He shook his head. “No, you go ahead. I’ll take a cab. Say hi to Norman for me, and I’ll see you soon.” He kissed my cheek and left the room before I could slug him.
Chapter Nineteen
I circled Christ Hospital like a hungry shark, completing two circumnavigations before parking along the street. I didn’t see Colonel Greene’s white Packard anywhere, so I judged it safe to go on in. I looked up at the tall red brick building as I approached the main entrance. Somewhere within, on one of the ten floors, Norman either clung to life, or had left it behind him.
I stepped into the lobby and scanned the room for cops or Feds, but didn’t see any obvious candidates for either. I went to the desk and asked for Norman’s room. When the candy-striper directed me to a ward on the sixth floor, I felt a massive rush of relief, as if a mighty boulder had rolled off my shoulders. Norman, poor bullet-pierced Norman, still drew breath.
Thinking the elevators would certainly be watched, if anyone was watching for me, I took the stairs up to the sixth floor. I walked past Norman’s room to the end of the hall. I stood there, looking out a window for a few minutes, before I turned around. Nobody seemed to be paying me any undue attention, so I went back to Norman’s room and opened the door. The blinds were drawn, which plunged the room into a gray half-light. Norman’s eyes remained closed, his chest rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep. He had bottles of fluid suspended from a pole next to his bed. They dripped slowly, trickling down little rubber hoses and through needles into his veins.
“Norman?” I brushed back the hair from his forehead. “Can you hear me?”
I pulled a chair close to his bed and sat beside him. After a few minutes a nurse came into the room and snapped on the overhead light. She tried on a smile. “Hello there, I’m Nurse Myers. Are you a relative?” In the light, Norman’s skin held a grayish pallor that I didn’t like.
“Uh, not really. Just a friend. How is he?”
She busied herself straightening his covers and looking at the dangling bottles. “Well, we got the bleeding stopped, but he hasn’t woken up since he’s been here.”
“Is that a bad sign?”
The nurse tilted her head back and forth, as if trying to rattle loose a decision. “We’d be happier if he woke up. Don’t lose heart though, sweetie, he’s made it through the worst of it already.”
“So, he won’t die?”
The nurse bit her lip. “Well, we’ll do whatever we can to make sure he doesn’t.”
“That’s not really an answer. Will he die?”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “The best thing to do is remain positive. I’ve seen men much worse off than your friend pull through. Ultimately, it’s up to the Almighty.” She patted my shoulder and left the room.
“Hear that, Norman? She wouldn’t say that you’re gonna die, so there seems to be some doubt about the subject. Just like you to make a mess of it. I guess you’ll have to get better now and try to die properly later.” I leaned close to his ear. “Get better, you dolt.” I stood, watched him sleep for another minute, then left the room. I headed toward the stairs and had just about made it there when I heard a familiar voice.
“Hey! Weber!”
I turned and saw Braun heading my way with two of the oxen I’d seen at the party on Bremen Street. Braun’s mug, never a pretty sight, burned red and twisted itself up into a puss even a gorilla wouldn’t like. He jabbed a finger in my direction and rushed toward me. I darted into the stairwell and up to the next floor. I didn’t wait to see if I’d been followed, but stepped into the hall. I moved as quickly as I could toward the other wing, searching madly for another set of stairs. I heard cursing behind me and I saw one of Braun’s cronies swinging his head back and forth, but he hadn’t found me yet. I opened the door to the nearest patient room, stepped in, and closed it behind me.
The old woman sitting up in bed squinted in my direction. “Clementine, is that you?”
I pressed my ear to the door and heard the heavy footfall of a running man, followed by the shrill chastisement of several irate nurses. The words were indistinct, but the tone wasn’t, Herr Kraut had not made any friends on the seventh floor.
“Clementine?”
“No, ma’am. I’m not Clementine; my name’s Cassandra. I got myself turned around in this great big hospital. Would it be all right if I sat here and visit with you for a while? Just until I catch my breath?”
