A Pure Double Cross

by John Knoerle

  More yap shutting, more silence, more contrails of frigid wind about the ankles.

  “I don’t eat Kraut food,” said Jimmy after a time.

  “No?” I said, stretching out my legs, slipping my gun hand casually into my pants pocket. “What do you eat?”

  “Ciorba de burta.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tripe sour soup.”

  “Sounds interesting. What’s the main course?”

  “Two courses.”

  “Okay.”

  “Gulas de inima and creir fiert. Heart goulash with mashed potatoes and calf brains cooked in lemon butter.”

  “Ahh, organ meats. I didn’t know you were Romanian.”

  Jimmy raised his chin. I slipped my finger through the trigger guard and placed my left hand on the table. “Your family Gypsies?” I said. “Or vampires?”

  Jimmy didn’t go for his gat. He didn’t lunge across the table, toss a chair or throw a glass at my head. He didn’t curse my name or my parentage, didn’t even say nice try asshole. What he did was laugh, loudly.

  And then he went for the jugular.

  “When I grow up I wanna be a G-man, and go bang bang bang bang bang. A rough and tough and rugged he-man, and go bang bang bang bang bang…”

  The Schooler smiled at Jimmy and upbraided me with a look. Nice try asshole.

  -----

  I pulled an army blanket over my head and shoulders and went outside. Goddamn stupid cunning Jimmy Streets had out-maneuvered me once again. I pulled the blanket tighter and looked around. The bare trees on the shoreline were gnarled, permanently hunched against the prevailing wind.

  I shuffled down the front steps in my bedroom slippers. A red fox was burrowing in the snowy front yard. He poked his head up at my approach, took a quick sniff and bounded off. Can’t say I blame him.

  I circled north, past the long dock that elbowed out into the lake, past the jagged shelves of shale along the shoreline, past the frozen beer bottles on the bank above the shore. They looked like recent additions. Erin Brew was still bright red. Someone had been here not so long ago. Which meant there was a passable road nearby.

  How did I know for sure? How did I know that our beer drinkers didn’t trudge through the wooded thicket to the shoreline? Because people take roads no matter what, they take roads seeded with land mines and booby traps, they take roads bristling with Gestapo checkpoints. People take roads even when they’re not hauling cargo, even when the alternate route is a stroll through sweet-smelling wheat fields, even then they will take a road.

  I didn’t take roads. Not after my last jump. I reported all the troop movements, supply shipments and weather data in my little personal patch of Germanic hell outside Heilbronn. It was a strategic spot, a crucial juncture of road and rail. The OSS got valuable intel from yours truly. But I didn’t take roads. It’s why I didn’t have any letters of recommendation in my jacket. It’s why I’m still alive.

  I shuffled along the bank, wincing across the rocks and the mussel shells, turned inland and made my way through a stand of trees, wind-ripped branches hanging by a thread. The road approached the back yard of the old Victorian from the south then curved west. A passable road with recent tire tracks. It beckoned to me.

  I could shuffle my bedroom slippers down that snowy path to the local village and radiotelephone the FBI. If they didn’t have a radiotelephone they’d have a radiotelegraph, something this old brass pounder knew well.

  Operation concluded Stop Roll up suspects and contraband far N/E corner Kelleys Island Stop Suspects armed and extremely dangerous Stop Logged by MUTTON.

  MUTTON is my FBI code name, don’t ask me why, but it beat the hell out of my OSS handle, which was POODLE.

  I stamped my feet. They hurt. That was good, it meant they hadn’t turned black and died.

  You’re not going to shuffle your way off this island and back into the good graces of the FBI, Schroeder. The risen Christ couldn’t pull that off. You’re a prisoner in what spies like to call a ‘controlled environment’ until Henry Voss says otherwise. So’s Jimmy. You’re both just along for the ride.

  I looked around. I noted the caved-in garage behind the house. I shuffled back toward the house, pulling my army blanket poncho tight, sidestepping the pointy shells. If Jimmy and I were captives on this island so was Henry.

