“My condolences on your friend, Communist or not. Please.” Schroeder motioned Eddie to the chair. “Sit. How may I assist you?”
“Tell me who was out there on the west road last night. The PJs found four Arabs, two Europeans they say are Jews and Communists, and D.J. The PJs found a hundred 9mm parabellum shell casings in the sand and tracks that led to and from the water. The tide was out. I wasn’t there but I’m willing to bet submarines were.”
Schroeder nodded and kept the sympathy in his face. “Submarines? Doubtful. Pirates. Smugglers are far more likely. Both cooperate with the PJs and the Communists when a profit can be made. And unfortunately, and I mean no offense, your friend would have reason to associate with any, or all, of those parties.”
“No. Bullshit. D.J. was here to protect me. Period.”
“None of those I mention are trustworthy.” Schroeder held up his hand. “I have heard something, although I do not know its authenticity.” He paused to add concern to a well-crafted lie. “Those dead on the west road were said to be arranging a trade for papers. Papers procured in Haifa that purport to implicate Germany in mass murder. Documents that you, Eddie Owen, brought to Tenerife.”
Eddie froze.
Schroeder shook his head. “No, please, Eddie. I am not angry. If these papers were true, who could blame you?”
“They’re not true?”
“I have not seen them. But if they infer that Germany plans to ‘murder all the Jews of Europe,’ I can unequivocally assure you they are a lie.”
“An American in Haifa died giving them to me . . . Pretty detailed for a lie. Blueprints to kill eleven million Jews in Europe—”
“Nonsense, my friend. Propaganda and an insult to my countrymen.” Schroeder allowed his face to lose much of its compassion. “The Jews who have driven Russia to revolution and infiltrated Germany are our enemy, this is true, but they are also yours—they are a nation within any nation who hosts them. Parasites, but not a shooting enemy who must be killed, only recognized as a tribe who works against the host.”
Schroeder sipped a glass of water and continued.
“Should the international Jew have his own country? I am not opposed. As long as it is not mine. Some may prefer it be America? England? Palestine?” Schroeder opened his hands and shrugged. “See the problem? Germany’s plans, as announced to the world press, are to deport our Jews to any country that will have them. It is as simple as that.”
“You don’t plan to kill them.”
Schroeder exhaled. “Imagine the world outcry? Our position is much better served if we offer our Jews safe passage to any of the noble countries that disagree with us. Within Germany there are less than four hundred thousand Jews, a flyspeck within the entire population of America or the vast empty spaces of Australia or Russia.”
“Other than you, a German, who could prove the papers are fakes or real?”
Schroeder sat back, pretending to consider the question. “First, I would have to see these papers.” He frowned. “Somewhere where you felt safe that I would not abscond with them. Depending upon what they depict, we could determine where this atrocity was taking place. From there it would be simple—have a look.”
“You could do that?”
“Not could; it would be imperative that I undertake such proof in defense of my country.” Schroeder paused. “Eddie, the Jews in my country do not wish to relinquish their hold and they fight accordingly. The ‘religious paradise’ their Zionist segment wishes to build in Palestine they undertake in the most violent of fashions. You have spoken with Saba Hassouneh. She no doubt explained the breadth and depth of the conflict—the European Jew murdering his way through her homeland, claiming it as his own based upon a book of rights he himself has written.”
Schroeder read Eddie for a reaction to “Saba Hassouneh,” unsure of what he saw or the depth of Eddie’s interest in her as a woman. Lacking the context to press further, Schroeder could afford to wait; Saba could not have spoken with Eddie regarding how Bennett actually died. Saba was either dead or dying herself. In due time, Eddie would be told that Saba was Bennett’s killer.
Eddie rubbed his face. “If the papers are real, you’ll shoot me and take them. You have no choice.”
“Shoot you? My God, Eddie, you understand so little. I intend to shoot no one over the Jews. We don’t rebuild our Army and Navy because of Jews. Germany fears Russia. We must have a partnership with America. Shoot you?” Schroeder shook his head. “I wish to help you. Tell me how and I will.”
“Tell me who killed D.J.”
Schroeder nodded. “I will inquire. For now, I think it best I request an audience with the PJs at the highest possible level. In the field, you have seen their eagerness to murder. I would not find it surprising that they organized your friend D.J. Bennett’s death and that they plan yours as well.”
