Jack 1939

by Francine Mathews

  The ancient city’s streets were extremely narrow and cobblestoned. When the signs weren’t written in Polish they were written in German, which made Jack swear at his misspent youth. Diana guided him by instinct, holding her lighter over a map and turning it around and around in her hands. They were reduced to shouting two words through the open window: American embassy. A series of gestures from brusque strangers showed them where to go.

  The American legation was housed in a narrow, high-storied building that might have been five hundred years old. At this hour, all but one of the windows were dark. Jack pummeled on the front door. Diana sat in the car, flicking her lighter.

  A night duty officer named Russell let them in.

  He was only slightly older than Jack himself, and he flushed embarrassingly every time his eyes met Diana’s. With one imperious glance she succeeded in reducing poor Russell to speechlessness; he gabbled a little, offered a light when she reached for a cigarette, and swallowed hard as he tumbled to the fact of the Kennedy name.

  “The place for you is the Kasino-Hotel.” Russell plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Jack waited while he dabbed his forehead miserably. “It’s ideal, really, under the circumstances—just a few miles up the coast, in the direction of Gdynia. It’s a smashing place, with its own beach. Tennis courts. The longest wooden pier in Europe, stretching right out into the bay. They call it the Monte Carlo of the Baltic.”

  “I’d prefer to be—” Jack began, but Diana cut him off.

  “There’s a spa there, isn’t there?—Massage?”

  “Dancing, too,” Russell replied happily. “And a decent dining room—although the cuisine is rather German. Most of the patrons are, too.”

  “German?” Jack repeated.

  “Ribbentrop and Göring have stayed there. I guess they like to roll the dice now and again.” At this feeble joke, Russell emitted a high cackle of laughter.

  Jack glanced at Diana. She was smiling her Cheshire-cat smile.

  “Gimme directions,” he said.

  * * *

  THE BUILDING WAS MASSIVE under moonlight. An avenue led to the front portico. Jack received a dim impression of a surfeit of staff, obsequiously bowing; of Art Deco armchairs; of the sea not far away. They took two rooms.

  He awoke aware that he’d been sweating in the night. His mouth tasted of cotton and sewage. He’d administered some DOCA before bed, but he inserted a second pellet now, hoping to avoid disaster. His supply of the drug was rapidly dwindling. He considered the problem for a moment, frowning, then threw on his clothes. They were profoundly wrinkled. He knocked on Diana’s door.

  She was breakfasting in bed, a picture of luxurious contentment, and waved him away. He descended to the dining room alert for the sight of a German uniform.

  By day, the Kasino-Hotel was monumental. Perched on its stretch of beach, it suggested a banker intent on a dirty weekend. Jack strolled toward the wide French doors opening onto the terrace. The day was cloudy, and a brisk wind whipped the bay to white; not a bad day for sailing. He wondered idly if someone there rented boats. A few people were trekking the length of the pier, leaning into the wind; somewhere, he caught the popping sound of tennis racquets. The combined effect transported him instantly to his father’s house in Palm Beach. He went in search of the dining room.

  It was immense and sparsely populated. Sporadic figures stretched into the distance, isolated at tables. Most were men. There was a definite haze in the air of Nazi gray.

  He was led half the length of the room before they halted at his own little island. He’d been placed well away from the German officers, who had been given the best tables near the windows fronting on the sea. Jack hesitated, then shook his head. “I’d like to be over there,” he said firmly, pointing at the exclusive scattering of uniforms.

  The maitre d’hotel gazed at him stolidly. Breakfast would be on his terms or not at all. Jack sat where he was told, and was handed a linen napkin for good behavior.

  Coffee arrived immediately. The menu, he saw to his relief, was written in German, Polish, and French. He could read enough of the latter to survive. The meal ordered, he lit a cigarette and glanced casually at the distant Germans as he smoked it. Heydrich had a high forehead and small eyes, closely set, he remembered. Kirk, the Berlin chargé, had said so. He saw nobody he could identify as the man, but several had their backs to him. He looked next at his neighbors.

