“Hold it right there. Where am I?”
“In the church basement, but everyone thinks you’re in Canada,” I say, sort of low.
“I see. Canada.” He seems to be adding it all up. “That would make me a traitor.” He sighs and adds, “But, Boothby and most of the country think I’m one of those already.”
“There you go,” I say. “And some even think you’re a spy, so—”
“Mr. Kaye,” Rex says, breaking me off. “It doesn’t matter much how you got here. But what does matter is what to do with you.”
“Firing squad at dawn?” he says, lifting the cover off the plate of breakfast.
“Look, we know you’re not a spy or a traitor or anything they say you are,” Rex says. “But there’s something else. Here, I brought over the paper.”
Rex points to something on the first page. Mr. Kaye scans it, takes off his reading glasses, and places a hand on Hero’s head. “I know where this is going,” he says, more to Hero than to us. “It happened to the Germans living in England during the Great War.”
“This relocation thing?” Rex asks.
“They gathered them up, Bavarian accents and all, and sent them away—to the Isle of Man. I always thought that had a touch of irony in it, the Isle of Man.”
“What was that?” I ask, somehow knowing I’m not going to like the answer.
“Prison,” Mr. Kaye says. “Well, they didn’t call them prisons. So they called them internment camps, relocation centers, concentration camps, detainee’s camps. Sort of like our own Indian reservations here,” he says. “Put everyone together in the same place where you can keep an eye on them. Just in case . . .”
“I never heard anything about that and we just finished a whole unit on the Great War,” Rex says.
Mr. Kaye tosses the newspaper on the floor and says, “And your grandkids will probably never know about what’s happening now, either.” He taps his foot on the editorial. “You know, maybe I should go to Canada. Just disappear.”
“Do you know anyone in Canada? For real, do you think we could get you there?” I ask.
“Don’t know a soul. No wait, my bookie finally moved to Vancouver.”
“Least here you got us,” I say.
“Does your mother, I mean, does she know about any of this?” He indicates the basement around us.
“No, she thinks you’re in Canada,” Rex says.
Mr. Kaye nods, still looking down at the newspaper. “So, everyone thinks I’ve just run away. Nothing says ‘guilty’ like hightailing it,” he says, then looks up at me. “Was she mad? Hurt? Did she say anything?”
Rex and I look at each other. I don’t know what to say. What can possibly make this any better, for any of us?
“I think she was both,” I say. “Then she went back to bed.”
“That’s my Alice,” he says, standing up and helping himself to another cup of coffee. “Well, then. I guess it’s just you kids, that old dog, and me.”
• • •
I leave the basement first, look around, then Rex follows with the empty box and Hero. We lock the basement door behind us and dash into the pathway that leads to the Stay and Play cabins. Rex and me go to Cabin 7 where we clean up the dishes and sit down to make our schedule and plan.
Criminently! Everything’s happening so fast now, the right hand needs to know what the left hand is doing, as they say. We have to figure out how to get food down to Mr. Kaye without making anyone suspicious as well as help Mom to get Kaye Enterprises up and running.
By noon, Rex is looking pale and tired and says he’s heading home to rest before attacking his stack of homework.
“You, too, Jewels. Mom sees our grades take a nose dive, she’ll get suspicious.”
CHAPTER 29
I told you about our Sand Dune Telegraph—fastest way to spread news in a town like Sea Park. Well, it’s only Wednesday, and guess what? The Kozy Korner Kafe is open for business. I’ll bet word of Mr. Kaye’s hightailing it was on everybody’s lips by Sunday night.
Mom had me make up a big sign, UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, and taa daa! Folks are back just like usual. Even Corliss Ainsley, lisp and all, has come back to work the counter while Mom cooks. Rex and me are liking it because it keeps Mom on the straight and narrow and we get hot food to bring back home, making it easy as pie to sneak down to Mr. Kaye.
Finally, Sea Park is throwing money, not bricks. Ever hear of a sea change? That’s where something big—like a sea—changes all of a sudden. I’m watching Sea Park have its second sea change. The biggest sea change for everyone was Pearl Harbor.