The old woman smiled broadly, apparently delighted to have a visitor. “Why sure, miss. My name’s Margaret O’Malley.” She held out one gnarled paw and I shook it. Over the next several minutes Margaret O’Malley regaled me with riveting tales about her appendectomy when she was twelve, her long marriage to Mr. O’Malley, and her recent bout with dyspepsia. I nodded in the right places and made sympathetic noises when I should, and concluded that my visit with her had been appropriately appreciated.
I opened the door and peered down the hall in either direction. No krauts in sight. I thanked Mrs. O’Malley for her time, and she told me to come visit her again. I crossed the floor to the far end of the opposite wing of the hospital and took the stairs to the ground floor. I exited the building and spun around, looking for a landmark. When I got my bearings, I realized my car sat on the other side of the hospital. I lit a cigarette and casually strolled down the sidewalk. I turned the corner and stopped in my tracks. The three of them, Braun and his goons, stood there, eyes wide and jaws slack.
“Howdy, boys.”
Braun’s face collapsed into a scowl. “Get her!”
I flung my smoke to the sidewalk as I turned to flee. My feet pounded the concrete, followed closely, much too closely, by the heavier tread of the men chasing me. The mouths of people on the sidewalk hung open in great ‘O’s as I sprinted past them. The men behind me cursed in German and shouted for me to stop. I reached the corner and hurled myself around it. I dared a glance over my shoulder and found that I had gained a bit of a lead on my pursuers.
Ahead of me, a large delivery truck had backed up to the hospital’s receiving area. I swung my feet in that direction and found stacks of wooden crates in front of me. As I leapt behind a stack of boxes, I found something interesting: an iron crowbar. Grinning, I picked it up and held it like a baseball bat.
The three of them had stopped running and I could hear a hasty conversation. They split up, and only one came my way. His breathing wheezed stertorously and I had no trouble timing my swing. The crowbar caught him across the ribcage, higher than I’d anticipated, and sent him tumbling to the ground in a gasping heap. He’d managed to hold on to his revolver, which he haphazardly aimed at me, so I swung the crowbar again, crunching into him just above the wrist. The gun dropped to the ground and his arm hung in an unnatural angle. He clutched it to his broken ribs, his mouth working like a catfish.
I dropped the iron and picked up his heater. I spun the chamber: six rounds, .38 caliber. “Thanks.” I walked on cat-feet back the way I’d come, hoping the other two had moved on by now. I peeked around the end of the truck and saw Braun standing on the sidewalk with his back to me. In the other direction several pedestrians were animatedly describing my footrace to a couple of beat-cops. This just gets more fun by the second.
I turned around, opened the delivery truck’s cab, and climbed into it. The keys were in the ignition, so I started it up. I’d never driven a truck like that, but I managed to put it in gear. I misjudged the acceleration and tore away from the hospital like a whipped racehorse. I turned into the street and heard the squealing tires of oncoming traffic. Crates flew out of the back of the truck, smashing open and being crushed by cars desperately trying to stop. I hooted with laughter and gave a long blast of the air-horn.
Braun and his remaining crony watched me pass them, then dashed toward a black Ford. I was a block away when they pulled out behind me. Braun sat behind the steering wheel while the other kraut leaned out of the window. I heard a crack and the mirror on my side of the truck shattered. I hit the accele
rator, ground a few gears, and avoided traffic as I turned south onto Sycamore Street. The krauts hung onto me, hammering lead into the truck every few seconds.
The warbling wail of a black-and-white sang from behind Braun’s car. The cops were following one of us, or both of us. In the broken remnants of the mirror I saw Braun’s gun hand turn to aim his gat at the cop car. The windshield on the black-and-white spidered with cracks and fell back, but didn’t entirely stop chasing us.
My truck hurled down the street but somehow I managed to avoid the streetcars, automobiles and pedestrians. The cops finally started shooting at Braun’s car and he screeched his wheels as he roared onto a cross-street, his sedan almost tipping in the process. The cops decided to follow their car instead of my truck. I grinned and tried to downshift. Gears slammed together with a metallic crunch. I didn’t know if a bullet had hit some vital part of the truck’s works, but when I tried to slow down, the brakes screeched like drowning cats and did little else.
