Elmore Leonard - Up in Honey's Room

looking at mug shots of wanted fugitives. It’s too bad that

flash of light on the glass makes it impossible

to identify any of the bad guys.

I would be willing to bet Carl Webster is after one

of them. Possibly even two. Jawohl?

Neal Rubin filled the rest of his column with Esther Williams, telling what it was like to have lunch with Esther at the London Chop House. He called it “The next best thing to going swimming with her.”

Honey got in the Pontiac saying, “Did you see Neal Rubin’s piece? I think he’s great, his style is so . . . conversational. He doesn’t act like he knows everything, the way most of those guys sound, with their inside stuff. You notice you were the lead item? You upstaged Esther Williams.”

“I saw it,” Carl said.

“Does it blow your cover?”

“I never had any to begin with.”

“I could tell it was you in the picture.”

“How? The guy shot me from behind.”

“The way you wear your hat,” Honey said, and sang the next lines to him in a low voice. “‘No, no, they can’t take that away from me.’ What’s the new thing you’ll be doing?”

“It’s Kevin. They put him on an investigation that came up.” Driving out Woodward in traffic, he told her about it.

“If a bar owner doesn’t want to do business with these guys that supply jukeboxes, mob guys, they try to intimidate the owner, blow up his bar. They aren’t experts at handling dynamite, they leave clues. The mob also tries to sell the bar Canadian whiskey they’ve heisted, no tax stamps on the bottles in violation of federal law. The FBI gets on it and that’s what Kevin’s doing, poking around in bars that were blown up and smell awful.”

Honey said, “Are we going to have dinner?”

“Yeah, if you want.”

“Let’s have a drink and talk first, at my place.”

Honey made highballs in tall glasses, rye and ginger ale, while Carl opened a can of peanuts saying he’d spent most of the day at the FBI office. He was coming to the tricky part now of what he wanted to tell her.

“They sat me down and said I was to forget about Jurgen Schrenk for the time being. They’re pretty sure the Detroit spy ring’s up to something. They’re meeting tonight at Vera Mezwa’s and the Bureau wants to be sure I don’t get in the way. I asked what the meeting had to do with Jurgen. They said that’s where he’s staying now, at Vera’s. I said, Otto’s with him? It sounded like they’d forgotten about Otto, the SS major. They said they believed he was still at Walter’s.”

“I’d love to meet Vera,” Honey said. “Kevin showed me pictures of her doing her lectures. She’s attractive, has her own style, knows how to fix herself up, writes letters with invisible ink. She knows Jurgen?”

“The Bureau,” Carl said, “believes he’s involved in whatever Vera’s up to, it’s why he’s at her house. But what kind of job would they give an escaped prisoner of war? I said what if they don’t know about Jurgen? Walter’s never mentioned him. He knows what happened to Max Stephan when he showed off the Nazi pilot, so he’s kept Jurgen under wraps. But now he calls a meeting to introduce him to the gang.”

“Why?” Honey said.

“I was asked that. If Walter was so careful before, keeping Jurgen a secret, why would he expose him now? I said I didn’t know, but I’d talked to Walter last night.”

“They were surprised.”

“They said oh, is that right? I told them Walter knows I’m after Jurgen and Otto. He’s afraid I’m gonna come out to the farm looking for them.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why were we out there last night? I told them I must be the reason Walter got rid of Jurgen, sent him to stay with Vera, let her hide him for a while.”

“You think she knows about you?”

“If she’s any good. But if she doesn’t realize I’m closing in, Jurgen will point it out to her. Now what does she do, hide him or throw him out? She can’t hand him over. What’s she doing with an escaped Nazi POW?”

“You told this to the feds?”

“I said she knows you guys would come down on her. And before you’re through ringing her out she knows she can kiss her spy act good-bye. But, I told them if Jurgen feels she’s nervous about the situation he’ll leave, disappear. They want to know how I can be sure that’s what he’d do. I said because he knows he’s better off on his own than having to count on people who’re strangers to him. I know he’d have serious doubts about Walter. Walter’s scared to death to have Jurgen around.”

“They ask how you know that?”

“I said Jesus Christ, I’ve met Walter. I know what kind of man he is. I sized him up as I would any offender I’m after. I said the thing to do before you lose Jurgen, go on in the house and bring him out handcuffed. Vera too.” Carl paused to let Honey wait for what he’d say next, but she beat him to it.

“They ask you what an old boy who wears cowboy boots knows about people in espionage?”

“Only the way they put it,” Carl said, “was why don’t we let the scenario play out a little more, not spook the spooks.”

“What scenario?”

“Whatever they think is going on.”

“How do they know Jurgen’s at Vera’s?”

“Bohdan Kravchenko. He’s been working for the feds since Vera came here.”

“Kevin told me about him, yeah, Vera calls him Bo.”

“Kevin says this Ukrainian tells them spy stuff without telling them anything. There’s a meeting tonight, but Bo doesn’t know why it was called. The Bureau guys admit he could be stringing them along, but he’s all they’ve got. I mentioned before, I think Walter’s gonna present Jurgen to the gang.”

“But you don’t know why, if he’s kept him a secret until now.”

“He has a reason this time or he’s showing off. Look, everybody, here’s an honest-to-God Nazi superman I brought to the party.”

Honey said, “If you think Jurgen will disappear by tomorrow-”

“That’s where I’m stuck. What do I do about it?”

“Don’t they have agents watching the house?”

“That’s why I can’t barge in.”

“I have to assume,” Honey said, “the FBI guys know what they’re doing. Don’t they?”

“They do, only their scenario’s different from mine.”

“You’re afraid Jurgen’s gonna slip by them,” Honey said, “and you’ll have to start all over. What’s he like?”

“Jurgen? He’s a nice guy, he’s smart, he’s funny. He can do different accents.”

“How old is he?”

“I think he’s twenty-six.”

“What’s he look like?”

“He has dark blond hair, blue eyes, he’s five nine and a half, one forty-five, he’s always tan, his legs, ’cause he likes to wear short pants.”

“Is he good-looking?”

“Girls like him, they think he’s cute. I’d see girls that worked in the administration building, just outside the gate, watching him through the wire fence. One of them pulling on the front of her blouse like she needed air. He had a girlfriend at that time, a hot young babe, he’d sneak out of camp to visit.”

“You mean he’d escape. What did the hot babe do?”

“It was an experience,” Carl said, “to know her. She went from the debutantes’ ball to a cathouse in Kansas City, became a very expensive call girl and got rich, saved it, didn’t get into opium. She’s gonna write a book, says I won’t believe some of the things happened to her in her life. I think she was sixteen working in the cathouse. Shemane had a sideways look she’d give you.” Carl grinned. He said, serious now, “She’s a redhead.”

“You liked her,” Honey said.