New York Station

by Lawrence Dudley

  “Oh gawd, oh gawd!”

  “Shut up! We’re not killing you.”

  “Please!”

  W slowly eased back into the shadows, watching carefully, but letting Hawkins carry the interrogation.

  “Now, we’re going to give you a choice,” Hawkins said. “It’s a real choice. Cooperate with us. You won’t be harmed. I promise you. Or, we lock you in the trunk and call the FBI. They’re going to be very interested in that little radio set of yours. What’ll it be? It’s up to you.”

  “Who are you?” Bailey turned his head, desperately, imploringly, looking for W to pull Hawkins away and save him. Hawkins poked him with the gun.

  “You know who we are, don’t you?” Bailey finally caught the accent. He quickly ducked his face down. “Do you know what you’re chancing here, Bailey? Right now the US is still neutral. So that’s what? Five to ten in Alcatraz? Do you know what five years on the Rock would be like? The sea damp creeps up the walls and the foghorns blow all night long. You’re never dry and you never sleep.

  “And you’re taking your chances there. If the US is still neutral when you’re sentenced, you’ll get ten, but suppose the US gets in the war first? Remember the Lusitania? One big liner goes down like the last time. Bang, the US gets in the war. And here you are sending signals to enemy submarines. You know what that means?” Hawkins poked him with the gun again.

  Bailey barely shook his head, his eyes focused on a distant tombstone. Hawkins angled in, pushing into his face.

  “Once the US starts fighting, that little box with the wires coming out isn’t a trifling violation of the Neutrality Act. It’s espionage.” Another poke. Bailey’s mouth hung wide open, panting more from stress than pain or the effort of the fight. “That’s the death penalty. You know how they do it in this country, in the federal prisons?” Bailey tried an indifferent shrug but only managed to hike up a single shoulder. “Electrocution. After they give you your last meal a trustee barber comes in and shaves your head. You have to pay him a quarter for that. Then they take you out to the chair and strap you down with thick leather belts. A guard brings in a heavy braided copper cable with a clamp on the end. He bolts it to your ankle with a lug wrench. It cuts right in. After that they come in with the helmet.”

  Hawkins reached through the car window into the paper bag he’d bought at the deli. He pulled out a jar of kosher gherkins. “Before they put it on you they pour brine over your shaved head so the metal plate in the top of the helmet makes a good contact with your scalp.” With that Hawkins cracked the lid with a soft pop. He began slowly dribbling the pickle juice over Bailey’s crown. The liquid ran down over his face. A pickle skipped off Bailey’s forehead and bounced off his nose without his noticing. “It runs in your eyes and burns.”

  Bailey furiously blinked, twitching his head. It did!

  “And on goes the helmet,” Hawkins said. “It goes right over your eyes and ears so you can’t hear or see a thing.” Hawkins dropped the paper deli bag over Bailey’s eyes. “The last thing you sense in this world is the smell of brine dripping off the end of your nose.” Hawkins held the trigger down, pulled back the .38’s hammer, waited a second. Then he let it go an inch behind Bailey’s head. The shot resounded like a thunderclap in the deserted cemetery.

  With a convulsive YELP Bailey sprang off the trunk. He landed facedown in the gravel, chest and legs furiously swimming. Hawkins grabbed his jacket collar with both hands, dragged him back up onto the trunk, handed W the Colt, snapped the bag off and walked away.

  W put one foot up on the bumper, tilted his hat back and leaned into Bailey’s face. He spoke in a low, smooth, confidential tone, gently waving the pistol. “Don’t be stupid. The man’s making a very generous offer. What do you do this for? For money, right? You’re not a believer, are you? For Hitler? For him? If you go to jail, what good’s the money?” Bailey barely shook his head. The vein in his neck pulsed more. “Can you cancel that signal?”

  Bailey finally spoke. “No. Too late. I signed off.” He began slowly calming down.

  “Good. That’s better. Where’d it go?”

  “Submarine off the coast.”

  “Which one?”

  “Don’t know. They change all the time.”

  “They signal back?”

  “No. It’s only a transmitter.”

  W glanced at Hawkins and nodded. Almost everything he wanted. One more push.