  There was a white-haired Continental with a dramatic mustache. Two elderly German women in impassioned but whispered conversation, their lips trembling. And a neat, dark-haired, compact fellow with distinctly English tailoring and a vaguely military bearing, who had finished his meal and was in the act of quitting his table—

  Gubbins.

  Jack was on the point of rising and hailing the ex–colonel of artillery—inquiring after business in the lingerie shop—when something in the man’s air stopped him. Gubbins was quite deliberately avoiding Jack’s eye.

  He followed the trim figure until it disappeared. His cigarette burnt down to his fingertips and he ground it in an ashtray.

  A plate of fried eggs and wurst was placed before him. Jack ate half of it, his stomach cramping viciously. Damn his bitch of a body. And damn the lousy food.

  He stopped at reception before heading back upstairs.

  “What room is Colonel Gubbins in?”

  The clerk consulted his register. “We have no one staying with us by that name, sir.”

  “I see.”

  His Majesty’s spies moved with craft and stealth. And traveled under aliases.

  He felt his pulse quicken. It would be a definite mistake to push further, to describe the man who’d just eaten breakfast and attempt to learn his name. He jingled the change in his pockets and turned away.

  “Mr. Kennedy—”

  He turned back.

  The clerk presented an envelope.

  He recognized at a glance the colonel’s spare handwriting. With a casual air, he tore open the flap as he strolled toward the elevator, and withdrew the single sheet of stationery.

  Meet me at the end of the pier at ten o’clock, the note read. Come alone.

  THIRTY-SEVEN. GAMBLERS

  IT TOOK A WHILE TO WALK to the end of the pier. Jack figured it was about six football fields in length, maybe longer, and as he trudged farther out into the bay the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. He kept his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets and felt the heavy wooden trusses sway beneath his feet. There were small food concessions and gaming stalls and the occasional photographer’s booth, most of them boarded up and empty of life; it was only May, and the summer season came late to the Baltic. In August there would be an orchestra and a dance floor and colored lights strung along the pier, if the Nazis hadn’t bombed it by then.

  Most of the people strolling alongside him turned back well before the pier’s end. Jack could just make out a solitary figure etched against the blustery sky; in a close-fitting dark coat and a tweed cap, it seemed contained enough to be Gubbins.

  And if it wasn’t?

  If he’d been set up, and a knife waited at the end of the walk?

  It would be a long swim back to the beach.

  The man turned as he approached. On three sides, the sea; on this rocking platform, only the two of them.

  Jack held out his hand. “How’s business in brassieres these days?” he asked.

  * * *

  GUBBINS OFFERED JACK A LIGHTER and his pack of Player’s. They drew smoke for a few seconds, staring out at the bay, and then the colonel said, “Thesis research, I take it?”

  Jack nodded. “And you?”

  “A sudden urge to see the Free City before it is no longer free.”

  “There’s a hell of lot of gray uniforms in that hotel.”

  “They
’re likely to increase this summer.”

  Jack looked at him. “You think they’ll take Danzig?”

  “And all of Poland.”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  Gubbins smiled. “Why are you here, Jack?”

  He hesitated. He had no idea who gave Gubbins orders, but he trusted the colonel. He badly needed advice in this country where he knew nobody, didn’t speak the language, and was determined to try to rob the Gestapo.

  “I heard Heydrich was in town.”

  Gubbins’s right eyebrow rose. “I watched him play roulette last night. For very high stakes. You’re hoping to interview him?”

  “—Or the man he pays to knife people. I told you about him once. Hans Obst. He’s sometimes called the White Spider.”

  The Englishman tossed his cigarette violently into the sea. “Blond, blue-eyed, medium build, with the body of a wrestler and an inch-long scar bisecting his upper lip?”

  “That’s our Hans.”

  “He shadows Heydrich like a Rottweiler.”

  Jack’s pulse quickened. If both Obst and his master were in the Kasino-Hotel, the account book must be in one of their rooms.