I help at the café after school and Rex opens the Feed and Seed for a few hours after school and you know, things are working out pretty dang well, considering how lousy the war is going everywhere else in the world.
You know how big I am on that whole out of sight and out of mind program? You would be amazed how easy it is to fall for it. Yesterday, I forgot to take Mr. Kaye the latest papers and one of those things to make soda for his whiskey and, well, did I hear about it.
To make up for it, I told him I’d bring him a wine with today’s blue plate special, Spaghetti à la Alice. When I come into the café, I hear the wonderful sound of money. The ding of the bell over the door, the ding of the cash register, and ping of the order counter bell and Mom calling out, “Order up!”
Corliss whisks the plates away and says, “Hurry up that spaghetti. Frank and Leo are whining already.”
“Tell those old coots to keep their shirts on!” Mom hollers back. She sees me and says, “Just in time, Jewels! Check those noodles, will ya? And get started on them dishes.”
“Hi, Edna!” folks call out as she enters. When you run a roadhouse in a town like Sea Park, you know just about everyone. She comes around and stands in the kitchen door jamb.
“Well, well, well,” she says to Mom, who looks pretty rattled in Arlie’s big cooking apron, cigarette dangling off her lip, and with her hair all scrunched into a hairnet. “Look who’s got herself a cooking job.”
“Look who’s got herself a whole café,” Mom says, sounding a bit proud of herself. “Besides, someone had to do something. No use letting this whole place just rot and fall into the ocean,” she says, picking a cigarette ash out of the spaghetti sauce.
“So, it’s true? Tommy ran off to Canada?” My ears prick up, but I keep my hands in the dishwater and make like I don’t hear. Edna dips a wooden spoon into the sauce Mom’s stirring, tastes it, and proceeds to add some salt.
Mom snatches away the shaker and says, “Guess so. He sure isn’t anywhere around here. He even gave that fleabag dog to Jewels.”
“You know Tommy as well as I do, Alice. He’s no coward and he’d never . . .”
The doorbell dings. We all look over the counter to see who’s entered.
“Uh oh,” we all mumble at the same time. Corliss Ainsley doesn’t realize she’s just given her sweet, bucktoothed smile and a menu to Special Agent in Charge Herman Boothby.
Corliss comes into the kitchen and Mom whispers, “What’d he want?”
“Who?”
“That big stranger,” Edna says.
“A cup of coffee. Why? Who he?” Corliss asks.
“The FBI,” we reply together.
Corliss puts her hand to her top blouse button like something’s showing. But it looks like she’s the only person in the café who doesn’t know who Boothby is. No sooner does the agent sit down then there’s five people around him, the McAloon twins included. Father Donlevy always tells me when two or more gather with God in mind, that’s a congregation. He should also have told me when two or more are gathered with war in mind, that’s a battle—even in a tiny little café in a Podunk town like Sea Park, Oregon.
I go to the front counter, pulling away from my mother’s grasp. If I keep my head low and pretend to wipe the counters maybe folks won’t even notice me noticing them.
“I’ll tell you why he’s gone!” someone says. Mr. Boothby lo
oks up with interest and gets his notepad at the ready. The coffee cup gets pointed east to the hills that Mr. Kaye owns. “See them hills? Well, you can’t see it now, but you can when the fog lifts. He built this big tower-like thing and calls it a forest lookout, but you get one fine view of the whole coastline up there.”
“Ah, that’s nothing,” Leo McAloon says. “Me ’n’ Frank’ve lived here since before God, and Tommy Kaye just showed up here one day and buys up everything. Me ’n’ Frank always did wonder why a Jap would want to do that. Well, it’s as clear as the nose on my face, now.”
Frank adds, “Invasion, of course! He was sent here by ol’ Hiro Hito to get everything ready for them Japs to just pull up to the beach and have us all on a plate!”
Leo says, “Tell him about the light.”
“What light?” Frank asks. His twin points toward the ceiling. “Oh, that light. It’s a dang search light up there on the roof. Helped him wire it myself.”
“Tell him what he said,” Leo prompts.
