Flowers From Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  Adam Hay's spirits soared. Alone at last! Then his spirits were quickly crushed with the arrival of Lanny Slotkin, resident cur of the Bluebirds. Mr. Hay had never in his life encountered Lanny Slotkin or anything like him.

  "The name. The town. The state," Lanny said, not even certain of what he had been dispatched to inquire. "Cochrane sent me. I'm supposed to stay here until eight o'clock tonight or until I get answers."

  Mr. Hay made himself scarce behind a file, working on the lower shelf. But Slotkin was a bulldog, as well as a high priest of rudeness.

  "Come on, you little twerp," Slotkin screamed after only ten minutes. "I don't want to stay up here all day! What is it he wants to know?" Slotkin entertained the urge to pick up Mr. Hay and shake him. But he resisted.

  Mr. Hay was married to an Indian woman from Bombay. They lived together in a rear apartment on a grim side street in Georgetown. When he returned hone that night, he found Cochrane sitting on the front steps.

  "Name. Town. State." The words shot into Mr. Hay's mind faster than Cochrane could mouth them. Mr. Hay bolted up the shabby staircase and scampered in the direction of an apartment door, from behind which emanated pungent smells of Manipur curry and incense.

  Adam Hay jammed his key in the lock, turned it, and slammed the door behind him, thinking himself safe within the sanctuary of his own home. His wife appeared in a saffron and purple robe, kissed him, and spoke.

  "We have a guest," she said. "A lovely gentlewoman."

  The dwarf shuddered. Mr. Hay crept warily into his own living room where he encountered Mary Ryan, the Virgin Mary herself, all eight point two decades of her. She offered him a lined hand.

  "This is Mrs. Ryan. From your Bureau," said Mrs. Hay. "I do think," said Mary Ryan, who would go along with any intrigue if it was either work or fun, "that you really ought to tell us the name, the town, and the state."

  The dwarf turned crimson. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hay had already invited Mary to stay for dinner. Mary Ryan loved curry.

  Friday was no better. Every time Mr. Hay looked up, there was Cochrane or one of his deputies. Among those Bluebirds whom Cochrane could trust, it became a passing parlor game. Go talk to the archivist. Pick the dwarf for information. It could save us months of work, and don't tell Wheeler.

  "I'll take the responsibility," Cochrane had told them all. The name, they demanded. The name. The town. The state. Three quick answers would liberate Mr. Hay from all of this, Cochrane reminded him by telephone a few minutes before Friday midnight.

  Totally unnerved, Mr. Hay went to the window and stared downward. And there were the Bureau's two Germans, Roddy Schwarzkopf and Elizabeth Pfeiffer from Section Seven. They stared upward from an alleyway, then waved.

  Mr. Hay jerked the curtains shut and moaned.

  Cochrane spent Saturday morning in Cartography and Central Alien Registry. With the help of Bobby Charles Martin, late of the Ohio State Police, he marshaled a list of every township within the fifty-mile map radius that the Bluebirds had charted in northern New Jersey. Then CAR Division went through their own files and came up with a list of 256 names of German emigres living within that area. The towns ran from Passaic and Hoboken to little map dots like Bernardsville and Liberty Circle.

  "Monday," promised Cochrane, "we get some staff in here from another division. We check out every name." Then a second list was drawn, one comprising immigrants from the other unfriendly nations: Italy and Japan, just in case.

  "That's three hundred wops and seventeen Japs," Bobby Charles Martin surmised with his usual egalitarian candor. "Guess those get checked out, too."

  "You guess right," said Cochrane, reaching for a jacket and hat. "Let's go watch some horse races."

  Mr. Hay was at Arlington Park for all nine races that afternoon. He seemed to wear his own saddle, with Bobby Martin and Bill Cochrane in it. Ditto, Sunday. And late afternoon, the archivist began to crack. But as the ninth race was finished, Adam Hay looked up and they were all gone. Every one of them. No one was breathing down his eleven- inch collar. It was Mr. Hay's custom on Sunday afternoons to relax in the grandstand after the final race. He would peruse the next week's racing card, enjoy the solitude of six thousand empty seats, then amble to his car-an old Ford that rattled in every gear including neutral-which he always parked in the far end of the parking lot.