Eddie walked two miles of beach around and over rocks, through seaweed clusters and carpets of sea pigeons. The shadows that tracked him could be PJs or Brits, or just goddamn shadows. The confusion that had followed him out of Erich Schroeder’s hotel had not cleared. Eddie touched D.J.’s .45 cold against his belly and veered off the beach toward the waterfront rubble of Castillo de San Cristóbal. Schroeder had known about the documents but had never asked Eddie’s help to locate them. He mentioned Saba but didn’t know she had been on the west road with D.J. But Schroeder might find out when he inquired about who had done the shooting. What would that mean? Saba had said she was there to kidnap D.J. For whom? Damn sure not the English. Arabs? Oil companies? Schroeder? What would Arabs or Schroeder want with D.J.? Eddie neared Plaza Iglesia and the city’s lights. Dawn in one hour. He hesitated, checked the shadows for anyone watching, then sprinted into the old quarter’s arched stairways and narrow slate-paved streets.
This was stupid in a big way, but he had to know if Saba was okay, had to know if she shot D.J. Eddie cut into the maze. At least anyone following him couldn’t do it unseen. Eddie ran the mud-walled narrows up and around, then skidded to a stop three strides into a dead end. Children, odors of laundry, fried maize, and spicy fish stew. Santa Cruz was coming to life. Eddie backed out, veered right, and ran alleys and steps until stupid overwhelmed him and he stopped. What? Like Saba will admit killing D.J. if she had? Your need to know is worth exposing her and Doña Carmen? Or you being kidnapped by the Brits again? Or murdered by Red Beret?
Eddie didn’t know what was worth what, but unshifting ground was mandatory. Just one little piece. One person a nonspy Oklahoma engineer could trust. Eddie ran the list of candidates and ended with zero. That left Saba. And he was in love with her, right or wrong. Right or wrong? Jesus Christ, he had to be the dumbest son of a bitch on this island. Eddie cocked a hard right for a mud-brick wall. Doña Carmen saved his knuckles. She was one block up and approaching. Two Moroccans trailed her, a leather-handled canvas bag heavy in each of their hands. Doña Carmen noticed Eddie, spoke to the Moroccans, and entered a dry goods storefront alone just as it opened. The Moroccans inspected a street vendor’s fruit they had nowhere to put. Eddie guessed this was a signal, or at least an opportunity.
Inside the shop, Doña Carmen glanced, then asked the shopkeeper for something in the back. He disappeared.
Doña Carmen told a huge sack of beans: “She is not well but alive. Not much longer I fear. She repeats words for which I have no translation or understanding. You are to stay away; she is in Allah’s hands. I have new British customers and PJs and Germans; all sniff the ground. Some for you; all for her. Go away.”
The shopkeeper returned, startled at Eddie’s proximity to the patrona, then smiled and bowed slightly. Eddie smiled back and asked about . . . flowers? The man said no and told Eddie where he might find pink canary orchids after the sunrise.
Eddie wedged out through the Moroccans and fruit seller blocking the door and up the windblown street. Weather was coming and the sellers’ lean-to tents fluttered as they erected them. A group of children bumped him, laugh
ing and pointing at his lumpy face. Frustration and fate balled his hands—“kismet” the Arabs called it—Saba fading alone in a whorehouse basement . . . maybe a murderer, a victim for sure; D.J. dead in this strange volcanic oasis, Newt and his mother fighting the bankers and tired lungs for every breath in the Oklahoma dust.
Sure there was a God.
CHAPTER 24
November, 1938
Five humid days and nights had passed without a telegram from Tulsa, the hospital or the lawyer. Eddie couldn’t call; he had no money in his account and there’d be none until his paycheck two days from now. And when he spent that on the five phone minutes, there’d be nothing left to send. Not knowing, not helping was killing him. Had his mom been operated on? Did the lawyer find Lois and Howard? Was Newt stable in the iron lung? If Culpepper folded or Eddie’s threats to quit lost their value, the last shot for the Owen family would be Benny and Floyd, two bootleggers who were already owed a small fortune for the wrecked Lincoln and the payments to the Nadler family.
Eddie was trying to pay attention to his own safety as well as the refinery’s, and having serious trouble with both. Twice the PJs had told Eddie’s refinery bodyguard to leave and both times the bodyguard found somewhere else to be. This was not comforting; Eddie tried to concentrate on work that paid the bills in Oklahoma and on never being the last worker in any area where the PJs were. That included the canteen, where he was sharing his lunch with an oddly heavy assault of flies and mosquitoes—a bad sign for the volcano, according to the locals.
