“Nope; nothing. The house was dark when we got her, it’s stayed dark while you were gone and...” He rises to look. “It’s still dark.”
“So, the Nazis are all asleep,” she says.
“Or it’s the wrong place,” Lou agrees.
“Right. Shall we wait some more?”
“We should.”
But, it turns out, not for all that long.
By Lou’s watch, a battered old Timex, it’s a little after three when he hears a faint creaking sound, like a lot of tormented souls just started crying in pain. He nudges Cassidy who gets to her knees to watch.
“Somebody’s at the barn,” Lou says. In the moonlight they can see a stocky man fanning the door back and forth and hear the protest of the rusted hinges.
“The hell is he doing?”
“I do not know.”
“Is he checking to see if the door works?”
“At three AM? I doubt it.”
“Well is he, you know, one of them?”
“Cassie, how can I tell from here? It’s not like he’s wearing a uniform now.”
“Funny. Seriously, what do you think he’s doing?”
“It’s like he’s enjoying the sound.”
“And a lovely sound it is.”
The creaking stops and the man goes in the barn. The door shuts behind him. The night gets quiet again.
“What do you think?” Lou asks. “Is it them?”
“I don’t know. Do farmers start the day this early?”
“Not any farmers I ever met. Do Nazis?”
Cassidy’s about to say, “Not any that I ever met,” probably mimicking Lou’s voice. Lou can see it’s on the tip of her tongue.
“Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t,” she says indignantly, knowing she was. “Should we go check it out?”
“I think we should. At least we can be near if anything happens.”
They slip out of the nest at the base of the tree and move silently across the open land. The moon gives too much light and every tiny sound makes them feel like they’re being watched.
They reach the side of the barn farthest from the house and creep toward the front. Lou looks around the edge, doesn’t see anyone or hear anything. They stop at the corner and Lou puts his ear to the wall, listening.
“There’s something going on,” he says. Slivers of white light shine through the cracks in the all but they’re too small to see through. “I can’t tell what.”
“Do you think Monk’s in there?” Cassidy says.
“One way to find out.”
Cassidy knows what he means, says, “There’s lots of ways to find out. You don’t have to barge in and beat somebody up.”
“Okay; there’s the fun way to find out.” Lou grins back at here like he’s said something clever and Cassidy rolls her eyes. He takes her hand—it’s sweating—and they walk silently along the face of the barn, the moonlight seems brighter, like they’re being lit by a spotlight and Cassidy’s heart is beating like a kettle drum, the ones they use in the movies Lou likes, just before the door creaks open and somebody jumps out with a knife.
They’re just at the door when it creaks open. Lou drops her hand, says, “Hey,” in a sharp whisper, and a hand shoots out of the door with a knife in it. Cassidy sees the blade in slow motion as it shines in the moonlight toward Lou’s throat.
But Lou moves faster. He jerks his head back, the knife whizzes by and he spins, throws a short punch and slaps the hand with the knife. The blade spins away and Lou ducks back against the wall. There’s a strangled sound and Monk falls out of the barn clutching his face.
Lou says, “Monk?”
Monk says, “Ow.”
A female voice from inside says, “The hell?”
And lights come on in the house.
“Quick,” says Cassidy, being the first to see the lights, understand who’s who and reacts. She pushes Monk back into the barn, grabs Lou’s sleeve and pulls him along. The door creaks again and they all huddle in the dark inside the barn. Lots of heavy breathing before Monk says, “Lou? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Cassie?” says Monk.
“Here,” she says, adding, “Bonnie?”
Who answers, “The hell?” again.
Monk, a quiet voice in the dark, says “Everybody, let’s all get to the back of the barn. I’ll get the lantern; we can talk.”
Cassidy says, “Not a good idea. I saw lights come on in the house.”
Monk says, “Damn,” sounding like it’s coming through split lips. Then, stronger now as he takes charge. “Okay, new plan. We go in the back without the lamp and we can talk.”
