by James R Benn
I wasn't as worried about the finger pointed at me as I was about the carbine held by the same MP who had kept me out of the Code Section. It wasn't at port arms anymore.
"Sure thing," I said, standing up, keeping the piece of paper folded in the palm of my hand. "What's the problem, sir?"
I placed my hand on my hip, as if my back were sore, slipping the paper into my belt. The MP got nervous, stepping forward and motioning "hands up" with the carbine.
"Hold on, fellas," I said, reaching for the sky. "We're all friends here, right?"
Neither of them wanted to be my pal. The MP held the carbine up to my neck as he took my .45 from the holster then shoved me out of the tent.
"What's going on?" I asked, looking around for a friendly face.
"You're not asking the questions here, Boyle, so shut up," Stanton growled.
"Actually, I am, Captain. I'm here from HQ with some questions--"
"Take the wind out of his sails," Stanton ordered.
The MP moved his carbine and whacked me in the stomach with the butt, high, in just the right spot to send me to my knees sucking air and watching little starry lights dance before my eyes. I took heaving, gasping breaths that didn't seem to carry any oxygen into my lungs. I had to admire his technique. He'd used the corner of the wooden butt, knocking the wind out of me without breaking a rib. A billy club was better for this move, but he was doing the best he could with what he had.
My breathing calmed down and I was able to lift my head in time to catch a view of Stanton's backside as he trudged off to the Code Section.
"You . . . a . . . cop?" I asked, needing a few gasps to get the words out.
"Yeah. Patrolman, Detroit. Don't tell me--"
"Detective. Boston."
"Sorry, Lieutenant," he said, helping me up. "If you had your shield you could've tinned me back there."
"You bring yours with you?"
"Yep. Here, take a look." He pulled out a bright silver badge, Detroit police all right. "Got me out of trouble in Norfolk before we shipped out, and I even got a ride from a French flic in Oran one night. I was drunk as a skunk."
"Good to hear that cops stick together the world over," I said.
"Yeah, well, sorry I had to put you on your knees. You OK now?"
"I think so. What are you supposed to do with me?"
"Watch you until a Major Elliott gets here. Come on, let's get out of the sun and take a load off." He led me by the arm--that insistent yet inconspicuous cop grip that left no doubt who was in charge--into the shade of the Message Section. We sat on folding wooden chairs inside, our backs to the rest of the tent. His chair creaked under his weight, but held. He tossed his helmet onto the ground and brushed back his brown hair. He had blue eyes, broad cheekbones, and a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once.
"Smoke?" He offered a Lucky from his pack. I shook my head.
"So what's your name, Patrolman?" I asked.
"Miecznikowski. You can call me Mike."
"Billy Boyle, and you can forget the lieutenant stuff. When there's no one around, who cares." I stuck out my hand and he shook it.
"You look young for a detective," he said, squinting at me through rising smoke as he lit up.
"I made the grade right before Pearl Harbor. Boston PD is a family business."
"Your old man?"
"Yeah, and uncle too, plus a few cousins."
"Not bad, Billy. You like it, being in the family business?"
"It's all I ever wanted to be. I grew up watching the men in my family carry badges like yours. It's all I know really." It occurred to me that there was a big difference between wanting to be something and becoming something because it was all you knew. Maybe I did want it, like Mike wanted it, all on his own.
"It's good work, especially for us Poles and you Irish. Jobs don't come so easy when you got too many c's and z's in your name," he said.
"Or an O in front of it," I said.
"Can you imagine a half Polack half Mick? O'Chmielewski? He'd starve to death before he ever got work!"
We laughed and swapped stories of walking the beat, desk sergeants, and run-ins with politicians and sons of the high and mighty who ran our towns. Things weren't that different in the Motor City, except that Mike didn't have a bunch of relatives to pull him up the ladder. He was a couple of years older than me and still hoofing it in his bluecoat. Or was.
"I work with a Polish guy," I said. "Talks like an Englishman but he's a Polish baron or something."
"A Szlachta, one of the Polish nobility. My old man used to tell us stories of the old knights and their battles. Nothing like this war, that's for damn sure."