  That didn’t scan. What if the money broker didn’t show? Henry would have a way to call for help if things didn’t go as planned.

  I stopped and examined the old Victorian. Unlike the brown brick monastery no landline drooped down from a telephone pole to the top floor. I shifted my gaze down one. And again. If it existed, if The Schooler had the transmitter he had to have, it would, most likely, be hidden in the basement.

  Chapter Fifty

  The basement windows weren’t boarded up but they were half covered in drifted snow. I approached one at the back of the house and scooped it clear. It was a standard frame and sash and it was locked up tight. An easy, five second job with the knife I didn’t have, the knife my spy school instructor instructed me to carry at all times. All I had was Commander Seifert’s service revolver.

  I removed my army blanket poncho, folded it over the gun, pressed it against the bottom sash, shivered like a son-of-a-gun and waited for a noisy gust of wind. There’s never a noisy gust of wind around when you need one.

  When it did come it was so quick I missed it. I waited some more, my teeth chattering like bones in a dice cup. Some day soon this will all be over, Schroeder. Some day soon you’ll be toasting yourself to a golden brown on a white sand beach. Or pushing up daisies. And either one will be an improvement.

  The next gust was a nice long howl. I busted the window-pane with the butt of my pistol, sprung the latch and opened the sash.

  I dropped down into the murk. I listened for sounds from upstairs. Footsteps, very faint. The basement had a plaster ceiling, I could make a little noise without being overheard. An old walnut bar with a brass foot rail stood against the left wall. Past the bar, in the far corner opposite the staircase, was a small walled-off room. I went there.

  The gods were smiling, the door to the small room was unlocked. They were grinning ear to ear in fact because the small room also had a grimy window that permitted enough light to search the interior. I found a barrel of nails, a big tackle box, three rods and reels plus two canvas beach chairs and a deflated inner tube.

  I tried to picture it. Two hairy-legged armbreakers wearing sunglasses and shoulder holsters reclining on the rocky shore as Teddy Biggs splashed through the summer surf on an inner tube, taking potshots at the skirling seagulls overhead. Fun!

  The small room also contained a cedar chest, one of those long low cabinets that grannies use to store lace doilies and tablecloths. It was piled high with hip waders and girlie mags. I cleared it off, lifted the hinged top and saw a beautiful thing. A 150 megahertz Motorola with a modern handset and a telescope antenna. It would have a range of at least five miles, good enough to reach a telephone relay station on the mainland.

  All I needed now was a power supply. I dug down and found it, wrapped in old newspapers. A twelve volt battery.

  I lifted the battery and the transmitter from the cedar chest, closed the lid and set them on top. I connected the battery to the transmitter and flipped the power switch. No juice. I removed the battery caps and checked the cells. Bone dry. That was good, that was something I could do something about.

  I returned to the busted window, scraped up a handful of snow and packed it into the battery cells. I listened for raised voices from upstairs. Jimmy wouldn’t like it that I was out communing with nature once again. I clicked the power switch. No juice.

  Shit. Time to get brilliant, Schroeder. What do you know about twelve volt car batteries? They’re lead, they’re alkaline. They need a shot of acid to get them going.

  I went to the well-stocked bar and stepped behind. I searched the shelves and cabinets. A bar stocked with booze was a bar st
ocked with mixers - tonic water for the Gilbey’s, Coca Cola for the Bacardi. But the only mixer I found was a bottle of soda water for the Chivas Regal. No help, wrong pH.

  The Schooler thought of everything, he’d have something handy. I searched some more until the obvious thought occured.

  I returned to the small room with a bottle of Chivas Regal, opened the bottle and served the battery a liberal portion of the golden nectar of the peat bogs. I waited. The transmitter’s vacuum tubes hummed to life.

  While I didn’t care for it personally, I have to give credit where credit was due. Scotch whisky is an excellent proxy for battery acid.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I held the fired-up-and-ready radiotelephone transmitter in hand. All I had to do was extend the antenna, get on the blower, contact the local telephone relay station and place a call. That’s all I had to do. Provided I knew who I wanted to call.

