AHMM, July-August 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  In a sense, Bracken was as much of a victim as the rest of them. His life hadn't taken the direction he had planned, and he never learned to deal with it, but then neither had the Army.

  "Captain Bracken, this is Sergeant Johnson."

  "Who?"

  "Johnson ... Sergeant German Johnson."

  "I thought you were out of the Army."

  "I am, but I've seen something, and I think it may be important. I think it's connected to our mission."

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  "Captain Bracken ... Captain Bracken. You still there?"

  German could hear Bracken sigh over the phone.

  "Captain, I've seen men here in New York that..."

  "Look, Johnson,” Bracken interrupted. “I don't care what you've seen. I don't want to hear from you. Keep your ass in New York and away from me. Whatever problems you people have up there, they're your problems. Go tell it to that Garvey fellow. I just don't give a damn."

  Bracken hung up before German Johnson could absorb the shock of his remarks.

  German Johnson stood there holding the dead phone. What the hell was he thinking? It had been a white man's war, and this was a white man's problem. Who was he anyway, America's defender? He couldn't even get a decent job or make enough money to provide for a family. How could a man ask a woman to marry him on an income derived from two-dollar tips.

  * * * *

  German went to work early in the afternoon before Angelina returned. He was still seething from his conversation with Bracken and hoped to work off some of his frustration before the customers arrived.

  He could hardly keep his mind on his work. Every negative thought he ever had boiled up inside of him—every muddy road he had dug for the Army, every job that he couldn't get, every time someone had looked at his face and assumed they had the right to demean him.

  The evening passed quickly. Business at The Royce was brisk and steady. German kept his eyes peeled for the four white men who frequented the restaurant, but they didn't appear, and he was happy about that. These men and their peculiarities were something that he wanted to escape. He wanted to go on with his life without worrying about unfounded suspicions.

  The final customers left at two A.M., and German took the long walk back to his apartment.

  The flashing light garnered his attention as soon as he had rounded the corner. Police cars and ambulances were such a common part of the Harlem landscape that they were almost unnoticeable. For some reason, a feeling of dread smothered him when he saw them on this night. As he drew closer, he realized that the commotion was in front of his apartment.

  He began to run the final block. He bounded into the apartment building with his heart pounding and his mouth dry.

  The stairs were congested with policemen as he reached the third floor. They were at his door.

  "What has happened? This is my place! What has happened?” he cried.

  Two uniformed officers restrained him while a plainclothed officer approached.

  "Do you live here?” the plainclothed officer asked.

  "Yes!"

  "I need to know your name."

  German handed him his wallet. He felt his heart sinking.

  "The woman inside, Angelina Ruiz. Was she..."

  "My ... my ... wife."

  The words were difficult for him to say because they weren't true at a time when they should have been.

  He grabbed the officer's arm.

  "Please! Please! Oh, God! Is she all right?"

  The officer stared at him without answering, and that alone was answer enough.

  * * * *

  Angelina Ruiz had been beaten to death. The apartment's door had not been forced. Someone had knocked, and Angelina had opened the door innocently.

  The pain in German's heart was inconsolable. He could not tear away the thought of the terror and pain she must have felt as one or more animals inflicted their torturous attack on her.

  They had taken her away from him, taken away their joy and deprived them of what they would have become. The one thing that she wanted from him, and the one thing that he had withheld, was his name. Now she would never share it. It was a failing that he could never correct. He wanted to die with her because now he truly had nothing.

  * * * *

  Weeks passed without any abatement from the pain in German's heart. He wandered through his life seeking refuge in the repetitiveness of routine. He could find no solace and no answers to the questions that plagued him. He remained inconsolable. He came to work late and left early, with only the goodwill of those who cared to keep his head above water.

  The four men who had frequented The Royce and raised his suspicions had strangely disappeared. That and the knowledge he held from his army days saddled him with paranoia. He couldn't escape the thought that they may have been involved somehow in Angelina's death. It was all the more terrible because he had come to believe that her fate might have been intended for him.

  It all coalesced in his mind on a single rain-soaked day when his trek to work carried him past a storefront that he had seen a thousand times. He jogged under the awning of the store in hopes that the shower would soon pass. He looked at his watch and realized that he would be late again. A tiny semblance of reason had begun to return to his psyche. He knew that he couldn't continue his life in this manner forever.

  He looked absentmindedly at the display in the plate glass window. It was a tobacco store where men could buy coffee and Cuban cigars. He looked into the store and locked his gaze on another pair of eyes staring back at him. The balding man with the staccato voice watched with an enigmatic smile.

  German shook all over, and it wasn't the cold that made him shiver. He stepped up to the door as suddenly raging emotions threatened to consume him. The door was locked. He jerked at the knob to no avail. The balding man turned and casually walked to the back of the store and out of German's field of vision.

  German pounded on the glass before realizing that other pedestrians were observing his agitated behavior. If he kept this up, someone would call the cops. He made a mental note of the store's location before he stepped back into the rain. He would be back.

