Up in Honey's Room cw-2

by Elmore Leonard

  Vera said, “You didn’t-”

  “Thinking they’d scoop him up and Jurgen would be out of the way. But nothing happened and now he’s at Honey’s. I can’t help that. I prayed to the Black Madonna asking that only certain ones would be present. The Hotshot Kid I’m hoping for. Walter, we don’t know what’s become of him. Perhaps he’ll make up for not getting to Roosevelt in time and assassinate Harry Truman.”

  The car was packed for their getaway: suitcases in the trunk, personal items and Vera’s shoes in cardboard boxes on the backseat. She had deposited Joe Aubrey’s check for fifty thousand in a new account; later on they’d see about making withdrawals.

  Bo pulled into the no-parking space in front of Honey’s apartment building. He said to Vera, “If you don’t have the stomach for this, don’t watch. But once they’re down we strip them of money, anything we see of value, and we’re off to Old Méjico humming ‘La Cucaracha,’ unless you know the words. Oh, once she buzzes you in, use something to jam the door open.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Anything, a box of matches. How I get in, Vera, is crucial. You take the elevator to the apartment. Honey’s waiting at the door. You greet her, give her a kiss. And push the button to unlock the door. Can you do that?”

  “All you have to do is knock. Don’t you think she’ll see who it is?”

  “Vera, will you please unlock the fucking door? I want my entrance to be a complete surprise. ‘Good God, where did he come from?’” For several moments he was quiet, thinking. He said, “You brought the umbrella.”

  “In the trunk.”

  “I place the Schmeisser in the umbrella-”

  “You like calling it that, don’t you? I wonder why?”

  “With the stock removed,” Bo said, “and come up the stairway, so I don’t run into anyone. I enter the apartment-”

  “With the burp gun still in the umbrella?”

  “What did I tell you?” Bo impatient now, his nerves irritating him. “I insert the magazine while I’m in the hall, before I make my entrance.”

  “You come in shooting.”

  “Yes, and it’s done, all she wrote.”

  “I wonder,” Vera said, “if one ever says it’s all he wrote?”

  “I’ve only heard it’s all she wrote,” Bo said. “But I don’t think the she refers to a particular person. But you know what? I should say something as I come in.”

  Vera said, “You are pointing der Schmeisser at them. What’s there to say?”

  “I want to get them all looking at me.”

  “How about Achtung?” Vera said.

  “Or I say, ‘You know what this is for?’”

  “Let them each take a guess?”

  This time Bo grinned. “Yes, each one has a turn. Come on, what do I say to get them looking at me?”

  “‘It was nice knowing you’?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  She opened the car door. “I ask only one favor,” Vera said. “Make sure, please, I’m not in the fucking line of fire.”

  “You have the Luger, just in case?”

  “In my bag.”

  Thirty

  It was in Vera’s mind she’d forgot to do something, one item on Bo’s list of instructions. She had her handbag, holding it under her arm, martini in her other hand. She had come out of the kitchen to stand by the dining table at this end of the sitting room, Honey still in the kitchen making drinks.

  Honey had put on a record, American Negro music, a little-girl voice asking wasn’t she good to some guy.

  Vera could sing it to Bo. Baby, ain’t I good to you?

  Letting him do this, and Bo saying what was three more after Odessa? Now four.

  Coming in she saw Carl immediately and thought, Ah, Bo will be happy; though the sight of Carl, unexpected, caused her stomach to turn and gave her an uneasy feeling and she wanted Bo to come in and see Carl and shoot him before saying a word. Get rid of the Hot Kid quick or he’ll put a notch on his gun to represent Bo-Carl in a Spitfire with German crosses on the fuselage, Bo flying an ME-109 or a Focke-Wulf and if Bo didn’t shoot him please right away before Carl says what he said each time, If I have to pull my gun... Once Bo shoots him he can say what he wants if he can keep it short. Get the other three together in front of the bookcase. It would be in newspapers tomorrow, late, in the newspaper wherever they were and in all the newspapers in America because one of the “Four Murdered in Detroit Apartment ” was a German prisoner of war. What was he doing there? Were these people spies? Who killed them? Or were they executed? By then she and Bo could be in Texas. She was counting on Carl having gas stamps and expense money. Sorry, Carl, it’s the war. The fucking war. Honey might have a few stamps. They’d look in her desk-there against the wall opposite the sofa and the bookcase. Bo would stand by the desk. Come in and take his position.