  He thought of many things as he handicapped his ponies that afternoon. Name, town, and state were among them. He studied furlongs, sires, and first quarters, late brushes, jockey changes, and trainers. Name. Town. And state. It was a litany.

  He folded the racing form into his pocket a few minutes before six. He walked to his car and, his eyes barely to the height of the window, he unlocked it in the vast, deserted parking lot.

  The car door flew open. A human body, strong and powerful, burst upward from low behind the front seat, pushed the seats apart, and rushed from concealment to confront the archivist. The tiny archivist yelped and his eyes went wide as demitasse saucers with two brown marbles at their center.

  It was Cochrane! Glaring, menacing, scowling, looking downward with his twenty-four inches of superior height. Cochrane's eyes gleamed. He said nothing. By now the week's catechism spoke for him.

  "Name… town… state…" Mr. Hay's heart fluttered somewhere ten feet above his head.

  "Otto Mauer is now Henry Naismith," Mr. Hay confessed sullenly. "The town is Ringtown. The state is Pennsylvania. Now leave me alone."

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was raining in Manhattan the day Charlotte next saw her mysterious clock manufacturer. Her face still smarted when she thought of the way he had struck her last time. But that was in the past. Perhaps she had been too forward with him. He did seem like a very proper man. If only she knew more about him…

  She saw him as she stepped out of a taxi on West Thirty-second Street, near Macy's. The man who so fascinated her was disappearing into a sporting-goods store. Charlotte was wearing a wide-brimmed rain hat and a heavy trench coat, so she arranged the hat slightly more over her eyes. Then she moved to the window of the store and peered in. What type of sports did her man like? she wondered. She watched him carefully. He was examining some diving equipment. Diving suits. Snorkels. Charlotte was surprised. Equally, she was surprised when he kept looking up and surveying the people around him. It was as if he thought someone might be spying on him.

  Perhaps he was embarrassed, she concluded. Perhaps he was just learning about deep-sea diving. But no. He bought an elaborate combination of equipment. A complete wet suit. A diver's knife. A mask. Then he paid with cash and turned toward the door.

  Charlotte crossed the street. The intrigue now excited her. She would follow him and find out what she could. But she would have to behave cleverly, she told herself. Otherwise he would see her.

  He was an easy mark, a man wearing a tan trench coat and carrying a large shopping bag. He crossed Seventh Avenue at Thirty-fourth Street, then oddly reversed himself and walked south. If he was going to Pennsylvania Station, she wondered, why hadn't he walkedthere directly?

  She followed from a distance of half a block. Sure enough, he went into the train station. She lost him. She darted through. the gates and looked in every direction. "Really, girl," she giggled to herself, "there's a war beginning and you make such a lousy spy!" But her spirits were high now. The game was on. For a change, Charlotte could stalk a man, rather than lie passively beneath one.

  But her Mr. Bolton was gone. She scanned the huge lobby. Then she spotted him walking toward the Lackawanna Railroad Line. She pursued and saw him glance at his watch. The gate for his train was already open. He hurried through it, then stopped short. He turned and Charlotte stopped also. Much too obviously, she thought. Then she made a point of examining a billboard for the new movie, Gone With the Wind .

  She looked back a moment later. Maybe he had noticed her, maybe not. He would have to have excellent vision to recognize her from that distance beneath her hat, she told herself. She saw him ge
tting onto a train. Less than thirty seconds later, the conductor standing at the rear signaled up the track to the flagman. The train gave a slight lurch. Charlotte made a split-second decision. She bolted for the rear of the train.

  "Hey, lady!" the conductor barked. "Make up your mind!" He almost had the doors closed when she hopped on.

  "Oh, I…" She admitted breathlessly, "I wasn't sure whether this was my train."

  "Where you going?" he asked.

  She had no idea. "Um… end of the line," she decided.

  "That's Liberty Circle."

  "Can you sell me a ticket?"

  The conductor was a white-haired man named Jeffrey, who looked at Charlotte very strangely. She was heavily perfumed and very overdone. Perhaps, he sensed what she was. He sold her a ticket, breaking a five-dollar bill. "You're very kind," she said.

