The Heart Mender

by Andy Andrews

  “Who is that man?” he asked. Josef had an uneasy feeling, but could not place the figure huddled inside the cab of a heavily loaded flatbed truck. He was familiar somehow. Too familiar.

  “What man?” Helen asked, straining to see. “Where?”

  “The black truck with the cargo boxes . . . across the street.”

  Helen focused now and saw an old man. He was dirty— she could see that from where she was standing. He wore a baseball cap, had a long gray beard, and apparently was parked, just sitting there, doing nothing. “I know who that is,” Helen said, involuntarily curling her lip. “He’s only been in the café a couple of times, and Billy waits on him. He won’t let any of us do it. Billy can’t stand him.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Kramer. It’s ‘something’ Kramer. I’ve heard Wan and the others talk about him too. They don’t like him at all.”

  Josef had not moved. “What does he do?”

  Helen shrugged. “Ahhhh . . . fishing? I think?”

  “Does he have a boat with a red top?”

  “Josef, I don’t know. You’re scaring me,” Helen said. “What is this about? Why do you recognize him?”

  Josef exhaled. His mind was already working furiously when he answered. “Because,” he said, “he has a boat with a red top.”

  Moving quickly, Josef swept the gift-wrapped package from the counter and took Helen’s arm. “We must leave now,” he said. “Hurry. This man must not see me.”

  Walking fast to keep up as they moved toward the door, Helen was frightened. “Josef,” she said, “what’s this about? Who is he to you?”

  “Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you later,” he answered.

  The truck was parked less than twenty feet from the drugstore’s front door. It would be a simple matter, Josef knew, to cover his face with a hand as if to shield his eyes or straighten his hair and step quickly to the vehicle. They would be away in seconds. Kramer wasn’t even looking in their direction.

  Helen was close behind Josef as he ducked his head, threw a hand to his brow, and powered through the door. She bumped him when he stopped. Looking around Josef, Helen could see that he had literally run into a man who was entering the store. The man had come around the corner beside the entrance and simply gotten caught in their stampede.

  Helen placed her hand on Josef’s back, preparing to continue on out the door, but Josef didn’t move. Helen pushed gently and maneuvered to the side a bit in an effort to see Josef’s face. No one had said, “Excuse me,” or “I’m sorry.” In fact, neither man had moved at all.

  “Josef?” she said hesitantly. But Josef did not respond. He was not being rude or inattentive. In his defense, Josef had never even heard Helen’s voice. Josef’s focus at that moment was narrowed to a pinpoint as his heart hammered in his ears. It was the sound of his life being torn apart, but still, he did not move. He was frozen by the face of the man in front of him . . . the face of Ernst Schneider.

  AS THE BLUE CHEVY TRUCK, ALREADY POINTED TOWARD THE south, screeched away in that direction, Schneider ran across the street. “Go,” he said, leaping into the flatbed cab and slamming the door behind him. “Go! Follow them!”

  “Calm down,” Kramer said as he made a slow U-turn across the middle of the street. “I saw you over there. I saw them two run. Won’t do ’em no good.”

  “What do you mean?” Schneider demanded. “And hurry up! Let’s go!”

  “Hey, boy!” Kramer growled as he suddenly lifted his foot from the accelerator, slowing the truck even more. “You don’t talk to me that way. You do . . . we gon’ have problems. I ain’t hurrying up ’cause I know where to find ’em. And I ain’t hurrying up ’cause you ain’t gon’ do nothin’ to ’em with me around. I ain’t gon’ be a part of moppin’ up your messes.”

  Ernst Schneider seethed, but he said nothing. He had only two weeks left in the miserable place anyway, and he was too smart by far to be lured into a confrontation with an imbecile like Harris Kramer. In a way, however, Schneider identified with the man. You do not talk to me that way, either, he said silently to the filthy man driving the truck. You are correct. We will have problems.

  Schneider planned to kill Kramer anyway before he left. Only two more weeks, he mused. Almost finished. And now this. Schneider shook his head as he saw Josef’s face in his mind’s eye. How could this have happened?