  * * * *

  Leonard Royce was waiting when German arrived, and the expression on his face told German that things were not well.

  "German, I'm gonna have to let you go,” he announced.

  Reality was suddenly thrust onto German. He had known that this would eventually come, and he had been trying to pull himself together, albeit too late.

  "Leonard, I ... I really need this job. I'm sorry, but things..."

  "I been tryin’ to go easy on you, German ‘cause I know what you been goin’ through,” Royce interrupted. “But you don't come to work on time, and when you get here, you're rude to the customers. I'm losin’ business, German, and don't nobody else want to work with you."

  "You don't know what's been going on, Leonard, but it's worse than you think."

  "How much worse could it be?"

  German hadn't talked to anyone about this. He had kept it inside partly out of fear of how he would be perceived. Now, however, he was desperate. He needed to have Leonard Royce understand because he needed this job. He told him about the four white men who had come there every week. He told him about his suspicions. He told Royce that Angelina's death made no sense unless she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but how could she be at the wrong place in her own home? It only made sense if she was the inadvertent victim and not the intended victim. That meant the intended victim had to be German Johnson himself.

  Leonard chewed on a Cuban cigar. He fondled it, puffed, and chewed again.

  "Did you tell that to the police?” Royce asked.

  "Have you forgotten where we live?” German asked. “This is Harlem. What do you think is gonna happen if I say some well-dressed white man broke into a colored waiter's place to murder his wife for no explainable reason?"

  Royce le
aned back in his chair and looked at German for the first time. He had been avoiding eye contact with German, as if embarrassed by what he had to do. Now the tautness in his face relaxed into an expression of calm, as if some burden had been lifted.

  "Why don't you talk to this fella?” he finally said.

  He handed German a scrap of paper on which he had scribbled a name and phone number.

  "Who's he?"

  "He's related to Sam Joseph, and I hear he has an interest in things like you just told me about."

  "Thanks. Thanks, man!"

  German jumped to his feet and grabbed Leonard's hand.

  Leonard started looking away again.

  "You're welcome, man,” Leonard replied.

  German released his hand and perused the scrap of paper.

  "You still can't work here no more,” Leonard said.

  He fidgeted with a fountain pen while German stared silently with disbelief.

  "Leonard, I..."

  "I don't want to talk about it no more, German. I feel sorry for you, but you need to go somewhere else."

  Leonard's tone dismissed him.

  German backed out of the room silently. He didn't understand, but he didn't have to understand. He had screwed up again. He had tried to lean on friendship when he should have been doing his job. Leonard was still staring at his own hands when German finally closed the door.

  * * * *

  The name on the paper was Francis Waxman. German called the man and arranged to meet him the following day. He had plenty of time since he no longer had a job.

  Waxman lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where people who looked like German Johnson were rarely seen unless they were working. Waxman appeared to be in his late thirties, with swarthy features and an abundance of dark curly hair. He had the kind of appearance that made his ethnicity ambiguous, although his speech pattern was decidedly Caucasian.

  Waxman's apartment was cluttered with boxes, folders, and papers that took up most of his visible living space. It seemed obvious to German that Waxman was single. No self-respecting woman would abuse such an elegant space like that.

  "What is it that you think I can do for you, Mr. Johnson?” Waxman asked.

  "I'm not sure,” German replied. “What do you do?"

  Waxman smiled.

  "This and that,” he replied with smug humor. “My uncle didn't know you, but he said his friend Mr. Royce mentioned that you had problems that may have related to your military activities."

  "Maybe. I don't know. I was in the Ninety-Fifth."

  "An engineering unit,” Waxman interjected. “Road builders ... the Alaskan Highway."

  "That was later. I wasn't with them then. I was in Ethiopia in ‘41."

  Waxman suddenly sat up straight.

  "You and who else?"

  "Four others."

  "So, it was really true,” Waxman mused.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I had heard that a squad of Negro soldiers were sent to Africa to gather intel on the German presence in the Denakil Desert."

  "We didn't find much,” German confessed.

  Waxman shrugged.

  "A few months ago, four men began meeting at The Royce every week. I believe that one of the men was a Nazi officer whom I had under surveillance in Ethiopia."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I only watched him through binoculars. I never got closer than thirty or forty yards, but I think it was him,” German replied.

  Waxman stood, walked to the window, and gazed at the street below.

  "I lost ... my wife recently,” German added.

  "I'm sorry,” Waxman said.

  "I believe they meant to kill me,” German explained.

  "You think they did it?"

  German nodded his affirmation.

  "Had they seen you in Ethiopia?"

  "No. Never."

  "Then how..."

  "He told me in the restaurant that I had developed and unusual interest in him. She was killed in our apartment the following day. The four of them never returned to the restaurant after."

  "I see,” Waxman mumbled.

  "I saw him again yesterday in a tobacco shop off Lenox. The store was locked in the middle of the afternoon. There was an expression on his face. It was hateful ... mocking."

