Up in Honey's Room cw-2

by Elmore Leonard

  Carl said, “He wants to assassinate somebody.”

  “I’m not saying another word.”

  “I was thinking he might want to return to Germany for Adolf’s last stand, but there’s no way for him to get there. So it must be Walter’s gonna shoot somebody like the president of the United States. Get him riding in that open car he likes. A fella by the name of Giuseppe Zangara, an anarchist, fired five shots at Roosevelt one time from no more than twenty-five feet away. In Miami, 1933.”

  Vera said, “He missed?”

  “A housewife by the name of Lillian Cross bumped Zangara and threw him off his aim. He missed the president, but hit five other people standing there, one of them Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago.”

  “Did she think five people shot,” Vera said, “was worth not losing the president?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” Carl said. “One of these days I’ll look Miz Cross up. In the meantime I’ll see if I can find Honey- if her free spirit hasn’t gotten her to run off.”

  Carl had put his cup on the tray. He picked it up now, took a sip and put the cup on the tray again, the coffee served to him ice cold.

  “You realize,” Carl said, “you could be indicted for knowing about Walter but not saying anything? It’s called misprision, concealing treasonable acts against the U.S. government. Even if you take no part in the act.”

  “I told you,” Vera said, “it’s his dream. Do you think I should go to prison for something Walter has no intention of actually doing?”

  “You’re still liable.”

  “Do you care?” Vera said. “You haven’t asked if Jurgen is here.”

  “Is he?”

  Vera said, “No,” and smiled.

  “How about Dr. Taylor?”

  “What about him?”

  “You think he might tell on you?”

  “Dr. Taylor has no credibility. He continues to say Adolf Hitler is the savior of the world, and who believes that? No, the doctor is not a concern of mine.”

  Carl said, “You mean now that he’s dead?”

  Twenty-three

  Vera came in the kitchen to see Bo hunched over the morning paper spread open on the table.

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “I wasn’t listening. He’s a peasant.”

  “He knows about Dr. Taylor.”

  “It’s not in the paper.”

  “He doesn’t need the paper.”

  Vera’s tone got Bo to look up at her.

  “He knows policemen, federal agents. He asked if I was worried about the doctor informing on me. I said he’s not a concern, and he said, ‘You mean now that he’s dead?’”

  Bo said, “He knows already?” sounding surprised.

  “You call him a peasant,” Vera said, “with your prissy way. You serve him cold coffee. The man is the most famous law officer in America. They write stories about him in magazines. A book was written about him with photographs, you think he’s of no concern.”

  “I thought his behavior crude.” Bo shrugged in his new smoking jacket. “What did you say to him?”

  “I said, ‘The doctor, he was in an accident with his car, and was killed?’ I must’ve sounded stupid.”

  “I’m sure you were convincing.”

  Bo’s gaze dropped to the newspaper and Vera said, “Look at me, I’m talking to you,” and swept the paper from the table. “The police know another person was killed.”

  “Rosemary.”

  “I don’t know how you could shoot that poor woman.”

  “I had no choice, she knows me.”

  “I’m talking about Aubrey, in the loo. They found traces of blood someone tried to clean from the wall, blood and brains, Carl said, and did a poor job.”

  “Since it was the powder room,” Bo said, “he should have said I did a piss-poor job.”

  “I said to Carl, ‘Who could it be?’ astonished, eyes wide with innocence. Do you know who he said it was? Not who he thought it might be? Aubrey.”

  Bo frowned. He’d used soapy guest towels to clean up the mess, knew enough to take the towels with him, stuffed into Mr. Aubrey’s pants once he got them pulled up. Then had to wrap Mr. Aubrey’s head in a bath towel he got from upstairs when he went up to look around, found some jewelry he liked and the doctor’s smoking jacket in green. Then he had to look for the Lugers and the machine pistol locked in a cabinet and had to pry it open but thought he did a rather professional job. He borrowed a blanket from Rosemary’s warm bed he used to drag Mr. Aubrey across the tiled floor to the front entrance where, Bo decided to let Mr. Obnoxious wait while he cleaned the powder room and thought about driving all the way out to a cornfield near Walter’s place at four in the morning when he was already in Palmer Woods, not a forest but there were patches of woods here and there.