I am filling a salt shaker as I look carefully over the counter. “He says to me he wants a search light so bright that folks can see Sea Park all the way from . . .” and then both twins say, “Toe-Ke-Yo!”
Frank continues, “Yep, them’s was his very own same words. My mother’s nightcap it’s to bring in tourists. It’s to bring in Japs!”
Mr. Boothby asks for their names and how to get in touch with them. Now everyone else in here wants to get in on the act. They all spout their own stories and suspicions and names and numbers.
“Step aside, boys,” Mayor Schmidtke finally says. The crowd splits for him. He offers his hand to Agent Boothby and introduces himself. “George Schmidtke, Mayor of Sea Park and purveyor of Schmidtke’s Fine Meats,” he says. “I’m the ’govern-meat’ here in town. Zat’s our little joke, isn’t it, boys? Zat’s Schmidtke, with a d and t and k-e.”
I grab a tub and start busing the table next to the crowd surrounding Agent Boothby.
“Now, it occurred to me the other night, zinking zis whole mess over,” the mayor goes on, like it’s an election year. “I seem to recall him talking with some men last summer. Right here in zis very café. Zat booth right over zere, in fact. Now, zees were strangers. Vell, as you can see,” he glances at the business card, “Agent Boothby, when a stranger comes to town in a suit and tie, he—” he snorts a little laugh, “—well, he gets noticed.”
Agent Boothby looks at the mayor and asks, “Do I detect a bit of a German accent?”
You can hear a bead of sweat drop. All eyes go to the mayor. “Austrian,” he says. “But you have a good ear, Agent Boothby.”
Liar, I think. Everyone knows he’s more German than polkas and sauerkraut.
“Anyway,” Mayor Schmidtke goes on, “I heard the vord bunkers several times in zat conversation.”
It was like the whole room takes a deep breath when they hear that word.
But where have I heard that word? Oh, Little Janie Johnson said “bonkers.” It must have been “bunkers.” I know what a bunker is. We kids used to make them all the time playing war in the sand dunes.
“Bunkers?” Agent Boothby asks. “You’re sure?” He writes something down.
“Well, get this,” Sadie Moran butts in. “Once I came to collect for the monthly paper delivery and he pulls out this wad of bills like some bootlegger and flips through it for a few measly Washingtons. Gives me a sawbuck tip! Now, I don’t care how good business is in this town, nobody goes around with that kind of cold hard cash in their pockets!” Then, she asks the crowd, “Now exactly where does he get money like that?”
“Did any bills have pictures of that Jap king on them?” someone asks, nudging the man next to him and laughing. “Say, how many of them yens to a Yankee dollar these days?”
Folks laugh and I got an odd feeling in my stomach. Like I’m going to be sick.
“Well,” Agent Boothby says, putting away his notepad and rising. Still others in the room are all talking to him and it looks to me like he wants out of there as much as I do. He says, “I think I have all I need for now.”
“Vell, zese are frightening times in zeh world today,” the not-German-but-Austrian mayor says. “Ve all need to be vigilant and cautious.”
“Well, I don’t think you have much to worry about anymore. Mr. Kaye reportedly went to Canada. So it’s no longer my case. I’m handing this off to Interpol. I’ll be in touch if need be.” He finishes his coffee, gets up, and tosses some of his cards down on the table. Everyone grabs for one.
“Me ’n’ Frank are doing our parts. We’re already signing men up for the beach patrol. Got the SPORTS signed up. They’re just boys, but it’ll prepare them for what’s to come.”
“And what’s to come?” Mr. Boothby asks, smiling cordially.
“Zeh vest coast invasion, of course,” Schmidtke says. “Isn’t that vhat zis is all about?” He points to the notepad in Mr. Boothby’s coat pocket.
Boothby smiles as he puts on his hat and repeats that he’ll be in touch if need be.
Then, he leans acrost the lunch counter toward the kitchen and says, “Mrs. Stokes, I know you’ll be sure to let me know if you hear from Mr. Kaye.”
He leaves the café and a chilly breeze seeps in. And with that, my stomach scrunches even more. I hate this! I hate it because I’m thinking about bunkers and lookout towers and search lights and wads of money all the time. And I’m thinking about us Stokes. Do they hang or shoot aiders, abettors, accomplices, operatives, or even friends?