  “How much they pay you, Bailey? What’s a car like that cost, eleven, twelve hundred?” Bailey nodded. “And who brings the money?”

  Bailey hesitated. “A German businessman. Name’s Hans Ludwig. Don’t see him that often.”

  “Ludwig!” Hawkins swung around and over, leaning into Bailey’s face next to W. “Hans Ludwig? A doctor?”

  “Not a medical one. I don’t think—”

  “Has a small beard, rather like a goatee?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Maybe fifty?”

  “Right.”

  “Straight black hair?”

  “That’s him.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Hawkins stepped away, turning his back to Bailey, facing W, raising his eyebrows, then mouthed “wow.” In seconds his whole expression, voice, demeanor, even his posture had changed slightly. The dead look vanished, an intrigued, questioning gaze replacing it, voice quickening as he straightened up.

  “When do you meet him again?” W said.

  “Seven weeks.”

  “Very good.” W nodded back to Hawkins. He shoved Bailey back into the Cord’s trunk. “That’s enough for now. If you make so much as a peep, I’ll drive this damn thing off a bridge.”

  Hawkins pulled Bailey’s belt off and buckled his feet to a strut in the trunk. Bailey seemed comically relieved, obligingly squirming into position. It was proof somehow they weren’t going to hand him over to the Bureau, or worse. Hawkins, the inquisitive smile still on his face, lightly closed the trunk without a word, as if it contained nothing more important than old laundry, then stood in front of it, hands on his hips, whistling softly.

  -27-

  Hawkins picked up the pickles, munching on one, offering another to W. They began walking across and down the gravel lane.

  “What’s that doctor business about?” W said.

  “I found the name Ludwig in a matchbook on one of the men who jumped me in Lisbon. Then a Hans Ludwig showed up on the plane. Claimed he was a Swiss insurance executive. Former professor.”

  “Huh! He’s not Swiss.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “You didn’t give anything up. That was good,” W said.

  Hawkins offered W another pickle. “I’m glad he didn’t call our bluff.”

  “We were bluffing?”

  “What do you mean, Bill?”

  “Some rather rough stuff there—”

  “No. For show.”

  “That was an act?”

  “I had to rattle him.”

  “All of it was an act?”

  “Yes. You have to convince them you mean it.”

  “Maybe you’ve been watching too many gangster movies—‘You’re never dry and you never sleep’?”

  “No. You have to find a shortcut, go for the senses, hit the gut. Can’t try and reason with him. No time. The senses are a more direct path to the mind. Sensation distracts him from what he’s thinking, breaks his train of thought. Sea damp and brine. Not really hurt him.”

  “Throwing him around?”

  Hawkins drifted to a stop, a pickle hovering in midflight, his hand shaking ever so slightly. “That, too.”

  W stared at him skeptically. “I hope so. Remember—”

  “Yeah, I know. No ticking the Yanks off. What’ll we do with him?” He popped the pickle in his mouth.

  “Think I’ll have that new fellow who picked you up—Ian Fleming’s his name, he’s a naval officer, just came over—have him drive Bailey to Canada. He needs some experience.”

  “We’re there, too?”

>   “Yes. The RCMP will hold him. He’ll be working for us before that seven-week payday comes around.”

  “Mounties!” Hawkins laughed. “Oh, brilliant! There’s a lot of boot to lick.”

  “Indeed. We’ll give you cover as a civilian employee of the commercial section of the consulate here in NY.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  “I have a contact at the FBI. See if you can bluff out of him how Ludwig entered the country. What’s your take on him?”

  “Very high-level type. That lout in the trunk’s the tip of a good-sized iceberg, whatever the hell it is. Ludwig probably sent that letter Bermuda found.”

  W wrote a note on a card and tore it off. “I agree. Here’s the name of that Bureau contact.”

  Hawkins studied it. “Is this safe?”

  “I think so. I know, it’s a bit unusual, contacting the locals. You do have to be careful. Obviously, it’s quite the sham. He’ll suspect everything and know he can’t prove anything. It’ll be an interesting little dance.”

