by Don Swaim
Mike and Diana burst into the room.
Diana said, “We heard the shot, Tokee. Are you all right?”
“It was a piece of strudel.”
I shut off the faucet, and we dragged Leitner out of the jon, plopping him into a chair. I peeled the mustache from my upper lip.
He said, “You, you… I know you. From that degenerate place of jazz, all those black and white people mingling together. And so many Hebrews.”
“You’ll have to tell your boyfriend Pegler how we met up again. It might even make his column. Especially the part about my lifting your Luger.”
“Execute me. I am prepared.”
Litvak moved in and identified himself.
“Call me Agent Mike, Herr Leitner. No one’s going to execute you. I’d just like to ask you a few simple questions, if you don’t mind. I hope you can spare the time.”
“Well…”
“Ich spreche Deutsch.”
“Ja?”
“Wie geht es deine Mutter?” Mike said, asking about Leitner’s mother.
“Sie ist eine Hündin,” Leitner replied, characterizing his mom as a bitch.
“Sorry to hear that. Say, do you need anything, Mr. Leitner? Tokol, how about getting him a glass of water? No, I’ve a better idea. Something from the bar downstairs. What would you like, Mr. Leitner? Anything at all. It’s on the FBI.”
“Perhaps a glass of schnapps?”
“Done. Tokol, Diana, will you do Mr. Leitner the honors?”
Diana went to get the schnapps, while Mike, in true ass-kissing form, cozied up to Leitner.
“That was such a clever stunt you pulled, Mr. Leitner. Or may I call you Dedrick?”
“Not too clever, it seems. You caught me.”
“Oh, we just got lucky. It takes a man of rare intelligence such as yourself to conceive of something like this—as well as daring.”
“Really?”
“It’s not easy being a spy. I know from personal experience.”
“Yes, very difficult. Especially when you are not appreciated in Berlin.”
“I truly understand, Dedrick. It’s the bureaucracy, right?”
“I am scorned and paid poorly by the Abwehr, our intelligence division. The chief, Wilhelm Canaris, treats me like schmutz.”
“It happens here too. We have a man like that named Hoover. I bet all the other spies you work with here in the States feel the same way you do.”
“Nein, they are too stupid. All they know is obedience. They never take the initiative. It was I who thought about luring your lieutenant to the hotel with those classified papers.”
“And you might have succeeded. You were so close. But it wasn’t your fault. Circumstances, that’s all. Could have happened to anyone.”
“I feel like a mere delivery boy. Every week it falls on me to lug a load of mail to the Europa. I am not a mailman. I am educated as a metallurgist. Also, I have to keep buying valises.”
“It’s demeaning, Dedrick. I know how you feel. Say, who at the Europa takes the mail off your hands?”
“A purser, Josef Jaeger, is our courier. He personally delivers it to the Abwehr in Germany.”
“And this mail comes from…”
“Our agents around the world. Vital intelligence information.”
“So instead of mailing it directly to Berlin, where it might be intercepted en route, your agents send it to Mrs. Frieda Waxweiler.”
“She is a nice, lovely seamstress. Who would ever suspect her? Or open her mail?”
“And you collect the mail regularly from her shop.”
“Yes, but I am also, as you say in America, fucking her.”
“Dedrick, I’m sure there’s no Nazi spy in the States as dedicated to his craft as you. How many are there, by the way?”
“Twenty. Many of them here in New York.”
“Do they all report to you?”
He laughed. “Nein, I am not important enough.”
“Don’t depreciate yourself, Dedrick. I’m sure you’re much more essential than you think. Just who is it they report to?”
“Dr. Ignatz Griebl.”
“And he is…?”
“An obstetrician. His office is on East Eighty-Sixth.”
“You’ve certainly been helpful, Dedrick.”
“I do not like the thought of being tortured, Agent Mike.”
“Torture never crossed my mind. Ah, Diana’s back with your schnapps. Drink up, my freund. I speak for J. Edgar Hoover when I say America is grateful to you.”