Black smoke billowed from the engine compartment, obscuring my view of the street, but not my view of the river, which hurtled toward me. I tried the brakes again, but got no response. People at the edge of the water scrambled out of my way as the truck careened off the end of the landing and crashed with a titanic splash into the river.
Water rushed into the cab as the truck sank. I forced the door open and swam away from it. I dragged myself to the shore where a couple of helpful bystanders helped me to my feet. I still had the kraut’s revolver in my hand, but I put it into my jacket pocket before it alarmed anyone.
A freckle-faced boy looked me over. “Are you all right, lady?”
I patted my wet hair. “No, I lost my hat.”
An older man looked at the truck with his hands on his hips. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. Lose control of it?”
I laughed at that. “I never really had control of it. The krauts were shooting at me.”
The old man’s eyes widened. “Krauts?”
I nodded. “Yeah, krauts. Spies. I’m with the FBI. You folks, none of you ever saw me. Understand?”
They all nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Great. Thanks for your cooperation.”
I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked down. A dripping wet little girl had my hat in her hand and a smile on her face. I took the hat and seated it, with as much dignity as I could muster, onto the wet mess of my hair. “Thanks.”
One of them, the boy I think, called me a cab, which pulled away just before the cops arrived. I told the cabby to take me to the Aristocrat. I had to tip him five dollars before he stopped complaining about the wet seat. I went to my room, took off my dripping clothes, and scalded the Ohio River off my body in the shower.
When I had dressed again, I sat in an easy chair, smoked a cigarette and realized Paolo hadn’t shown up. I burrowed through the drawer of the bureau until I found a telephone directory, and dialed Paolo’s number. The bell rang twice before someone answered it. “Belvedere residence.”
The voice was not Paolo’s, so I improvised. “Mr. Belvedere?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Belvedere, this is Maude with Victory Cleaners, your tuxedo is ready to be picked up. The balance owed is $2.15.”
“Fine, that’s fine. Thank you.” The line went dead.
I concluded that someone had Paolo.
Chapter Twenty
I sat on the sofa with a pack of smokes in my hand and an ashtray on the coffee table, but the cigarette between my lips hung there, unlit. My eyes stayed focused across the room on the silent telephone until the sun started to set. “Dammit.”
I crossed over to the telephone and dialed Mason’s number. The bell buzzed four or five times before he picked up. “Yeah?”
“Mason?”
“Yeah, who is this?”
“My name is Cassandra; we met at the precinct ball a few years ago. I was with Paolo Belvedere.”
“Cassy, of course I remember you! What can I do for you?”
“Well, I’m helping Paolo with a case, and I know he called you earlier. Have you heard from him since?”
He paused before continuing. “Not exactly, no.”
“What does that mean?” I finally lit my cigarette.
“I could get into trouble for telling you this, but the Feds nabbed Paolo. A friend of mine who’s still on the force called to tell me that not an hour ago.”
I closed my eyes and spat out an exasperated sigh. “Do you know what they’re charging him with?”
“Not really, but I figure it’s probably interfering with a federal investigation or something similar. That’s what the Feds do when local police officers become annoying.”
“That’s just great.”
I heard a lighter flick on his end of the line. “Cassy, that friend Paolo mentioned called about ten minutes ago. All he said was ‘It was Richter.’ I hope you know what that means.”
“I do. Thanks, Mason.”
“You’re welcome, Cassy. I’ll be here if you want to call again.” He sounded eager.
I thanked him again and hung up. I slipped into my jacket and put on my hat. I plopped the kraut’s .38 into my jacket pocket and my own Colt into a trouser pocket. The elderly operator still worked the elevator. I had him take me to the ground floor, where a young woman with luxurious golden hair stood behind the lobby desk. I asked if she had a city directory. I found the address I was looking for, and wrote it down.
