Blood Alone: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystey

by James R Benn

  "Hey, that's ours!"

  "Sorry, Sarge, we're commandeering it."

  "The hell you are, buddy. I don't know who you are and I'm not letting this vehicle go on your say-so. Or on orders from a couple of Brits. No disrespect intended, sirs."

  He nodded politely at Kaz and Harry while keeping his M1 leveled at me. I had no shirt other than my OD undershirt and so no HQ shoulder patch or lieutenant's bars to impress him with.

  "You can believe him, Sergeant," Harry said. "Colonel Routh, division paymaster, will be here soon to collect the money. Turn it over to him and provide a guard detail."

  "Yes, sir," he acknowledged politely, still keeping me covered. "Now you get out of the vehicle."

  It was a damned odd situation.

  "I'll return it in one piece," I said, with all the sincerity I could muster as I jammed the gear in reverse and backed out. The tractor was halfway down the street.

  "My captain will have my head if I lose that vehicle." The M1 was aimed square at my head.

  "It won't be lost. We're taking it to Vittoria. If you shoot, try not to hit either of these two, it's not their fault." I hit the accelerator and worked the gears to get us up to top speed before anybody started firing. I glanced back to see the sergeant lower his rifle and curse. Elliott was waving his fists again.

  "Why did you tell them where we are going?" Kaz asked.

  "Because Elliott already knows. Everyone knows. Everyone except us."

  CHAPTER * THIRTY-SIX

  WE DROVE NORTH, out of the deserted town and through mudflats bearing tufts of brown dry grasses that lay limp in the dead air. Away from the sea breeze, the land was scorched and arid. The only good thing was that there was no cover, no hiding place for a sniper to ambush us. I drove fast.

  "What have you discovered, Billy?" Kaz asked, holding onto his cap in the hot wind.

  "More like figured out, finally. I found the truck that Andrews was killed in. It was burned, but there were remnants in it of big rolls of paper. And I remembered something that Nick had said, about AMGOT setting up printing operations on the island."

  "Yes, to produce newspapers and more occupation currency," Kaz said.

  "Willie and Joe!" Harry said from the backseat.

  "Right. It makes sense to print stuff here instead of shipping it all from North Africa. But someone had the bright idea of adding to the printing runs on the sly, and getting rich without seeming to steal anything."

  "I still don't understand about the payroll. Why aren't you worried about that?" Harry asked.

  "It came to me when I thought about what I'd told Don Calo. About how every German, Italian, American, and British soldier would turn this island upside down if it got out that someone had three million bucks' worth stashed away. I was saying it to persuade him that stealing the payroll was a lousy idea. Well , the more I thought about it, the more I understood that it really was a lousy idea. Let's say someone did pull off the heist. What would he do with it? Deposit it? No. Spend it? No. If you're a GI, you shouldn't have more than your pay and what you might win in a card game. Hide it? But for how long? Sooner or later scrip will be replaced by Italian currency and any GI with a huge bundle of it to exchange would be a suspect. There's no point in stealing that much money unless you can launder it. It wouldn't make sense."

  "Tell us something that does make sense," Kaz said.

  We all arched our necks at the sound of aircraft engines, but they were ours. Thunderbolts. I pulled onto a main road and had to slow down to keep pace with the big trucks lumbering along.

  "Here's how I figure it. Someone who knows Vito Genovese also learned about the plans to print currency here."

  "Someone in AMGOT?" Harry asked.

  "Right. My guess is Elliott. He arranges for his guy in the Signals Company to be their go-between. Once they land, Hutton can link up with the civilian phone network and call Vito or somebody who can get in touch with him."

  "Which would explain a criminal like Genovese offering the army his services right after the invasion," Kaz said.

  "Bingo. Now Hutton can communicate both ways. With Vito, through his linkup with the civilian phone network, and with AMGOT back in Algiers. He could get in touch with HQ by shortwave radio. Hell, maybe he could patch the calls together, I don't know."

  "I still don't get it about the payroll," Harry said. He sounded like I used to in algebra class.