  “Obst must be feeling safe, surrounded by so much gray,” he said. “No fear of his crimes catching up with him. That’s good. It’d be a problem if he decided to hole up in his room.”

  Gubbins looked at him. “You’ll have to find out which one it is, first. I don’t think he’s registered under Obst.”

  “You’re not registered under Gubbins.”

  A faint smile. “When traveling in the lingerie trade,” the colonel said carefully, “I am known as McVean. It’s a family name, of Scots descent. When this war is done I shall retire to Scotland, and take up the ancestral family profession.”

  “Which is?”

  “Killing invaders. Do you have a car, Jack?”

  “A hired one. With French plates.”

  “And a diplomatic passport, courtesy of your father?”

  “Of course.”

  “Excellent. It’s just possible I’ll need your help one night soon.” Gubbins gathered his coat collar about his chin. “Delightful to chat with you, but I’m chilled to the bone. I’ll start back. Give me five minutes before you follow. You’ll forgive me if I treat you as a stranger in public.”

  “And in return for my help?” Jack asked suddenly. “You’ll find Obst’s room?”

  Gubbins glanced at him. “In exchange for your help, I’ll kill the blighter if I have to.”

  Jack stood for what felt like an age, his body shuddering in the wind. He counted five German planes in the sky over Danzig while the minutes ticked by. Bruce Hopper would have loved it.

  * * *

  DIANA WAS MAGNIFICENT THAT NIGHT, supple from massage, her hair freshly coiffed, her face dewy and her beautiful body sheathed in a narrow slip of gun-metal gray. She carried an evening bag Jack had bought as a Danzig souvenir, and it dangled from a steel chain on her wrist. She radiated a cold and terrifying sort of charm and within seconds of her arrival in the casino, she was surrounded by Germans. There were other women in the room but none to equal Diana.

  Jack watched her dip her cigarette holder in a flame. Watched her lips encircle the smoke. She wore elbow-length black gloves, and gave the impression of wearing very little else. She had lined her eyes in black and the effect was exotic and intimidating. The diamond solitaire at her throat winked enticingly. He could not imagine that he had ever possessed the strength to touch her, or that she had ever allowed it. She’d told him that night to leave her alone—she wanted to work the crowd, learn what she could, be a free agent. Jack fought the impulse to drag her from the room by her hair.

  He ordered a glass of whiskey and carried it to the caisse, where he tried to buy a rouleau of chips. There was a delay. A whispered consultation. Eventually an imposing figure attached to the hotel—security? management?—came out of the caisse and asked him, in heavily accented English: “How old you are, boy?”

  Jack felt the blood rush to his face. Wordlessly, he drew his passport from his coat and showed it to the man. It was a night of familiar humiliations.

  When he looked next for Diana, the crowd of gray had parted, and somebody was bowing over her hand.

  The high, domed forehead. The eyes, almond-shaped and narrow. A long, aquiline nose. Surprisingly full lips; everything of the sensualist in them. The ears perfectly molded and set close to the skull. The lean figure in the tailored uniform. Two lozenges of oak leaves on the lapels. The eagle and swastika on the arms. Gold braid at the shoulders.

  I rang up his wife, she’d said in Berlin.

  She and Heydrich had met before, it was clear.

  He led her out onto the dance floor and she turned in a waltz as though his hand at her back was intoxicating. Jack watched her murmur in his ear.

  He keeps a string of mistresses without the courtesy of hiding it.

  Jack’s pulse was pounding in his head. With effort, he looked away. This was no sock hop in Hyannis, no Harvard Smoker. He searched the casino for other faces intent on roulette and dice, blackjack and chemin de fer. Gubbins was seated alone with a fatuous expression Jack mistrusted completely. He allowed his gaze to drift without recognition over the colonel, and come to rest on Hans Obst.

  The White Spider was standing against the opposite wall. He wore a black Gestapo uniform and his eyes were locked on Heydrich as he moved around the dance floor. Jack had no idea whether Obst had noticed him. Was it possible the man could follow him across the Atlantic, through London, even to Rome—and not give a damn that he was in Danzig?

