The War Heist

by Ralph Dennis

  After a prowl and a blunder here and there, he found the guard hut. A rating sat there behind a desk, half asleep over a cup of cooling tea. MacTaggart marched inside and slammed the door shut behind him.

  “You in charge of the guards at the train at Pier Twenty-three?”

  “Yes, sir.” The rating staggered to his feet and stood at a relaxed version of attention.

  “It’s raining out there.”

  The rating blinked at him.

  “I know you don’t furnish them umbrellas.”

  “Sir?”

  “But perhaps you have some foul-weather gear.”

  The rating turned and looked at the metal cabinet behind him. MacTaggart brushed past him and opened the door. There were a number of rubberized slickers on pegs in the closet. MacTaggart grabbed several, counting them, until he had four. He walked to the rating and dumped them in his arms.

  “And it’s still raining, and it might rain all night.”

  The rating carried the armful of foul-weather gear to the door and opened it. He watched the gusting wind walk up his shoes and his pants legs.

  MacTaggart returned to the closet and got one more slicker. He held it for the rating while he worked his arms into it, shifting the bundle as he did.

  The rating was over the shock now. “I’ve got one question, sir.” The sir seemed almost an afterthought.

  “Say it.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  MacTaggart didn’t answer him. He pushed past him and walked into the downpour. He didn’t look back, but after a few seconds he heard the rating trotting after him.

  Jean reached Halifax around ten that evening. He could have made better time if he’d tried, but there didn’t seem to be much reason to rush. The man he wanted to talk to would not be at his place of business until some time between ten and eleven. It was misting rain the last half hour or so before he reached the town, and that same light rain covered the city.

  Jean drove around the old part of Halifax for half an hour, and then he found a small dirty-spoon café that was still open. He’d ordered coffee before he remembered that he hadn’t eaten his supper. Nothing on the greasy menu interested him, but he settled for a bowl of chicken stew. It was better than no supper at all. Halfway through the stew he decided that his choice had been a mistake. He finished his coffee and hoped that the acid of it would cut the pool of grease the stew had put in his stomach.

  An old woman with twisted, arthritic hands took his money at the cash register. Her hands fumbled with the change and counted it onto the mat beside the register.

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “For a local call?”

  Jean nodded. The woman had finished making his change. Now she drew a dime toward her and pointed at the wall phone behind her.

  He gave the operator the number. The phone rang a couple of times before a woman with a deep voice answered. Jean asked to speak to Mr. Boulanger. The man who came to the phone sounded groggy, perhaps a little drunk, but he seemed to sober up when Jean said the right words to him.

  “I need some information.”

  “I have been asking around,” Boulanger said.

  “I do not like phones,” Jean said.

  Boulanger gave him directions. Jean left the café and found that the rain fell heavier now. He drove through the almost-dark streets. He didn’t know Halifax, and Boulanger must have assumed that he did. He lost his way several times, a wrong turn or a missed street, and it was going on midnight before he reached the right house.

  It looked like a veritable mansion. It was set far back from the road. There was a high stone fence around it and an iron gate, where a man in a dark raincoat stopped his car.

  Jean gave his name. The man checked it against a wet list he carried in his raincoat. The man nodded and switched off his flashlight and waved the Cadillac through the gate. Jean drove the length of a curving road and parked next to a row of official military cars.

  His arrival was almost like a signal. As soon as he stepped from the Cadillac, the sky opened up. He ran through a cloudburst to the mansion door.

  A tall black man answered his knock at the door. One step inside and Jean knew exactly what kind of house it was. It was all there in the smells. The perfume and powder scents.

  “Mr. Boulanger expects me.”

  The black said, “This way, sir,” and led him down a wide polished hallway. They raised the paper window passed what must have been at one time the living room. Jean had his passing look through the doorway. A number of women in thin gowns were spotted about the room, talking to perhaps a dozen men. Most of the men were in uniform. Officers with gold braid.

  “This way,” the black said again and led him past the living-room doorway. He stopped at a closed door and knocked and entered without waiting for an answer.

  The room Jean entered had probably been the library at one time.

  The black gave something like a stiff bow and backed away and drew the door closed with him. A heavy, fleshy man who looked like he might have some African blood in him got up from behind a huge desk and offered Jean his hand. The palm was soft, and there was a feeling like hand cream from it.

  “You can call me Max,” Boulanger said.

  “Jean.”

  Max poured him a large shot of dark rum in a Waterford crystal glass. He didn’t ask if Jean wanted a drink or if he wanted any special kind of drink.

  “It must be important,” Max said. He had his own drink at the desk. He lifted the glass and drained the last of it and added another two inches of rum.

  “It is.”

  Jean sipped his rum. He looked around the room. Some of the shelves were empty now. The books that remained hadn’t been touched in some months. Dust coated the tops and etched the spines as well.

  “Has anything special happened in town in the last few days?”

  “That covers many things.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Jean said.

  “H.M.S. Emerald docked this morning.”