  “Only going to be here a couple of weeks. By the time—”

  “Think about that. Meanwhile, remember, while you’re here, you’re undercover. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Whoever knew you in the past. They’re all off-limits. They all could ask dangerous questions.”

  “I figured I’d be back in Europe now anyway. Nothing new.”

  “No, it’s completely new. The real danger here is feeling at home in your father’s country. You don’t have the cues of a foreign society to keep you on edge, keep you alert. You’ve got to act like a stranger to keep your guard up. It’s the only way to stay safe.”

  “I can handle it. It’s temporary anyway.” They stopped walking. “You said the Americans don’t turn people. It doesn’t occur to them—well, to be cynical—that Bailey merely took the initiative in penetrating Ludwig’s ring?”

  “No. They don’t reflect on what a huge investment a mole represents. How hard it is. The time. The money. The energy. With us, if Bailey agreed to con his former employers and kept it up, he might get a medal for all the lives and ships he saved. The very idea’d probably give the Bureau hives.”

  “That’s what I call irony. We have to be the ones to keep Ludwig from being arrested.”

  “That’s it. The last thing we want is to start from scratch finding Ludwig’s replacement. This FBI man can save you hours of tedious legwork, but you’ve got to be careful not to let on too much. We’ll tip off Ludwig ourselves, if we have to, to keep him from being arrested. He’ll recontact Germany eventually. Bermuda will pick it up and we’ll get back on his trail.”

  “Right.”

  “So. We’re done. Why don’t you relax tonight. Have a drink, go see a picture. Remember, no calling friends, relatives, girls.”

  “Right.”

  “By the way. How’d you know about this place?”

  Hawkins gestured with a pickle down at a Veterans Benefits Administration headstone in front of him.

  WILBUR EMERSON HAWKINS

  COMPANY A, 14TH NEW YORK INFANTRY

  1891–1937

  Under the name was engraved a small Purple Heart.

  “Ah. I see,” W said.

  “Didn’t bring any flowers.” Hawkins put the jar down in front of the stone. “Maybe this will do.”

  “I’m sure your father won’t mind.”

  “No. He won’t.”

  “A pickle jar. How’d you ever think to interrogate a man with a pickle jar?”

  Hawkins shrugged, took the Cord and drove off back to the ferry. W watched him go, unloaded the .38 and started laughing, a relieved, happy laugh.

  -28-

  With nightfall the heat of the day broke. People began pouring onto the avenues to catch a cool breeze off the harbor. Hawkins strolled down Broadway through the nightclub district. A movie, he thought. Maybe a cold beer. Been a hot day. Enthusiasm was lacking, though. The cemetery, that’s what had done it. That was always a sobering trip.

  He reached Times Square and the explosion of lights and neon overhead. The Planters Peanuts man, glasses of Coca-Cola, a Gulliver-sized cancan dancer flipping her neon skirt all riotously fought for attention. Not a sight like it in the world. Impossible to resist. He finally started to grin. Amazing. But then—

  New York had no blackout, unlike London or Paris. Seeing the lights on was normal. But normal now felt deeply strange. And that was strange itself.

  A man his age pushed by. A girl with red hair brushing her shoulders in time with her hips curled her arm through her date’s. Their eyes danced together as they walked. They disappeared in the crowd. That was New York at night. Times Square, life, exuberance, the sense of possibility. Only not tonight, not for him. Or any night here, for him.

  The news ticker wrapping around the Times building posted a news flash: LONDON BOMBED. The sense of strangeness wound up some more. East End must be catching hell, Hawkins thought. Another news flash rounded the ticker. WILKIE TIES ROOSEVELT. The election. It was close. Houghton, W, they were right. The chilling sense of strangeness rose again.

  Past Forty-Fifth Street he hurried by the front of the Hotel Astor. Inside the lobby loitered the usual gathering of young men and women waiting to meet their dates. Dainty hats with wispy veils crowned neat summer hair and dresses bursting with flowers.

  Hawkins thought of the man with the redhead again. Probably came from here. Could I hustle someone else’s date? W’s little brief popped back to mind. No fraternization.