CHAPTER 30
It’s been two weeks since Agent Boothby left town, and now things are finally smooth sailing. Mom’s agreed not to open the Look-Sea Lounge in exchange for the breakfast and lunch trade, while Edna takes the dinner and the booze trade. We Stokes are pretty dang busy, believe you me.
We’ve moved into Mr. Kaye’s apartment above the café, and it sure was nice having heat at the push of a button instead of the kick of an oil heater; a porcelain bathtub instead of a rusty metal shower; and no groaning refrigerator waking you up at all hours. If Mom gets curious about Mr. Kaye’s personal belongings slowly disappearing, she doesn’t mention it.
Even Mr. Kaye is doing—well, I won’t say fine, but he’s doing okay. Rex and me keep to our schedule. I check on him in the mornings before school and Rex checks on him around dinner time. He uses the hot plate for coffee or he can open a can of soup if he wants. We are just as careful carrying out garbage as we are carrying in food and supplies.
I sneak Mr. Kaye out late at night for fresh air, and if the coast is clear, we let him shower and clean up in one of the empty cabins. I make the big sacrifice and loan him my radio so he can catch up on the war news and hear the latest tunes. I make sure he gets the newspapers and magazines folks leave lying around the café.
But it’s getting a little tiresome for all three of us. Make that four. Hero is pretty darned confused just who his loyalties belong to now.
Sheriff Hillary Dutton is back in town. Word is there isn’t enough of her husband’s body left to have a casket funeral so they’re going to hold a big memorial for him at St. Bart’s. It’s like there’s a big blackout curtain over the whole town of Sea Park. He’s our first war dead.
Mr. Kaye asked me to smuggle over his black suit for the event. And so him and me and Rex set up three chairs in the basement and we’re sitting, listening as the service is held upstairs. The music that drifts down is pretty moving. Mr. Kaye, on account of him being Catholic, gives himself a sip of wine and a cracker and he does some up and down kneeling and praying.
Rex looks at Mr. Kaye. “That organ isn’t playing ’Ten Cents a Dance,’ is it?”
Mr. Kaye nods, dashing away a tear with his hankie. “That was Norm and Hillary’s song,” he says. “I’ve played it for them on their anniversary for years.”
So, now we have our first war dead memorialized and put away and we have our sheriff back.
• • •
One of the Town Hoo
d’s jobs is to keep the bulletin board tidy in City Hall, just outside the police office doors. With Sheriff Hillary being gone so long and then having to mourn and bury her Norman, the stack of flyers she hands Rex and me is pretty big. So, we’re busy pulling notices, pinning things like wanted posters and other legal mumbo jumbo to the board one afternoon.
“Sure hope we don’t find one with Mr. Kaye’s face and ’wanted dead or alive’ on it,” I mumble. But Rex isn’t listening. He’s reading a flier.
“Lord almighty. Look! They’re doing it! Just like Mr. Kaye said! This is going to kill him.”
I read over his shoulder. At the top in big letters it reads;
EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 9066.
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask.
“The order to lock away all Japanese people living on the coast,” Rex says, wadding up the flier and throwing it into the hallway. But just doing that makes him wince and grab his side.
Sheriff Hillary has come out of her office. She looks at us, the paper at the tip of her Wellington boot, then back at us. She picks it up, un-wads it, and reads.
She nods her head and there’s that downturn of her lips that some people think is a sad smile but I know is anger. She looks at us and says, “Too bad our little resident Jap traitor has vamoosed! I could kill him with my bare hands!”
Alls I can see is Mr. Kaye being right under everyone’s noses during the memorial service for her husband and him doing the communion and crying over “Ten Cents a Dance.” Nothing makes any sense. Rex and me play dumb and keep working, but Sheriff Hillary keeps talking. “Word is he was going to clear a runway so Jap planes can land. Why else would he have those coastal maps and that bulldozer? Now I ask you, what does he need a bulldozer for?”
“Logging,” Rex says flatly. “He owns all those tracts of timber on Willits Mountain.”
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