  Jean shook his head. He had another sip of the rum. It burned his throat.

  “Two men from a train crew were found dead in an alley in the red-light district.”

  Another shake of his head. Then he said, “Dead of what?”

  “I have not heard for certain. It may have been an overdose of some kind of drug. Perhaps too much of a knockout potion.”

  A bartender who made a mistake? It did not seem to be what Jean had come for. “Do you know if any cargo of value has arrived in the last week?”

  Max’s head began its slow shake and then stopped. “I heard something. It meant nothing to me at the time.” He placed his glass on the desk and rose to his feet. “I have to ask a question.”

  Jean finished his drink. He was pouring himself another when Max returned. Max got his glass from the desk and held it out so that Jean could pour for him.

  “I am not sure this is what you want.”

  “Tell me what it is,” Jean said.

  “A man who works at the Ocean Terminals was here earlier this evening. He has formed an attachment for one of the girls. He is a foolish man.”

  “It happens that way at times,” Jean said.

  “The girls tell me all they learn from the customers. One never knows when this information might be useful.”

  “Yes.” This fool was taking his own time.

  “This evening this man told Lisa that they were unloading H.M.S. Emerald. He said there were cases and cases, enough to fill several boxcars.”

  “What was in the cargo?”

  “He did not know. At least, he did not tell Lisa.”

  “Where is this man now?”

  “The man from the docks?”

  Jean nodded.

  “At his home, I suppose.”

  “Is there any way to reach him?”

  “The girl may know,” Max said. “As I said, he is a regular.”

  “I need answers to these questions. What is the cargo? Where i
s it headed? What time will this train leave Halifax?”

  “He may not know all these answers.”

  “I will settle for his best guesses,” Jean said.

  “It may be all he has,” Max said. He left the library once more. He was gone for about ten minutes. When he returned he smiled and nodded. “The man’s still a fool.”

  “A human condition.” Jean had heard Mr. Leveque say that a number of times.

  “Lisa called him and said she has some free time this evening and wants to spend it with him. He said he would be here in about an hour.”

  Jean walked to the desk and turned the clock and looked at its face.

  “Are you short of time?”

  “I have all night,” Jean said.

  “Do you want to talk to this man? I think I could arrange it.”

  Jean took his time. He thought about it the way he believed Mr. Leveque would think. He weighed the value of talking firsthand with the man, against revealing to him his interest. No, it was better to stay in the shadows. “Let the girl find out what she can. If she is a good whore, he will not remember he said anything to her by tomorrow.”

  Max dipped his head. He understood. “It is a slow evening for the girls downstairs. You have about two hours to waste. How would you like to spend them?”

  It was an offer.

  Jean was in bed with a tall black girl from Trinidad when the soft knock came on the door about two hours later.

  The bedroom where the girl, Lisa, waited for him was a froth of lace and little-girl frills. The curtains, the canopy over the bed, and the bedcover itself. And on one of the oversized pillows was the head of a huge brown Teddy bear.

  Lisa wore a long white cotton robe that reached the tops of her feet. It was not what she wore, Jean thought, when she entertained her men. This was for the mornings after, when it didn’t matter how she looked, when it didn’t matter that she looked her age. Her skin was like a child’s, that soft, and her hair was in long curls. Blonde and thick like a Christmas doll.

  He guessed that she was in her mid-twenties. In the right light, without makeup, she could probably pass for fifteen.

  Jean crossed the room and sat on the low bench that went with the dressing table. It had a white satin cover, and the itch began right away.

  Max had followed him as far as the door. He was sweating thick oil, the drinking he’d been doing while Jean had been with the girl from Trinidad. “Tell him what he wants to know,” he said, “and then forget what you have told him.”

  “Yes, Max.” It was a little girl’s voice, almost Shirley Temple’s, but not quite. What ruined it was a slightly off inflection.

  Max said to Jean, “Stop on your way out,” and closed the door and went away. Lisa watched him and then walked around the bed. She sat on the side of the bed near Jean. Her feet were bare. They were long and thin with the nails cut almost to the quick.

  It is a child’s face, Jean thought. That is her whore’s edge. Old men make love to a child or a mock-child.

  “Tell me what you heard about the train.”

  “William said they spent the whole day unloading cases from the British ship and then loading those cases on a train.”

  “How many boxcars?”

  “He wasn’t sure. He thought it might be ten or a dozen.”

  Jean reached behind him and scratched at his behind. “Did he know what the cargo was?”

  A shake of her head. “But he heard some of the cases were heavy and some weren’t.”

  “And the train is still there? At the dock?”

  A nod. “The unloading was not finished by dark.”

  “Where is the train headed?”

  “He thinks it goes to Montreal and perhaps on to the west.”

  It was a stupid question, anyway. It couldn’t go east without ending up in the ocean. Of course it went west. And it did not matter whether it was intended for Quebec or Montreal. Either way, it had to pass through Wingate Station.

  “Did he know when the train is to leave Halifax?”

