Long-in-the-tooth as we were for frontline service, Jimmy, a veteran Cleveland cop, had finagled an intelligence role for himself, just as I had done.
Through a haze of smoke, I said, “Höttl’s not a real handle?”
Jimmy nodded. “Try this one on for size: Rudolph Van Ostrand, born in Bad Wildbad… Baden-Württemberg. His father was a butcher. Mother was an Austrian musician. Sounds an uneasy match to me. Boy helped out around the family business through his early teens. Might explain a few things about his blood-lust, I suppose.”
“Not sure which name I like least,” I said. “How’d you dig up this nugget on Höttl/Van Ostrand?”
“Wasn’t particularly easy, that’s for sure,” Jimmy said. “These career military intelligence dolts treat information like it’s private wealth. They hoard and protect it and fret over it. So in other words, I stole this gen.”
Jimmy pulled two shot glasses and a virgin bottle of Glenmorangie from the pocket of his overcoat. “The stuff these Frogs call whiskey is swill,” he said. “So I brought a wee dab of civilization. Proper single malt whisky, with no ‘e’, that is to say.” He passed me the bottle and said, “You’ll do the honors, won’t you, Hector?”
I broke the seal on the single malt and poured as Jimmy lit his own cigarette. I said, “How many of these soldiers did you bring over with you?”
Jimmy held his glass up to the overhead light. “Probably the cleanest glasses in this God forsaken land,” he said. He set his down for filling and said, “Smuggled in a case. So go easy, we’re not beating back the heathen Hun with anywhere near the alacrity I anticipated. I’d like to have at least one bottle left to toast der Fürhrer’s demise.”
“May yet come sooner rather than later,” I said. “Rommel got his ass kicked on the way to Tunis, I hear from my buddy Henry J. Jr. And Ike’s ‘Operation Torch’ came off pretty well. And the Russians are gathering force again in Stalingrad, they say, siphoning off more of Hitler’s assets to shore up there in Russia. There are hopeful signs.”
“Tell that to Vichy, France,” Jimmy said.
I shrugged. “We’ll get Southern France back too, in due time.”
We tapped glasses. He said, “Slainte.”
I added, “To the death of the Reich,” and we winced together at the burn. I said, “That is good stuff.”
“Ah, yes, it is. But I feel a bit the traitor. I actually prefer this Scottish brew to Jameson.” Jimmy hesitated, then said, “This child you’re trying to save, to smuggle home, it’s a salutary notion, Hector. But why personally make that run with her? I’m sure you could pull strings to get some sturdy lads to do the job for you.”
“Maybe. But they wouldn’t be committed like I am. The girl’s also very withdrawn. She’s been living behind that false wall for some time, Jimmy. She’s, well, mildly troubled, I fear. I’m the only person she’s willing to make the dash with, and that’s mostly because of my dog.”
Jimmy smiled. “Ah, grand! Yes, the canine. How you’ve managed to keep a pet in this bedlam’s another thing I can’t get my brain ’round, Hector, not one bit.”
I trailed a fingertip around the rim of my glass. “Pet? Nah, partner. And Patton is toying with getting a bull terrier, I hear. If that cretin can have a dog in theatre, I certainly can. And then I’ll be able to say Patton’s copying me.”
Jimmy roared. “Ah yes, the estimable George S. You two go back to Mexico, to the Pershing Expedition, if memory serves – and it always does. You Yanks do hold a grudge.”
“Look who’s talking,” I said. “Besides, the older I get, I come to see we just become more the men we are. Patton started out bottom rung, and he avowedly ain’t improving with age.”
“Well, a child, a dog, and Höttl hard at your heels. It’d make a fine screwball comedy for back home. Andy Hardy v. the Nazis… Abbott and Costello Meet Hitler, maybe. It’s a daft notion, Hector. The deck is already calamitously stacked against you.”
“Maybe, Jimmy. Thing is, Höttl wants this child, badly. Or his boss does. It’s the same thing in the end, really. They want this little girl, the only one to evade their grasp in this purge they ran on an orphanage a time back. So for all kinds of reasons, they’re going to be denied their desires. I wanna shove this stick in Höttl’s eye, and I want him to know exactly who gouged him.”