  Last July, Schneider’s coded message aboard the U-166 had ordered him ashore. There he was to use a crystal set— a radio—that had already been constructed in the attic of a fish house to contact and direct U-boats toward any merchant ships or troop transports departing Mobile Bay. Further, he was to direct fire on any vessel of any kind moving east or west, into or out of the Mississippi River basin. Transportation ashore, he was informed, would be provided by a man already in place—the owner of the fish house.

  Aware that his departure was imminent, Schneider devised a plan that would allow him to embarrass Commander Kuhlmann, enrich himself, and exact the ultimate revenge from the swine Landermann.

  That night, as Kramer’s boat had come into view, Schneider put his scheme into motion. Kuhlmann, thinking only that the U-166 was to receive a delivery of some sort, had gone below to retrieve gold from the safe. The possibility that Schneider was leaving had not entered his mind. While the commander was below, Schneider had taken the opportunity to shoot Josef and was waiting casually on deck when Kuhlmann returned.

  “Where’s Landermann?” he had asked, upon finding Schneider alone.

  The Nazi indicated the red-topped vessel tied by only one line and answered that the cadet, Landermann, had gone on board to unload a specific piece of cargo. After only a short time, Schneider expressed his impatience by wondering aloud about the delay. Declaring his intention to “find out what was taking so long,” he prepared to board Kramer’s vessel. Before he stepped onto the boat, however, he paused as if a thought had just occurred to him. “Give me the gold,” he had suggested to Kuhlmann. “I will settle our finances while I am on board. After all,” he had remarked to the commander, “who trusts a spy? No matter what side he is on.”

  Kuhlmann agreed that it was probably prudent not to allow a “spy” aboard the submarine at all and handed the gold over to Schneider. “I will strike a hard bargain for the Führer,” the Nazi had said as he stepped to the rail, “and will return with the gold that is not required.”

  Those had been the last words Schneider had spoken to Kuhlmann, who, in accordance with established procedure that required an officer on deck when docked with another vessel, stayed behind.

  Schneider disappeared into the boat momentarily, then reappeared as the boat’s engines unexpectedly roared to life. Then, to Kuhlmann’s utter astonishment, Schneider released the line from the red-topped boat and waved. “Landermann and I will be back shortly,” he had shouted.

  Commander Kuhlmann, totally taken in by the ruse, had waited, his unease and suspicions building by the hour, until dawn, when he was forced by the submarine’s close proximity to shore to submerge and sail away. He believed that, most likely, something tragic had befallen the Nazi observer and Josef, his friend, but he was never able to fully grasp just what that might have been.

  It should have been perfect, Schneider thought as he rode silently in the flatbed truck, second-guessing every move he’d made that night in July. Every single piece of his plan that night had come together. Or so he had assumed. It was disappointing, he admitted to himself, to find that Landermann, in such a minor role, had not even been capable of playing his part. It had been a grand production, but now it was ruined. Schneider grimaced as he thought about Josef. You were supposed to die, fool!

  Working to control his fury, Schneider cut his eyes to the side and glanced at Kramer. The man was driving as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The Nazi silently cursed. While he had expected an elite practitioner of espionage as his partner and guide when he came ashore, he had instead been saddled with this buff
oon—an obnoxious, lazy, infuriating piece of filth if ever there had been one.

  Kramer spoke. “That was the boy you shot on the sub, weren’t it.” His words were phrased as a statement, not as a question. Schneider did not respond. The old man cackled gleefully. “Yeah, I thought so.” He laughed again. “Missed ’im, didn’t you? I thought so that night. You’s too wrapped up in what you’s sayin’ to actually aim! ”

  Laughing uproariously and warming to the subject, Kramer continued to needle Schneider, whose level of rage was rising dangerously. “Look here, son . . . you gonna kill a man, you just kill ’im. You take your time with a woman, but you get a man done. You ain’t careful, he’ll bite you back. I done both. I know. Unh-huh . . . man, you get him dead quick.”