“You will not shoot me?”
“Gracious me, perish the thought.”
“Or put me in prison?”
“That’s not entirely in my hands, Dedrick, but I assure you you’ll receive the utmost consideration. Besides, our federal prisons are like country clubs. Golf, tennis, exquisite cuisine, fine wines, maid service. But I’m sure it’ll never come to that. By the way, would you happen to have the names of all the German agents who report to Dr. Griebl?”
“Jawohl. I can give you their addresses too. And their places of work. Aircraft companies, shipyards, electronic facilities, tool plants.”
“Say, I’d love to invite you as the FBI’s guest to Lüchow’s on East Fourteenth Street. I hear its German food is finer than any in Yorkville, that the wiener schnitzel is divine, and the pumpernickel is superior to Stuttgart’s. We can continue our chat there. We have so much more to talk about.”
“You are most generous, Agent Mike. Uh, if you don’t mind, may I please have my Luger back? It belonged to my mother who fired it only on Sundays.”
“Now, Dedrick, that might not be such a good idea. Tell you what. I’ll personally hold on to your Luger and return it to you when the time is right. I hope you understand.”
Leaving Leitner to finish his schnapps, guarded by Diana armed with her blowgun, Litvak and I conferred in the hall just outside the door.
“Mike, I almost had a fit, you were so damned obsequious to that Nazi shit.”
“Paid off, didn’t it? He’s singing like a canary.”
“He was gonna kill me, and he wants his pistol back?”
“In his dreams.”
“Mike, you’ve practically got the entire Nazi spy network in America laid out for you. Hoover’s gotta climb on board now.”
“Maybe—after I take down this Griebl guy. But Hoover an obstinate prick. Plus I need to interest George Medalie. He’s the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.”
“Is Leitner’s word enough to prosecute Griebl and the rest after you nab them?”
“We’ll have to give them polygraphs.”
“They say lie detectors aren’t reliable.”
“Madmen, imbeciles, and women in heat can beat ’em, but they’re good enough for an espionage indictment under Section Thirty-two of Title Fifty of the U.S. Code. You know what I’m going to do, Tokol? Tip Walter Winchell about the spy probe and plant scuttlebutt in the New York Post. I know a guy there. A little press will put the heat on Hoover and his yes men.”
“Not a good idea, Mike. Maybe you ought to keep it hush-hush until it’s a sure thing.”
“If I wait, the investigation might be taken out of my hands and given to someone who’ll blow it. There’s no sense of emergency at the bureau. After all, being a Nazi or a commie is no more of a crime than being a Republican.”
“Maybe even less.”
“Okay, Tokol, let’s collect our pile of Germanic crap and head to Lüchow’s for a Teutonic high time. On Hoover.”
Diana and I begged off. We’d done our duty. Besides, Orson Welles’s “Mercury Theater On the Air” was being broadcast live that night, and we’d promised to be there.
The show, lacking a sponsor, was up against serious competition from NBC’s Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy under the aegis of Chase & Sanborn. Orson broadcast from the nondescript Columbia studios at 485 Madison Avenue, where we were ushered into Studio One. The show had no studio audience, but Welles seated us in fold
ing chairs in the corner.
“I want you two to actually have a part on the show,” he told us.
Diana asked Orson for a copy of the script. She was, after all, the doyen of the networks’ most lucrative soap operas.
“You don’t need a script, my dear. On my cue I want you both to scream off mike at the tops of your lungs—just as if you were being roasted alive by aliens from outer space.”
The tension was palpable as the studio orchestra directed by Bernard Herrmann took its place, the actors and technicians darting about rattling their scripts, the sound effects guys, one of whom was an old friend of Diana’s named Larry, testing their acoustical marvels. Then all went silent as the on-air light flashed and announcer Dan Seymour intoned, “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater On the Air in The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.”