  I did know of course. I wanted to call Jeannie.

  There was a grimy piece of tape on the back of the handset with writing on it. Lorain TelCo. And a phone number.

  I unfurled the radiotelephone antenna and dialed. I heard a brrrt brrrt sound, like a European phone ring. An operator answered.

  “Mr. Voss, is that you? I haven’t talked to you in ages!”

  I said I was, indeed, Henry Voss.

  “You don’t sound like yourself!”

  “Been down with a cold, I…sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Velma.”

  “Velma, of course. Great to hear your voice. How have you been?”

  I listened to Velma’s laundry list of complaints patiently because I didn’t want to tell her I had an urgent phone call to make and tempt her to listen in. She went on and on, I clucked sympathetically until she ran out of steam. I asked her to connect me to Pappas Deli in Cleveland.

  “Right away Mr. Voss, nice to hear from you again!”

  “And you too Velma.”

  Jeannie answered on the second ring. The connection was clear but hollow.

  “Pappas Deli.”

  “You have take-out?”

  “Yes we do.”

  “Cause I could sure go for a Westphalian ham and Swiss on rye.”

  “Hal?”

  “It’s me.”

  “You okay? You sound a million miles away.”

  “I’m fine. I’m calling to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye? Where’re you going?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Holy cats Hal, I’ve got a customer here.”

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Hold on a minute, don’t hang up.”

  I held on. I felt stupid. I listened to Jeannie ring up a sale in the background.

  “Hal?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Where the heck are you?”

  Could I tell her? I wanted to. I wanted someone to know where I breathed my last if it came to that.

  “Operator? Operator?” No answer. “I’m on Kelleys Island.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s a good question and a very long answer.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “That’s not why I called.”

  “Answer me!”

  “Could be, but it’s not anything I can’t handle. I just wanted you to know that...”

  Jeannie put her hand over the mouthpiece, probably telling her husband that it was just a girlfriend calling to yak. I hoped she’d be quick, I’d been out communing with nature far too long.

  When Jeannie came back on the line her voice was hushed. “Do you need to get out of there? Because the Sunday paper just had a write-up on Kelleys Island, the hardy folks there, the year-rounders.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Listen to me! They have a taxi service that crosses the lake in old Model A’s with the doors stripped off, you know, so they can bail out if they start to sink.”

  “I don’t think the ice is thick enough to cross.”

  “They said there’s a pathway from Marblehead, all marked out. They use tree branches for curbs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It was in the paper.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Can you get away?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Jeannie paused a moment. “What if I come to you?”

  I laughed. “That’s nuts JJ.”

  Jeannie placed her hand over the mouthpiece again. I waited. I looked out the window. A hulking figure was tracing my footsteps along the snowy bank, shotgun in hand. I had two minutes at most.

  Jeannie came back on the line. “I’m coming out there,” she said, whispered, hissed. “I’m coming out there ‘cause you’re too stupid to save your own hide and....let me finish...and...and because I owe you one.”

  I hadn’t thought of it in that way before but it made some sense. Jeannie and I were engaged when she up and married the first gink who asked her because she was ticked off that she didn’t receive the love letters I was forbidden to send. She did owe me one.

  “What about your husband?”

  “What about him?”

  “You’d have to leave right away.”

  I waited. No objection. I continued.

  “I’m in an old Victorian at the tip of a peninsula, northeast corner of the island, northeast. It’s almost one now. What’s Marblehead from Cleveland, two hours? Another hour across and, shit, I dunno, let’s say five-thirty. There’s a road to the back of the house, a caved-in garage, but don’t get that close. I’ll wait for you there, the garage, five-thirty. If I’m not there, go home! Tell the driver you’re…you’ll think of something, I gotta go.”

  A belch of static bounced down the line. I could almost feel Jimmy’s hot breath on my neck but I held on.

  “Is that all?” said Jeannie, dryly.

