A Despicable Profession

by John Knoerle

  “Here’s how I see it, Colonel.” I took a bite of Jack and plunged ahead.

  “Your rescue was an elaborate charade you arranged with your Russian friend to win our trust and gratitude and that of Victor Jacobson. And Bill Donovan. When I returned to your salon to answer your question about which fugitive we were chasing you couldn’t be bothered. That made me trust you all the more. But could be you already knew the name of the fugitive. Could be Leonid told you. Like he called to alert you to our surprise visit, so you could arrange more playacting, by your queer young man. After Ambrose and I slinked off you returned Leonid’s call, told him to monitor our conversation, listen in to our speculation about the identity of the traitor, now that the good Colonel had been cleared.”

  I took a good pull, swishing it around like mouthwash before I swallowed. That the Colonel hadn’t laughed in my face or slapped me silly by now told me all I needed to know. “Any truth to that?”

  “Preposterous dear boy.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, as you say, really. Now I have guests to attend.”

  I remained standing in front of the door. “I want Ambrose. By morning. Or I have a talk with General Donovan. He arrives tomorrow.”

  This was news to Norwood. He cast his eyes about like Leonid in his hidden office, wondering what had happened to his snug little world. He recovered nicely however.

  “Talk to him all you like. I know the General personally, squired him about Bletchley Park in ‘42. A crazy Harp but aren’t they all?” The Colonel drained his glass. Patches of scalded purple brightened his cheeks. “You have nothing but speculation to present to him. Dear boy.”

  I didn’t say different, just stood there and looked like I knew more than I was letting on. Norwood remained calm, unruffled, not one to be intimidated by the likes of me.

  “It shouldn’t be difficult,” I said, pleasantly. “Now that Leonid’s been blown the Blue Caps won’t care to keep Ambrose. He was Leonid’s prize, not theirs.”

  “Just as you say,” said the Colonel. “But they will want an exchange, Leonid for Ambrose.”

  “I don’t think so. Swapping a kidnapped Yank for a Russian spy? That would be an admission of dirty doings by our stalwart allies.”

  The Colonel paid attention to his gin and no tonic.

  I didn’t have anything solid on him, just as he said. I had a dim glim of an idea how to get that something but it would have to wait. Col. Norwood prized one thing above all, his status as Berlin’s well-connected all-knowing salon keeper. And I held the key to something he coveted. A sociable visit to the Norwood salon by the legendary Wild Bill Donovan.

  “Bring the General here tomorrow, nine p.m. For cigars and cognac, he’s partial to both,” said the Colonel, regarding me with squinty distaste. “And I will present to him your bloody Irishman.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  The Colonel nodded curtly. I held the door open and let him return to his guests, saying I needed to use the head and would be along shortly.

  The hydraulic bedroom door scissored back and clicked shut. I got to work.

  Chapter Forty

  I had about five minutes. Five minutes to toss the room before the Colonel got antsy and returned to check on me. Ten minutes if Norwood got on a roll with the sherry-sippers. Okay, five minutes.

  Very unlikely Col. Norwood kept any incriminating work documents in his place of residence. But he might have some personal items he wanted to keep close.

  I had interrupted something during my unannounced visit two visits ago, something I had chosen to ignore. Sedgewick disheveled, red-faced. The Colonel gone to the loo and returned with his face washed and his hair combed. I had interrupted something all right. Gawd. Norwood and Sedgewick were lovers, lovers of long-standing. Which meant there would be memorabilia.

  I searched a bookcase against the far wall, found a leather photo album embossed John and Nell. I paged through quickly. Norwood and his wife at their wedding ceremony, at the christening of a child, at a military fete, at their anniversary party. I checked the pockets of the leather album. No joy.

  The clock was ticking. The dignitaries weren’t laughing. Col. Norwood would soon be wondering. I removed the leather bound volumes on either side of the album and shook them out. No luck. I shook out more. Nothing doing.

  Time to get brilliant Schroeder. The Colonel’s a jokester, right? What would a jokester do? He would hide his secret behind his proper façade, behind the handsome photographic portrait of John and Nell and their daughter that hung above the bookcase. I pried off the backing with shaky fingers. It was awful quiet out there.

  I got lucky. I found an 8×10 photo that would have been shocking if it wasn’t so funny. And vice versa.

  An Alpine vacation, the Matterhorn in the background. A much younger Norwood and Sedgewick in ski gear with their arms around each other. Nothing scandalous, save for Norwood’s tongue in Sedgewick’s ear and Sedgewick grinning like a chimp.

  The shot was poorly framed, indicating a camera on a timer. Even if they had developed the film themselves it was a dumb thing to do. And keep. Ditto Leonid and his childhood portrait with his sister. Love doth make fools of us all.

  I didn’t know if the photo was enough to get the Colonel cashiered from MI6, though homosexuals were considered blackmail bait. Didn’t matter at the moment. What counted was that I could use the photo to make the good Colonel do my bidding.

  A devious thought occurred.

