Hold Tight

by Christopher Bram

  Erich rode the bumping chair, holding on to the arms with both hands. “Died in his home. Isn’t that a euphemism for suicide?”

  “You can’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Mason grumbled behind him. “We tried to keep it out of the papers. The boy’s family was apparently too important for there not to be some kind of mention.”

  “How did you convince the police and press it was suicide? Did you actually plant the body in Rice’s apartment?”

  “We’re not criminal masterminds, Erich. All that was required was a little paperwork, our own mortician and a closed-coffin funeral. Which was yesterday.”

  “What about the witnesses?”

  “There was only the theater’s projectionist. He had no idea who Rice was, of course, but we explained this was an espionage case and none of it could be made public. He understood perfectly. He’s a veteran and a member of the American Ordnance Association. He can be trusted.”

  “And the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  “There was a girl with the projectionist.”

  “No. Sullivan cleared the theater thoroughly and said there was only the projectionist in the booth. His assistant had gone out to watch a rally in Times Square. Perhaps you hallucinated the girl.”

  Erich was certain he had seen a girl, but she had nothing to do with his case.

  The wheelchair stopped and turned. Mason pulled it up beside a park bench, where he sat down, took a deep breath and pulled out his cigarettes. “I’m sorry you saw that newspaper, Erich. Damn the Times. I had hoped to convince you Rice didn’t die. You did pass out at the end. So…” He lit his cigarette, drew on it and wearily exhaled. “You understand, we’ve done all this to protect you and Hank.”

  Erich almost laughed. “No, sir. You’ve done it to protect yourselves. Because you can’t secretly court-martial a man for murdering a civilian. You have to try him publicly. And you’re afraid of what would be made public if Hank and I testified.”

  Mason frowned. “Leave it to a foreigner to know more about his new land than the native. Yes. We can change murder into suicide but we can’t try a murderer in private. Silly, isn’t it?”

  “What do you intend to do with us?”

  “There are highly damaging charges against you, Erich. You’re an accomplice to murder, for one. You’ll sign a confession. Which we’ll sit on. So long as you keep your mouth shut about what happened, that confession will remain sealed in your file with the FBI. You’ll be transferred out of New York, of course, but we’re keeping you in the Navy. You’ll be easier for us to watch, at least for the duration. But for the rest of your life, Erich, there’ll be a confession in Washington to be used against you the minute this story becomes public.”

  None of it surprised Erich. He had imagined several schemes to keep him silent, including this one. “And Hank Fayette?”

  “Hank will be institutionalized. As planned. He’s very lucky. He assumes he’ll be sent to the electric chair, almost wants to be sent there. He confessed to everything, claimed full responsibility for the murder. He even claimed you were there only to try to stop him. Is that true?”

  “No.” Seeing where everything stood, Erich could tell other truths. “Fayette isn’t mentally defective or retarded, you know. He’s just innocent. Or was.”

  “Yes? I’ve wondered that about Hank, now and then. Well, the proper cranial surgery will fix that, whatever the truth is. But you deliberately took part in the murder? What was it like? I ask out of professional curiosity.”

  Erich made his move. “What if I told you I won’t sign anything unless you make the same arrangement with Hank?”

  Mason looked mildly surprised. “Release Hank, hoping he’ll remain silent out of his own self-interest? I’d say that was a very foolish impulse, Erich.”

  “Fayette has no more to gain than I do by telling his story.”

  “But Hank’s not rational the way you are, Erich. This way, you have only your own silence to worry about. That way, you have Hank’s to worry about, too. If we released Hank, and he talked, sometime in the near or distant future, both of you would be charged. You’d lose the secret protecting you from prosecution. You want to make yourself hostage to this man’s silence for the rest of your life?”

  “Yes,” said Erich. “I trust Hank Fayette that much. And he’ll be my hostage. For the rest of his life.”

  Mason leaned back and studied Erich. “Then Sullivan was right about you? That you’ve become…you and Hank are lovers?”

  “No. Not that it matters, but we’re not. Do two men have to be lovers to care what happens to each other?”

