Dry Bones

by Peter Quinn

  “Oh God.” Frieda sounded close to tears. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “What else can go wrong?”

  Roberta climbed out of the rear seat. Dunne was stopped at the corner. Several men were around him. He had one hand on the shoulder of the young man with the revolver; with the other, he gestured toward the car. The young man nodded. He raised the champagne bottle, as if making a toast. Dunne turned and walked back.

  “I was afraid they wouldn’t let you go.” Roberta took his hand. “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth.” He opened the rear door. “I explained my two friends in the back had a run-in with the police, and I had to get them to a hospital. The champagne helped. They were sympathetic. They’re headed to the casinos to show that the Cuban people are taking back their country. Batista has already fled”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that. It’s the gangsters and the American government they blame. They bear no grudge against the American people. At least for now.” He gave her a gentle shove. “Get in.”

  Frieda drove slowly. The swelling mobs parted reluctantly to let the car proceed. In the distance, there was a telltale percussive rattle, either Batista’s loyalists making a last stand or, as seemed more likely from the growing numbers in the streets, the rebels celebrating their triumph. Maybe both.

  Stefan Schwimmer lay still. Bassante let out a moan. His eyes were closed. The ice-laden handkerchief Roberta held against his mouth was soaked with blood. “Let’s get these two to a doctor. We’ve had enough bad luck for tonight. We can try again in the morning.”

  “We’re getting close.” Frieda looked around intently. “I know it.”

  “Roberta’s right,” Dunne said. “There’s just no sense trying to make our way through this chaos.”

  Frieda pulled onto a side street and parked. “The house is right around here.” She grabbed her shoulder bag, hopped out of the car, and started down the street.

  “You’ve got to stop her!” Roberta said. “I’ll stay here with these two.”

  He stared at the dashboard. He ran his hand back and forth over the surface. It looked like metal but felt like water, cold and liquid. Which was it? He pushed on it with the tip of his index finger.

  She poked him hard. “What are you waiting for?”

  “The dashboard.”

  “What about it?”

  He felt it again. The water turned back to metal. How could that be?

  “Fin, are you all right?”

  “Fine.” He stepped out of the car into the street. The outlines of the large, impressive houses that lined both sides of the street loomed in the darkness behind a wall of protective shrubbery. Frieda passed beneath the watery light of the street’s lone lamppost. He followed her. The light grew brighter as he approached until it was so intense he had to shield his eyes. When he was directly below, he looked up. The moon and lamp had melded into an eye the size of a giant grapefruit. Surrounded by a green iris, the pupil was translucent. Yellow light streamed through it.

  “This is it, Fin. I’m sure of it.” Frieda was calling to him in a low voice from a few yards away. She stepped around the shrubbery into a driveway. The carpet of finely ground coral crunched beneath her feet. Ahead was a gracefully arched porte cochere. She mounted three stone steps onto the veranda of the house

  As Dunne walked onto the doorway, the bits of coral scurried away. He heard them cry. They were alive. He tiptoed as lightly as could, trying not to crush them. He joined Frieda on the veranda as she peered through a locked set of French doors into a room that was empty except for some scattered pieces of sheet-covered furniture. She shook her head. “I’m afraid we’re too late. He’s already gone.”

  He put his face to the glass. The sheets rotated around one another in a dance-like motion. As they circled, they fell to the floor, revealing not chairs or sofas, but piles of bones. The bones stirred, snapped together, toes to feet to ankle bones, pelvis and ribs, self-constructing skeletons, each crowned by a smiling skull. They joined hand to bony hand.

  “Christ almighty!” Dunne twisted and jiggled the unyielding doorknob.

  Frieda seized his arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Look in there!”

  “Lower your voice, Fin. We don’t know who might still be around.”

  “Look at them!” The skeletons had formed a slow-moving conga line.

  “Look at what?”

  “At them. The way they’re dancing.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.” He pulled his arm loose. “Look! Look before they’re gone!”

  She cradled his face in her hands. “Your pupils—they’re dilated.”

  He pushed her hands away. “Look!” The line of dancing skeletons snaked into an adjoining room.