  Then the Spider looked directly at him and lifted his glass in a mocking salute. Don’t worry, the gesture seemed to say. You’re on my turf, now. I’ll kill you whenever I choose.

  Jack saluted back. He was feeling just that reckless. With Heydrich leading Diana to an intimate table away from the gamblers, he needed a good brawl.

  And then somebody jostled him and Gubbins’s voice exclaimed so terribly sorry, as his handkerchief swabbed ineffectually at the drink he’d spilled all over Jack’s evening clothes.

  “Unforgivably clumsy,” the colonel fussed. “I’ve spoilt your evening. You’ll want to get out of those, I expect.”

  “It’s okay.” Jack lifted his whiskey-stained shirt from his chest with his thumb and his forefinger.

  “My name’s McVean,” Gubbins said, beaming. “Allow me to give you my card—I insist upon taking care of the cleaning.”

  “In that case,” Jack said, pocketing the square of cardboard, “I accept.”

  “Jolly good. Feel such a fool. Hope to make amends.”

  The card, when Jack looked at it, offered little to the imagination. James C. McVean, Painter in Oils.

  * * *

  HE STUDIED IT FOR A FEW SECONDS, frowning, and then remembered something Gubbins had told him in the secret room behind the lingerie shop.

  He made his way to the men’s room, and waited for the two Germans in uniform to finish their business at the urinals while he commandeered a stall. His trousers pooled at his feet for convincing effect, he pulled out his cigarette lighter and held the flame near the card. In a few seconds, words appeared, tiny but unmistakably Gubbins’s.

  Car in 10 min. Stop end of drive.

  The colonel had written the message, Jack suspected, with Scotch.

  THIRTY-EIGHT. THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  “I DON’T KNOW THE ROADS or the language,” Jack said.

  “Perfect.” Gubbins slid into the car. He’d been waiting among the trees that lined the avenue to the hotel, another shadow among shadows. “I’ve got a smattering of both, as it happens. Head out of town and drive south for a bit. I’ll tell you where to turn.”

  He settled into the pas
senger seat, his collar turned up, his trilby pulled down. It was, Jack thought, like having a complete stranger beside him. And it occurred to him then that he knew nothing about Colonel Colin Gubbins. Even less about James McVean, Painter in Oils.

  The car bucketed over an enormous pothole and they lurched toward the windshield like rag dolls.

  “Have a care,” Gubbins murmured. “Get a puncture here, and the whole evening will be spoilt.”

  “You sound like a girl with a new party dress.”

  “Something like,” Gubbins agreed. “That’s what we’ll tell them, when they ask—we were bound for an evening party. At your diplomatic legation. Only we got lost and never found it. And then, God help us, we couldn’t find our way back to the hotel. Two hapless English speakers, lost in the wilds of Poland—perhaps we really will puncture the tire for verisimilitude.”

  Jack wanted to ask where they were going and why. But he held his tongue. It was like a birthday surprise. Knowing what was in the box would ruin it. He badly needed suspense tonight. Anything to banish the memory of Diana in Heydrich’s arms.

  They left the town of Sopot with its lights and its restaurants and its glittering vitrines behind them. The darkness of the Polish countryside closed around the car. The road unspooled before Jack’s hood like a ribbon; he was heading south, into the Corridor—the strip of land connecting Danzig to Poland.

  “That siren you unleashed on the casino,” Gubbins said casually when they’d driven in silence for nearly fifteen minutes. “She wouldn’t be Denys Playfair’s wife, would she?”

  “At the moment,” Jack said abruptly.

  “Jolly good. Smashing girl. Has her wits about her, has Diana. Just give her a free hand—she’ll turn up trumps for you. Now,” Gubbins said in a voice that signaled they were done with social chat and were about to attend to business, “slow down. You’ll want to turn into that side road to the left—it’s unmarked, barely visible, but believe it or not that is a direct route from the Polish-Czech border, or direct as these execrable roads ever get. Veritable death traps for anything on four wheels—but that’s exactly what we want, tonight.”