Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  “Step aside, Lassiter,” Höttl said. “This woman has my writings and those of my friend. Even this silly, poseur Jewess couldn’t destroy the work of another writer. I mean to have my materials back. Some of my own were single copies… originals!”

  Hector pressed his hand to Höttl’s chest. “This lady is no practical joker,” Hector said. “If she said she burned them, rightly or wrongly, that’s what she did. I’m terribly sorry, Werner. Now come on, old pal—we’ll find a café and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  He swatted Hector’s arm aside. “Don’t! Don’t involve yourself in this, Lassiter. It’s between me and this treacherous Jew bitch.”

  Hector pressed his hand to Höttl’s chest again. “That’ll be enough. Out the door with you, Werner.”

  Höttl cocked his arm back. It was a ridiculously exaggerated attempt at a punch that went well beyond telegraphing intent.

  Mindful of Gertrude’s warnings about her furniture, Hector let Höttl swing at him. He caught the man’s smallish, bony right fist in his own big left hand. Hector squeezed tightly, crushing the man’s fingers in his grip. As he did that, Hector pivoted rightward, spinning around to gather momentum. Turning almost 180-degrees, Hector drove his right elbow into the man’s right temple.

  Höttl crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  Hector said, “Someone open the door.” He shouldered the rail-thin German across his back and rose, knees cracking.

  Gertrude said, “What are you doing?”

  “Putting this fella in a cab to the other side of Paris,” Hector said.

  Victoria smiled and shook her head. “You better make up a couch, Miss Stein. For safety’s sake, I think Hector better camp out here tonight.”

  “Perhaps that is wise.” Alice said it as though the prospect truly pained her.

  Victoria said what Hector was thinking. “There goes our night.”

  Shifting the load across his back, Hector said to Gertrude, “Maybe you could get word to Hem. Maybe he can take tonight’s shift. Perhaps Mal can cover tomorrow night’s guard duty.” Malcolm Cowley, like Hemingway, had some boxing skills.

  Grimacing at the load, Hector said, “I’m not sure after what just happened here that this man’s anger is going to pass in a single night.”

  9

  Duff said, “Men get into fistfights all the time. To still carry a grudge from back then over some tipsy dust-up?”

  I shrugged. “For some men I’ve crossed, that would be enough for a lifetime’s resentment. Especially with so many witnesses, and, particularly, those kinds of witnesses. But, to be fair, we had other dealings, later. Until then, Höttl really carried his grudge for Gertrude most strongly. I suppose because she actually burned his and Hitler’s writings. When France fell, through channels I got word Höttl was coming for Gertrude and Alice. I got them out of Paris just ahead of the storm troopers.”

  “Are the ladies still safe?”

  “I believe so,” I said. “It’s been rather hectic these past two years. We can’t exactly correspond as they’re in hiding and I’m always on the move.”

  Duff nodded. “Fairly put.” She looked at Marie. “My arms are full. What time is it now?”

  “Five more minutes by my watch,” Jimmy said. “I’m thinking I should take a peek at the street.”

  “Not a good idea,” Duff said. “We stay here. That’s the plan. If it goes badly, you two might at least hold them off long enough for me to try and lose them in these tunnels again.”

  “I think she’s probably right about staying to plan,” I said to Jimmy.

  The Irishman considered, then said, “Yes. I do concur.”

  The child’s eyelids were fluttering. Her hands and feet were twitching in her sleep, some fresh nightmare. Perhaps she was running in her dark dreams. I smoothed her hair. Its texture was very wrong because of that damned dye. I stroked her cheek. She turned in her sleep, quietening.

  Duff, watching, said,” Some dreamy childhood she’s been handed.”

  “That is to say no childhood,” I said.

  “How’d we come to this?” Duff rocked Marie gently in her arms. “This war?”

  I sighed. “How’d we come to the last war? And having done that bloody, crazy thing, how’d we let ourselves get to this sorry place again? Hell, I can’t fathom it.”

  “Mass suicide pact, maybe,” Jimmy said.