“Hokey-dokey, then,” Jimmy said. “So. Where are you taking her?”
“First objective is to get her on a plane or boat back to the States somehow. Of course that means getting her out of occupied France. If I can successfully cross that frontier, then I’ll figure out where to send her and my dog. One miracle at a time.”
Jimmy shook his head. “That last sounds like an afterthought, Hec. Getting her settled I mean. And that’s no way to repay that child’s trust. Hell, there are plenty of anti-Semites back home, even in the midst of this damned war against the greatest Jew-haters of all-time. Just getting her to the States isn’t enough. She needs a good and loving home, Hector. You going go back with her? Are you prepared to be a father to this child?”
“I’m not remotely equipped for that,” I said. “And I have work here. I—”
“You don’t know a single family back home to place her with,” Jimmy said. “You don’t move in those circles, ever the committed bachelor and skirt-chaser.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I’ve a kid sister in Euclid. She and her husband have been trying to adopt for a couple of years, without success. Lately, they’ve been looking to older war orphans. Also without success, so far.”
“They’re good people?”
This look. “She’s my sister, Hector.”
“You can make this happen, for sure?”
Jimmy nodded. “If you can get her out of this Hades, yes. I’ll see that it happens.”
“Well, bless you James Hanrahan and family.” Then I hesitated. “A good Irish-Catholic family? This little girl being Jewish…?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I can’t swear she’ll not be changing her religion, Hector. Fionnula might contrive to undertake that conversion. Or maybe not. But fact is, that little Colleen staying here, under Nazi rule? Have you heard about these death camps, Hector? We hear they may be gassing the Jews.”
I nodded. “Heard whispers of the same. Fact is, if the kid stays here, she’s doomed.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Jimmy said. He raised his glass; winced over the rim. “I truly don’t envy you the chase. This Nazi, he seems pitiless. It’s a fearsome tough run ahead of you, I think. I’d frankly hate to be you.”
“Really, Jim?” I freshened our drinks. “Knowing you think that way makes it much tougher.”
Jimmy bit his lip. “Sorry, Hec, I didn’t mean to be a pessimist. Not out loud, at any rate.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said.
The big Irishman narrowed his blue eyes. “You’re no dancer, Hector, so just say it.”
“It is a tough sprint for one man, even the right man,” I said. “But for two of the right men?” I smiled. “We could have ourselves a time, Jimmy. Could have us a grand lark.”
Jimmy slapped his hand on the table. “Ah, Hector, you’re a pistol!”
“I’m serious.”
His smile went away. “I see that you are. You don’t ask much, do you, Hector?”
I glossed it, or tried to. “Figure a silver-tongued operator like you can contrive some intelligence nonsense to inveigle a few days for a romp across France,” I said.
Jimmy stared at the end of his cigarette. “A romp? Suicide run is more the term for it. Of course the intelligence gambit is easy, Hector. It’s the prospect of drawing air even an hour into this run that strikes me as the long reach. Still, this poor little darlin’…” Jimmy looked as sick and gut-knotted as I felt inside.
I said, “Together, we can—”
“Hector.”
“I know, Jimmy. You said it up front, insane.”
“But a necessary madness, if there can be such a thing,�
�� he said. “Jaysus.” Jimmy picked up the Glenmorangie bottle and weighed it in his hand. “Damn it!” He shook his head. “So be it. You bring the next bottle of whisky and I’m in, Hector.”
I shook his big hard hand. Our pact stood a fair chance of getting him killed alongside me. We both knew that. Jimmy said, “And when do we commence this lunatic foray?”
“Six hours. I’m going to get our new identity documents. She and I will be traveling as father and daughter, at least in the countryside. In the cities, I’ll be playing Nazi and I guess she’ll be my prisoner. I’ll fetch her and Pancho, then I’ll pick you up at HQ at seven.”