Cassidy takes Lou’s hand this time—annoyed to feel that he’s not sweating—and they all bump into each other as they stumble though the dark. Ten steps, fifteen, Cassidy’s sliding her feet to keep from falling until her left foot hits something soft and she trips, dragging Lou with her. She falls face first with her knees atop whatever she fell over and she’s scrambling to get back up when Bonnie says, “You fell over the body.”
“Body?” says Lou from over there. He didn’t fall, Cassidy fumes.
“Aldo,” says Monk. “We stabbed him a lot. He’s one of them.”
No doubt about who them is. “So, this is the right place,” Cassidy says, finally getting to her feet. The thought of a dead guy down by her ankles in the dark once again brings back those damn movies Lou likes so much and she’s pretty sure if she was alone she’d be running out of here yelling “Feet’s, do yo stuff!” Like that comic guy Stepin Fetchit in the comedies she likes; not one of them with dead bodies on the floor in the dark.
Monk says, “Why are you here?”
“To rescue you,” says Lou.
“You’re late,” says Bonnie. Cassidy tries to remember what she looks like, has just a hazy memory of the pretty brunette she set up with Monk. She forgives herself for forgetting; it’s been a hectic couple of days.
“We’ve been trying to find you,” says Lou.
“You found my clue,” says Monk.
“Sure. Some clue. No car. How could we miss it?”
“Hey, I was being beaten up. It was the best I could think of.”
“Boys! Not now.” Cassidy bit her tongue when she fell and she can taste blood in her mouth. It clashes with the chocolate. “We need to get out of here.”
“I agree,” agrees Bonnie. Cassidy trying to remember her hairstyle. Short? Maybe in a bob?
“No,” says Monk, and everybody stops. They’d all be staring but it’s still too dark to see anything but vague shapes.
“Monk; we’ve got to go!” Cassidy’s whispering urgently, remembering that light in the farmhouse.
Bonnie agrees with the usual, “The hell?”
“Wait a minute,” Monk says. “I have an idea.”
Cassidy, in the dark, can hear the amusement in Lou’s voice.
“Oh good, you have an idea.”
Monk says, “It’s like this... Lou; you’ve got to attack these guys.”
“All right!”
Cassidy notes the enthusiasm in his voice and shakes her head. Not that anyone can see it in the dark.
“And lose,” Monk adds.
“Uh-huh.” Lou sounds a lot less enthusiastic. “Explain please.”
“They’re up to something. Something big. I saw a set of architectural plans yesterday. When I commented, Erich got all nervous and he hid them. When they were dragging us back here, I saw them loading explosives out of the truck, bringing them in the house.”
“Hold on,” Cassidy says, holding up her palm to stop him. Not that he can see it. “How do you know they have explosives.”
“The box said ‘Caution: Trinitrotoluene.’” More long silences. Monk, exasperated. “Trinitrotoluene? TNT. The stuff they use to blow up buildings.”
“Oh,” says Lou. “Sure. Tri... nite... sure.”
“So, they have TNT and they have architectural plans. QED; they’re
going to blow up something.”
“What?” asks Bonnie.
“I don’t know. That’s why Lou has to get in the house and find out.”
“How will I find out?”
“By getting captured and getting them to tell you.”
“How will my being captured get them to tell me anything?”
“I don’t know,” Monk says. “It always works in books.”
“How about this instead? I go in and I beat them all up and they tell me everything I want to know. How’s that for a plan?”
“Um,” says Monk.
“Well...” says Cassidy.
“He can’t possibly do that. Monk? Can he?” Says Bonnie.
Lou’s waiting for Monk to explain to this woman—he only has a vague idea of what she looks like; sort of an after-image when he saw her at the door. He waits a bit longer while the silence builds. “Monk?”
“Well.” Monk echoes Cassidy. “Lou, it’s like this. You’re not getting any younger...”
“Yeah?” Ice crystals are forming on that word.
“And, it’s a small house. Lots of small rooms...”
“Yeah,” Lou says again.
“And you’re not...” Monk’s voice fades away in the dark.