  Wait. What did Bo say was crucial?

  And thought of what she’d forgot to do because she didn’t write it down and look at the words.

  Unlock the door.

  Carl and Jurgen were talking about rodeoing.

  Carl thought Jurgen was the right size to ride bulls, though on the high end, as most big-money bull riders tended to be small guys, five six, a hundred and a quarter. You’d think a long-legged rider’d fit the bull better. Carl said he never stayed the eight seconds on a bull any time he tried the amateur circuit on weekends when he was eighteen. He switched over to saddle broncs, couldn’t stay on ’em either and went to college two and a half years and joined the marshals.

  Jurgen said he knew he could ride bulls and be good at it. Know why? Because when his family returned to Germany after living here, it was 1935, they stopped in Spain and went to bullfights, good ones in Madrid and different towns and he wanted to be a matador de toros. He said he would cape bulls in a way that was both cold and serene, feet planted in the sand, taking the bull’s charge and then killing the bull in the manner of Joselito, the stylist, perhaps a show-off, dead at twenty-five, but one of the great matadors of Spain. You would have worshipped him, Jurgen said to Carl.

  But Jurgen didn’t become a matador and kill bulls. He said now, he becomes a bull rider and the bulls will know, the way they know bull love, he never tormented bulls with a cape or ever killed one of them. He said the ones he rides will be grateful and take it easy on him.

  Carl said he thought it sounded more like bull shit than bull lore. He told Jurgen if the bulls don’t twist hard you don’t make points riding ’em.

  Honey brought them each a martini, Carl switching over because Jurgen’s silver bullet looked so good in the delicate glass. Honey stayed with them. Jurgen was saying how he devoured Hemingway’s book, talking about the one on the shelf here, because he loved the idea of Spain at that time, not because Germany was behind Franco. Jurgen was for the Loyalists, like Robert Jordan whose job in the book was to blow up a bridge. Carl said he read most of For Whom the Bell Tolls at his dad’s house and thought of it as a western, up in the mountains riding horses. They could be in Mexico. Jurgen said he started reading Zane Grey at the camp, speaking of westerns.

  Carl said, “‘When you call me that, smile’? I didn’t care much for Zane Grey.”

  Walter stepped over to them. He said, “You don’t think Roosevelt’s death was, well, curious, coming as it did?”

  Carl said, “Jesus Christ, Walter, go sit down, will you?”

  Honey said, “We don’t accept your theory, Walter, whatever it is,” and said, “I tried Zane Grey once, I thought he was awfully old-timey the way he wrote.”

  Carl said, “His books don’t sound like he had any fun writing them. But you see ads, you can buy every book Zane Grey wrote and fill up a whole shelf. For people who don’t know any better.”

  Honey said, “What’s Vera doing?”

  Carl and Jurgen looked over to watch her open the apartment door, look out in the hall and close it again.

  Honey called to her, “Vera . . . ?”


  She came over to them with her Persian lamb handbag and held up her martini to Honey. “Notice I’m sipping now, having quenched my thirst.”

  Honey said, “What were you doing just now?”

  “I must be hearing things. I would swear someone was at the door.”

  Carl said, “We expecting somebody else?”

  “Not that I know of,” Honey said.

  “No, no, I was mistaken,” Vera said, “there’s no one else.”

  It was the way she kept looking toward the door, fidgety now, taking quick little sips of her drink, Carl would bet all the expense money he had in his billfold, $124, Bohunk was about to walk in.

  Vera would look toward the door.

  So would Carl, over his shoulder.

  Honey saying, “Why’re we standing when we can sit down? I’ll put on another record. How about Sinatra?”

  Vera finished her martini, placed the glass on a bookshelf and glanced toward the door.