  Kramer wasn’t even attempting eye contact with Schneider. He had lost himself in a favorite subject and continued to chatter away. “You winged ’im. I’d a told you it wadn’t no full-on hit that night. I saw the boy hanging on one’a my boat tires.” Kramer smiled broadly. “Yessir, coulda plucked ’im right outta the water and finished ’im proper. Would have too. But you . . .” The old man looked over at Schneider, expressing an air of superior intelligence. “Naww! You come on my boat all high and mighty—the Führer this and the Führer that . . . turning your nose up at me? Bossing me around?”

  Schneider fumed silently. Was it really necessary to endure this? Wasn’t it enough that he’d lived in the attic of a fish house, eating the garbage this cretin prepared? That for months now, he had been without proper companionship and breathing the foul air of this sick society?

  Schneider was about half a beat from back-handing the old man, and Kramer must have sensed it. He said, “You be nice, boy. You be nice to old Harris. You wanna finish what you started? You wanna get that boy? Put ’im down? I can put you on ’im. I know where the girl works.”

  Kramer drove past the café and only glanced to see if Helen’s truck was there. It wasn’t. He didn’t want to reveal to Schneider the young woman’s place of employment just yet. Get this psycho back to the fish house, he thought. I’ll tell him then. I’ll be out of it.

  Kramer was nothing if not an expert in the art of self-preservation. He harbored no illusions about what would happen to the man Schneider was after . . . or the girl if she didn’t cooperate. Or Schneider himself if he wasn’t careful. Harris Kramer had killed before—four times to be exact— but they were smart killings, all for cash, not done in the heat of the moment.

  Kramer was glad Schneider would soon be leaving. It had been too much trouble and not enough money. That’s why he’d done it, of course. For the money. After all, Harris Kramer didn’t like the Germans. In fact, he hated them. Just like he hated everybody else.

  By the time the flatbed truck had pulled up in front of the fish house, Kramer had told Schneider where Helen worked and laid out a plan. “Steal a car so you can dump it later,” he said. “Grab the girl. It don’t even matter if they see ya—they don’t know where you come from. You only been in town twice, and you’re leaving soon anyway. So grab the girl and make her take you to the guy.”

  Schneider had agreed that it was a workable proposal and determined that it was what he would do. Kramer refused to drive him away from the fish house, but pointed him down the road. Walk, he’d told him. There was a group of houses near Navy Cove. It was no more than a mile, Kramer had said. “Get yourself a car there. Them idiots leave their keys in ’em. Just walk in and take one.”

  Schneider set out to do just that. He had walked almost a hundred yards from the fish house when Harris Kramer hailed him at the top of his voice. “Hey, boy!” Schneider turned to look. “Merry Christmas!” he screamed, dissolving into a demented fit of laughter.

  CAREENING DOWN HIGHWAY 3, HELEN HAD LISTENED AS JOSEF had filled in the blanks for her. He had told her some time back about Schneider and the events leading up to her having found him washed ashore. Now, unfortunately, Helen had a face to go with the name.

  She had insisted Josef leave her at the café. “Billy’s here. I’ll be fine,” she had said. “Just take the truck and go. Leave it at my cottage or in the woods—whatever—but you get to your cabin. It’s hidden. No one knows where it is, and it can’t be reached by car.”

  It appeared to both Josef and Helen that they had gotten away—at least from the flatbed truck—and that the immediate danger had passed. They were relieved that there was now time to regroup, to plan, and to consider their next move.

  After expressing her remorse to Margaret and Billy for forgetting to buy the supplies they had asked for, Helen nervously went about her work. Margaret had noticed the frantic conversation between Helen and Josef when they had driven up. She had also seen the gravel fly as Josef spun the truck away from the café and continued south. By the time Helen walked through the door, Margaret had already remarked to Billy that “something was up.” After accepting the young woman’s apology and assuring her that she needed to do some final Christmas shopping anyway, Margaret got the keys to their vehicle from Billy and went to Foley herself.

  It was not yet lunchtime, and the café dining room was empty. Danny was in and out every five minutes reporting to Billy about the storm clouds, asking when it would rain, and concerned about whether Santa could fly in it if it did. Billy was keeping a keen eye on Helen, who appeared to be on the verge of bolting. Not that she could have gone anywhere had she wanted to. Josef had her truck, and Margaret had theirs.

