Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

“Which is which, Jesso?”

“Stop scratching, damn it! I’m trying to think.”

Jesso jumped up and paced the cabin. “He mentioned figures. He kept rattling figures as if they were football scores.” Jesso paced, frowning, making a heavy play for just the right expression. Kator had to think that he was sifting information, that he was hard at work to find the clue in Snell’s jumbled talk. “It thought they were football scores, the way he put it. Rose Bowl, you know, and then he’d jabber on and on about this high-school game.” Jesso stopped, frowning. Better not bring in what Snell really said. He might have been saying a million-dollar word, the key that made the onionskin legal tender.

Kator was watching. Make up something, Jesso, make it busy and fever-crazy “It was just figures over and over. Christ, Kator, gimme a clue. Don’t just sit there.”

“Of course, of course.” Kator sounded soothing. “These places-Rose Bowl and so on. What other places did he mention?”

That high-school place… What was the name? He couldn’t think of it, but that was all right. He wasn’t going to repeat anything Snell had said, anyway

“He mentioned some town, but damned if I can remember the name of it.”

“Underwood?”

Jesso made his voice enthusiastic.

“Underwood! He mentioned Underwood, Kator. What about Underwood?”

“It’s a town in Arkansas. The factory in that town goes by the same name.”

“And?” Jesso felt tense.

“They make the housing for the warhead there. You see, Jesso, this list gives the production figures from two factories. One for Underwood, the other for the production from a second factory.”

It came to Jesso like a flash. He squinted once and then he said it.

“Honeywell! The other factory is Honeywell.”

Kator was convinced now. Nobody could have told Jesso about Honeywell except the courier, Snell.

“Yes, the other factory is at Honeywell. They make the trigger mechanism there.”

The gamble had paid off and Jesso started to breathe again. So Snell did tell him something.

“Now, Jesso, here lies the riddle. We don’t know whether the Honeywell figures are in the right column or the left. And only the Honeywell figures are important for the moment.” Then Kator leaned across the table. “Now, Jesso, think! Did he say right or left for Honeywell? Did he say right or left for Underwood? Which column, Jesso, which is the column?”

Jesso held still and looked as if he were thinking. Kator didn’t move either, but there was excitement in his breathing.

“Jesso, think. It must be one of these columns. I’ve analyzed, I’ve searched-there is no clue. There is nothing to tell the figures apart. One column adds up higher than the other, but that tells nothing. Jesso, which did he say? Right? Did he say left?”

After a while the stiff muscles around Jesso’s eyes relaxed. His face relaxed and then he smiled, slow and easy. Jesso got up and stretched. When he started to laugh it was like the first laugh he’d ever made.

Snell’s alma mater? Snell never said Honeywell High School! He never even said Honeywell High! What Snell had said was Honeywell high. The high column was Honeywell!

When Jesso had poured himself a cup of the cold coffee, he held it up and looked down on Kator’s head.

“How do you say it, Kator? Is it Prosit?” and then he drank the cupful as if it were the most delicious stuff in all the world.

“He didn’t say right or left, Kator. He had another way of putting it. He said to me, ‘Jackie boy, it’s all in how you figure it, but whichever way, it’s all right there on ye olde onionskin'.” Jesso sat down again and sounded confidential. “And then he said, ‘But don’t tell Kator till you get to Hamburg, because it’ll take you all of nine days to figure out the complicated solution. Jackie,’ he said to me-“

But Kator wasn’t listening any more. He slammed the paper back into the box, put the box under his arm, and marched out of the cabin.

It wasn’t until much later in the day that Kator discovered that his Luger was missing. The Luger and a box of shells weren’t in the desk any more.

They stayed off the port approach for fourteen hours while the fog kept everything blank gray but brought the harbor noises close. When the fog lifted, rain stayed in the air.

Jesso leaned across the railing and watched the harbor drift close. A tug was making a lot of noise hauling the ship through the channel. Jesso watched the white water churning. He felt impatient, edgy. The wet air made his cigarette hard to draw on and he tossed it overboard. Fifteen more minutes and they would dock. He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched the muscles so they wouldn’t ache. Jesso hadn’t had much sleep. A sleeping man wasn’t much good, even with a gun in his hand.

By the time the ship was sidling up to the mooring they were all on deck, ready to leave. There was Kator, his man Bean Pole, and two other guys who stood around in trench coats and berets, like something from the underground. Kator was in black.

“Jesso,” he called.

Jesso came over, buttoning the pea jacket they had given him.

“As we pass through customs, follow with my men. I will handle the formalities.”

“What about that passport and visa you owe me?”

“I have them here.” Kator patted his chest. “So far, Jesso, I owe you nothing.”

Jesso kept still and pushed one hand into his pocket. The Luger was there and he pulled it out. First he yanked the slide to make sure there was a shell in the chamber. There was, and while a new one slid into place the old one flew out in a short flat arc. That was one shell wasted, but Jesso didn’t care. They all watched the shell drop into the water and then they watched Jesso again. He ejected the clip, pushed a new shell into the top, and slapped the clip back into the stock. Now they all knew how many shots he had and he dropped the gun back into his pocket. He kept his hand there too.

Once they were off the ship, the formalities were simple. Kator showed papers, nodded to officials, and exchanged some words. Everybody knew Johannes Kator. Then they stood on the cobbled street that ran past the long dock building. Kator was putting the papers back in his pocket.

“According to these, Jesso, your name is Joseph Snell,” he said. “It makes your papers almost legitimate.”

“I don’t look like Snell. That passport-”

“It got you through, didn’t it?”

Just how Kator had done it wasn’t clear to Jesso, but it showed how well they thought of Kator here. It hadn’t struck Jesso until then. He wasn’t in the States any more. This wasn’t a city where he knew his way around, where even his name alone could-He caught himself up in the lie. Who was he kidding? He had forgotten what he had left behind, what he had lost there. The years of his work were gone, and the big time. Jesso was a cold and tired bum, wearing a borrowed pea jacket and clamping his hand around a stolen gun. Jesso, the bum, standing on a foreign street with three punks around him, three punks posing like trained seals, and Kator there, back in home territory. The bastard was really going to move now He was going to move with all the ease of a general surrounded by a familiar staff. And shivery stumble-bum Jesso, he was going to move along too, down the chute like a bundle of dirty laundry.

He turned his head and looked at Kator; Kator, back in home territory, silent, smug, and ready with his net of plans to catch just what he wanted and to kill what was left and of no use to him. Jesso knew that every move from now on was part of Kator’s calculated trap-or Jesso’s try to beat him to it. He was going to kick some holes in that net.