  "OK. Our guy is planning this out. He's going to organize the printing of extra occupation scrip. Maybe by extra runs on an AMGOT press, maybe a secret print run with his own printing press and stolen plates, I don't know exactly. He still has to involve people. Hutton and Rocko, not to mention Andrews. At some point, he gets nervous. Maybe he thinks someone's gotten wind of his plans."

  "So he creates a diversion!" Harry said. "He distracts us by focusing our attention on the payroll. Bloody hell."

  "Yeah. And he blackmails Nick into going along, agreeing to crack the safes. But think about it. Between an ONI agent and the Mafia, it wasn't going to stay quiet for long."

  "So if there is an investigation, the first thing they'll find out about is the plot to steal the payroll," Kaz said, rubbing his fingers on his chin. "But then the payroll never made it to shore and you ended up poking your nose where it does not belong, as usual."

  "Exactly," I said, as I pulled out and passed two deuce-and-a-half trucks. "Which worked out well for them, since it kept their cover story alive."

  "And all the while, Genovese and Elliott were planning to quietly print up all the occupation scrip they wanted which no one would suspect. Vito is the perfect choice to launder money on this island. It's genius," Kaz said.

  "Why were Rocko and the Italian chap, Roberto, killed?" Harry asked. In the rearview mirror I could see his face scrunched up with the effort of working it out, and imagined what I'd looked like to my poor sainted algebra teacher.

  "Maybe greed, maybe caution. Rocko had served his purpose, procured all the supplies they wanted, so they didn't need him anymore. They may have worried he'd panic and talk. Or both. Maybe Rocko found out the payroll heist was a blind, and asked for a bigger payoff. As for Roberto, he had seen Rocko take me away, and could identify him. That would be a connection Vito wouldn't want to come up later. Rocko nearly killed Roberto on the spot, but a patrol came along before he could finish the job."

  "Who shot at you then?" Harry asked. This time he wasn't confused. "It wasn't Elliott--he was on that damned tractor. Vito or Legs? Why try to kill you? As far as they know, you were there to celebrate your victory in saving the payroll. Andrews is dead, Rocko is dead, and Nick, even if he is more involved than we know, is in Major Harding's custody. Who 's left?"

  Kaz looked at me, one eyebrow raised in question. Now Kaz is a really smart guy, the kind of guy who reads philosophy and poetry in a bunch of different languages. If he didn't have an answer, I sure as hell didn't.

  "Somebody we don't know about," I said.

  I hated not having an answer. I drove with my lips clenched, tired of talking and swallowing road dust. I had thought I'd hit a home run with this one. Or had all the bases covered. Why was I thinking so much about baseball anyway?

  "Is there anything to eat in this jalopy?" I asked. I hadn't had any food since early that morning. Nothing but coffee and the thought of a chocolate bar. I could hear Harry rummaging around in the backseat.

  "Dear me, British rations," he said. "Sorry to do this to you, Billy. They must have been trading. For what, I have no idea. Ah! Here's some chocolate. Rollos, not too bad."

  He passed me the chocolate and some packages of crackers. They were labeled WELFARE BISCUITS, which didn't do much for my appetite.

  "Tins of Bully Beef, made from select meat parts," Harry said, reading from another label. "Approved by the ministry of food for front-line troops. Nothing too good for the chaps doing the fighting, although I'd love to see this stuff approved for General Staff consumption."

  I ate dry crackers washe
d down with warm water. What had I missed? One thing you could count on with criminals was a willingness to do whatever it took to get what they wanted. Beatings, killings, threats, bribes--they were as natural to crooks as punching a clock or taking the trolley to work every day. Knocking me off had to make sense to them in a way that a working stiff could never figure out. That's why a little streak of backroom larceny could make for a really sharp cop. It made you think like a gangster every now and then, which was helpful if it didn't become your regular line of thought.

  Maybe Vito had gotten it into his head that I had to be killed, and even when it didn't make sense anymore, he and Legs couldn't let go of that idea. They were men of honor, after all.

  "Harry, get Harding on that thing and let him know where we're headed, willya?"