  Carl did too, turning his head.

  He watched the door come open a little at a time until there was Bo in a gray sweater and skirt holding his machine gun, Carl turning to Vera as she said to him, “Do you like Frank Sinatra?”

  “I like the one playing. You know what it is?”

  “‘Oh Look at Me Now,’” Vera said. “How do you see what’s about to happen?”

  “That’s a skirt Bo’s wearing?”

  “I said to him please, not tonight.”

  “He might’ve left off the makeup. What I’m wondering,” Carl said, “if that’s a war souvenir he wants to show us. It isn’t, will you tell him to lay it on the floor?”

  Honey said, “She isn’t his mother.”

  “Thank you,” Vera said. “I’m a guest here. You can tell him if you want.”

  Bo, coming toward this end of the room along the opposite wall, stopped at the bedroom hallway to glance in.

  “They’re all here,” Vera said to him.

  Bo was facing them now with the machine gun, one hand on the trigger, the other on the magazine that held thirty-two rounds.

  Jurgen said, “Bo, what are you doing?”

  Honey said, “Bo, would you like a drink?”

  Walter, in Honey’s favorite chair, didn’t speak.

  Bo did. He said to Vera, “I told you to unlock the door and you forgot.”

  Vera said, “How did you get in, darling?”

  “I told you, as soon as you get here, unlock the door. I told you to write everything down. You forgot and I’m standing in the hall holding a fucking machine gun?”

  Jurgen said to him, “You have a Schmeisser, uh? I like that name even though it’s not accurate. But I’ll tell you something,” Jurgen said, “you should never hold a Maschinenpistole by the magazine. You put stress on it, it jams very easily.”

  Carl liked that-remind the boy he didn’t know what he was doing, holding a loaded weapon while he argued with Vera. Now he was facing them.

  “I want you three, Jurgen, Honey and Carl, to go sit on the sofa. Walter, you’re all right, old boy, but move your chair closer to where your comrades will be sitting, we’ll get this done. Go on, you three, please take your seats. Right there,” Bo said, raised his machine gun and fired a short burst, loud, quick, that left bullet holes across the back cushions of the sofa.

  Honey stared at Bo, not saying a word.

  Maybe he did know what he was doing, Carl watching the way he handled the weapon, familiar with it, telling Jurgen, “As often as I’ve fired a machine pistol I’ve never had a problem. I was out of practice when I went after the Hot Kid.” He said to Carl, “Did you know it was I?”

  “It had to be you,” Carl said.

  “No other asshole would do,” Honey said, holding her hard look on Bo.

  It seemed to stop him for a moment, his eyes on Honey, but let it go and said, “Now I would like the four of you to strip. Take off all your clothes. You, too, Walter, stand up. And I’d like the Hotdog Kid to remove the revolver from his person and place it on the cocktail table.”

  “If you try to use it,” Vera said, “Bo won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

  She brought the Luger out of her Persian lamb handbag and put it in Carl’s face.

  “Or I will.”

  Carl said, “You want to reach in my coat and get it?”

  “I want you to take the coat off,” Vera said, moving away from them.

  Honey saw the Luger in Vera’s hand and nudged Jurgen, the Luger exactly like the one Darcy got from Bo for the Model A and gave to her for safekeeping. The one Jurgen checked and said was loaded, ready to fire and she’d shoved down between the seat cushions of the sofa. Where Bo wanted them to sit.

  She watched Carl take off his coat and now his holstered .38 was in plain sight.

  Bo said, “Will you people, please, get undressed? We don’t have all night.”

  Honey pulled her sweater over her head, stepped out of her skirt and moved to the sofa.

  “You have a cute figure,” Bo said.

  “The bra too?” Honey said.