  Charlotte found a seat in the rear car. She knew Mr. Bolton was three cars up. The train was only five cars. She wondered what to do.

  Mr. Bolton solved her problem for her. He did something strange again. Ten minutes into the trip she saw him slowly walking down the aisle of the next car. Then he entered her car. Charlotte borrowed a Newark Star from the man sitting next to her. She buried her face in it as Mr. Bolton walked to the rear and stared out over the tracks. Then he returned up the aisle. What was he doing? Looking to see if he knew anyone? Or just getting a walk?

  He left the car. Then a few minutes later, he returned carrying his shopping bag. He sat a few rows in front of her on the opposite side of the aisle. Was he trying to tell her something? There would be no mystery at all where he got off.

  The train stopped in Newark and East Orange. Then Madison, New Providence, and Far Hills. Only one stop left. There were only a handful of passengers left. Mr. Bolton was one of them. Charlotte was another.

  At Liberty Circle, Mr. Bolton rose. He went to the exit and descended the steps onto the railroad platform. Charlotte followed. Mr. Bolton pulled his coat close to him against the rain, then quickly paced down a flight of steps that led to an underpass. Charlotte pulled her own hat and coat tightly to her body. It was teeming. She followed him.

  And suddenly the idiocy of it all struck her. What in hell had propelled her so blindly onward? He had been right when he had slapped her. She was a whore! And he was, like most of her customers, a family man. How dare she follow him to his home! What on earth did she think she was doing?

  Charlotte slowed her pace and a wave of desolation was upon her. The underpass was starting to flood and her shoes were being ruined. She knew, because she was looking downward and crying.

  Mr. Bolton, any man like Mr. Bolton, was the unattainable for Charlotte. She could only be his whore. She could never be a wife or the mother of such a man's children. She ascended the steps on the other side of the tracks. She walked very slowly, the chase finished. All she wanted now was the next train back to the city.

  She stood in the rain. At the far end of the platform was a small building where the tickets had to be sold. She walked in that direction, hoping to find a timetable.

  She opened the door and there he was. Standing behind the door, holding his shopping bag, gazing into her eyes from six feet away.

  "Charlotte?" he said softly.

  She was speechless. She stammered for words.

  "I can't believe this," Mr. Bolton said. He seemed genuinely glad to see her. "I thought it was you on the train. So I came back." He reached to her. "I'm sorry I hit you," he said. "I never should have."

  She could hardly believe it. Away from the tensions of the city, he was a different man. So friendly. So relaxed. He took her in his arms.

  "My wife is away for a week," he whispered. "Come to my house. Come right now. We can make dinner and make love all night."

  It sounded so wonderful. It was almost dark outside now and the rain was torrential.

  "Do you have a car?" she asked.

  "No need," he said. "I live near here. I always walk to the station. There's a short cut."

  "You must get soaked," she said.

  "We'll get toweled off together," he said. He took her arm. "Of course," he added suggestively, "it will take some time for your clothes to dry out. You won't be getting dressed again right away."

  Charlotte was thrilled. And his wife was away. Maybe the Boltons were separating. Maybe the world wasn't so cruel after all.

  He led her down a quiet country lane where there were no houses. Then he motioned to a pathway just off from the road.

  "I'm sorry about this part," he said. "The path cuts through a few feet of woods. We're behind an old churchyard. But this saves us about a quarter mile of hiking."

  Like a gentleman, he offered her his hand. There was just enough daylight left to see. "Watch your step, Charlotte," he said, leading her. "Don't twist an ankle."

  It hardly seemed like a path at all. The footing was treacherous, filled with twigs and stones. Suddenly her man was very quiet. Seconds earlier it had all been a thrill. But now she felt herself turning against this. This was no path at all. And now he was stopping. Why? He turned. They were far from a road and she saw no church and no churchyard. There was just a man standing before her, his hands on her shoulders. And suddenly she was very cold and very wet. She was very aware of the rain and very frightened. There was something horrible in his eyes…

  "Fred…?' she asked. She was aware of his size; His strength. His hands. He was touching her differently now. There was a scream brewing if only she could summon up the courage to-

  "You should never have come here, Charlotte," he said in perfect English. "I don't know what possessed you to follow me. All the way from Thirty-fourth Street. Foolish bitch!"