“Not what?” says Lou and Cassidy’s wondering, how can he not see where this is going?
“Lou, there’s five guys in there.” He doesn’t say, there were six, but we stabbed one. He wants to, because he’s kind of proud that he did this thing, he and Bonnie, and didn’t have to depend on Lou to save the day.
“So? There’s five guys. I can take five...” Another long pause and, in the dark, the light, figuratively, comes on. “Shit! You think I can’t take them anymore.”
“I’m not doubting you,” Monk pleads, though he obviously is. “It’s just that... they’re... and you’re...”
Cassidy feels her heart beating and she wishes desperately that she could see her husband, how’s he’s taking this, maybe hugging him to ease the hurt.
Until Lou says brightly. “Well tie me to an anthill and spread my ears with jam. I like this plan!” and she wants to slug him instead.
It takes a couple more minutes to finish explaining, for Lou to argue details, for Cassidy to object and Bonnie to say, “This is insane.”
“It isn’t,” Monk argues. “Lou goes in, gets a little beat up,” he sounds kind of apologetic about that. “He finds out what we need to know.”
“Yeah?” asks Cassidy. She’s picturing Lou—her Lou—in a room full of these guys, fighting just hard enough to make it look real, seeing the fists and the boots and she says again, a lot more harshly, “Then what, Monk?”
“We all come and rescue him. We have guns, we do a lot of shooting, they all leave and we get Lou. He tells us what he’s found out...”
“If anything.”
“He’ll do it, Cass. I have faith.”
“This really sucks,” says Cassidy. “This is a bad plan.”
“Trust me; it’s the only way.”
There’s a long—long—pause while everybody considers that remark before Cassidy says, “Monk? How come nobody ever has two ways to do something? It’s always ‘it’s the only way.” Like, that’s it, that’s all we can do.”
“You have another idea?” Monk doesn’t even try to disguise his feelings.
“I do.” Cassidy points back, as if any of these shadows can see her. “We go out that door, across the field to the car and we drive like mad back to the city.”
“What about the Nazis?”
“What about the Nazis?”
“We can’t just leave them.”
“Well,” says Bonnie, a female voice of reason. “We could, you know. Leave, I mean. Why is it our problem to solve?”
“Um?” says Monk, using that lecturing tone he uses that annoys Cassidy no end. “They’ve got a bomb? People are going to get hurt? Maybe dead?”
Cassidy’s not buying. “Nope, Not our problem. We skedaddle, we call the cops...”
“Like they’ll believe us,” says Monk.
“We call a lot of cops,” says Cassidy. “Until we find some who’ll listen. Cassowary or Bristol.” But she hears the doubt in her own voice about those two.
“We don’t know what they’re planning Cass,” says Monk. “Nobody’s going to believe...”
And the door hinges shriek.
They all spin to face the door. It opens to let in a dim rectangle of light which is immediately blocked by one...two...three...large men entering. There’s a babble of words, all expressing confusion.
Lou says, “I got this. Everybody hide.” He shoves Cassidy hard and she stumbles with Monk and Bonnie behind the railing walls. Monk grabs the tarp and throws it over them.
“Be safe, Lou,” she whispers.
In the dim light Lou sees the lantern hanging from a nail on a support column. He walks over and pulls it down, stretching to get the handle off. He lights a match and smiles at the astounded look on the faces of the three men who entered.
“Hey guys,” Lou says amiably. “Hold on; I’ll be with you in a second. He turns his attention back to the lantern, deliberately ignoring them as he fusses with the flame. In a few moments he has it glowing white and he holds it up to inspect them.
Three guys he’s seen before, at the bar, punching and hitting him before Monk and Cassidy came and burned the place down. They’re getting over their surprise and gather in a semi-circle in front of him. Lou watches with mild interest and an easy smile he knows is making them mad.
“You,” says a medium sized guy with a narrow face and acne. He’s in a tee shirt that shows thick arms with needle marks. The other two are just average, brown hair, black hair, slicked down, tousled from the wind outside or from getting woken up at dawn to go see where Aldo is and check on the prisoners. Both have that expression that says resentment and Lou decides to rattle them.