  German's face had become wet with tears, but he was barely aware of it.

  "There are evil men in this world, Mr. Johnson,” Waxman observed pensively. “They didn't all die with the fall of Germany. Many of them are here right under our noses. Let me tell you a story that I think you will appreciate.

  "Long before America entered the war, British intelligence smuggled a military physician into a humanitarian field hospital near the Ethiopian coast. He was there to see an Ethiopian rebel who had become critically ill. The man died shortly after he left, but he was able to confirm the cause of death. The man died of acute radiation exposure."

  "What are you saying?"

  "The atomic bomb that your country dropped on Japan was developed from German technology."

  "So that's why they sent us to Ethiopia,” German said. “They thought the Nazis had a bomb in Ethiopia."

  "No. Not a bomb, but perhaps some of the material and technology to create one. In case the war didn't go well, the Nazis decentralized some of their technology. It made sense. What better place than an isolated site protected by their fascist allies."

  "But we never saw anything."

  "Doesn't mean it wasn't there,” Waxman replied.

  "So what do you think this is about? These men ... my wife."

  Waxman fumbled through several folders and finally laid a series of grainy black and white photos before German.

  His eyes immediately settled on the picture of a young man wearing a Nazi uniform who had a receding hairline. The similarity was unmistakable. This was the man he had seen in Ethiopia—a younger version of the man with the staccato voice.

  "Revenge, Mr. Johnson. The Nazi concept wasn't just political philosophy. It was a faith, a religion, an evil that transcended Hitler's moment in history. There are those who won't accept defeat and the horror they are willing to visit upon you is beyond your wildest fears."

  "Who are you?” German asked. His mind was unable to fathom all that he was hearing.

  "My country exists under a British mandate, Mr. Johnson, but we're not foolish enough to leave our security to others. If we were to fall into that trap, we would share the same fate as our families who died in Hitler's concentration camps. That's all you need to know."

  "So you're some kind of diplomat?"

  "Something like that,” Waxman smiled.

  German smiled too. He knew a lie when he heard one, but it was a lie he was willing to accept.

  * * * *

  Another week had passed, and the knock at German's door was completely unexpected. Now that Angelina was gone, his phone rarely rang, and the diverse visitors who colored his life no longer brightened his door.

  "Waxman. How did you find me?"

  Waxman's only response was a smile.

  Waxman needed to see the tobacco store where German had last seen the man with the relentless eyes. Waxman's purposes were still suspect to him, but it was a task German was all too willing to pursue. The long hours spent alone in grief and reflection had convinced him that the Nazis were involved in the death of his wife. Wife. He had come to call her that as if it had been a reality.

  They found a corner where they could observe the store in obscurity. The closed sign on the door never changed, but occasionally there appeared to be movement inside.

  Finally they saw the men. Two of them exited the building and got in a car in the alley and left.

  German wanted to do something immediately, but Waxman cautioned patience. They watched the building most of the day observing the random exits and returns of the men. There seemed to German to be a pattern of movement developing, but Waxman dismissed it. Eventually all four men left together.
r />   Waxman sprinted across the street with German close behind. He entered the locked door so quickly German thought he had a key. Waxman seemed to have more talents than would be expected in an ordinary man.

  "Here,” Waxman said as they moved inside the store.

  He handed German a pistol.

  "What's this?” German asked.

  "Security. Peace of mind. I thought we might need it. You ever shoot anybody?"

  German diverted his eyes and turned away. During his entire tour of duty, he had never fired his weapon. For that matter, he had never felt an immediate threat to his life until he returned home.

  The store smelled of the rich odor of tobacco. It appeared well stocked with cigars, pipe tobacco, and cigarettes. There was also cigarette paper for those rugged souls who preferred to roll their own. A few tables and chairs sat in the middle of the floor for customers who wanted to relax with tobacco and coffee.

  Waxman moved cautiously toward the back of the store with his own pistol in hand.

  A back door led down a darkened stairway to a lower level. A wall switch turned on a single naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, illuminating an unoccupied room, which appeared to be a storage area. There were several unopened crates along the periphery of the room. Waxman inspected the markings closely while scowling. He rambled through papers and folders left on a desk. He found notebooks and perused their contents.

  "Just as I suspected,” he muttered.

  He used the phone on the desk to make a call.

  "Who are you calling?” German asked.

  "Friends,” Waxman answered succinctly, without making any effort to explain further.

  "What is this place? What's going on here?"

  "These are dangerous men, Mr. Johnson."

  "Shouldn't you call the police ... the FBI?"

  "Nobody's going to help us,” Waxman interrupted. “There are no suspects in your wife's murder, and the police aren't asking questions anymore. Your former commanding officer didn't even want to talk to you. There are others coming who could help us, but they won't be here in time. I'm not absolutely sure how much time we've got, but if I guess wrong, hundreds of thousands of people could die. These men who killed your wife want to kill you, and they want to destroy your country as well as mine. We have no choice."