  “No. You might want to pack some sandals and a sarong.”

  Dead silence. I had offended her.

  Always with the wisecracks, Schroeder, when are you going to learn? It was probably just as well this time though, dragging JJ into this catastrophe was stupid and plain wrong. I was about to say so when Jeannie said “I’ll see you at five-thirty” and rang off.

  Well. Well now.

  I lowered the telescope antenna from the opened window, closed the window, unhooked the battery from the transmitter, rewrapped the battery in the old newspapers and returned it and the radiotelephone to the cedar chest. I closed the lid and re-piled the crap on top.

  I closed the door to the small room and got behind the walnut bar. I ransacked the cabinets. I had seen some highball glasses somewhere…oh yeah, on the bar sill, right in front of me. I poured myself a double VO, set another highball glass on the bar, bit my drink and waited.

  Jimmy dropped down through the back window a few moments later. “What’s your pleasure?” I said in a jolly bartender voice.

  Jimmy’s good eye followed the muzzle of his sawed-off in the general direction of my head.

  “I’m pouring Bacardi rum, Gilbey’s gin, Seagram’s VO and Chivas Regal.” Jimmy didn’t indicate a preference. “Bacardi Dark it is,” I said and poured two fingers. “And put down that grouse musket. You’re not gonna shoot me, not here.”

  I slid the glass across the bar. Jimmy lowered his shotgun and approached. I kept my hands where he could see them. Jimmy grabbed the glass and drained it. “Where am I gonna shoot you, G-man?”

  “I dunno Jimmy, that’s your call. But preferably in the foot.”

  That coaxed a greasy smile from the old gypsy vampire, which I counted as a personal victory.

  “Got any soda water?”

  I opened the bottle and set it on the bar. Jimmy poured soda water into his empty glass, dug out his glass eye and plopped it in the tumbler, where it fizzed.

  Well. There’s something you don’t see everyday.

  I made my pitch. “Jimmy, you said Henry’s always been square with you. Me too, for the most part. I know what I said about the money b
roker bringing friends and all that but I’m thinking...”

  Jimmy triangulated me with his good eye and an empty black socket that looked like a bottomless portal to hell. Any hopes I had of talking him back from the precipice disappeared down that hole.

  Jimmy drizzled rum in the glass of soda water, stirred it around with his finger, retrieved his glass eye, polished it on his shirttail and plugged it back in its socket. It was off kilter.

  “You got sumpin’ to say, say it.”

  “Okay.” I crossed my arms and made a face. “You got your eyeball in sideways.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Jimmy grabbed the bottle of Bacardi, I grabbed the bottle of VO. We trooped up the staircase to the first floor. The door was locked. Jimmy knocked, The Schooler answered.

  “I’ll take those,” he said. “I need you two halfway sober.”

  We surrendered our bottles and followed Henry Voss to the icy kitchen. He had a game of solitaire laid out on the round table. He placed the hooch bottles on a nearby counter where we could see them, a very mean thing to do.

  “What did you two talk about down there?”

  “Well, I said that, despite our past differences, we had to link arms and pull together to get through this thing.”

  “And Jimmy agreed with you?”

  Jimmy had a Lucky out, lit and in his maw in the time it took to turn my head in his direction. Cigarette smoke is blue when lit and gray when exhaled I noted absent-mindedly.

  “Yeah I did,” said Jimmy with a squint. “I told the G-man I’d keep an eye out for him.”

  This bit of drollery from Jimmy Streets was so unexpected that it took The Schooler and me a moment to take it in. Then we shared a hearty guffaw. Jimmy didn’t join in exactly but he did snort smoke at short intervals.

  The Schooler scooped up his game of solitaire and handed me the deck of cards. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  A thought occurred. I needed a way to kill the afternoon while keeping Jimmy’s mind off his twelve gauge. I sat down and shuffled. “Seven card anyone?”

  Jimmy grabbed a box of kitchen matches off the wood burning stove and dumped them on the table. “You in?”