  "Aye aye," said Harry, and began fiddling with the dials.

  "Billy, there's something else that bothers me," Kaz said.

  "What?"

  "We met Colonel Routh, the paymaster for the 45th Division. He showed us the orders that came through from II Corps Headquarters, ordering him to take the payroll ashore with the first wave of the invasion. He said such an order was completely unexpected."

  "And?"

  "No one at II Corps HQ had any idea about that order. He checked afterward. There was no name attached. It did say 'By order of Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley,' but all Corps orders say that."

  "Maybe AMGOT wanted to get the occupation scrip into circulation as soon as possible?"

  "Yes, but no other unit had their payroll go ashore that early. It does not all add up, does it?"

  "I don't know, Kaz. I hope we find some answers in Vittoria."

  I took a right at another road sign pointing to Vittoria. Brooklyn was to the left. Same joker probably painted all the signs on this road. Forty-four hundred miles from home. Maybe it would be an even five thousand before the war was over.

  "Harding left for Vittoria an hour ago." Harry spoke up from the rear. "He sent us a message to find you and bring you there."

  "Anything else?"

  "No, there's too much static."

  "Message delivered," I said. "Harding's a day late and a dollar short. By the time he gets here we should have this all wrapped up."

  "Piece of pie," Kaz said.

  "Piece of cake, not pie."

  "Thank you, Billy. American colloquialisms are so difficult to remember. They make little sense to begin with."

  "Yes, why cake and not pie?" Harry asked.

  "I would say cakes are harder to bake than pies," Kaz said.

  "Right. One mistake with a cake and you've got a lopsided mess," Harry concurred. "With a pie you can simply cover it up with crust."

  "How many cakes have you baked?" I asked them both.

  "I've tasted quite a few," said Harry.

  "I prefer pies. Tortes, actually," said Kaz.

  I was still hungry, and this talk of food made me think of my favorites, all currently off the menu. I should have thought of my mom's cooking, which was great, but the picture I saw in my mind was a good old American hot dog, slathered in mustard, served up at Fenway Park with a cold beer. I hadn't thought about baseball since the last Stars and Stripes I'd read in Tunisia, and today it kept popping up. I hoped the Red Sox had climbed up in the standings and were ahead of the Yankees by now. It had been a long time since 1918.

  We drove into the city proper. It was mostly intact with some shops open for business. The local Banco di Sicilia was open too, and I wondered if any phony money was already deposited in secret accounts there. Not actually phony, though, so there was no way to tell which was legit and which wasn't. GIs strolled down the street and a group of officers sat at an outdoor cafe, sipping glasses of red wine. I passed them by, a bit nervous about ranking officers right now. One of them could be an AMGOT pal of Elliott's.

  The road got narrower, and after a few twists and turns it dumped us out into the central piazza. The usual church was at one end with a fountain in the center. A statue of a woman and a bunch of fish stood ready to spout water, but the basin was bone-dry. A group of GIs sat on the church steps, reading newspapers, their field packs and rifles scattered around them. As I got closer, I could see it was the 45th Division News. A clue, or at least a lead to a clue.

  "Hey, fellas," I said as I stopped the car next to the fountain. "Do they print that paper around here?"

  "Yeah, but they're gettin' ready to pull out," a corporal said, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "We're waitin' for transport ourselves."

  "Where to?"

  "Dunno," he said. "North, I guess. Followin' the division. The front's so far up this ain't even the rear of the rear no more. AMGOT took over the town yesterday."

  "Where can we find them?" I asked.

  "AMGOT?"

  "No, the newspaper staff, the print shop."

  "If they ain't moved out yet, head down the street to the left of that church. 'Bout a quarter mile or so there's some tin-roofed buildings. One of them has printing presses and that's where they been workin' outta."

  "Do you chaps have an extra copy?" Harry asked.

  "Sure," the corporal answered, signaling one of his squad to hand over a newspaper. He eyed me, with my undershirt and bandage for a uniform, then Kaz in his British field blouse with "Poland" stitched on the shoulder, and finally Harry, his bleached-out naval cap at a rakish angle, his blond hair flowing out from underneath. "What kinda outfit you boys with, anyway?"