  “Not at all. Only this is an extreme case. You’re talking marriage for life.”

  “We’re bound together for life anyway. In my conscience.”

  “Of course,” said Mason. “Guilt. The root of so much unhappiness. People do the damnedest things out of guilt.” Another sigh, then, “What if I come back in a week and see if you still want to insist on that condition?”

  “It took me this long to make my stand,” said Erich, “a week or a month isn’t going to change me.”

  “No. I don’t think it will.” Mason tossed his cigarette down and ground it with his heel. “All right, then. I’ll have to speak to both Sullivan and the rear admiral about this. If they refuse and it’s not a bluff, it means humiliation for us and prison for you.”

  “It’s not a bluff, Commander.”

  “No. I realize that. We also have to see what Hank’s response is.”

  “Can I talk to Hank?”

  “No. The rear admiral’s given in to Sullivan on that. You are not to see each other, for fear you’ll conspire against us in some way. I suspect it’s just Sullivan’s way of punishing you. He really does think you’re boyfriends.” Mason stood up, positioned himself behind the chair and began to push. “Uh, I’m sorry about your leg. That was awfully clumsy of Sullivan.”

  Mason wheeled Erich back to the porch, then called for an orderly to take the patient back to his bed.

  “Goodbye, Erich. I’ll get back to you in a day or so.” Mason walked around the building to the parking lot in his usual undefeated, un-naval gait.

  He did not return for three days. During that time, Erich’s only doubts were about Hank. Mason had said Hank seemed to look forward to dying. Was it right to deny him that death? Erich thought it was. Hank would learn to live with the killing.

  It was raining the day Commander Mason came back, and they couldn’t go outside. Mason asked for a room with a table. They were given an examining room with tiled walls and a metal table. Mason turned on the light and set two pieces of paper in front of Erich.

  “I think you’re a fool. Sullivan thinks you’re a deviate and the rear admiral, oddly enough, thinks you’re a most stubborn but principled young man. But they’ve agreed to your conditions. All you have to do is sign the agreement and your confession.”

  The agreement was simple enough, words to the effect that any charges for actions committed on July 3 and July 4, 1942, were waived so long as Erich did not make those actions public. The agreement was in triplicate, each copy already signed by Rear Admiral Whyte.

  The confession, typed on a single sheet of Navy letterhead, was equally simple and to the point. There were only the dates and the charges: insubordination, dereliction of duties, aiding and abetting the murder of one Thomas Blair Rice III. It was explained that all evidence of that murder had been suppressed due to the wartime emergency.

  “A bureau lawyer drew these up,” Mason explained, “so it’s all very legally illegal. The confession’s vague but enough to bring you to trial, where the details would come out. The agreement’s just a scrap of paper. Useless in court but it makes the rear admiral happy.”

  “How do I know you offered Fayette the same deal?”

  “I have this to show you. And this.” Mason laid two more sheets of paper on the table. One was a confession similar to Hank’s, confessing to the murder of
Rice in the first or second degree. The signature on it was as plain and legible as a name written by a child. Erich was realizing he had never seen Hank’s signature, when he noticed the other sheet of paper, covered with the same grade school script:

  Dear Eric,

  I am writing you to show you this is me.

  I think I should die for killing the spy. He kills Juke and I kill him and the law kills me. An eye for an eye. It is what I owe Juke.

  I did not want to get you in this. I thank you for getting in. The best way I can thank you is to stay alive. If I am dead it will be more easy for them to kill you “by accidunt.” If there are two of us know what happened it will be more hard for them to kill us both. I will stay alive and silent.

  Good luck and thank you. Maybe we see each other in or after the war.

  Love, Henry Fayette

  P.S. To prove you this is me. I am sorry about the night in your room. I did not understand. I was glad you are not the same.

  Erich was disappointed to find no trace of Hank’s voice in the note. But then Hank wasn’t a very literate man. It was natural his writing would be stilted and not part of him. Erich had forgotten about their failed attempt at sex. So much had happened since then.