  “Fin, you’re seeing things.”

  “They’re real, I’m telling you.”

  “Come with me.” She took firm grip of his hand and led him off the veranda, through the porte cochere, onto the lawn at the rear of the house. She helped him lie down, stroked his head, and took his pistol from his belt.

  The blades of grass tingled against his neck, individual and distinct, hundreds of them but no two alike, the same as with snowflakes and those bits of coral that were all different, all alive.

  “Do you hear me, Fin?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know how it was done, but you’ve been drugged. Do you understand?”

  The blades of grass tickled his hands and neck. He laughed.

  “Close your eyes and relax. Don’t move until I get back, promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He opened his eyes. She was gone. The stars were faded and half-drowsy. The sound of the tumult that had enveloped the city echoed ever more faintly in the distance.

  The blades spoke with chirping voices:

  Is this the happiest you’ve ever been?

  No, I’ve been happier.

  When?

  I can’t remember exactly. But this is fine. I’m happy enough.

  We’re happy when you’re happy.

  It doesn’t bother you that I’m lying on top of you?

  That’s what we’re here for, and when you’re doing what you were put here for, you’re happy. That’s true for everybody, everything.

  I have to think about that.

  Go ahead and think all you like.

  The bits of coral chimed in, murmuring a steady protest against the tires rolling over them. Dunne sat up. Just short of the porte cochere, a car came to a stop. The headlights flashed on and off. A set of cellar doors angled into the foundation of the house swung open. Bag in hand, a figure emerged and hurried toward the car. The driver leaped out and trotted in front of the headlights to greet him.

  Dunne recognized the lights, their harsh brightness. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the glare. They’d taken Dick Van Hull prisoner. He had no doubt about it. “Hey!” he shouted as he got to his feet. “Stay where you are!”

  The driver turned and crouched. A sharp crack and spit of fire was instantly followed by a metallic whine so close to his ear that Dunne sensed its sting. He held up his hand. He’d catch the next one.

  A hard thrust from behind, directly below his knees, cut him down and sent him sprawling face first onto the grass. He turned and craned his neck to see who was on top of him. Roberta’s face was only a few inches from his. She pressed his shoulders to the ground and spoke directly in his ear: “Stay down.”

  The driver fired again. The bullet whizzed overhead.

  As he squirmed to get free, Frieda stepped out of the shadows. She aimed a gun at the car, her right wrist held steady in the grip of her left hand. “Heinz!” she screamed.

  The figure behind the driver, half shielded by the open car door, looked toward her. She fired, once, twice. The first bullet shattered the window shield; the second hit him square in the middle of the forehead. He crumpled onto the driveway.

  Wisps of smoke hovered in front of her face.


  The driver fired a rapid succession of shots as he dragged the body into the car, ran around the rear, and hurled himself into the driver’s seat.

  Frieda fired another shot. The rear window shield exploded.

  The car reached the street, screeched into forward, and raced away.

  “Der Blaue Teufel, I killed him! I saw it! I killed him! She repeated herself several times, her voice growing louder with each repetition.

  Roberta stood. “Give me a hand with Fin,” she said. They helped him to his feet. He looked up.

  The weary, bloodshot moon winked at him.

  Fin, wake up, you’re having a bad dream. Whirr and wheel of time. Seesaw up and down. Drip, drip, going, gone. Maybe time makes no sense. Maybe we make sense of it because if it makes no sense, we make no sense.

  Leftover thoughts from the night before.

  Asleep, her back to him, Roberta purred. Her thick auburn hair spread across the pillow. He lifted the sheet. Her body curved like two hills, a shallow rift between.

  The motionless mahogany blades on the fan suspended from the stucco ceiling: Dunne tried to make sense of them. They were no longer shaped like coccyxes, giant cuckoo beaks, opening and closing ravenously. The blades were just blades.

  He stretched his left arm to the nightstand beside the bed, groped past radio, phone, champagne bottle. His fingers closed around cigarettes and matches. He lit one.

  Inhale, exhale, repeat, inhale, exhale, repeat.

  A rim of sunlight, square and thin, framed the curtains in front of the door leading to the balcony.