  “They’re sure the third one’s Joe Aubrey,” Vera said. “Joe’s the only one missing who was here last night.”

  “It couldn’t be someone else?”

  “I know it’s Aubrey and Carl knows it’s Aubrey you shot in the back of the head to make a mess. Did you think about where you should shoot him?”

  “There was his head only a few feet away,” Bo said, “while he’s taking a whiz. Have you heard that one, for pissing? Mr. Aubrey was whizzing all over the floor.”

  “You must have touched Rosemary.”

  “I moved her hair aside.”

  “With the Walther?”

  “No, the tips of my fingers. I was gentle with her. But she saw me, so I had no choice.”

  “You’re very good at what you have to do,” Vera said, laying her hand on his shoulder. She had been harsh with him and didn’t want Bo to sulk, waste her time acting hurt. She stroked his hair saying, “To make you feel better, we have Joe Aubrey’s check for fifty thousand dollars. If I can put it in an account and make withdrawals within a few days, we’ll have our going-away money.”

  “And we can amscray out of De-twah,” Bo said. “Can I lay my tired head against your tummy-tum?”

  Vera took his face in her hands and brought his cheek against her body. “What we don’t want to happen, they find Aubrey before we amscray. Can you imagine the interrogations we’d have to survive? Two of my alleged aides found shot to death?” She said, “That won’t happen, will it, Bo?”

  “That’s not the problem,” Bo said and waited for Vera.

  She said, “There is always a problem, isn’t there?”

  “Walter could tell them I was to drive Mr. Aubrey out to the farm but we never arrived. Or as Kevin Dean would say, ‘We never showed.’ That girl Honey Deal will say, ‘Oh, that’s right, Mr. Aubrey. Didn’t he go home with Bohdan?’ That fucking marshal, you know what he called me? Bohunk.”

  “I wondered what he said to you. Honey thinks you’re cute.”

  “She does? Well, Jurgen’s with her now.”

  “Having him for breakfast,” Vera said. “The girl’s a man-eater.”

  “The FBI will ask him, ‘Was Aubrey in the car with you?’ Jurgen will say, ‘No, he vasn’t.’”

  “Jurgen doesn’t speak that way. But they left with Walter before you put Aubrey in my car. They can’t be certain you took him any where.”

  “Do you want to leave it to chance?” Bo said. “Maybe the police will find out I took Aubrey to see the doctor and maybe they won’t. Meanwhile, Vera wets her panties every time the doorbell rings.”

  Vera said, “God,” weary of this war business, “all the dead we’ve seen.”

  “Don’t give up on me now,” Bo said. “What’s a few more?”

  At least three. Four, with any luck.

  “All right,” Vera said, “when the police say to you, these other people told us you drove Aubrey to Walter’s. If you didn’t go there, where did you take Mr. Aubrey? What will you say to that?”

  “I’ll say, ‘Where in the world did they get that idea? I didn’t take Mr. Aubrey anywhere. By the time he left the party I was in bed.’”

  “So
how did he get to Dr. Taylor’s?”

  “How should I know?”

  “But you were here with everyone. What kind of arrangement was made if Walter didn’t take him?”

  “Give them my theory?”

  “If it makes sense.”

  “Well, the way I see it, Dr. Taylor and Mr. Aubrey had a thing going and made plans to meet somewhere after the party was over. Say, at a bar on Woodward or maybe in front of the cathedral, only a block away. Dr. Taylor picked up Aubrey and took him home so they could monkey around in peace, tease each other, and the doctor’s wife Rosemary-I always thought of as a very sweet woman-heard them giggling, crept downstairs, caught the two old dears kissing and shot them with her husband’s Walther. Then, so ferociously distraught by what she did, pressed the pistol against her temple and kapow, took her own life.” Bo, still looking at Vera, said, “Her breasts were so-so.”

  Vera said, “‘Ferociously distraught?’”

  “Enormously depressed to learn her husband the respected doctor is a sissy.”

  “Where did she get the pistol?”