  “I read it,” said Mason. “I must say, he’s even more paranoid than you. As if Uncle Sam could arrange an accidental murder or two. You both seem to compensate for your trust in each other by distrusting everybody else.”

  Erich could not answer except by asking his next question. “How do I know you won’t send Hank to an asylum, despite this confession?”

  “You don’t. You’ll have to trust the rear admiral’s unimaginative streak of decency. And me. Through all of this, Erich, have I ever lied to you?”

  It was Erich’s turn to be surprised. “No. At least not that I know of.”

  “I haven’t. I’ve treated you as an equal, used you as an audience. And it’s more interesting watching an intelligent man respond to the truth than it is to lie to him.”

  “You just enjoy playing God,” Erich said. But that accusation was also a very good reason to believe Mason was telling him the truth.

  “I do. It’s a fascinating experience,” Mason admitted. “Will you sign?”

  Erich signed, first the agreement, then the confession.

  Mason signed his own name on the witness line, then put Erich’s papers and Hank’s confession into his briefcase. “You can keep Hank’s note.”

  “Can I meet with Hank? For a few minutes, that’s all I ask.” Erich wanted to tell Hank he should not feel responsible for Juke’s death, or so responsible only his own death could atone for it. If Hank had died, would Erich feel like that?

  “No. The rear admiral wants Hank shipped out as quickly as possible. They’re keeping him in the Navy, too. He’s being sent to the Pacific. You’ll be given destroyer duty in the Atlantic once your leg has healed. The rear admiral isn’t conscious of it, but I believe he secretly hopes one or both of you will be killed in action before this war is over. No accidents, mind you. Just fate.”

  The idea was too brutal to be faked. It put to rest any suspicions awakened by their refusal to let Erich see Hank.

  “Well, Erich. It’s been interesting knowing you.” Mason snapped the briefcase shut and locked it. “I’d love to speak to you five or ten years from now, when you have a little distance on this folly. If I don’t see you in court before then.”

  “You won’t. Unless we lose the war and the next government opens the files.”

  “We won’t lose the war. Americans never lose,” said Mason. “Although Hank’s premature execution of our spy certainly won’t speed things along.”

  And that was the final reason why they gave in to Erich and Hank. Their confidence in victory was so strong they couldn’t really believe Hank and Erich had done them irreparable harm. They could afford to be decent. Now that he had won, Erich wondered if they were right to be so confident.

  “Goodbye, Erich.” Mason held out his hand.

  Erich hesitated, then picked up Hank’s note, carefully folded it and slipped it into the pocket of his robe.

  Mason lowered his hand. There was no look of displeasure over Erich’s refusal to shake it. “Good luck, Mr. Zeitlin. You’ll need it.” And Commander Mason parked his cap on the back of his head, picked up his umbrella and the briefcase full of confessions, and departed.

  Erich sat alone in the examining room. Rain beat against the window. It was over. It seemed to be completely over. He imagined the war over and he and Hank, out of uniform, meeting together in the ruins and explaining themselves to each other. If they were still alive.

  EPILOGUE

  HANK FAYETTE RETURNED TO Beaumont after the war, with an honorable discharge and a Japanese flag. People were pretending the war had been only a long interruption, that nothing had changed. Like almost everyone, Hank threw himself into the traditional life—he married Mary Ellen Johnston.

  Their marriage was annulled three months later when both admitted they had changed. Mary Ellen moved back to Port Sabine, where she had done wartime work as a secretary at a shipyard. Her father found Hank a job as a carpenter. Hank’s own parents were long dead and there was no reason for him to stay in Beaumont. But he stayed. He worked with a construction crew building tract homes in the worn-out farmland out toward the Sabine River refineries. He could have bought himself a home, using GI Bill money, but he preferred his rooms over the drugstore on Main Street, around the block from the bus depot. For a long time there wasn’t much to his life except work and late night walks through the dead town. He sometimes walked through the colored section of town, where chickens roosted in trees in people’s front yards and slow talking, stand-offish boys behind the cinderblock store tried to sell him reefers or race records. They couldn’t imagine why else a white man wanted to talk to them. Hank wasn’t sure himself.