  “Almost feels that, way, doesn’t it?” Duff tried to stand with the child in her arms.

  “Here,” I said, “I’ll take her again.”

  “We may need your hands free for other things,” Duff said.

  Jimmy and I each took one of Duff’s arms and helped her to her feet. She said, “Five minutes must have passed by now.”

  “One minute ago,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, watches can vary a few seconds here or there,” Duff said. “But this might be trouble.”

  I said, “Explain.”

  “Our driver, he’s supposed to send a man down here to get us. Plan never really was to go directly to the street. We’re supposed to be fetched.”

  “Do you know these two men? You’d recognize them?” I checked my own watch.

  “You met them too, on the street,” Duff said. “Do you remember their faces?”

  “Probably on sight,” I said. “Either way, like you say, it’s a deviation in plan, isn’t it? His not coming down, I mean.”

  “Could be good reasons,” Jimmy said. “Unexpected Hun presence on the streets, say. Or maybe the Nazis overtook them shortly after we left them up top.”

  I chewed my lip, then unholstered my gun. “I’m going up to take a look around. If I’m not back in five minutes, flee. I hope these tunnels run a good bit further, far enough for you rest to get lost in again.” Pancho started to follow me. I said, “Stay.”

  Duff said, “Don’t exaggerate about this. How is your German?”

  “Better over the past two years,” I said.

  “Give me a little something in the tongue,” she said.

  From memory, I rattled off the opening paragraph of one my novels, but in the German. I finished and said, “It’ll do?”

  “You might really pull it off,” she said. There was a new tension in her voice. “Of course it may all be fine. Maybe they’re just running late. Maybe it took them a bit longer than they anticipated if those Nazis did give chase.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s probably all dandy. How do I get out of this labyrinth?”

  Duff was rocking Marie again, soothing her troubled dreams. “Up those stairs, veer right, up another flight, then a short distance to the left. You’ll find yourself at the foot of a stairs that will take you into the lobby of a hotel. The truck, our transport, should be waiting out front.”

  “Right. If things are okay, how many men should be waiting up there for us?”

  “Only the two you already met,” Duff said.

  I patted her shoulder. “Back in a jiffy.” I slapped Jimmy’s arm, trying to think of something worthy and clever to leave him with if I didn’t return.

  Jimmy raised a hand. “This is not a moment, Hector, so don’t go all solemn and portentous on me. I sense much mayhem ahead for the two of us. I mean years going forward. So shake a leg, boyo.”

  “Five minutes,” I said.

  ***

  Before I reached the lobby, I paused to check the identification papers Jimmy and I had taken from the two Nazis we’d encountered in the tunnels. I committed the names of the dead men to memory. Then I ground out a cigarette on the sole of my boot, straightened my Nazi hat and pulled its brim lower to shadow my face.

  ***

  The two men were loitering around the troop transport that had delivered Duff to us. The milling soldiers, based on my memory, were not the ones I was expecting to see.

  Something had gone haywire on us.

  I was toying with heading back down into the tunnels. I’d grab my friends and we’d push on through the underground. But then one of the German
soldiers outside saw me and saluted.

  There was the possibility Höttl hadn’t adequately communicated my appearance to his stooges. If my German accent survived scrutiny?

  Roll the dice? I decided I’d better do that.

  Strutting outside, I said, “Have you seen them? Der Amerikaners? Any sign of them at all?”

  The men exchanged a glance that made my stomach flutter. Both were probably in their late twenties and tough-looking young bucks. One had sandy hair, the other red.

  Red said, “Nein. We weren’t—”

  “The child is very important to capture,” I said. “I’m here to see Herr Höttl’s will is done. I think something has gone wrong down below. Hans and Josef—” the Nazis Jimmy and I had killed in the traboules, “—never found them down there. They’re pushing on, still looking for them in the tunnels.”

  Red said, “What would you have us do, sir?”

  “The two you took this from,” I pointed at the truck. “Did you get anything from them before you…?”

