Peter Leonard - Back from the Dead

The scale man wrote everything on a small piece of notepaper and handed it to Dink. Squirrel moved the El Camino, parked next to the office. They went in the cinderblock lobby that reminded Dink of his cell at the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville where he done eight years for robbin’ a convenience store, first and only conviction.

There was a tinted double window on the inner wall that slid back and forth. It was open a couple inches and Dink could see a desk, file cabinets and a not bad-lookin’ girl with blonde cotton-candy hair, phone up to her ear. He tapped lightly on the glass with a knuckle. She slid the window open, held her hand over the part of the phone where you talk.

“Can I help you?”

“We’s here for our money.” Dink handed the piece of paper to her.

The blonde brought the phone back up to her face and said, “Mother, I’m going to have to call you back.”

She hung it up and opened a metal lock box on the desk. Dink could see it was full of money. She grabbed a few bills, turned and handed him two tens, a five and three ones.

“Here you go,” she said. “Don’t spend it all in one place.” Dink grinned. “Well, I’ll try not to.”

They walked out of the office, got in the El Camino. Squirrel said, “What’re you doin’ hittin’ on that smelly, you’re suppose to be playin’ it incognito?”

“You’re givin’ her too much credit. There’s nothin’ about me she’s gonna be able to tell anyone.”

Squirrel spun the El Camino around in the yard. Dink watched a crane with a grapple hook drop a load of scrap in a high-sided semi-trailer, shocks compressing, the trailer shaking.

“What you should’ve noticed back there was the cash box full of money.”

“Believe me, I seen it,” Squirrel said. “How much’s in it, you suppose?”

“Enough to bother.”

Squirrel gunned it past the scale man talking to a guy with a stake truck full of rusted farm machinery on the bed.

They stopped at a bar in Hamtramck, had a few cold ones and grilled kielbasa on hotdog buns with mustard and dill chips, and came up with a plan. Well, Dink came up with the plan while Squirrel guzzled four PBRs and inhaled the kielbasa.

After lunch they bought a couple six packs and drove to the trailer park where Squirrel lived. Squirrel had a chain cutter they’d use to cut the chainlink fence. Squirrel also wanted his .45. They sat around the trailer all afternoon and evening watching porno films from Squirrel’s collection, starting with Shoot the Goooo, then Masterbation Frenzy and Dink’s personal favorite, Twat’s Up Doc?

They drove back to the scrap yard, arriving at 2:58 in the a.m., Hamtramck bars had been closed for an hour and the streets were deserted. Squirrel parked on a side street across Mount Elliott from the entrance, killed the lights. There was a car parked in the middle of the yard, looked like a bone stock two-door ’62 Chevy Biscayne. Somebody in it, smoking cigarettes, keeping the engine running, probably listening to the radio. Dink saw the night watchman step out of the Chevy, wander over to the warehouse and take a leak, and that’s when they made their move.

Hess glanced at himself in the rearview mirror, blue-and-red Cleveland Indians cap pulled low, brim hiding most of his face. He had a good feeling that today was going to be the day. He eased the big Chrysler out of Max’s garage, pressed the button on the remote and watched the door go down. He drove through the neighborhood, went left on Atlantic Boulevard and got stuck in traffic, waiting for the drawbridge to go down.

When it did he drove to Oceanside Shopping Center. The parking lot was crowded and he took a few minutes to find a space, parked and went straight to the post office. Hess opened the box and saw a note saying he had received a package. The box could accommodate letters and small parcels, but larger items had to be picked up at the counter.

He showed a clerk the note and Max Hoffman’s driving license. The clerk went into another room, found the package, asked Hess to sign his name and handed him a square padded parcel. He carried it under his arm to the car and started back to Max’s house.

Using a paring knife, Hess cut through the packing tape, sliced through the top of the envelope and slid three shrink-wrapped stacks of blank paper out onto the kitchen table. If Ingrid had decided to keep the money, why did she go to the trouble of sending a package at all? It made no sense… unless someone had gotten to her, threatened her. The package was mailed so he would be seen picking it up and followed.

Hess opened Der Spiegel, read the article, and now he had a better idea what was happening. The article mentioned his upbringing — father was a career soldier, mother a teacher and strict disciplinarian — and his Nazi party affiliation, suggesting his rapid rise was due to his relation to Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, which was patently untrue. The article mentioned Hess and his SS murderers slaughtering six hundred Jews in the woods outside Dachau in 1943. Two survivors had escaped and identified him, although the incriminating photos of Hess posing in front of the pit filled with dead Jews would have likely been enough to convict him.

Hess walked around the house locking the doors and windows and decided, for the time being, to stay inside. The first question: who was after him? Was it Mossad? Agents from the Central Office for Nazi Crimes? The Federal Criminal Police, the Bundeskriminalamt?

Another problem: the $50,000 was money he needed to live on. Then it occurred to him that Max Hoffman had assets he could tap into. Maybe not $50,000, but something. The third bedroom, Hess remembered Max telling him, was used as an office. He went in and sat behind Max’s dark heavy desk that had brass handles and looked out of place in the small room with turquoise walls and windows that let in a lot of sunlight.

He glanced at the photograph of a woman in a wooden frame next to the phone, assuming she was Max’s former wife, a good-looking woman, late forties. Hess found Max’s bank statements and other financial information. For a teacher he was surprisingly well off, $28,000 in cash and $105,000 in bonds, plus monthly income from an annuity and a pension from the Ohio State Teacher Retirement Fund.

With the driver’s license, Hess could travel to different bank branches and withdraw money from Max’s account. But depleting the cash would take time. He could also sell the house. According to the advertisements for similar waterfront homes in the newspaper, Max’s house had to be worth at least $60,000. But that would have to wait. His more immediate concern was staying alive.

Zeller bought coffee and pastries at a bakery and arrived in the shopping-center lot at 8:15, parking with a clear view of the post-office entrance forty feet away. He sipped coffee and ate a cheese Danish, watching the shopping center come alive. At 8:30 a.m. a uniformed employee opened the post-office door. Zeller grabbed binoculars off the seat next to him, and trained them on cars pulling in, focusing on people: an elderly couple, two longhaired teenage girls standing on the sidewalk eating doughnuts, a mother pushing a stroller, shoppers pushing carts. A little after eleven, Zeller saw a stocky man in shorts and a red-and-blue cap walk along the concourse and into the post office.

Zeller trained his binoculars on the same man as he came out, carrying a package stamped with West German postal indicia. Now convinced this was Hess, Zeller watched the man return to his car, a big green Chrysler, watched him drive out of the parking lot and turn on Atlantic Boulevard. Zeller followed, saw him turn right on NE 5th Street and knew where he was going.