Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

“How about inventing a secret weapon?” he asked.

“That’s not as easy as rolling off a log,” Artie said.

“You got that from ‘Red Ryder,’” said Tutlow.

“Got what?”

“‘As easy as rolling off a log.’ That’s what they say when they tell you to send in your coupons for a Red Ryder BB gun. ‘It’s as easy as rolling off a log.’”

“Well, anyway,” Artie said, “you can’t just go around inventing secret weapons. You got to have factories and stuff.”

“I got a chemistry set.”

“I’m no good at chemistry.”

“You could be the guy who tests the weapons to see if they work.”

“Like fun,” Artie said. “I’m not gonna get blown to kingdom come.”

“You got a yellow stripe down your back or something?”

“Boy, are you in a crummy mood today.”

“I’m sorry. I guess my morale is low.”

“Well, that’s why we got to think of something.”

Artie took the top bun off the rest of his burger and splashed some more catsup on it.

Tutlow started to take a bite of his own burger when he stopped with his mouth open, looking like he’d been conked on the bean. He was staring at something on the wall.

“That’s it,” he said, putting his hamburger down without even taking the bite.

“What is?” Artie asked.

“Lookit, on the wall, the new poster,” Tutlow said.

Artie turned and looked at the new patriotic poster Bob had put up. It was a picture of Uncle Sam with a finger to his lips, and it said: Even In This Friendly Diner There May Be Enemy Ears—Stop Loose Talk and Rumors.

Artie read the poster and then glanced quickly around Bob’s Eats, seeing only a couple of kids from the School Traffic Squad, and an old guy who looked like a truck driver.

Artie leaned across the table and whispered.

“Where’s the ‘Enemy Ears’?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But they might be anywhere. Right here in Town.”

“You saying there’s enemy agents in Birney?”

“They caught a German spy in Chicago, didn’t they?”

“The FBI did, yeah.”

“Well, the FBI needs help. They haven’t got enough guys to go to every town in America.”

“You think we should call them and ask? The FBI?”

“Not till we got evidence,” Tutlow said.

“Of spies?”

Tutlow nodded slowly.

“Wow,” said Artie. “That makes us counterspies.”

Tutlow put a finger to his lips, and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

“Quiet,” he said. “There may be ‘enemy ears.’”

Artie clammed up, making his face look expressionless, so no one could read it. He was almost too excited to finish his hamburger. They had finally found something real to do.

Just then Fishy Mitchelman burst in the door, his long arms flapping.

“Comin’ in on a Wing and a Prayer,” he sang in his cracked, off-key voice as he pulled out a chair from the table where Artie and Warren were sitting, plunked himself down in it, leaned over Artie and pressed his mouth onto the straw sticking out of Artie’s Coke bottle, and took a big slurp.

“You dooh-dahs getting much?” Fishy asked.

“Is that all you still can think about?” Artie said disgustedly, using his thumb and forefinger like tweezers to pluck the straw Fishy had slurped on out of the Coke bottle and drop it on the table. By now, Fishy might have some sex disease he was conveying around.

“There’s a War on, you know,” Tutlow said.

“Gotta have music,” Fishy said. “Listen to this, and guess me.”

Fishy put his big hands on the table and started beating out a staccato rhythm, closing his eyes and bobbing his head back and forth, then he suddenly stopped and looked at Artie and Warren with hopeful eagerness.

“Who am I?” he asked.

“Samuel F. B. Morse?” asked Tutlow.

“Foog,” said Fishy, squinching his face like he smelled something bad.

“I give up,” said Artie.

“Gene Krupa!” Fishy exclaimed.

“Well, that’s good,” Artie said. Actually, he was glad to see Fishy get interested in something besides sex; he figured maybe there was hope for the guy after all, and imagined what a swell counterspy he would make, if he just got serious.

“Would you like to put your talent to work for the War Effort?” Artie asked, wanting to give Fishy the benefit of the doubt.

“Banzai!” Fishy shouted, and Warren Tutlow, shaking his head, gave Artie a kick in the shins under the table.

“Never mind, we got to be going now, Fish,” Artie said and stood up.

Warren stood up too, and they went to pay Bob for their Cokes and burgers.

“Where you guys goin’?” Fishy asked.

“Secret,” Warren Tutlow said.

“Fish- ee !” said Mitchelman, googling his eyes around and flapping his arms. He was one guy the War hadn’t changed at all.

They sat cross-legged on the floor of Tutlow’s room with the curtains drawn, and Artie lit the stub of a candle that his patriotic pal had stuck in the top of a Coke bottle. The secrecy was necessary because of the great new mission they were going to undertake.

They were going to be counterspies.

After Artie lit the candle he was kind of stumped.

“Okay,” he whispered. “What do we do next?”

“Well, if you look for enemy agents, what kind of people do you look for first?”

“Pre-verts?” Artie guessed.

“Well, maybe, but that’s not the first thing.”

“What is, then?”

“ Foreigners ,” Tutlow said in a hissing whisper.

Artie slapped his hand on the side of his head for being such a dope he hadn’t thought of that right off.

“So the first thing we do,” Tutlow continued, “is check on the movements and activities of foreigners right here in Town.”

“Have we got any?” Artie asked.

“I could name you three, and there may be even more. For all we know, there may be foreign spies among us posing as Americans. But anyway, there’s three real ones I can think of, using their own foreign names.”

“You don’t mean old man Weiskopf at the dry goods store?”

“He’s German, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he’s Jewish, so he doesn’t count.”

“I know Jews are real strange and they have these weird customs and all, but they still count.”

“I mean they don’t count as Germans . The Germans go around killing Jewish people, it’s part of what they do in the War, so the Jewish people hate Germans as much as we do.”

“Well, if you ask me, he’s still foreign , so you never can tell.”

“If you ask me, he’s a nice guy. Besides, he’s too old for spying and sabotage.”

“Okay, that still leaves two more foreigners right here in Town.”

“Are you thinking of Mr. LaPettier, at the bank?”

“He’s French. That’s Allies.”

“I know that. I was just naming foreign guys.”

“They got to be Axis guys.”

Artie scratched his head real hard, then shrugged.

“I give,” he said.

“You forget about the LaBiancos?”

“The LaBiancos! You crazy? Raymond LaBianco’s in the Navy. Besides, his folks were born here.”

“Their ancestors still come from Italy, which is an Axis power. They still got relatives there, and in Wartime, you never know.”

“The good Italians are on our side now anyway. It was just Mussolini that got them in with Hitler.”

“For all we know, the LaBiancos over in Italy may be on Mussolini’s side.”

“You don’t even know that. Anyway, I’m not spying on any LaBiancos.”

“I didn’t mean we should. I just meant we got to count them as foreigners. Anyway, you haven’t even got to the prime suspect.”