  “It was a big secret,” Lisa said. “But William likes secrets. The mystery train interested him. He said he did some checking. He saw a guard-duty list. The list goes only as far as 1900 hours tomorrow night.”

  Seven in the evening. He stood and scratched again. The satin had him itching all over now. “And with all this interest, this checking around, he heard nothing about what the shipment is?”

  “He heard one story but he said he did not believe it.”

  “What story was that?”

  “That the cargo was the British Crown jewels.”

  “Why didn’t he believe it?”

  “There were too many cases,” Lisa said. “It would not take that many cases to pack the Crown jewels.”

  He nodded as if he accepted that explanation.

  Of course the cases contained the Crown jewels. Perhaps they also contained the Royal silver and the Royal china and God knows what else the King and the Queen wanted to protect from the air raids and the invasion that was expected.

  The way the war was going, it made sense.

  It was time to go. It was after two in the morning, and there was still the drive, in hard rain, back to Wingate Station. He had taken a couple of steps toward the door when he stopped and returned to her. His hand went deep in his pocket. He had some expense money that Mr. Leveque had given him. It was a wad of twenties. He took off the top two twenties and handed them to her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “As a favor, you will forget the questions and the answers.”

  “It means nothing to me,” she said.

  The temptation was strong. It came on him while he stood over her. While she looked down at the twenties he put out both his hands and gripped the neck of the cotton robe where it met across her chest. He pulled the robe open.

  Lisa didn’t protest. She was limp and pliable.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Henri Leveque awoke. The window shade was down, and he had no way of knowing what time it was. It was, he thought, either very late at night or very early in the morning.

  Then he realized why he’d awakened. There was a loud knocking at the door. He got out of bed and walked barefooted across the room. It was probably Jean back from Halifax, and if he had decided to awaken Leveque, then it was likely that his information could not wait. His man, Jean, had been trained to respect his night hours of rest.

  He unlocked the door and swung it inward a few inches. Lafitte stood in the doorway. His raincoat was soaked and water ran off him and pooled on the hallway floor.

  “I started to come by last night.”

  “Isn’t it night now?” Henri said.

  Lafitte shook his head. “It’s raining,” he said.

  “In the hallway?” Not very bright, he thought. He saw the puzzled look on Lafitte’s face, and he backed away and opened the door wide and motioned Lafitte inside. He found the light switch and turned on the overhead globe. Then he sat on the edge of the bed. “What time is it?”

  “I am not certain.”

  Henri found his pocket watch on the table beside the bed. It was a minute or two after seven. “I suppose you have come for some reason.”

  “The Americans have moved into a building a couple of blocks from the back lot where they’ve been.”

  It was hard to fight back the anger. He’d been in a deep sleep and this idiot had awakened him to give him information that could have waited until later in the day.

  “And you woke me to tell me this?”

  Lafitte flinched. The man’s voice had a crack like a whip in it.

  “There is more.”

  “Yes?”

  Lafitte was slow. Henri could see the big gears move and then the small gears begin to grind. It was like the skin was peeled away and he could see it all.

  “The old American, the one with bruises on his face from the fight …”

  “I know that one.” He was the man that Henri had made the a
rms deal with.

  “About dark, last night, that man test-fired weapons in the woods north of town.” Lafitte dug into his raincoat pocket and brought out a handful of shell casings.

  Henri scooped the casings from his hand. He selected one shell from the dozen or so and studied it. “Do you know what kind of weapons he used?”

  “They were tommy guns,” Lafitte said.

  “This is important to know.” Henri put a hand on Lafitte’s damp shoulder and turned him toward the door. “You have been helpful.” He reached for the doorknob. “I will remember this when the time comes.”

  Lafitte mumbled something.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said I was happy to be of service,” Lafitte said.

  Henri had heard enough of the mumbled remark to know that it was insolent. Not that it mattered one way or the other. He had what he wanted. Now he was certain the Americans had some plan that concerned Canada. The truth was now revealing itself. Before that, before the firing of the weapons, there was always the chance the Americans intended the Thompsons for use in the States. Now, with Lafitte’s new information, he believed he knew better.

  He saw Lafitte out. Lafitte stood in the hall and yawned and blinked and said that he was returning to his room for a few hours of sleep before he took over the day watch at the police station.

  “I will contact you there,” Henri said.

  He closed the door and switched off the overhead light. He bypassed the bed and raised the paper window shade. It was dark and gray, and a light rain pattered against the panes. He sat on the edge of his bed. It was a comfortable bed, full of goose feathers and light as the air. A welcome change after the lumpy bed in Gilway.

  But he knew that he would not sleep anymore. Too much was happening.

  He sighed and got his shaving case from the dresser top.

  Half an hour later, shaved and bathed and dressed, he knocked at the room Jean shared with Pierre. Pierre answered the door. After a look over his shoulder into the dark room, Pierre stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Jean’s back?”

  “He arrived only two or three hours ago,” Pierre said.