  He slipped into the plush lobby, idly wandering around, scanning the crowd. The feeling he had that morning, watching people through the deli window, returned full force. The glass was still there. Impenetrable, all around him. Who were these people? They still felt impossible to touch or reach, as far away as a movie star on a screen. He circled around and left.

  A blue and silver satin banner fluttered down the high window of the Paramount Theatre. AIR-CONDITIONING. The marquee proclaimed, THE GREAT MCGINTY, PLUS CAB CALLOWAY AND HIS COTTON CLUB ORCHESTRA. That’s it. A midnight show. He hurried into line. A nearby store selling radios had speakers blaring onto the sidewalk. As he moved along Hawkins heard a familiar voice.

  “Thank God, the polls have Wilkie ahead, folks. But I’m not surprised.” Ventnor again. “After all, Wilkie’s not accusing Roosevelt of anything. A third term is gonna mean ‘dictatorship and war.’ We’ve got to stick to Americans and Americanism. The only threat we face is from Washington. They’re our biggest problem. They actually want a war so they have an excuse to take us all over and run everybody else’s lives. All their gab about the so-called clear and present danger is a ploy to make us shut up and go along with their big government schemes.”

  The people in line seemed to be oblivious of Ventnor. Or were they merrily distracted, seized by the indifference of a night on the town? Occasionally a couple would whoop and flip out of line and back with a quick snappy dance step. They seemed happy, not angry like Ventnor. No escaping the broadcast, though.

  “You know, folks, a day or two after President Rosenfeld and his pointy-headed friends, all those so-called in-tee-lectuals, the big Jewish bankers, they’re all in cahoots with the British royal family—they own half the world, along with the Masons—they proposed repealing the Neutrality Act. We let you know and you did the right thing. Yessir. Tons of angry letters swamped Congress. Why, Senator Wagner alone got twenty thousand letters in a single day. That really stunned them down there, I’ll tell ya.”

  By now the line had finally snaked through the cavernous lobby into the huge theater. The multistoried chandeliers dimmed and winked out, hushing the crowd. The curtains rolled back with a fanfare. In recognition of the growing patriotic mood the projectionist put up a rippling picture of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by a medley of patriotic music.

  The crowd stood, singing. Hawkins heard a familiar tune and rotely followed along. “God save our gracious King, long live …”

  People around him began turning an
d staring. He flinched and nearly dropped his popcorn—My God, Hawkins thought. I’ve been singing “God Save the King,” not “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” He chimed in at the last stanza, extra loud, “From every mountaintop, let … uh … freedom ring.”

  The music segued to “America the Beautiful.” The man in front of him stiffly spun around, fists clenched. “Wise guy!” He stood a second. Then, as if not knowing what to do or say, repeated it, louder, shouting over the music, “Wise guy!” The rebuke retribution itself. Hawkins froze, waiting in horror. What next? Oh no. They’re going to call the usher. But the music segued to a rousing rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The man instantly spun back to join in.

  When it was over Hawkins squeezed down into his seat, mind racing. My God. How could I have done that? Quite the secret agent I am. This is the Paramount, not the Odeon. Times Square, not Leicester! A slipup like that at the wrong moment—could wind up dead. W was right. I don’t have the cues of a foreign society to keep me sharp.

  The curtain rose on the stage show. An explosive cord. The band started up. A huge whoop rose through the audience. Dozens of young couples sprang into the aisles. Watching other people dance—ugh, Hawkins thought. Should’ve gone back to the hotel. He glanced down at his still feet for a moment, then up at the dancers. Righto. Time to go. But the aisles were packed. Another ruckus to get out. He grudgingly eyed the dancers, then began actually paying attention. What?

  Swing hadn’t really crossed the Atlantic yet, at least not to the Continent. In Europe the latest thing was still Dixieland. This was new. All new. The sound. The dance style. Wilder. More energetic. Startlingly more sexual.

  A man in a white satin suit dripping with sequins leapt onstage and threw his arms up. Cab Calloway. A huge roar from the crowd. He began whirling and spinning, one leaping acrobatic dance step on another, waving his arms and baton, cranking up the tempo, grinning widely, long hair flopping over his forehead. The music, the beat, thunderous.