  “She knew her husband was a scaredy-cat and kept it in his smoking jacket when he was downstairs alone at night.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Rosemary told me one time. Or, she brought the pistol from upstairs.”

  “You’re wearing the smoking jacket he had on?”

  “This is a different one.”

  “So they say to you, ‘If Mr. Aubrey wasn’t there this morning, what happened to him?’”

  “I say, ‘How should I know, I’m not a detective.’”

  Twenty-four

  At Vera’s Jurgen was quiet, he was pleasant, he was a cute young guy in a sport coat. Honey brought him home, turned on a lamp, and he was an escaped prisoner of war standing in her living room. Maybe because Jurgen seemed at home in Vera’s formal setting and Honey had never imagined a German soldier in her apartment. German soldiers were in the newspaper. Jurgen trusted her, had come willingly, and now she wasn’t sure how this was going to work out. Arrange for Carl to see him tomorrow. They talk, maybe have a drink, and then what? Jurgen says auf Wiedersehen and Carl lets him walk away? After coming a thousand miles to get him? Or will he handcuff Jurgen and take him back to Oklahoma? What he’s been dying to do for months.

  And Jurgen will think you set him up. Lured him here for Carl. Telling him Carl can’t touch you. Telling him to take your word, it was good as gold. Sounding like a nitwit, Little Miss Sunshine, when she was a little girl and the world was perfect except for her brother Darcy being in it, living in the same house. Or telling Jurgen it was safe because right now it was like being in the eye of a storm.

  She’d be nice to Jurgen, not too nice but nice, and ask him if he was hungry, if he’d like a drink, if he wanted to listen to the radio or one of her records; she had Sinatra, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

  “You don’t have Bing Crosby? ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’?”

  “I never cared that much for Bing. I have Bob Crosby and the Bobcats and my all-time favorite, Billie Holiday doing ‘Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You.’”

  “What about Bob Wills and Roy Acuff ?”

  Honey was already singing in a hushed voice, making it sound easy, “Love makes me treat you the way that I do, gee, baby, ain’t I good to you,” and said, “You like hillbilly music, uh?”

  Jurgen said he started listening to Grand Ole Opry in ’34, when he was here with his family.

  He was comfortable with her. Didn’t say a word about Carl coming to see him. Never mentioned his name. He believed what she’d told him, that he was safe with her, didn’t have to worry about being grabbed and hauled back to Oklahoma, and it made her feel like a traitor, not sure at all now what Carl would do.

  “There was another Tulsa marshal,” Jurgen said, “I met at the camp, Gary Marion. He turned in his star because he missed the rodeo and he’s back competing.”

  “Rides bucking broncos?”

  “Rides homicidal bulls. The day I left the camp-”

  “The day you escaped?”

  “I got a letter from Gary he wrote while he was in Austin ro-deo-ing. That’s what he called it. Gary was never a trail-driving cowhand, but he wore the hat and rode bulls on the circuit.”

  “You want to be a bull rider when you grow up?”

  “I have no plans to grow up. I had thought of being a cowboy and wear the hat and the boots, but if you can compete-ride wild horses and killer bulls for eight seconds at a time-you don’t have to be a ranch hand, a working cowboy.”

  “And you get to wear the hat, and the boots like Carl’s,” Honey said. “Carl looks more like a cowboy than any cowboy I’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t wear the hat.”

  She brought Carl into the conversation without thinking, pictures of him prowling around in her mind, but Jurgen didn’t pick up on it. He said, “Your brother’s giving me one of his hats.”

  “I hope it fits,” Honey said. “Darcy has a tiny head.” She looked at her watch and then at Jurgen, both of them on the sofa now. “It’s late. I’m ready for bed.”

  “So am I,” Jurgen said.

  “I don’t have a spare bedroom,” Honey said, “but there’s a double bed in my room you can have half of if you promise not to start any funny business.”

  He said, “Of course,” but look at him grinning.

  “I’m serious, no fooling around,” Honey said and believed she meant it. “I’m not a girl who engages in any kind of intimate activity on a first date. Really, not till I get the feeling we might have something going. But I’m not censored by the Hays Office, so you don’t have to sleep with one foot on the floor.”