  “Of course the bra, the panties, everything. I want to make sure you’re not concealing a weapon. I hid a razor-sharp butter knife up my butt and used it to cut the throats of three death-squad SS guards, each one in turn lying drunk on horilka, Ukrainian vodka. I put my hand over each one’s mouth, stuck the knife into the throat and cut. I did it naked knowing there would be a torrent of blood. It bathed me. It was a stimulating experience. You can understand why it’s the most memorable event of my life. Though shooting Mr. Aubrey and Dr. Taylor wasn’t bad. One shot for each. Rosemary was different. I shot her, yes, but it was more like drowning a kitten. My mother made me do that when I was a boy, hold the kitten under water. Every time I thought of Puss and saw his little face looking up at me, I cried.”

  Now he said, “Mr. Hotsy-Totsy, are you going to lay down your gun or not?”

  Honey watched Carl step over to the sofa before pulling his revolver-Bo with the machine gun raised, aimed at him-and lay it on the cocktail table, the grip toward the sofa. Now he stood there pulling off his tie, starting to unbutton his shirt.

  Bo said, “As gingerly as you can, Carl, would you shake all the bullets out of that gun, please? It makes me nervous to see it sitting there, the front sight filed off. You are a ferocious man, aren’t you, Mr. Hotsy-Totsy?”

  Honey watched Vera, holding the Luger down at her side now, walk over to Bo and say something to him.

  “You’re talking too much.”

  “Darling, I’m doing this for you.”

  “You’re performing. ‘How could a cute boy like me cut throats?’ Trying to be funny and ghastly at the same time.”

  “You want me to do it or you want to leave? A moment will come and I’ll kill them, left to right starting with the modest Nazi, Walter, and pop pop pop the rest. I started with twenty-eight in the magazine and have twenty-four left. I fucked up showing them where to sit and fired one round too many. You may have to do a coup de grâce or two.” The next moment he was grinning. “Vera, look. Nudes on parade.”

  What astonished Vera-well, it did surprise her to see how casually they stood about naked, not at all self-conscious, quite different tan lines on the two men: Jurgen, a slender god, had kept much of his tan through the winter and was white around his loins; Carl’s face and arms were weathered while the rest of him would be called white, but wasn’t; his skin toned with shades from Cuba and the Northern Cheyenne.

  No, what astonished Vera was how neat they were about the clothes they took off and folded on the coffee table in three piles, while Walter was holding his clothes in his lap.

  Bo said, “Go take Walter’s clothes away from him. He refuses to give them up, shoot him in the head, please.” He said, “Notice, the two boys are hung about average. Ah, but they’re both straight as gunshots. They were raised to be men who use women, love women, even adore them and dream of pussies. I see the way they look at you. Vera, you could take Carl anyti
me you want. But when I swish around them like I’m on the make, they don’t mind, they think I’m funny. The ones who don’t think I’m funny I look out for. You think I’m funny, don’t you?”

  “Yes, you are,” Vera said. “But sometimes you aren’t. This is taking too long. You understand? Bo, look at me. Do it, please, when I’m out of the way.”

  “Nuts, she’s walking off to the side.”

  Honey said it looking down past her bare breasts to her bare thighs she kept slender swimming once a week at Webster Hall, a midtown hotel.

  This was great, get to sit between two naked boys, both of them with neat packages, nice slender bodies with scars all over them: Carl’s she thought from gunshots, Jurgen’s skin tight and shiny in places where he’d been burned. These guys were all-guy. Jurgen turned his head and smiled at her and she smiled back at him. Then she smiled at Carl and Carl said, “What?”

  While Vera was over there talking to Bo, Honey was able to take Carl’s hand, next to hers on the sofa, and place it on the butt of the Luger stuck down between the cushions. When she put it there she was sitting where Carl was now, so it was his right hand that worked down to get his fingers around the grip. Honey told him it was ready to fire but on safety. Carl said he felt it and snicked it off.

  Honey said, “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure?” Carl said. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”

  He was pretty sure he’d never fired a Luger. A Walther P38, yeah, but not a Luger. He imagined pulling this one out of the sofa and putting it on Bohunk to shoot where he was looking, squeeze the trigger and make an adjustment if he had to and shoot him down. The Luger was a good-looking gun, he liked the way it fit his hand but knew he’d stay with his Colt after this.

  All right, when?

  When you’re positive he’s gonna shoot.