"Kaz lost his whole family in Poland."
"That's tough. Fuckin' Germans. Yet we get along fine with them in Detroit, used to go to their church before we got our own built.
Something about the old country must make them nuts. What 's your pal's full name?"
"Piotr Augustus Kazimierz," I said, giving it the full treatment.
"Don't know the family," Mike said, after giving it some thought. "Say pozdrowienia to him for me. Tell him to settle in Detroit when the war's over. We got a nice neighborhood--Poletown, they call it."
"I'll tell him," I said, smiling at the thought of Kaz settling down in Poletown.
"Gotta hand it to you Irish," Mike said. "You made your own place in Boston when you were turned out everywhere else. It's good to have your own people running things instead of being run, ain't it?" He fieldstripped what was left of his Lucky and let the shreds of tobacco drop through his fingers.
"Yeah. That why you brought your shield with you? To stay connected with your own people?"
"Never thought about it really. Just seemed like the logical thing to do. Something to hang on to, you know? To remember what life used to be like, back when I took everything for granted."
I understood what Mike meant. More than he could realize. Having lost all memory of my life, rediscovering it was like seeing it all for the first time, a new and gleaming, shiny thing full of promise, but distant now, unattainable. He was hanging on to his own former life, his shield a talisman of things past, a promise of a future.
"I know" was all I said. It was too much to explain, too much to put into words. But our eyes locked for a second, and I said it again, so he'd realize I understood. "I know."
We sat in our chairs, letting the silence linger, the background noises of typewriters, static, chatter, and engines rising into it. The line of shade crept toward us as the harsh sun climbed in the sky.
"I gotta go to the latrine," Mike said.
"Hope you're not going to handcuff me," I said.
"We're brother cops; I draw the line at that," he said. Then he leaned back in his chair, turning his head slightly as a PFC rushed by, a stack of papers in his hand and a pencil stuck behind his ear. "Hey, Reynolds. Watch this guy, willya? Don't let him escape."
He said it in a low voice, winking at me as he did. When he got up, he took out his shield and held it up for me to see.
"Badge number 473. In case you ever make it out to Detroit. Ask for Big Mike."
And then he was gone.
A moment later, so was I.
CHAPTER * THIRTY-THREE
I WAS ON THE run again. I could count on MPs and Major Elliott from AMGOT, Legs, and maybe some local muscle to be on my trail. Not that different from last time around, except now I knew the score. Elliott had to be the man I was after. Why else would he hotfoot it over to the Signals Company and have me held there? Maybe Stanton was in on it too, or maybe he thought he'd apprehended a dangerous criminal. The small fry didn't matter. I wanted Vito for questioning. I wanted Legs for the deaths of Roberto, Rocko, and even Aloysius Hutton, who would have been alive and tinkering in his tent if it hadn't been for this scheme to grab an army payroll. And Elliott for engineering it all, betraying his own side, and throwing me to the wolves.
I eased the jeep onto the main road, keeping my
helmet tilted low and my head down. What I needed right now was a radio, so I could contact Harding and find out where Kaz and Harry were. Too bad I was persona non grata at the Signals Company. I had to find another unit with a radio fast, before the MPs issued an all-points on me.
I scanned the roadside for rear-area units as I drove east to Vittoria. With nothing else to go on, I figured it made sense to check out what Andrews had gone looking for. I passed a supply depot, but didn't see a telltale antenna. A hundred yards on, a hand-painted sign reading TWENTY-SIXTH RGT. MOTOR VEHICLE MAINTENANCE pointed to the left. I took it, following a wide, rough road of crushed stone and hard-packed dust, to an assembly of tents grouped under ancient gnarled, thick-trunked olive trees. Their shade was sparse but, supplemented by camouflage netting, provided defense against the sun, not to mention the Luftwaffe.