  I yanked out the photo album again and removed another 8×10 and slipped both pix into my coat pocket. I hurried to the door and pulled it open just as Col. Norwood was reaching for the handle. He spilled into the room, I grabbed his arm and held him up.

  “My apologies Colonel. I took a minute to raid the liquor locker.”

  The Colonel wasn’t interested in my blather. He made a beeline for the cocktail tray, poured a stiff gin and drank it down. “These are the dullest humans ever assembled.”

  I chuckled. Norwood said “Think it’s easy, do you?” and propelled me through the door.

  I stumbled out into the parlor. The dignitaries turned towards me as one. They looked glum, abandoned by their master of ceremonies. My appearance didn’t cheer them up any. Entertaining the stuffed shirts wasn’t my never mind but I had more I wanted to do here this evening. Might as well pitch in.

  I chose something all the Western World had in common. American movies. I did Jimmy Cagney in “The Roaring Twenties.” I did John Wayne in “Back to Bataan.”

  The dignitaries observed me with a sort of grim fascination. All right, time for the heavy artillery. I summoned my lisping bug-eyed Peter Lorre from “The Maltese Falcon,” the scene where he calls Sydney Greenstreet a fat oafish bloated idiot!

  They liked that. So much so that Col. Norwood crept from his lair to see about all the ruckus.

  The evening rolled on from there. Norwood, his manhood challenged, cranked into high gear, spinning anecdotes and gossip and ribald stories into one long spell-binding monologue that had even the elderly cleric flushed and giggly.

  I watched him work, fascinated. Was this why he was playing both sides? The Colonel said the Brits were defeated by victory, called the U.S. commitment to the struggle half-assed. A seasoned operative might conclude it was time to hedge his bets. But could be it was simpler than that. Could be Norwood just had an overpowering need to be the center of attention.

  Was that it? Was international high-stakes power politics just another playground game where ego and bragging rights trumped all? See: Vitinov, Major Leonid; Norwood, Colonel John; Hilde, General Klaus. And Schroeder, Harold M. for that matter. I only took the job because I wanted to be a hero.

  I had been a fake hero in Cleveland of course, a newspaper hero. A real hero does what needs to be done and hang the consequence. A real hero doesn’t negotiate with the enemy in order to obtain a happy outcome built on sand. Col. Norwood serving up Ambrose to Bill Donovan tomorrow evening for instance.


  After which I would be up to my eyeballs in hock to the old whore, expected to keep my yap shut as the Colonel presented Ambrose to the General, claiming he had moved heaven and earth to free the heroic young Irish freedom fighter.

  Nope, I couldn’t do it. I had to burn Col. Norwood to the ground tonight. I couldn’t tar Bill Donovan’s good name by parading him around the den of a double-dealing traitor. And I sure as shit couldn’t justify myself to Ambrose.

  You telling me I was starved, beat and deprived of strong drink for several days so’s you could do a backroom deal with a bleedin’ Limey Communist homosexual?!

  I was going to have to spring Ambrose the hard way, that’s all there was to it. I patted the 8×l0’s in my coat pocket and waited for the Colonel to wind down and the sherry-sipping dignitaries to grow bored. It would take a while, now that Sedgewick had placed my jeroboam of champagne in an ice bucket and was working the hand-spun grinder in the kitchen.

  The whir and crunch stilled all speech. Coffee beans. Sedgewick was about to brew a pot of real coffee. No one in their right mind would leave until that rich river mud got poured.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The coffee and champagne kept the dignitaries sprightly for the better part of an hour. I dragged a table chair to the hearth and tended the fire, kept it crisp and crackling for future use. The partygoers fizzed out at about...aw, hell, I had no idea what time it was. Like me the Colonel kept no clocks, but my eyelids told me it was late.

  The dignitaries took their leave in ones and twos, some clutching each other as Sedgewick led them down the rear hall and the back stairs to their waiting cars. The elderly cleric shuffled along behind, then stood on the landing, his papery hand clutching the railing, looking down the steep wooden staircase as if it were the last thing he would ever see. I sidled up.

  “Let’s wait for the crowd to clear.”

  “That seems prudent,” he said in a warbly voice.

  People found their cars. The staircase cleared.

  “Forgive me for getting fresh,” I said and scooped up his frail frame in my arms and walked him very carefully down the creaky stairs. The parson didn’t object, seemed in fact to enjoy the ride. He looked up at me was we made our way down the steps, his gray eyes watery.

  “Is that a dog bite on your nose?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Curious” was all he said.

  I set the old gent on his feet when we reached solid ground and looked around for his transport. All the cars were gone. Great. An elderly parson was my date for the rest of the evening.

  Then a black sedan crunched up the gravel drive and a driver jumped out and opened the back door, apologizing for his tardiness. This was a bigwig parson apparently. I helped him to the rear compartment. He thanked me for my kindness, took my hand and said, “Keep that nose out of places it doesn’t belong.”

  I laughed. If only I could.

  The clergyman settled into the back seat and the car spat gravel as it backed down the drive. I watched them go, thinking of the ancient elevator operator in the Standard Building in Cleveland. The one who saw my scuffed up mush and said, ‘You’d best go home.’ This was much the same. Was God trying to tell me something?