Jimmy shook his head. “No, Höttl’s file has got me spooked. I’m not sure he hasn’t penetrated the official infrastructure to some extent. There are at least two guys in my side of things I could figure for Bund or actual double agents. Pick me up here.” He smiled. “Do I get a new identity in this crazy operation, too?”
I squeezed his thick wrist. “Just need you to be you, Jimmy.”
“I can do no other.” He re-corked the Glenmorangie and slipped the bottle in his pocket. “I’ve much to do. And ammo to gather, I suspect. Don’t you forget the single malt, Hector. And I’ll need a uniform. That’s the tallest order, and I mean literally. Despite all these Teutonic delusions of Aryan grandeur, these Krauts seem to run to the short side.”
Jimmy slipped on his hat. “And now, I’ll see you in five hours and forty five minutes.” He crossed himself and added, “I’ll see if I can’t wrangle some treat for the dog and lollipops, too.”
4
It wasn’t my neighborhood, but I didn’t have to be a local to see something sinister was afoot. The streets were empty of civilians a tad too early in advance of curfew. Military presence however, was quite heavy, and it was steadily increasing.
Those damned nosy neighbors.
The Nazis weren’t fully in position yet—they were still massing. I was driving a freshly stolen Opel Olympia that had been converted into a Nazi officer’s personal car. The car had all the right insignia to carry me through the post-curfew darkened streets of Lyon. I was also wearing a German SS uniform. I just had to remember to keep my palm pressed to the belly if I had to talk to any real Germans—had to obscure the bullet hole there in the stomach of the jacket.
I pulled around to the back of the apartment building, positioning the Olympia under a balcony I figured to be roughly across the hall from the Babinots’ place. I caught a break—someone had discarded a mattress. Scrounging up some empty cardboard boxes, I placed them on the roof of the Olympia, then balanced the mattress atop them.
From under the passenger side seat I pulled a bag and took out two hand grenades and a length of rope.
I aimed to misbehave.
***
André Babinot eyed my uniform and said, “You must wear that terrible uniform?”
“Only way to get around at this hour like I need to,” I said curtly. “Now you and your wife need to go. Take what you can carry that matters most, but I doubt you have five minutes. Go out the back—the Nazi’s are massing out front. I think your neighbors’ poking their noses in has come home to roost.” Remembering, I snapped my fingers. “The bottle of hair dye, I don’t want to give the Krauts any hints to the girl’s changed appearance in their search if they choose to make one.”
André looked ashen. He nodded at the trash, then called to his wife. Seems they had long prepared for flight: Babette began pitching papers in the fire. Then she snatched up a box filled with what I guessed would be money, jewelry, maybe some photos.
The empty hair dye bottle was on top of the trash. I shoved it in my pocket.
I said to André, “Do me a favor, please. When you go, put the dog in the front seat of the Olympia parked out back. Just lash the leash to the steering column. You’ll know the vehicle—it’s the one with a mattress balanced across the top.” I passed him a card. “The address of a safe house. Tell ’em Lassiter sent you. You need to memorize that address and then destroy it before going outside.”
“Of course.” André nodded. “And the girl?”
“She’s still going with me,” I said, helping his wife pitch paper in the fire. “But first she and I are going to pay a visit to your neighbors.”
He gave me this wary look. “Why?”
“Candidly? I’m a vengeful man.”
“It certainly smacks of pique, Monsieur Lassiter. And the girl should not see—”
“She’s not going to see anything bad. It’s not going to be like that. Actually, it’s a tactical thing I’m doing, too. Yet she won’t see anything, I swear to you.”
He chewed on his lip. “When the Nazis find that hole in my wall?”
“You’ll both be safely under my people’s protection,” I said, wrenching loose the panel. I held my hand out to the little girl. She was a blonde now, and she looked terrified. My damned Nazi uniform wasn’t helping with any of that. I said, in French, “The dog will be waiting for us downstairs, mon coeur.”
Nodding, chin trembling, she took my hand.
“Chances are the Nazis know about that fake wall now,” I said to André. “But when I’m done, at least the evidence of the hiding place will likely be obliterated.”