My car sat waiting at the hospital, exactly as I’d left it. I fired her up and tore across town toward the crumbling mansions of Clifton. Darkness fell as I ascended the hill; the lights of downtown twinkled like yellow stars below. I found the Lafayette Avenue address without too much trouble, but I circled the block a couple of times, just to make sure nobody was watching. Everything looked quiet, so I parked across the street, slipped my hand around the hickory grip of the .38, and approached the house.
I rang the doorbell and readied myself to jab my heater into his ribs. The door swung open and a blonde girl around nine years old stood looking up at me. “Hi. Who are you?”
I tried to hide the gun behind my leg and I stammered through an explanation of my presence. “Uh, hi there. I’m looking for Mr. Wexler.”
The girl rolled her piercingly blue eyes at me and bellowed out at the top of her lungs. “Dad! Someone wants to see you!” She looked me up and down. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“It’s comfortable.”
“You look like a man though.”
“Do I?” I managed to slip the revolver into my pocket without her noticing. “I think it’s a good look for me.”
She frowned. “It’s really not.”
Dewitt Wexler came down the stairs dressed in a cardigan. He had the stump of a cigar in one hand and his eyebrows rode high on his forehead when he saw me. He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Go help your sister with the dishes, Marlene.”
Marlene scowled. “It’s not my turn!”
“Go. Now.”
She pointed at me. “Who is she, Dad?”
“A friend. We have business. Now go.”
She waved at me. “Nice meeting you. I bet you could be really pretty if you put on a dress!”
“Uh, thanks.” I watched her disappear into the labyrinthine guts of the house.
Wexler directed me into a study, where he sat behind a mammoth antique desk. I closed the door and remained standing, my hand in my jacket pocket. He mashed his cigar out in an overflowing ashtray. “Well, what do you want? Are you here to squeeze more money out of me, Fraulein Weber?” He put a hard emphasis on the name.
“So, you figured me out. I’m not Eva Weber.”
“Obviously, since there is no Eva Weber. Now, what do you want?”
“Richter’s dead.”
He froze. “How do you know?”
“I know. It was his body in Shultz’s house.”
“If that’s true, it’s bad news for you. And for me.”
“Why?”
He pulled the stopper out of a decanter and poured himself a drink. “Richter came to town with four men, all of them killers. If Richter’s dead, they’re with Braun, and Braun wants you dead.” He swallowed a mouthful of bourbon, then chuckled. “Braun’s taken a fairly serious dislike to you.”
“I’m good at making friends like that. Richter’s men, they’re the ones who shot at me the night of the Bund party?”
He nodded. “Braun almost blew his stack when they told him you were a phony. I’d leave town if I were you.” He refilled his bourbon. “These men are serious trouble.”
“Everybody keeps telling me to clear out of town! What about you? Why aren’t you leaving?”
“I am. We’re taking a trip. We leave tomorrow, and I’m not sure when we’re coming back. Little lady, I want out. Out of the whole mess, and most definitely out of the Bund. I have a family to think about. I’m just an accountant, and I want out. We’re going to visit Havana for a while.”
“Why? Tell me what the hell is going on.”
He leaned back and stared at me. “Who are you, missy? What’s your angle? Still looking for that lost puppy?”
That made me smile. “Oh yes, I haven’t forgotten her. I have other priorities now. Someone shot my friend, almost killed him. That’s a debt I intend to pay. In blood. First things first though. Tell me about your deal with Colonel Greene.”
Wexler didn’t seem surprised by the name; he just shrugged. “Not a lot to tell. He passed information to us from Washington, we passed it along to the proper people who transmitted it to the Reich. Less trouble with the Feds in Cincinnati than in New York or Washington.”
I flopped down into a chair opposite Wexler and tugged at my lip. “So, Greene sold military secrets to the Bund?”
He shook his head. “No. He sold them to the Reich, the Bund just acted as couriers.”
“For which you got paid.”
“Well, of course I got paid.” He gestured around the room with his stubby hand. “The money was good, and the risk was minor because Greene was able to protect us.”
Big Shots and Bullet Holes Page 14