  Billy was in the kitchen and had begun folding dough for the lunch biscuits when Helen cried out. Jerking around, Billy quickly looked through the kitchen’s order window and saw Helen stumble as she backed frantically toward the counter.

  Schneider had executed the initial part of his impromptu plan in an orderly manner. He had taken the first car he’d come upon near the group of houses at Navy Cove—a black Ford sedan. Kramer had been correct; the keys were in it. Schneider drove east until he’d come to Highway 3, turned north, and was soon pulling into the parking lot of the café.

  Schneider saw the young woman through the front window only seconds before she saw him. He leaped cursing from the car. He’d hoped to be able to take her quietly— maybe show her the pistol hidden in his pocket and compel her to leave without any trouble. Not possible now, he thought. Schneider could see her scrambling backward, bumping past tables in the dining room as he ran to the front door. Do this quickly, Schneider commanded himself as he burst inside.

  Danny was behind the register. He stood, confused and frightened by Helen’s reaction to the man who had just exploded through the entrance. Billy was out of the kitchen in an instant and rounded the counter. He, too, saw the man coming for Helen and was moving quickly to head him off. It was Billy’s intention to get between them. “Hang on here!” Billy roared. “What the heck do you—” Billy drew up short when the man shoved a gun in his face.

  “Move back, old man,” Schneider snarled, “or die right now.”

  Billy’s mouth fell open. He looked at Helen. “Don’t, Billy,” she warned, never taking her eyes off Schneider, who had shifted the pistol into his other hand and was maneuvering around Billy toward her. “Don’t do anything. He wants Josef.”

  “Why?” Billy asked her. Then to Schneider, “Who are you?”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Schneider yelled, threatening Billy with the pistol again. Watching the older man closely, the Nazi reached out and grabbed Helen’s arm, his grip causing her to cry out in pain.

  From behind Schneider came a voice from someone he had not seen upon entering the café. Danny had tears running down his face, and though he was as scared as he had ever been, the young man was coming to the rescue of his father and his friend. “You let her go,” Danny said, “and you stop scaring my daddy. You are bad! I will hurt you!”

  “Danny, no!” Helen and Billy spoke almost as one.

  “Go back, Danny,” Billy said. “It’s all right.”

  At first, Schneider thought he had been trapped. Hearing
the voice behind him, he had almost dropped the gun, but now . . . what was this? Schneider turned. When he saw Danny, his eyes opened wide, he grinned, then laughed out loud. “Don’t you laugh at me,” Danny said, crying harder.

  Schneider cocked his head and directed his attention to Billy. Continuing to hold Helen by the arm, he gestured toward Danny with the gun. “Does this thing belong to you?”

  Billy’s face darkened. He had never felt so helpless in his life. For all his bluster, Billy was a patient and loving man. There had been people in his life he hadn’t liked—even some he had avoided altogether—but until this moment, Billy had never truly and completely hated another person. In a momentary wisp of realization that swirled through his consciousness, Billy knew that he was looking into the face of evil, and he was acutely aware that had he possessed the means and opportunity to kill this man, he would have done so without hesitation.

  “Maybe you did not hear me,” Schneider said. “This thing here . . . does this dummy belong to you?”

  “Don’t you dare say that about him,” Helen hissed.

  Schneider looked surprised. “What’s this? You have feelings for the dummy?” He leaned toward Danny, who was sobbing quietly, and pointed the gun between his eyes. “I think we will shoot him . . . Watch this.”

  “Oh, God, please,” Billy breathed, his knees buckling.

  “No! No! No!” Helen screamed, struggling violently.

  Schneider managed to hold on to her, but Helen’s hysterics had forced him to lower the gun. Danny, crying again, was looking at Billy and whispering, “Daddy? Daddy?”

  Schneider laughed at him again, once more raising the gun. “You are an inferior,” he said disgustedly.

  “Stop!” Helen pleaded. Then, convinced Schneider was really about to shoot, she said, “If you do this, I swear, you’ll never find Josef. I’ll never tell you where he is.”