  The curtain was just a curtain. No longer a giant movie screen featuring Technicolor newsreels with Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth dancing up the steps to the podium at Nuremberg’s Zeppelin Field as Peter Bunde and Harry Mundy descended by parachute, landing on each side of the chorus of altar boys intoning the Suscipiat.

  Fan was just a fan; curtain just a curtain.

  He sat on the side of the bed, naked, and smoked.

  Inhale, exhale, repeat.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, clasped the cigarette in his teeth, poked the small pile of clothes on the floor with his toes. Under Roberta’s nylons and garter belt were his shorts. He pulled them on and stood. He staggered, grabbed hold of the bed’s headboard, and steadied himself. He gazed down at Roberta’s face, placid, intact.

  He went into the bathroom. He tossed the cigarette into the toilet and took a leak. The leak was just a leak, ordinary. He aimed the yellow stream directly at the butt, an old habit, blasting those Jap aircraft carriers, Remember Pearl Harbor. He gripped the coldwater tap, held a glass beneath, filled it till it spilled, emptied it without pausing.

  He filled the basin halfway, splashed face. Repeat, splash, repeat.

  The face in the mirror above the sink: his. He touched nose, cheeks, chin.

  Last night, the melting face in the mirror above the bureau in the bedroom—whose was that? Roberta’s. Her hair was green.

  Roberta’s hair was auburn, not green. Her face hadn’t melted.

  He noticed red marks on his shoulders. Roberta clasped them in an iron grip. Her nails dug into his flesh. There were lifeless heaps of rags lying about. She wouldn’t let go, and then he didn’t want her to. He exploded inside her, out through himself into her, and through her, into the sky, soared, swooped, wings spread, and landed on the wine-dark sea, only it wasn’t wine-dark. It was azure. Her body rippled beneath him, steady rhythm of waves meeting shore, repeat, repeat, repeat, until they subsided and stopped.

  —Ah, she said.

  —Ahh, he said.

  A jumble of dreams, illusions, illuminations impossible to untangle. Nothing made sense. Everything did. It all fit together. It all fell apart.

  A thought rushed through his head: ¿Cuándo es el próximo tren para Habana?

  He stepped across the bathroom floor. The black tiles were tiles, not spiders. He went into the bedroom. The rug was just a rug, soft and dry, not a puddle of water.

  He put on his pants and shirt, pushed aside the curtain, and went out onto the balcony. The Havana air was gentle, cool; sky, bright blue. In the distance, Morro Castle, solid, sturdy, stood guard over the entrance to the harbor.

  Torn paper, broken bottles, smashed slot machines, and the tops of decapitated parking meters littered the street below. The remnants of a New Year’s celebration as well as a revolution. Pedestrians waved Cuban flags. The celebration continued. A truck went by, horn blaring, voice on the loudspeaker cackling, ¡Viva la revolución!

  Dunne returned inside, closed doors, curtain. Roberta continued to purr. There was a soft knock on the door. He hesitated. Maybe whoever it was would go away.

  Knock, repeat, knock repeat.

  A dream?

  —Who is it?

  —It’s Frieda.

  He put his shoulder to the door. He enjoyed its solidity. The door was just a door, neither dream nor hallucination. His lips almost kissed the panel.

  Roberta woke as soon as he opened it. She wrapped the sheet around herself and dashed into the bathroom.

  Frieda sat at the desk. “Are you all right?’

  “I’m not sure what I remember, what was real, what wasn’t.” Dunne dropped on the bed. Fragments began to form patterns, like pieces in a kaleidoscope. Turn the brass cylinder, pieces fall in place; turn again, they fall apart.

  Roberta came out of the bathroom wrapped in one of the plush white robes the hotel provided. She took a cigarette from the pack and lit it. “You said something strange about the dashboard before you got out of the car. I got worried. I decided to follow you.”

  “Give me one, will you?” Dunne turned the brass cylinder again. “I saw Heinz get it right here.” He tapped the middle of his forehead. “I’m sure it wasn’t a hallucination.”

  She tossed him the pack. He flubbed the catch, bent over, and picked it up.