  Sandy shook his head no. He drew his index finger across his throat. “Both took suicide pills disguised as buttons on their tunics. They got at them before we could stop them. We didn’t get to question them.”

  “This whole operation is turning into a mess, and someone’s going to pay for that,” I said, trying to make it appear I might be looking to them as worthy candidates to play scapegoats. Giving them room for a dodge of sorts, I said, “You have a radio?”

  Red nodded. “In the truck, in back. You want more men to come? More to explore those tunnels?”

  “Fruitless,” I said. “This Lassiter, I think, is far too clever to do anything obvious or expected. Maybe they were never even in those damned tunnels. I knew we should have followed them down, not tried to intercept them. I argued my case, but…”

  Sandy and Red nodded, commiserating.

  Time was getting on. Any second, Jimmy and Duff might decide to follow me up street side. Or they might become lost to me as they pressed deeper into the tangle of the traboules.

  I pointed across the street. “Did you check the tunnel access in that building?” Hell, there might a traboule access point in the joint. It seemed a safe enough bluff. My question drew headshakes from the young Germans.

  “Then go and do that right now,” I said. “Stay at it. Some of these tunnel entrances are well hidden. If in a half-hour you’ve found nothing, return here. I’ll stay with the vehicle just in case they should turn up.”

  I watched the two young German soldiers disappear into the building across the street. Then I ran back inside the hotel to find my friends.

  ***

  Jimmy slid into the seat next to me. He said, “How many were there and how’d you take this truck away from them? Black doesn’t show blood.” He eyed my uniform. “But I don’t smell blood, either.”

  I slammed the truck into gear. “We’re leaving, fast,” I said, “Because they may come back any second. I’ve got them looking for tunnels in the foundation of that building over there.”

  Jimmy smiled. “If they’re good little tin soldiers they may spend weeks poking around in there. Congratulations, Hector. That shows rare restraint on your part.”

  I almost remarked on that, then decided to let it go. I said to Duff, “Now, as you’re our guide, where do I point this heap?”

  “Le Havre,” she said from in back. “Although, frankly, I argued for Spain. Easier to move through, I think: the Nazis aren’t so thick at the Spanish border. And Spain’s arguably closer a safe place.”

  “But not so safe for me,” I said. “You see, I have a standing death warrant against me in Spain. Somethin’ tied to a visit there during the Civil War back in ’37.”

  Duff raised her hands as if to say, of course. She said, “Well, if any man would have something like that hanging over his head, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

  I saw the map of Europe in my head. Spain would have been a bit closer, the Nazi occupational forces sparser in between, just as Duff said. The run to Le Havre was a god-awful distance to traverse clandestinely. And it would take us dangerously close by Paris, where the occupying Nazis were thickest of all.

  “Le Havre, was that always the plan?” I searched her face in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “If it was, and the plan has already begun to unravel on us as it has…”

  “I know what you’re thinking and I agree,” she said. “We probably need to do something else. It’s the only safe course.”

  “La Plaine-sur-Mer,” I said. “Along the way, somehow, we’ll try and make contact with the underground or the OSS. Get word back through channels to see if Wild Bill might not be able to get us some kind of boat from there to Britain. Maybe to Plymouth. Once we’re in England, we can make our way easily enough to London, sans these SS duds.” I fingered the lapel of my uniform.

  “It does narrow the distance we have to travel by a good bit,” Jimmy said. “It’s not quite the sticks, but it’s certainly less populous than that other route would be.”

  “Yes, let’s try this,” Duff said. “We’re not exactly spoiled with options, after all.”

  I winked into the rearview mirror. “Right. If things do get too dicey, we’ll veer south and I’ll take my chances with the damn Spanish. Most of my problems there were centered around Madrid.”

  “Then let’s put some miles between us and the city,” Duff said. “We’ll make as much time by night as we can. Come morning, we’ll need to find some breakfast for the child. That couple did a decent job of caring for her under the circumstances, but I can feel her ribs through her coat.”