He starts calling out names from the auto list and smiles wider when confusion becomes awareness as at least one of them responds when his name is called.
Lou makes a lunge at them and they all jump back, remembering the damage he caused and how he beat Erich and Aldo and two others. He thinks, make it look good, and attacks them.
Not all out but enthusiastically, using their confusion and lack of coordination to let him hit them, duck their awkward swings, and generally sow chaos. Lou spins and bobs and is never where they think he is and he’s wondering how he’s going to make this come out right. He’s maneuvered them to the door and farther away from Cassidy and Monk and—her, the girl, whoever—and he deliberately slows down enough to let one of them land a punch.
It’s not a very good punch—Lou could outfight these guys in a phone booth—but he plays it like he’s been hit by that new Cassius Clay kid, falling ass over teakettle through the open door into the farm yard. There’s an overhead light, just a hundred-watt bulb under a tin reflector above the door, that gives sufficient light to let Lou play with these clowns, and make it look like they are actually causing him grief.
He lets a few harmless fists hit him in the chest or the back as he moves the fight away from the barn, back in the shadows, over toward the farmhouse. When he’s close enough, out of general amusement, he grabs one of them and shoves him against the wall. He ducks two wild swings while yanking the guy by his shirtfront, using him to hit the house.
The porch light snaps on and Lou lets the Nazi guard fall to the ground. The other two, stunned by the sudden light, blink in confusion.
Erich, dressed in faded jeans and still buttoning a red flannel shirt, takes one step through the battered screen door and freezes.
“You!” He’s unshaven and clearly just woke up, disturbed by the noise outside and Lou is probably the last person he expected to see. For a long moment he simply stares, hand on the door, before diving for his belt, fingers searching for a gun that isn’t there.
Lou grins and calls out like a man greeting an old friend, “Hey Erich! How
’re you doing?”
Erich freezes again, fingers moving spastically on the non-existent pistol. He stares at Lou for several seconds, steps down to the yard. The screen door thuds closed behind him.
The other Nazis arrange themselves in a semi-circle around the casually posed Lou as Erich walks over to stand directly in front. He looks down his nose from his six-four height at his smaller enemy while Lou studies him back with calm interest.
“How are you here?” asks Erich. He sweeps his gaze across the other Nazis and all three duck their heads. “The prisoners,” says Erich, looking around the yard. “Aldo. Where is Aldo?”
“The big sadist?” says Lou. “He’s dead.” His voice is low and easy as if he’s commenting on the weather. “Stabbed,” says Lou, nodding. “A lot. You’ll find him—what’s left of him—in the barn.”
“The prisoners?”
“They’re gone. I rescued them. Killed your guy—Aldo, was it? He was about to commit rape; did you know that? Really stupid move on his part. I mean, there he was, pants down around his ankles...a six-year-old could have killed him.”
Lou gazes around the gathered men with interest. “This is it? Your ‘Master race?’” He starts to laugh. “No wonder you guys lost the war.”
Erich slaps him across the face. Lou swivels with the blow but doesn’t stop chuckling. Somewhere behind them in the fields the farmers cattle are milling. To the east the sun has painted the clouds a vivid orange. The sky is turning from indigo to blue.
Erich says, “Who are you?”
“Fleener’s the name,” says Lou. “Lou Fleener. Pest control’s the game.” He looks around the group. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“No,” says Erich. “You’re not. I have Lou Fleener captive.”
“Well, no. You kidnapped the wrong guy. I’m...”
Erich slaps him again.
“Stop doing that,” says Lou.
“You are Lou Fleener? But the phone call... the office...?”
“Yeah, that’s a poser all right. Bottom line Erich, you got it wrong. You guys do that a lot, don’t you think? Get things wrong, screw things up? I think you should just quit being Nazis and get real jobs. A cook maybe or a file clerk. Maybe work at an auto plant.”
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