  "Would you believe General Eisenhower's staff?" I asked.

  "You better git movin' before somebody comes along what ain't got a sense of humor," he said, flicking the ash off his butt and field-stripping it.

  It was good advice. Taking the turn past the church, I drove slowly down a residential street, flowers and drying laundry decorating the small balconies three and four stories above us. People were going about their business--leaning out windows, laughing, arguing--much like you'd find in any neighborhood back home on any normal day.

  But normal didn't mean good. Normal meant you let your guard down. I looked at the rooftops and balconies ahead. I took the first side road I could.

  "Where are you going, Billy?" Kaz asked.

  "I'm going to find the back way in, and then we walk."

  "Why?"

  "Because our sniper could be waiting, and I don't want to give him a second chance. We might even crawl."

  "There's no Willie and Joe in this!" Harry said from the backseat, more upset at the absence of Mauldin's cartoon than the idea of a sniper.

  "There's a war on," I said helpfully as I parked the car behind a roofless building.

  This street had a dilapidated look, as if times had left it behind. A rusted motorcycle with two flat tires and no engine lay in the alley, probably right where it had fallen over a couple of years ago. A few small shops with iron bars on the windows were doorless, broken furniture and other debris marking the trail of looters. From the looks of things, they hadn't had heavy burdens. Down the road was an empty stretch, then the tin-roofed buildings the corporal had mentioned. It was as if people had simply used up all their luck here and moved on down the road to try again.

  "What do we do now?" Kaz asked.

  "Well, since we can't sit and read the funny papers, let's take a walk."

  I got out and checked my .45, worked the slide, and flicked the safety off. Harry had found a carbine in the back of the car, and Kaz had his Webley revolver. Not exactly heavy weapons, but they'd do the trick. All we had to do was get close.

  We walked single file, keeping close to the empty buildings. The sound of our footsteps in the rubble was loud, rock and debris slipping and scraping beneath our boots. The same sound, softer, echoed from around the corner. I stopped at the last building, leaning against the crumbling brick, and listened to the footsteps headed our way. Pressing my back against the wall I motioned Kaz and Harry to halt. Two sets of heavy feet, no voices. I held up the .45, the grip resting in the palm of my left hand. A
curse sounded as one of them slipped, the tone and words familiar to me from North End neighborhoods.

  "Porca l'oca!"

  Two Italian soldiers, rifles slung from their shoulders, came into view. One was hopping on one leg, rubbing his ankle. The other was square in my sights, his mouth twisted open in shock, as if he wanted to scream but was lockjawed. The .45 was cocked and locked, my finger against the trigger, only the slightest muscle tension needed for two quick head shots. My vision flickered across them, registering something odd about their uniforms, but I kept my eyeballs on those slung rifles. One move and they'd both be dead.

  The guy with the hurt ankle looked up. He knew it. Slowly, while his pal stood rooted to the pavement, he raised his hands, palms out.

  He had bent over to tend to his ankle so he looked like he was rising from prayer, the fear of God written across his face.

  "Non sparare, non sparare," he said quietly, soothingly. "Carabinieri. Siamo carabinieri."

  He turned, showing the large white armband that had caught my eye. In bold English letters, it read:

  CIVIL POLICE

  PERMIT PASSAGE

  AMGOT

  "He says not to shoot, Billy," Kaz said, walking up to them, his Webley still in his hand.

  "That much Italian I've learned," I said, lowering the .45. "Ask them where they got those armbands." Kaz spoke to them, gesturing with the business end of his revolver at the white armbands.

  "He says they are from a carabiniere unit, the national military police. They have been put to work by AMGOT, patrolling the town and preventing looting."

  "Ask him what there is to loot out here."

  While the man closest to me finally managed to shut his mouth and stop attracting flies, the other pointed to the buildings, where we were headed. He was taller, and his uniform wasn't as dirty as his buddy's. He spoke emphatically, gesturing to the buildings, to everything around us.