While melodramatic, the script was relatively arresting, particularly when the Martian invasion of New Jersey was described by actors portraying reporters being incinerated while voicing live remotes. Orson played three roles: host, narrator, and a professor named Pierson. I was superb shrieking in my radio debut, although it left my voice hoarse. Diana was a pro at screaming as she tended to be noisy while enjoying sex. An hour after it began, Orson concluded the show by announcing that the performance had no further significance, and was merely his way of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and going boo.
Suddenly, just as the on-air light flicked off, the studio door burst open and in rushed a bevy of uniformed cops, herding the performers, including Diana and me, against a wall, and gathering up all the scripts from the floor.
A police lieutenant told Welles, “You’re being held for investigation, sir. Have you any idea the panic you caused? The thousands of deaths and suicides, that deadly stampede in a Jersey fraternal hall, the fatal traffic crashes? You have a lot to answer for.”
Orson, a wide-eyed innocent, said, “Me?”
Eventually we were released, and Diana and I, in the company of Orson’s sound effects guy, Larry, left the building by a back exit to escape the horde of reporters in front.
Outside, however, there was no panic in the air, and Madison Avenue was its usual midnight self. Save for the Times Square theater district, Manhattan was often eerie at night. Neighborhoods teeming with people during the day would turn empty and silent, the denizens either ensconced in their protective warrens or spirited away by Martians.
Larry, Diana, and I got back to her penthouse wondering what all the fuss had been about. As the three of us dove into Diana’s huge circular bed, she said, “Larry, let’s hear some of those wonderful animal noises you make on the air.
Larry accommodated us with a roar, then a growl, snort, squeal, bark, caw, concluding with a bellow, and, after the three of were sweaty and done, a gentle purr.
It turned out there were no deaths or suicides. Nevertheless, Orson was publicly contrite. But when asked if he should have toned the violence in the show, he said, “No, you don’t play murder in soft words.”
The following week, Walter Winchell went on the air with a scoop:
Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press. Flash! This reporter has learned exclusively that a federal grand jury is about to investigate a major Nazi spy ring. As many as twenty Nazi agents in New York, Boston, Buffalo, and Philadelphia are under surveillance, including a Dr. Ignatz Griebl of Yorkville. So far, one spy is in custody as a cooperating witness.
A similar story appeared in the New York Post.
Agent Mike’s handiwork.
A few days later I met Litvak at the bar at Jack and Charlie’s, the former speakeasy at 21 W. 52nd. Mike was sleep-needy and depressed.
“I’m not drinking,” he said, “so I’ll just have a Manhattan, no ice, and lose the cherry.”
“What’s wrong, Mike?”
“Hoover fired my ass.”
“What the hell? You were on to something big.”
“Thanks to you and Diana. I almost caught Griebl, but just as we were about to close in he split the country on the Europa. All the other spies escaped too. As for Leitner, we have no one for him to testify against, and since we offered him immunity he’s scot-free.”
“How did all this happen?”
“Those leaks I gave to Winchell and the Post tipped off the bad guys, and they fled before I could nab them.”
“Not the smartest thing to do. I tried to—”
“Yeah, yeah. I shoulda listened. So Hoover canned me for violating the G-man’s oath: no agent may disclose service information.”
“Pretty obvious you were the leaker.”
“I thought I had the right to use any dope I got from my own investigations personally.”
“Hoover disagreed.”
“He showed me the contract I signed.”
“And Mrs. Waxweiler?”
“She was just a dupe, in love with the Nazi who was schtupping her.”
“Look at it like this, Mike. The Nazis will be around for a while. There’ll be plenty more spies to bust in the future.”
“Without me. My brother-in-law got me a job in security at Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philly. Now I’ll be investigating shoplifters.”
Flash! This reporter has learned that the captain of the German cruise ship Europa has been taken into custody as a material witness and is being held on twenty-five-hundred dollars bail. Captain Franz Boehnke is suspected of allowing Nazi couriers to use the Europa to relay espionage information to the Abwehr in Berlin. Meanwhile, the German-American Bund continues its Nazi propaganda crusade unchecked here in the Land of the Free.
