Armageddon - Leon Uris

Nick Papas, a personal favorite, entered the tarnished portals and was led to Herr Winkelmann’s personal bar built around an oversized mock coffin with a plaster cast of a nude adorning the lid. Matches were struck on either breast.

“Hello, Nick. Was gibt’s?”

“Need a favor.”

“Of course.”

“You know Stan Kitchek?”

“Your copilot?”

“Yeah. The Looey needs a broad.”

“Send him in.”

“Stan’s a funny kid. He’s shy. Besides, he would never go for a broad on an out-and-out business deal. Something to do with his childhood training.”

“So, we’ll get him a girl who will go for car fare and cigarettes.”

“No ... I told you Stan’s funny. He’s got to feel, you know ... in love. He likes the big story, the hand-holding, the fond farewell.”

Winkelmann shook his head. “I never understand people like that. Well, it takes all kinds.”

“So, you know a broad with puppy-dog eyes and a sad story who speaks English?”

Winkelmann thought, lit up with an idea. “There’s a German restaurant two blocks down and left on the alley called Mutter Rubach’s. There’s a waitress there named Monika. I’ll give her a call and you take it from there.”

“What’s the tab?”

“For you, nothing. How about you and Captain Scott? I got three new additions to my personal stock. They just escaped in from the Russian Zone, eighteen and nineteen years old. Maybe you boys will come up to my place later and we can take some pictures and have a group therapy session.”

“Sorry ... dammit ... we got to fly the second time bloc tomorrow. After we get Stan started, maybe we’ll strafe the strasse for a quick one.”

The sudden appearance or three Amis in Mutter Rubach’s, a German sanctuary, caused the entire tone of the room to soften to a hush of suspicious whispers.

Monika was there and waiting. They played the game out. She served them. Stan thought she was very pretty. Scott said to her, my pal would like to know you better and Monika said if Stan waited in a bar down the street she would join him for a drink after she went off duty, and Stan went away happy, leaving Nick and Scott with big mugs of beer.

By now, assured that the Ami intruders were merely flyers and not counter-intelligence looking for Nazis, the place returned to normal.

A combo of accordion, piano, and drums played a medley of Viennese waltzes with the roving musician hovering over the Ami table and patronizing them. Nick winked at Scott as the accordion player finished and hoped for a tip.

“Speak English?”

The accordion player said he did, a little.

“Have a cigarette. Here, take a few for your drummer and piano player.”

“Oh, thank you, sir.”

“Keep the pack.”

Deep bows. He held the pack for the other two to see. They stood and bowed.

“What would you like us to play, sir?”

“A nice German song.”

“A polka, perhaps.”

“Naw ... I’d like to hear a good old German marching song ... like my grandpoppa played in the band in Milwaukee.”

“Sorry, sir! I don’t know any.”

Nick’s magic pocket produced another pack of cigarettes. The accordion player’s eyes bulged. He walked back to the platform, spoke rapidly to the other two to weigh the prize against the risk of playing forbidden music.

They decided to go it! The combo broke into the “Westerwald March!”

After the first three notes many of the Germans scurried from their tables, paid their checks, and hustled out of Mutter Rubach’s.

Others sat mesmerized. Nick and Scott waved friendily to them to show how much they were enjoying it and put another pack of cigarettes on the piano and the medley was now in full swing with the “Schwabenwinkel.”

Backs became ramrod; there were smiles of nostalgia on old, moustached lips; surges of pride ... beer mugs tapped the table tops in rhythm, and a few tears flowed. The musicians became carried away by their own candor and swept into a marching medley.

As the music crackled off the walls of Mutter Rubach’s and turned into a second and third chorus, voices began singing and tables were being thumped in a frenzied joy.

Scott wanted to blow a whistle when he got outside to watch them tear the place apart escaping, but Nick talked him out of it. Nick had a ’41 De Soto which he had inherited at the end of a large card game. “A little strasse strafing to round out the evening, mein kapitan!”

“Jawohl.”

“I’ll flip you for first run.”

Scott lost the flip of the coin so he took the wheel for Nick to operate. “Where to?”

“Platter Strasse.”

It was a good arterial because it ran from the downtown area toward the Neroberg Hills, where most of the Germans lived. There would be a number of girls looking for rides home, generally.

They trailed a lone girl making her way along the street.

“Make a pass,” Nick said. The front looked okay. The girl smiled at his greeting. “Full flaps, landing gear down, cut engines. This will make nine straight kills, mein kapitan. In no time I will be a double ace.”

He left the car, gently blocked the girl’s route, and told her in fractured German that she had lovely legs which should be encased in nylons ... which he just happened to have ... and would she like a ride home?

They parted an hour later, the best of friends, without knowing each other’s name, the girl several gifts richer.

Nick took the wheel.

“What the hell were you doing up there? Making a lifetime career?”

Nick grunted a happy grunt.

Scott was bored. “I’d shack regular if I could get a place away from that cruddy BOQ and if that Crusty bastard gave me ten minutes free time. This strasse strafing is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“I miss now and then,” Nick said, “but that’s because I’m ugly. Tell you what, Captain, let’s make it sporting. I’ll bet you a ten spot I can pick out a Schatzie you can’t connect with.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Ja oder nein?”

“It’s your ten bucks, Nick ... only, no animals.”

“Legit broad ... all the way... for ten?”

“You’ve got a bet.”

Scott checked his watch. The German movie house would be emptying. He told Nick to drive him along Rhein Strasse in the general direction of the Kurhaus, where many maids working in American homes would be passing. They checked out a half-dozen girls, passed them up ... then both of them saw her at the same time!

Click, click, click went the heels of Hildegaard Falkenstein.

“I may not even take your ten dollars,” Scott said.

“Some guys are just born lucky ...”

Nick blocked the intersection. The girl walked boldly around the front of the car looking straight ahead. Nick began to feel he might have a winner.

“Fraulein,” Scott called, “could you please help us. We’re lost.”

She answered in rapid German, which they could not understand, and continued across the street.

“Ten bucks.”

“Not yet.” Scott got out of the car, blocked her way, gathering all of his boyish innocent charm, holding his hands apart helplessly and agonizing the conversation along in German. He mumbled a few choice words about the girl’s beauty under his breath.

Hilde tried to step around him, but he wouldn’t let her pass. Behind him, he could hear Nick Papas roar.

Words like “nylons” “chocolate” “perfume” were making no impression.

Hilde grew short. “If you do not stand aside,” she said in perfect English, “I will call for the police.”

“Well ... I’ll be damned.”

“Please let me pass. I do not play with little boys.”

“Little boys! Oh honey, if you knew what you were missing, you’d cut your throat.”