  The scream was in her throat now but hardly any of it rose beyond her lips. His hands were beneath her jaw, and it felt as if someone were wrapping a steel pipe around her neck.

  She scratched at his face but he pulled back a hand, formed a fist, and punched her directly in the face. The pain was excruciating. She felt something warm and wet dripping to her mouth. Her whole head throbbed.

  But all that was secondary. No air! He is killing me! The horror of it wrenched hersoul and for a moment she saw her girlhood again. She imagined the family that she would never have, and then a vile vision was upon her of Brooklyn, alcohol, and a thousand ugly, dirty men defiling her.

  And this man, she thought as she died, was the ugliest and dirtiest of them all.

  *

  The orders for arrests were issued above J. Edgar Hoover's signature, though drawn by Frank Lerrick. They were confined to the East: Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and the occasional freight stop in between.

  Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation struck in the early morning while their targets slept. In Boston, the owner of a small bakery was taken into custody, as was his wife and younger brother. They protested that they knew nothing about Bund activities. Their warrant said otherwise.

  Similarly, a mechanic in Philadelphia, a film importer and distributor in New York, and the owner of a small foreign-language bookstore in Bridgeport, Connecticut were all arrested for espionage-related activities.

  There were others, too. But the only one of significance was arrested two days later when the SS Panama docked at Pier Thirty-four on the Hudson River. He was the chief butcher on the ship and had long been suspected of being a Gestapo courier. His name was Wilhelm Hunsicker.

  He was on the deck at the time of his arrest, speaking to a South African who had been born with the name of Fritz Duquaine but who had been through various aliases since.

  Duquaine stepped away when he saw the federal agents approach. And when Hunsicker put up a vicious fistfight, Duquaine valiantly offered to call the city police. The city police never received the call, and Duquaine, unrecognized by the agents to whom he had spoken, drifted into the pedestrians on Twelfth Avenue and disappeared.

  A team of four special agents drove Hunsicker by armored van from New York to Washington. Cochrane was at the Bur
eau at 10 P.M. when it arrived. Frank Lerrick supervised.

  "What's going on?" Cochrane asked. "Is he my suspect?"

  "Not until he makes a statement."

  "I'm the case officer, am I not?”

  "Cochrane, for once in your life, would you control yourself?" Lerrick snapped. "We turn him over to you when he's ready. Not before. You get a transcript of everything."

  "I'm so glad," Cochrane answered.

  Hunsicker's arrival coincided with the arrival of two men whom Cochrane had never seen before: Jack Burns and Allen Wilson. "Burns and Allen," Dick Wheeler liked to call them. They were from Ohio, knew Bobby Charles Martin from previous intrigues, and were nowhere nearly as funny as the real Burns and Allen.

  "Professional interrogators," Wheeler mumbled to Cochrane toward midnight. They had already guided Hunsicker to a room in the basement. Cochrane shuddered, called it a day, went home, and slept fitfully.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Cochrane left Washington in the morning and was driving through Pennsylvania farmland by early afternoon. The sky was clear as vapor, though a few cumulus clouds rolled in toward 3 P.M.

  The needle of the gas gauge was perched insistently toward the big white E of empty, so Cochrane pulled his 1937 Hudson into a town called Mahanoy City. It was a town like the others of the area, several churches, factories at each end, an enormous anthracite breaker at the outskirts of town, and mountains of black silt bracketing the highway which led in and out. Farmland had given way to coal country.

  Cochrane stepped out of the car at an Esso station. The day was cool. The heat of the summer had finally broken and brown leaves in coiled whirlpools hissed and swirled near the two red and white gas pumps.

  "How much farther to Ringtown?" Cochrane asked the attendant, a young man in overalls and a green flannel shirt.

  The attendant motioned down the road. "Bout fifteen miles," he said. For three dollars, he filled the car's tank, checked the oil and washed the windshield.