  “It wasn’t,” Frieda said. “Your gun but my aim. I’m an expert shot.”

  Dunne lit a match. The flame wobbled as he held it to his cigarette.

  “I didn’t know what to think at first. I was afraid you’d cracked and lost your mind. But when I saw your eyes, I was certain you’d been drugged.” Frieda gazed into the street. “That champagne that was sent to your room—it must have been laced with the same stuff they gave Louis Pohl. Those Cubans who drank it—they must have had an interesting night as well.”

  Roberta stood next to her. “What about your brother and Bassante?”

  “I saw them this morning in the hospital. Bassante has a fractured jaw and a concussion. Stefan has several broken ribs. The place is crowded and chaotic. But they’ll be all right.”

  “And you, Frieda? How are you?”

  “Me? I’m better than I’ve been in a very long time.”

  Dunne lay back, head on pillow, forearm over his eyes.

  Maybe he slipped back into the dream. Maybe he listened to the conversation between Roberta and Frieda. Maybe it was the kaleidoscope talking, Dick Van Hull, Michael Jahn, Dr. Niskolczi, nameless, numberless others:

  Heinz is dead.

  At last.

  Case closed, no?

  They’ll destroy every trace of him. As far as historians will know, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Karsten Heinz died of bronchopneumonia in London in 1946.

  Hasn’t some measure of justice been done?

  Some. One murderer made to pay. A legion of others to be pursued, exposed, judged. The dead can’t rest until they are.

  When?

  We’ll see.

  * * *

  Dunne and Roberta flew out of Cuba on the day Fidel Castro made his triumphal entry into Havana. Bassante had left the day before. Frieda and Stefan Schwimmer drove with them to the airport. The crowds were immense and enthusiastic. They were delayed at one intersection for almost a half hour.

  Stefan watched intently as bearded rebels in green fatigues paraded by. “A truly stirring sight,” he said. “It reminds me of when I was in Barcelona, during
the Spanish Civil War, and young idealists like these marched off against the Fascists. Unfortunately, I was also there when the NKVD purged their ranks, and the revolution gave way to the secret police, and the pursuit of human freedom was replaced by enforcement of ideological orthodoxy.

  “I wish them the best. Maybe it will be different this time. For my part, I’m a charter member of the International Brigade of ex-Idealists. I don’t believe in a perfect world. What I seek is a workable one where torturers and murderers of every stripe are brought to justice, the memory of their victims both honored and remembered as a warning against what must never be allowed to happen again.”

  Dunne shook hands with the Schwimmers at the bottom of the boarding stairs. Roberta hugged Frieda. The Schwimmers were leaving the next day for Mexico City and, after that, Tel Aviv.

  “Stay safe,” Dunne said. “Look us up when you’re in Florida.”

  “We will. Meanwhile, stay out of trouble. You’ve seen more than your fair share.” Stefan walked away.

  Departure was delayed by a brief squall. Rain splattered against the window, droplets sliding into one another, plump, plumper, streaming down the glass, vanishing.

  Frieda Schwimmer stayed at the gate until the plane took off.

  Though he knew she couldn’t see him, Dunne waved.

  Though he knew she couldn’t hear, he whispered, “L’chaim, Frieda. Totiusque.”

  Part IX

  Addenda

  OUR HIDDEN HEROES

  by Alvin Capshaw

  (Special to The New York Standard, Sunday Supplement, September 9, 1945)

  The war formally concluded last week on the deck of the USS Missouri is now history. Though various heroic exploits are already well known, time alone will allow a fuller, if never complete, account of our fighting men. Certainlly, each branch of the Armed Services takes pride in highlighting the valor of its members and celebrating their contributions to victory—that is, every branch but one: the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Rather than seek the spotlight, the OSS hugs the shadows.

  The reason for this reticence isn’t self-doubt or an instinct for self-effacement on the part of OSS founder General “Wild Bill” Donovan. It reflects the outfit’s founding mission to undermine the enemy through the “dark arts” of psychological warfare, clandestine operations, and counterintelligence. How many OSS operatives gave their lives as part of this secret war may never be known.