Eddie pushed his lunch around the plate and glanced the canteen. Animated conversation spilled across the Spanish tables. News of some kind was afoot. He asked. An Irish pipefitter explained. “A Polish Jew, no more’n a cub, shoots him a Nazi diplomat this morning in Paris, Ernst vom Rath. Krauts’re barreling savage, threatening to run every Jew outta Europe if their diplomat dies.”
A mosquito bit at Eddie’s face. He slapped both. “Hitler’s been saying that for a year. Why’s that news now?”
Foreman Paulsen’s assistant came to the table. The last time Eddie had seen the little bastard, he’d led the PJs to Eddie sleeping in the pipes. The assistant passed Eddie a note. The note read: Please meet Herr Schroeder at 7:00 p.m. tonight, the gardens, Grand Hotel Mencey. Eddie folded the note into his shirt pocket. “This your other side job? Other than working for the PJs?”
The assistant harrumphed, turned on his heel, and strode toward the office in his most official manner. The pipefitter said, “Scummers, the lot. Will work for whoever’s throwin’ money at ’em that day.”
At seven p.m., Foreman Paulsen strongly recommended Eddie not leave the refinery. Eddie said, “Great. Let me use the phone.”
“You know I can’t do that. Not without authorization. Tulsa said they’d telegram as soon as there was news. That’s the deal we made with Chicago.”
“Then I’m going into town.”
In town, Eddie now had two refinery bodyguards, both scanning the Grand Hotel Mencey’s gardens. Eddie pulled a chair from Erich Schroeder’s table and sat. Schroeder appeared troubled. “I have spoken with the Policía Judicial commander for all of the Canary Islands. My influence there is . . . felt . . . but not without limits. Generalissimo Franco cannot afford to lose this refinery, nor can he afford a Communist victory of the proportion its loss would represent. Consequently, Nationalist Spain is most concerned with your plans and actions.” Schroeder nodded toward the four PJs who had tracked Eddie to the meeting and Eddie’s two refinery bodyguards who stood just out of earshot.
Eddie said, “Thanks for trying. Who killed D.J.?”
Schroeder frowned, didn’t look away, but didn’t answer. He tapped his right index finger on the table. “We inhabit a harsh world, Eddie. To some degree, I realize that you know this . . . Your family in Oklahoma, your situation here, the things you have seen in the desert—”
“Yeah. Who killed D.J.?”
“The Raven. Saba Hassouneh al-Saleh.”
Eddie shut his eyes.
“She was paid to kidnap him and recover the papers that her employers believed Bennett had or could produce.”
“Who?”
“King Ghazi bin Faisal of Iraq, the young patriarch of the Pan-Arab Army of God. The king intended to use the papers as a tool to rid the desert of the Jew and the Briton. How he intended to do this would have been some form of byzantine blackmail only an Arab could conceive but never prosecute.”
Schroeder patted at Eddie’s hand. “Your brief encounters with Saba, in Saudi Arabia and Iran, were memorable events I am sure, but they cannot prepare you, or anyone for that matter, to understand the Arab, and in particular the Palestinian. Saba Hassouneh fights for a cause that consumes her soul. And her personal history . . . it is a scar that never heals. Although I doubt you can forgive her, the quest for freedom in the colonial nations outweighs her commitment to any other cause or person. These Arabs are a proud people who now scrape for food and the pity of far-off monarchs.”
“Saba didn’t shoot D.J.” Eddie let his confusion bury half the glare. “Who said she did? Where is she?”
Schroeder formed a small, sad smile. “If it is better for you today, then no, she did not. It was an accident of her argument, one I’m sure she wishes she could take back.”
“She didn’t shoot him.”
Schroeder allowed the silence to hang between them.
“Be very careful, Eddie.” Schroeder pushed an envelope to Eddie. “I do not know where Saba is or whether she is alive or dead. Some reports say Bennett wounded her in the fight. I will be away in Munich and sadly of little benefit to you from that distance. My number there is in the envelope. Only use it in an emergency.” He paused, fixing his eyes on Eddie’s. “Saba did not kill your friend out of anger or disrespect. It is part of this terrible game we play. Forgive her if you can or choose to, but do not deny who and what she is. It could very easily be fatal to you as well.”