  He joined the Beaumont Baptist Church, sitting every Sunday in the row of folding chairs behind the pews, where the men without families sat. There he met Forrest, who lived outside of town with his mother. Forrest introduced Hank to his special circle of friends, men who came from as far away as Lake Charles to the parties Forrest threw in the rec room in his basement. Everyone was very Southern and polite, until Forrest’s mother went to bed.

  There were no orgies, only talk, but an orgy of indiscreet conversation. The dozen or so men were very romantic, very nervous. Hank was paired with Forrest for a time, then, one by one, with others. Farmer or teacher, married or bachelor, handsome or plain, it seemed to make no difference to Hank. The others didn’t know what to make of him. He was a man with whom you could be seen in public without fear of anybody talking. He was strong, masculine, reserved. In bed he was somebody else entirely—loud and hellacious, violently affectionate. Forrest and his friends prided themselves on their double lives, but Hank Fayette seemed downright schizophrenic. And it was no good falling in love with him. He loved back much too easily, almost insincerely. When someone ended it with him, frightened by his wildness in bed or worn out by his silences, he never made a scene the way the others did when they changed partners. He accepted it with a nod and looked relieved.

  Over the months and years, they romantically passed Hank around without really making him one of them. They grew accustomed to his peculiarities. Forrest often brought out his 16mm projector and showed the muscle movies he ordered through the mail; nothing dirty, just crewcutted bodybuilders posing for each other in G-strings or gladiator costumes. The dirty stuff came in the form of comments from the viewers. Hank always left the room when the projector was turned on. He said he just didn’t like movies. They found that strange, considering what Hank did in bed. They also learned not to say anything against Jews or niggers in his presence. He went nuts, called you faggot, said faggots were the niggers of the world and that putting down the coloreds didn’t make you white. He spoiled more than one party with his ranting. And yet, they continued to invite him back, even after e
veryone had been in and out of love with him. “There’s one in every crowd,” they said. Hank continued to see them. They were the only game in town and he had a creeping fondness for their romance, jokes and lies.

  In the other world, Hank was known as a good citizen, serious and sober, a member of his church and the volunteer fire department. It was too bad about his marriage. The contractor Hank worked for made him foreman. There was a high school kid on his crew that summer, a wiry seventeen-year-old with curly black hair and a mouth, forever razzing and teasing the foreman. Hank took a liking to the boy and invited him back to his rooms one night for a beer. Once there, Hank found himself unable to do anything except show the boy the silk flag from Japan and ask what he wanted to be when he grew up. Hank did not know how to cross over from one life to the other. The summer ended and the boy returned to school.

  All too quickly, the past became past. When Hank’s boss and others talked about the war now, they talked about it as a guilty pleasure, a time of adventure and horseplay that would have been better spent making money and starting families. Forrest’s friends, most of whom had been in the service, talked about that time as a golden age, days in a world of available men when there were more choices than the dozen overly familiar faces in this basement rec room. Hank never talked about his war.

  Not until February 1953 did Hank hear from Erich Zeitlin.

  There was a telephone call one Saturday from a man who said he knew Hank in New York City during the war. Erich. He was in Galveston on business and wanted to know if he could drive up to Beaumont that afternoon and have a drink with Hank. Hank said sure. Only after he hung up did Hank feel excited by the prospect, then frightened by it. Here was a man who had helped Hank kill someone, then saved Hank for the life he was now living. What do you say to such a man?

  A few hours later, a man with Erich’s face sat on the faded roses of the sofa’s worn upholstery, a glass of Hank’s bourbon in his hand. He kept on his heavy tweed overcoat. The bald spot in his hair was still pink from the cold outside. Hank felt very old just looking at him. His own hairline had receded an inch or two up his brow and the flesh under Hank’s jaw had thickened, suggesting a bandage wrapped around his head for a toothache. He was often teased at Forrest’s for looking like he suffered a toothache.