  Jurgen said, “This is our first date?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  What got it going, he touched her bare shoulder under the covers in the dark and Honey couldn’t help turning to him saying, “Hold me.” That was all she meant, she wanted to be held, she loved being held. But then once she was snug in his arms she let her hand roam over his body to see what this slim boy was all about, feeling ribs, a flat belly, let her hand slip down some more and now both of them were making sounds in the dark, making love with a dynamite kick that left them hanging on to each other out of breath, not a word spoken until Honey said, “I got to know more about you, Hun.”

  She wasn’t going to answer the phone in the morning no matter how many times it rang, wanting to discourage poor Walter, having no idea if Carl would call or not. The phone rang nine different times before 8 a.m.

  What Walter did, once he realized Honey wasn’t going to answer the phone, he drove to her building and buzzed the apartment.

  “It’s I,” Walter said. “Open the door.”

  He was here-she felt she had to let him in. Honey woke up Jurgen and told him to go back to sleep. “If you have to go to the bathroom, go, quick. Walter’s coming up. Or stay in the bathroom, take a shower.”

  The first thing Walter said, true to form, he told her he had not had his coffee this morning. That got them in the kitchen, Walter at the table, and it gave Honey a glimmer of hope. He wouldn’t try to jump her till he’d had his coffee. But then didn’t seem interested in jumping her, talking so much about Joe Aubrey, wanting to know where he was.

  Honey said, “What’re you asking me for?”

  “I picked him up yesterday at Michigan Central. He must be still here.”

  “Bo drove him out to your farm.”

  “They never came there. I called Bo this morning, Vera says he wasn’t home, he went out. I asked her was he gone all night. Vera says she doesn’t know what time he came home, she isn’t his mother.”

  “You’re sure he’s not at the farm?”

  Honey didn’t know why she said that. It brought out the Walter she had been married to. “You still don’t listen,” Walter said. “I already told you they didn’t come there.”

  “Well, maybe they came while you’re wasting
time yelling at me.”

  He said, “Where is Jurgen,” in a quieter tone.

  “In the bathroom.”

  “I’ll wait for him to come out.”

  “Walter, if I don’t know where Joe Aubrey is, how’s Jurgen supposed to know?”

  “I have to find him,” Walter said. “I have to go to Georgia and set my timetable. I want to be there, ready, no later than tomorrow.”

  “Does Joe have a girlfriend here?”

  “Whores.”

  “Then that’s where he is,” Honey said, “at a whorehouse in Paradise Valley. You know he likes colored girls. He took Bo along to see if he can get him to go straight. After a night with the girls they’re still there, having their coffee, resting up. Do I have to think for you, Walter? You want to go to Georgia? Take the bus.”

  “That sounded like an entire year of marriage,” Jurgen said, “the abridged version. Tell me why you married him.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Walter’s lucky. If he can’t find Joe, he has an excuse for not assassinating your president. Do you like Roosevelt?”

  “I’ve voted for him since coming of age.”

  He was grinning at her again.

  “Would you like to go out West with me?”

  Someone downstairs buzzed.

  Honey’s first thought, Walter was back.

  But it was her brother, Darcy.

  “I can’t believe it,” Honey said, “it’s been years.” She looked at Jurgen. “You know him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, the cattle rustler. He’s giving me one of his range hats.”

  “You may as well say hi to him,” Honey said.

  Darcy walked in past her, his spurs chinging, Jurgen catching his attention, Jurgen standing by the sofa in Honey’s orange kimono. Darcy did pause to look at his sister and tell her, “I’d kiss you but I smell of rotten meat.” He said, “How you doin’, Sis?” and turned to Jurgen.

  “Man, you sure get around. The last I heard you’re livin’ at Vera’s. I’d see her now and then I delivered meat, but never thought much of her. She’s not my type, too bossy. Tells me to bring her a leg-a-lamb and some chops instead of beef. I wanted to tell her she could be a prison hack, easy. That young swishy fella works for her, Bo? He reminds me of a con at Eddysville use to dress up like a woman in his cell. His name’s Andy but looked a lot like Bo. We called him Candy Andy or Lollypop, the all-day sucker.”