Trucks of all sizes, in various stages of dismemberment or repair littered the landscape. Thick logs had been set up in tripods, lashed together with heavy chains, to yank motors out of vehicles by greased pulleys. But what interested me was sticking up through the netting: a single antenna. I parked the jeep in the shade and ducked under the low-hanging net. The radio rested on a couple of empty crates in a tent half tied above to the trees to give full protection from the sun and the rain, if it ever came. A GI in an oil-stained shirt, his sergeant's stripes barely visible through the grime, sat in front of it, headphones on, writing intently with the stub of a pencil.
"OK, got it. Baker Seven out." I waited while he continued to scribble, stopping once to lick the tip of the pencil. He finished with a sigh and took the headphones off.
"Sarge, could I use your radio for a minute?"
"Jeez," he said, standing up as the chair fell over backward. "Don't sneak up on a guy like that. Lieutenant."
"Hey, sorry. I just need to radio my CO. Only take a minute."
He ripped off the top sheet of the pad he'd been writing on, and lifted the chair. "Knock yourself out, sir."
I sat at the SCR-510, a vehicle radio that had obviously been removed from a disabled jeep or tank. I set it for Harding's frequency and began to transmit.
"White Bishop, this is White Rook. Over."
Static blasted my eardrums. I tried again and heard a faint voice acknowledge.
"White Rook, this is--" Static again. I repeated my call sign and as I waited, picked up the pencil and began doodling on the pad. I drew Kilroy, then began filling in his face. I repeated the call sign again. "White Rook, this is White Bishop One. Come in." I recognized Harding's voice. As I held the pencil poised to write down a message, I could see the faint outline of a word beneath my drawing. I rubbed the pencil lightly over the pad.
"White Bishop One, this is White Rook. Do you have location of White Knight?" That was Kaz and Harry. Then I saw a name appear. "Boyle" showed clearly where the motor pool sergeant had written his message on the top sheet, along with the words "report" and "hold."
"Scoglitti, on the coast, southeast of Gela. Do you read? Over."
"Understood, White Bishop. Keep destination top secret. From all. Do you read? Over."
"Not surprised, White Rook. Out."
I changed the frequency and took the top sheet with me. I looked for the sergeant but didn't see him anywhere. Maybe he didn't waste much time on radio orders from MPs or AMGOT. I didn't go straight to the jeep. Instead, I walked around inside the netting, staying behind vehicles and supplies so I could get a good view of the road. I wanted to be sure there were no surprises waiting out there. I edged behind a deuce-and-a-half truck with the hood open and heard voices, the slap of cards, and laughter. Nowhere left to go, I walked around the truck and gave them a friendly grin.
"Hey, fellas, at ease," I said, as the first of the four mechanics spotted me. "I'm looking for your sergeant." They sat on crates around a broken table, its two missing legs supported by a stack of K rations.
"He went to the mess tent to fix himself a sandwich. That way," one of them said.
"All the Spam you want--help yourself, Lieutenant," another said, as the others laughed at his wit.
"Raise you ten," the first guy said, heeding my "at ease" and doing everything he could to comply. Then I noticed the pot. It was a stack of ten-dollar bills higher than a fist.
"How much is in that pot?" I asked, trying not to sound like an officer. "I usually play for nickels."
"Nothing, Lieutenant. Here, have one."
I took the ten-spot. It looked real, until I turned it over. On the back was a German eagle grasping a swastika and a message in Italian.
"Are they all the same?" I asked.
"Yeah, same serial number on all of them. We found a bunch blowing around in the field over there, then a whole box of the damn things."
"Anybody know what it says?" I asked, my curiosity keeping me there when I should have been driving off.
"Tony, tell the lieutenant what you figured out. Tony speaks the lingo pretty well," one of the players said proudly.
"Well, there's a whole bunch of stuff about how we killed plenty of women and children bombing Sicily. And bombed a hospital ship. Then about how all Italians should hate the Americans and the English for that, and that the blood of innocent victims cries out for revenge. Stuff like that."
"We do any of that stuff, Lieutenant?" the youngest of the card-players asked me.
"Can I keep this?" I asked.
"Sure," Tony said. "We play for nickels too. That's what each one's worth to us, in the game anyway. Otherwise they're only good for the latrine. Easier to play with paper, even if it's funny money."
The kid still wanted an answer.
"That's propaganda. Don't take it seriously."