Now André looked even more worried.
I said, “Two minutes, then you’d better be gone like your lives depend upon it.”
***
“Marie” was frighteningly quiet and very focused on the gun in my other hand. I positioned myself next to the nosy neighbors’ front door. In belligerent German I said, “Gestapo! Open the door now!” I looked briefly back over my shoulder and saw the Babinots hustling down the hallway to a back stairwell. They had Pancho in tow—dragging him, really. The dog’s head remained cocked in my direction, straining against the leash. I nodded at the old couple. “Marie” weakly waved goodbye to them.
Then I pounded on the door again. “Open the door now or we’ll break it in,” I yelled.
***
René and Gabrielle Lambert sat in their chairs, fidgeting and wide-eyed. They exchanged frightened glares at one another. René had a nice sheen of sweat going. That made me think the missus was the one who had the informer’s zealous streak. She just seemed tougher, meaner… like she had more to lose. So far, I wasn’t relishing this confrontation with anywhere near the level of enthusiasm I’d anticipated.
We were just getting to the meat of the thing. The Lamberts exchanged confused looks but obeyed when I asked them to slide their chairs up against the wall that abutted Marie’s hiding place.
They were sitting in those chairs, now. I’d made them sit down, one at a time—I made them sit in those chairs at gunpoint.
Marie was fidgeting with a doll by the front door. I gestured over my shoulder with a thumb, my Mauser trained between the informers. “How could you rat out a little girl to that murdering, goose-stepping fools gathering forces out front?”
Gabrielle said, “Times are hard. Food is getting scarcer.” She shrugged. “If it had not been us, it would have been another, you must understand that.” She just couldn’t shut up and end it there. She said, “And anyway, she’s a Jew if it even needs saying.”
I nodded, staring at her. René looked even more scared of me now, must have seen something in my face. Time was getting short. Any second those storm troopers might come bounding up the stairs.
Time to get down to cases.
Glancing back at the girl by the door, I said softly, so she wouldn’t overhear, “Here’s the thing. When I made you each sit down one at a time, I slipped a hand grenade under each of your seat cushions. The pin has been pulled on each grenade. Only your body weight is preventing detonation. If you run or you stand, the things will explode in less than fives seconds. In this confined space, just one grenade could be lethal. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Tentative, grave head nods. I smiled. “Good. Splendid, really. The little girl and I are going to go out your front door, now.
You two count out loud together. Count to one hundred. When you reach a hundred, you run as fast as you can for the front door. If you make it into the hallway, you’ll probably survive. But you’ll certainly be losing all your precious valuables.” I shrugged. “C’est la vie, eh?”
I aimed the gun from one to another. “Now, important thing is if either of you leaves those chairs before you reach one hundred, if you put your head out this front door, I’ll shoot you dead. So just stay calm, count to a hundred, and then run together. Then you can have the rest of your lives to mull over the monstrous thing you did tonight.”
Vigorous nods.
“Well, then I leave you now. I’m not joking. If you come out ahead of time, you’ll be just as dead as you’ll be standing close by those chairs when they blow.”
There was a third way out of their predicament, of course. They could reach under their cushions, get a grip on those grenades, then make a run for the windows. They could break the glass with their elbows and pitch the things into the street.
Of course, then they’d be blowing up German soldiers. The Nazis who weren’t killed by the grenades would likely see the Lamberts paid with their lives in an even more agonizing way than being blown to ribbons in their apartment.
I said to Marie, “Into the hallway with you. I’m right behind you.”
I closed the door behind, me, then looped the slip knot I’d made in one end of the rope around the knob of the Lamberts’ front door and cinched it tight. I looped the other end of the rope around the knob of an apartment across the hall and tied it off tightly with a bowline knot. Neither door of either apartment could be opened from the inside with that rope in place.
Booted feet pounded up the stairs now. I opened the door of another unit on the side opposite the Babinots and Lamberts’ apartments. I’d cased the place earlier: confirmed it was vacant and left the door unlocked.
Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 3
