupid curfew to worry about. But I’m goin’ to try to be good, Jewels. I really am.”
She hands me the car keys and we leave.
Jewels’s Mission, Part One:
Rex out of the way. Check.
Mom out of the way. Check.
Now, for Jewels’s Mission, Part Two:
Kidnap—I mean dognap—Hero the bloodhound.
CHAPTER 23
Have you ever thought you had the best dang plan in the world and then it all goes ka-blooey when someone sticks his big, giant nose in it? Well, the big, giant nose is on the face of that big, giant FBI man, Herman Boothby! I find him sitting at the same table that just a few nights earlier my mom, Mr. Kaye, and Edna Glick had been sitting at in the Look-Sea Lounge. The same lamp light makes the white tablecloth glow. And there, sitting acrost from him is none other than Tommy Kaye. They’re having a drink together! How do you like that? Ka-blooey with a capital K and extra blooies!
“Oh, excuse me,” I say. “Didn’t know you got—you have—company.”
“Oh, he’s not company so much as he’s a customer. And who am I to turn away a customer?” Mr. Kaye says, smiling. “A paying customer.”
“RubyPearlOpal Stokes, I believe,” Mr. Boothby says as I stand here probably looking as bright as all three Stooges put together. If Mr. Kaye had been sipping a martini with Adolph Hitler, I could not be more shocked. Okay, close your mouth, Jewels. Think fast!
“Uh, time for Hero’s walk.”
“Like Emperor Hiro, huh?” Agent Boothby says. “Cute. Very cute.”
“Not very. It’s h-E-r-o. As in laying down your life to save another. You FBI men do it all the time,” Mr. Kaye says.
I take Hero into the kitchen, but that’s as far as I go. Something serious is going on. I peek back through the swinging door. Now they’re standing, facing each other. Agent Boothby towers over Mr. Kaye. The talk is loud and echoey in the big empty room. I see hands gesture toward the ocean.
Then Agent Boothby slaps some papers on the table and puts on his hat and coat. “And don’t say you haven’t been given a choice.”
“You call this a choice?”
“Consider yourself lucky, Mr. Kiramoto.”
“My name is Kaye!” he hollers. “Thomas Hardin Kaye!”
Agent Boothby points to the papers. “Not in the eye
s of the government. Born in Japan, family in Japan, investments in Japan. We have records of every money transfer to Nagasaki. Sir, I don’t make up these rules. I only enforce them. But as of Sunday, December seventh at oh-seven hundred forty-eight hours Hawaiian Time, you and your race became enemies of the United States of America. And that’s on looks alone and not counting all our evidence against you from our files. So, you can either pack your bags for Japan or pack your toothbrush for Leavenworth.”
Leavenworth? That’s a big lock-up somewhere. What the ka-blooey is happening?
“Ever hear of a lawyer? A hearing? A trial? I can explain everything you think you have on me.”
“And you’ll be given all those opportunities in Portland,” he says. “Maybe you can clear these things up. Frankly, your past history with us won’t exactly help your case.”
“That file was closed years ago!”
Agent Boothby has his hat now and he says, “I’m sorry, sir. You must know there’s no place to hide. Not now. You have to understand, this is war. So, I can either slap some cuffs on you now and anchor you somewhere, or I can post a man outside your apartment door.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll have to make some arrangements,” Mr. Kaye says, gesturing at the Stay and Play around him. “I can’t just leave. I have obligations.”
Agent Boothby walks toward the side door, turns, and says. “You have until nine in the morning. I’ll send my man up.” He dons his hat. “Like I said, I don’t make up the rules.” And he leaves through the blackout cloth and into the night.
Mr. Kaye turns and just stares into the empty room. He picks up the papers on the table, scrunches them, and tosses them toward the side door. He screams something, but don’t ask me what. It’s in another language—probably Japanese.
He goes to every lamp in the room, every light switch, and flips them on, each one with a swear word and a kick and toss of something. Then he goes to the huge blackout curtains and yanks them aside.
“Here I am!” he screams. “The enemy! Come get me!” He waves his hands like a mad man. “Here I am!”
I’ve never seen Mr. Kaye this upset. I’m sort of scared that the McAloons or maybe even Boothby or his partner might shoot him from the beach below. I slowly walk into the bright room and he glowers at me while trying to catch his breath. His eyes are on fire.
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