Eddie’s “breakfast” was presunrise after another night of watching his ceiling fan. Two PJs stood at the canteen’s center pole, watching Eddie look at a cup of coffee he wasn’t drinking. The canteen was empty other than the PJs and two German submariners, clean and crisp in their white T-shirts and denim jeans. The submariners weren’t eating and there was no submarine near the fuel dock. Eddie’s refinery bodyguards were gone. An hour later the submariners were on the gangway road where Eddie was working. Throughout the morning the two Germans were always in his field of vision if there were PJs present. Eddie did the bodyguard math. Schroeder hadn’t been kidding that he was worried.
At lunch, Eddie looked inside Erich Schroeder’s envelope. Schroeder’s envelope had the phone number in Munich, but it also had a voucher/receipt to sign like the one Eddie had signed for the two thousand that had gone to Saint John’s hospital in Tulsa for his father’s surgery. The second voucher/receipt was for an additional $1,000. Nine hundred had been wired to the TB sanatorium for Eddie’s mother and her surgery. One hundred dollars had gone to the Tulsa lawyer representing Eddie’s little brother and sister. When they were safely in a Tulsa foster home, an additional one hundred dollars would be wired.
Eddie choked. His roughened hands covered his face and the tears as they dribbled down his cheeks. It no longer mattered if Culpepper or Standard Oil had sent the money as promised. The Owen family had a chance because a reprieve had fallen from heaven. Eddie wiped his eyes and said a prayer of thanks he didn’t know he knew. Three goddamn years of hate and derision, and the one guy who comes to the dance, unasked, is a Nazi.
Eddie read the remainder of the note. Underneath Erich Schroeder’s Munich phone number was another phone number. This one Eddie could use as a billing number for one five-minute call per week to the hospital or the lawyer in Tulsa. Eddie sprinted for Foreman Paulsen’s office. Lacking direct permission from Foreman Paulsen, the foreman’s assistant denied Eddie access to the phone. Eddie threw the assistant out the door, turned the lock, pried and
hammered the phone cabinet until the locks snapped, then dialed the international operator. She said she would call back. While he waited, Eddie paced the trailer. The phone rang.
A nurse at the Tulsa hospital explained, “Your father is stable in the iron lung but not sufficiently strong to talk. Your mother . . . had her lung deflated this morning. She is also stable. Their prognosis is undecided and will be for the foreseeable future. The hospital and sanatorium have been paid. Your parents will remain under our care and attention—”
The connection quit.
One minute of transatlantic time remained. Eddie tried the Tulsa attorney. When the call went through, the attorney was unavailable. His secretary said the attorney would telegram Eddie the details of his siblings. They had been located at a county orphanage, not Henrietta, and were now in Tulsa, in a good foster home but it had no telephone.
The connection quit. Two calls—a week’s pay had it not been for Erich Schroeder. Eddie glanced at the file cabinet that held Mendelssohn’s papers. What do I do? If the papers are fakes, I don’t have to do anything. If they’re real, I have to do . . . something. But what? With whom? For whom? Maybe the papers are the real reason Erich Schroeder is helping me. He wants them; he’s just playing it slow. I’m so buried in everything else, I didn’t see it.
Eddie jumped to the file cabinet.
The papers were gone.
Eddie ripped through the cabinet. Every file in every drawer. The papers couldn’t be gone. But they were. Eddie stumbled backward into the wall. Foreman Paulsen? His fucking assistant? The PJs? A siren wailed. A system siren—Eddie banged open the trailer door and bolted for the cracking tower.
CHAPTER 25
November, 1938
Mobs of civilian militia rampaged through Munich’s streets. Erich Schroeder’s airport taxi changed direction. Parts of the city were on fire. Glass shards covered the sidewalks. Diplomat Ernst vom Rath had been murdered. By a Jew. Schroeder’s skin tingled. Bands of proud young men and women brandished red swastika flags and smashed windows, shouting: “Juden raus! Juden raus! Auf nach Palästina!” What looked like out-of-uniform SA troopers swung ax handles, beating shopkeepers the troopers dragged into the street. Schroeder smiled at the “spontaneous” eruption of sentiment. Ernst vom Rath was a diplomat so minor most Nazis in the Foreign Service had never heard his name. Now vom Rath was a hero.
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