Elmore Leonard: Up in Honey's Room

Kevin said, “But you don’t remember a Dr. Michael George Taylor. An obstetrician, he has quite a large practice here, a lot of German-American women.”

Honey shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“He studied in Germany a few years,” Kevin said, looking at his notebook. “He thinks the Nazis have the right idea about the Jewish problem. He says their methods are extreme, yes, but they do the job.”

“How did you learn that?”

Kevin was still looking at his notes. He said, “Dr. Taylor is a friend of Vera Mezwa and a frequent visitor. On one occasion he told her he would be willing to do anything, whatever he could, to further the cause of National Socialism, even if it meant incarceration or even his death. He said, quote, ‘The world would be a far better place for my children to live’”- Kevin looking at Honey now-“‘under the guidance of the firm Nazi philosophy.’”

“He sounds like a bigger idiot than Joe Aubrey.”

“They’re his words, what he believes.”

“You tapped the phone?”

Kevin shook his head. “We didn’t get it that way. I’ll tell you something else. Dr. Taylor supplied Vera with amedo pyrine. You know what it is? One of the ingredients you use to make invisible ink.”

“The German officer,” Honey said, “unfolds the blank sheet of paper, looks at it and says, ‘Our Vera has a beautiful hand, no?’”

“I’m serious,” Kevin said, “these people work for the German Reich.”

“How’d you find out about the invisible ink?” Honey waited, watching him. “I won’t tell anybody, Kevin, I swear.”

He said, “We’ve got somebody on the inside. And that’s all I’m saying.”

“If I guess who it is, how about, just nod your head.”

“Come on-I’m not playing with you.”

“Is it Vera’s housekeeper? What’s his name . . . ?”

“Bohdan Kravchenko. He’s a lightweight, but there’s something shifty about him.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Blond hair like Buster Brown’s, we think is dyed.”

“He’s queer?”

“Possibly.”

“You turned him around,” Honey said, “didn’t you? Brought him in for questioning and used a sap on him, got him to talk. Does he give you good stuff?”

“We don’t hit people,” Kevin said, “when we’re asking them questions. What I’d like to know, was Walter close to Fritz Kuhn.”

“Walter would talk about Fritz and his eyes would shine. We got home from the rally in New York, I was ready to leave him. But once he found out Fritz had swung with about fifteen thousand from the rally proceeds, Walter changed his tune. He was quiet for a while, I think confused.”

“Did Walter know Max Stephan?”

Honey said, “Jesus, Max Stephan. That whole time he was in the paper - it seemed like every day for months - I wondered if Walter knew about the German flier. What was his name, Krug?”

“Hans Peter Krug,” Kevin said, “twenty-two, a bomber pilot.” He opened his notebook. “Shot down over the Thames estuary. Sent to a POW camp in Canada, Bowmanville, Ontario. Escaped and reached Detroit eighteen April 1942. Found a skiff and paddled across the Detroit River with a board.”

“Walter’s name was never in the paper,” Honey said. “So I assumed he wasn’t involved. You understand this was three years after I’d left Walter.”

“But you knew Max Stephan?”

“He was a jerk, as pompous and stuck on himself as Walter, and crude. But this was before Max was charged with treason.”

She knew the details: how Krug dropped in on Johanna Bertlemann, a Nazi sympathizer who used the German Red Cross to send canned goods, cakes, clothing, to the POWs at Bowmanville. Krug had copied her address in Detroit off a package she’d sent to the camp. Johanna introduced him to Max and Max took him around to German bars and clubs before sending him off to Chicago. Someone snitched. Krug was picked up in San Antonio on his way to Mexico and Max was arrested.

Kevin said, “He told the agents who arrested him he thought Americans were ‘frightfully stupid.’ He said he visited some of our major cities, Chicago, New York, and was rarely questioned or asked to show his papers.”

“Part of everyday life in Germany,” Honey said.

“But to convict Max Stephan of treason,” Kevin said, “they’d need two eyeball witnesses. Or, get Krug to tell how Max helped him. But why would he? All he’s obliged to do is identify himself.”

“But he did tell on Max, didn’t he?”

“The U.S. attorney sneaked up on him with questions that put Krug at ease and made him look good. How did he escape from Bowmanville. Why did he come to Detroit. Krug said his purpose was to get back to his squadron. He was talking now. He said yes, he knew Max Stephan. He told the whole story, how he said no when Max offered to get him a prostitute. He described everything they did during a period of twenty-five hours-before he realized he’d given Max up. And he said we were stupid. Max was found guilty and sentenced to hang, the date, Friday, November thirteenth, 1942. But FDR commuted the sentence to life. His home is now the federal pen at Atlanta.”

“What happened to the pilot, Krug?”

“The Mounties came and got him. He’s back in Bowmanville.”

“I read about German POWs escaping,” Honey said, “but most of them turn out to be funny stories.”

“They’re picked up in a couple of days,” Kevin said, “walking around with PW painted on their work clothes. Or they get hungry, miss three squares a day at the camp, and give themselves up.”

“So it’s not a problem.”

Kevin said, “Except I’ve got a guy calling me, a U.S. marshal-” and stopped.

Honey watched him bring out a pack of Chesterfields and hold it out to offer her one. The good-looking special agent seemed right at home on her sofa. Honey took a cigarette and leaned over him for a light, saying, “You look so comfortable, I hope you don’t fall asleep.” Close to him, Kevin trying to keep his nose out of Honey’s orange, red, and ochre kimono. She sat on the sofa now, the middle cushion between them.

“You’ve got a federal marshal calling you?”

“From the Tulsa office, yeah. He asks for me by name since I’m the one spoke to him the first time he called.”

“He knew you from home?”

“Actually,” Kevin said, “I’m originally from Bixby, across the river from Tulsa. I don’t know this marshal but I’d heard of him and I find out he’s famous. Law enforcement people respect him, so you listen to what he has to say. He makes remarks the way you do, with a straight face. Anyway, he had the Bureau office in Tulsa send us additional information about the two escaped POWs. They’re from a camp near Okmulgee, Afrika Korps officers, one of them a major in the SS. With the information was a statement from the Tulsa marshal saying he knows one of them from lengthy conversations and observing him for a time.”

“Which one,” Honey said, “the SS guy?”

“The other one.” Kevin checked his notebook and Honey laid her arm along the sofa’s backrest. Kevin looked up saying, “The marshal claims he knows the guy, and knows-doesn’t just have reason to believe-he knows they came here when they escaped.”

“To Detroit.”

Kevin looked at his notebook again. “The SS major is Otto Penzler. The other one is Jurgen Schrenk, a young guy, twenty-six, a tank commander with Rommel.”

Honey said in her way, “Don’t tell me Jurgen lived in Detroit before the war. What did his father do?”

She let Kevin stare as she drew on her Chesterfield, raised her face, and blew a thin stream of smoke before saying, “Why else would he come here from a prison camp? He must have friends.”