  I got us underway, giving her the gas. Jimmy said, “One thing’s certain, we can’t drive until dawn in this vehicle. When those Krauts get tired of searching that building for hidey holes and find this truck gone, the call will go out.”

  “They’ll raise an alarm, of course,” Duff said.

  “Let’s give it an hour or two,” I said. “Then we’ll steal some other transport.”

  10

  Duff said, “The woman at the grocers must have seen me climb out of this thing with all these Nazi decals. She was quite cold. Even hateful. Probably thought me a collaborator. Can’t blame her, but it certainly wasn’t a pleasant feeling.”

  I stared at the dull black ’35 Juvaquatre with the swastika plastered across the hood parked across the street. It was much smaller than our present truck, but it would do. Duff held up a movie camera. “Looks like the Germans planned to film our arrest.”

  I was focused on the car across the street. Of course the thing was Christ-awful old. God willing, it would be sufficiently reliable to carry us to the coast. I said to Duff, “So long as you were vigilant with that clerk. Hate to think she might have poisoned the food, or spat in it.”

  Duff said, “I was very vigilant. That car across the street, you can steal it?”

  “Probably could, but stealing cars is more Jimmy’s exotic forte,” I said.

  “It’s sadly true,” Jimmy said. “Some lads who were running a car theft ring in Parma Heights taught me a few tricks of the seedy trade, hoping for a lighter sentence.” He opened the door. “I’ll signal when I think it’s time to go. Hector, you best start gathering bags and other sundries.”

  When he was gone, Duff said, “I quite adore Jim. He’s a very good man. And some fast friend to do this with you.”

  “He is that—a great man, I mean. And he’s a true friend, too. In a fix, you can’t do much better than to have Jim Hanrahan in your corner.”

  “You inspire loyalty from your friends,” she said. “That counts for something.”

  I rubbed my eyes. I could use some caffeine; unfortunately Jimmy and I had exhausted our spiked coffee. I said, “Did my file fill you with that much concern about me?”

  “‘The man who lives what he writes and writes what he lives,’” Duff said. “A reputation like yours makes a woman like me wonder a little about your motives for any given undertaking. Take
now. Are you acting from conviction, or because you might get a book out of all this?”

  “That’s just an unfortunate publicity tag,” I said. “I don’t even like it. I’m a writer, yes. But my life is something else, particularly this phase of it. I’m fighting the fight, not gathering source material, Duff. I may use some of it in fiction, someday, of course. But this thing we’re doing now? Never.”

  Jimmy waved his arm out the window.

  Smiling, the little girl waved back.

  I said, “You see to our little friend. Pancho will follow you. I’ll get the bags.”

  Two trips—that’s what it took to shift everything to the Juvaquatre. Jimmy said, “You look beat to the wide, Hector. I’ll take first shift at the wheel.”

  “Great. But I want to do something first.” I reached into the knapsack and pulled out a grenade and some string.

  Jimmy smiled and shook his head. “Ah, Hector. Can’t say I disapprove, but do be quick about it.”

  I ran back to the transport truck and rigged the grenade, weaving the string around the steering wheel to the driver’s side door handle. Then I let myself out—gingerly—through the passenger side door. I told myself it was revenge for the two resistance fighters they’d killed.

  ***

  It was four in the morning. Jimmy was sacked out in the back, wedged across the back seat with Marie sprawled asleep across his chest. Both were lightly snoring.

  As we bumped along a rutted rural road, Duff turned around in the passenger seat, putting her back to the door. “Did you get any sleep when it was your turn back there?”

  “Fitful,” I said. “But I’m fine.” It was a lie. I’d been awake back there the whole time, eyes closed, trying to sleep, but finding myself eavesdropping on Jimmy and Duff. I’d hung on all her questions about me and my past. About sordid stuff from my “unofficial biography.”

  Some of that scuttlebutt was one-third distortion, some one-third hype and a third all-too-true. I said, “You get any sleep?”

  “Not tired enough yet,” Duff said. “Maybe dayside I’ll sleep a bit. At some point, we may need to switch to civilian clothes and steal a civilian car.”