Flash! Your reporter has learned exclusively that something’s not kosher at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow, and it involves a threat to destroy one of the international pavilions. By whom and how cannot be revealed at this time, but I can say that my heroic Certain Acquaintance is on the case—even at the risk to his own personal safety.
…For Jergens Lotion, this is Walter Winchell wishing you lotions of love.
six
World’s Fair 1939
It was the year I became a storm trooper for the German American Bund.
The waters of the Lagoon of Nations glowed yellow as a modest preamble before erupting into polychromatic geysers from a thousand nozzles. Streaks of fire from four-hundred gas jets were preceded by billows of multicolored mist. Three-hundred-fifty firework launchers thunderously ignited the sky in a nightly pyrotechnic display over the World’s Fair.
As millions of visitors flocked to Flushing Meadows, Queens, a National Jewish Council delegation led by Isadore Greenbaum called on Tokoloshe and Son Cleansing Services in the Chrysler Building, begging me to bring down Bund Fuehrer Fritz Kuhn. The war to succeed the War to End All Wars had begun in Europe, even as FDR dismissed spurious rumors about returning American boys to European fields.
“Mr. Tokoloshe,” Greenbaum said, “the plight of European Jews has become intolerable. Our own government turned from our shores the St. Louis, an outcast ship carrying more than nine-hundred Jewish refugees, forcing them back to Europe to face an uncertain fate.”
“A disgrace and a humanitarian tragedy, but why come to me?”
“We know you were involved in exposing that Nazi spy ring last year.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Greenbaum, and if you think I had anything to do with it we might as well be playing tiddlywinks with manhole covers.”
“We have our sources.”
“A source named Winchell, perchance? Man never could keep his crevice closed. But I don’t know how I can be of help to you.”
“The German American Bund is an arm of the Nazi Party. Join it. See if you can destroy it from inside and wreck Kuhn.”
“Oh sure. That’ll be a snap. I’ll hop on it right away.”
“You’re being facetious, Mr. Tokoloshe.”
“Of course I am, yet… Y’know, the idea kind of
intrigues me.”
I tended to make snap decisions. Particularly if the principle seemed appropriate. And this seemed to be the right proposition at the right time. Diana would approve. Or not.
“Okay, Mr. Greenbaum, I’ll do it. I enjoy a challenge.”
So much so, I waived my usual fee.
After flirting with careers as a tightrope walker, brain surgeon, ukulele professional, Tower of London Beefeater, and horse chiropractor I had found my calling.
I phonied-up my credentials and joined the Bund, managing to ingratiate myself with Heinz Hinrichs, head of Bund security. To the Bund I was one Rolfe Schenk of Milwaukee, certified anti-Semite, ardent admirer of Adolph Hitler, and willing to do heavy lifting—even if it meant cracking non-Aryan skulls. The Germans welcomed me as a probationary storm trooper, and quickly I found that Hinrichs was my key to Fritz Kuhn.
I disguised myself, of course, using a little toothbrush mustache under my nose, my hair combed unflatteringly in a demonic way.
Hinrichs said, “My God, Rolfe, you look just like—”
“I know. Charlie Chaplin.”
Diana played along as my kissing cousin Elke Bachmeier. We went to Bund dances at the Lorelei dance hall, picnics at Camp Nortland on winsome Lake Iliff in New Jersey, and Hudson River outings to West Point.
As a casual drinking freund of Hinrichs I used every opportunity to get him plastered on schnapps, beer, and ale at Alfons Rambacher’s Bierstube on East 86th in Yorkville.
Hinrichs said, “Rolfe, having Lindy at the rally would be a hell of a coup. He is a champion for both Germans and Americans, and his views count.”
Gossip was rife that Charles A. Lindbergh would pay a surprise visit to the upcoming German American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden, which would lend a certain cachet to the event. However, once called the Lone Eagle for his intrepid aeronautics, he was now dismissed as the Lone Ostrich by Water Winchell.
“Heinz, Lindbergh’s a Swede. He can’t be a member of the Bund unless he’s a true German American. Like us.”