"Sure. That's what I thought, sir. Thanks."
"Call."
I left as Tony won the pot with three jacks. I didn't know about any hospital ships, but I figured a fair share of the bombs we dropped on Sicily killed civilians, without regard to age or sex. Maybe Mussolini was right, that blood alone moves the wheels of history, but I didn't see any reason for a kid who didn't shave regularly to worry about that before he went to sleep each night. A little lie to soothe the conscience seemed right.
I folded the phony bill and walked the long way back around the tent to my jeep, in the opposite direction from the mess tent. I figured there was only so much Spam a guy could eat before he realized he should have asked me my name. I stepped around guy-wires supporting the radio antenna as a wrecked truck caught my attention. It had been dumped in back, in an open area where olive trees had been cut down. It was a charred hulk, bullet holes visible in the cab and frame, showing it had been shot up and then burned. Could this have been the truck Andrews had been caught in? Lots of vehicles had been shot up and burned, but this was the road to Vittoria, so it would make sense. I looked at my jeep, then back at the wreck. Another few minutes couldn't hurt.
I trotted over and looked inside the cab. The windows were gone, shot out or broken in the crash. Inside, it smelled like death and burned rubber. Bullet holes in the door left jagged edges that tore at my pants. My hands came away black with soot, and I headed for the back of the truck. The metal supports for the canvas covering were bent and broken. I hoisted myself up on what was left of the truck bed and tried to comprehend what I was looking at. A pile of charred cans could have been anything. Spam, peaches, who knows what. A faint dark outline showed on the charred floor. About the size of a body. Bodily fluids and burning fat always left their mark. It made it more likely that this had been Andrews's truck. I scuffed through the debris, wondering what a clue would look like after all this.
A flicker of white caught my eye. I pushed aside a blackened pile of something and saw more white. I kneeled and picked it up. Paper. Charred paper. Small pieces fluttered from my hand, none larger than my thumb. It had been a roll of paper, far larger than what I saw here now. The innermost layer of a roll of blank paper, protected from the fire, crumbled at my touch.
Paper. I took the folded fak
e ten-dollar bill and placed two of the larger pieces inside it, then carefully put it in my shirt pocket and buttoned it. This had been Andrews's truck, I was sure of it. Big rolls of paper could mean only one thing. For Andrews, though, all it had meant was that his luck had run out. Legs or the Luftwaffe? It didn't matter. Dead was dead, and I had to move.
I decided to walk straight to the jeep. There was no unusual activity in the motor pool, and I needed to put some miles between me and this place. Sooner or later someone would figure out it had been Boyle who'd stopped by. And maybe sooner, if anyone had been monitoring Harding's frequency. If they had been, then they knew Vittoria was my destination and might be waiting for me there. But I had to have a next move. That was easy to figure. Get things out in the open, in a place where the odds were in my favor. I thought about Kaz, great in spirit and small in stature, and Harry with his leg still hurting from the bullet he took in Algiers and I had to amend that. Not in my favor exactly, just not stacked against me.
I hopped in and started the jeep. I tried not to make any unusual moves, but I couldn't stop myself from looking at the radio. I could see the sergeant, standing at the set, holding an earphone to his head, looking straight at me and nodding. I gunned it, but not before I heard a "Hey, stop!" and other shouts, which I left behind in a cloud of churning dust.
Damn! Now they knew where I was and could guess where I was going. Elliott could pull anyone he had between here and the coast into the search: MPs, mobsters, renegade GIs, you name it. All I had was a .45 and a nagging thought at the back of my head that I'd been led on a wild goose chase ever since I'd awakened in that field hospital.
CHAPTER * THIRTY-FOUR
WHEN MY LITTLE BROTHER Danny was in junior high school, he got a Mysto Magic Kit for his birthday. Practicing and reading up on magic and magicians, he quickly became a junior Houdini. He did magic shows for neighborhood kids, charging two cents apiece, and he'd usually end up with enough copper in his pocket to stock up on penny candy--when I could talk him into it. Otherwise, he preferred to save to buy more magic tricks. Or illusions, as he called them.