  I climbed back up the stairs. If a huge thunderbolt rent the night sky before I reached the back door I would reconsider my course of action. I stopped on the landing and scanned the heavens. God did not co-operate.

  I tried the door handle. Locked, but a tin can I could pop with a hard stare.

  I listened at the door. Hearty guffaws from Norwood and Sedgewick, mocking their guests, decompressing after a hard night at the salon. The laughter and conversation died down shortly. I had better do this now.

  The strike plate in the door frame was loose. I pushed against the door and stuck my broken-tipped knife blade inside the plate and pulled the door back towards me. With a little jiggling I got the blade pinned against the end of the latch bolt. I jacked the knife to the right, eased open the door and entered Col. Norwood’s chalet on Ernststraße for the last time.

  I looked down the short entry hall. The Colonel had his back to me, seated on the couch, packing his pipe. I crept forward, scouting Sedgewick. He figured to be in the kitchen, cleaning up. I listened for the clank of dishes, heard none.

  Okay, so he was in the servant’s quarters off the kitchen, changing out of his monkey suit. Where I didn’t want him was the master bedroom on the right, behind the hydraulic door. Neither Norwood nor Sedgewick would be pleased to see me again so soon. But only Sedgewick was likely to do anything about it.

  I crept down the hall secure in the knowledge that, if the burly manservant burst out of the bedroom and put a slug in the back of the intruder he’d heard jimmying the back door, everyone from Bill Donovan on down would deny any knowledge of my existence. It was a good feeling. It was! It meant I could do as I damn well pleased.

  I crept closer. The Colonel struck a kitchen match, ignited his great craggy pipe, took a hungry draw and didn’t exhale for the longest time. When he did the smoke came out graygreen and pungent as camel dung.

  I tiptoed up behind him, glanced over my shoulder, glanced right to the kitchen. No Sedgewick. And the door to the servant’s quarters was closed. I bent down.

  “Don’t burn all those matches Colonel,” I said to his left ear.

  He didn’t jerk, didn’t turn, simply froze in place.

  I walked around the couch to face him. “You might want to save one for later.”

  Col. Norwood struggled to make sense of all this but exhaustion, gin and whatever was in that pipe fought him all the way. He shook his purple cheeks pale, reclaimed himself quickly and, setting his pipe in its gnarled wood holder, said, “I thought we had reached an understanding.”

  He said it hot but low so that Sedgewick wouldn’t overhear. I appreciated the courtesy. Unlikely I would conclude my business before Sedgewick made an appearance but, like I say, I appreciated the courtesy.

  “I have something that belongs to you.” I presented the scandalous photo of Norwood and Sedgewick.

  Norwood’s reaction - a fit of giggles and “Sedgie, come look!” - was not what I had hoped for.

  Sedgie came rumbling out of his bedroom in stocking feet, cinching up a bathrobe.

  “I haven’t seen that photograph in ages,” said the Colonel. “We’re so damnably young!”

  Sedgewick, half asleep, muttered agreement and gave me a what are you doing here look.

  I stood there like a stooge, holding my lethal weapon, a scandalous photo that my intended victims found both nostalgic and amusing. Could be I’d miscalculated. MI6 knew all about Norwood’s secret life but turned a blind eye given his talents and suitability for the cesspool that was Berlin.

  Could be, probably was. But Col. Norwood was married to a royal niece or somesuch. In Great Britain, where the daily newspapers loved scandal, and scandalous photographs above all.

  I pointed this out to the gentlemen. Their mood darkened.

  Colonel Norwood picked up his pipe. “It may interest you to know, dear boy, that my man Sedgewick is quite an accomplished pugilist, won a Royal Navy middleweight title once upon a time. As I know you to be a civilized young man who would not stoop to the use of weaponry in the salon, may I suggest a round of fisticuffs to settle this matter.”

  “Marquis of Queensberry rules of course.”

  “Of course.”

  I stuck the photo back in my pocket and set about moving chairs to make space in the parlor. Sedgewick, who looked as if he wanted nothing more than to go to bed and pull the covers up over his head, looked to his employer for confirmation.

  “Well, go on. Give the young upstart what for!”

  Sedgewick plodded forward to meet me. A dart gun. When I returned to the States I would tell my spy school instructor to add a dart gun to the list of essential espionage equipment so that, in the future, field agents would be spared the emb
arrassment of pugilistic encounters with ageing manservant’s in woolen socks.

  Sedgewick advanced slowly, dukes straight up, guarding his mug. He bobbed and weaved a bit though I kept my hands at my knees and threw no punches. I’m not much of a pugilist. I didn’t need to be. The upright, straight ahead style of Western boxing is tailor made for ju jitsu.

  When Sedgie got close enough to throw a haymaker I ducked, and danced around behind him. I could have put him down with a rabbit punch to the back of the neck but I figured I would do a buck and wing for a few minutes till the old gent got tired of chasing me around and gave up.

  But Sedgewick pivoted, took one big stride and drilled me a good one, a straight overhand shot right above the belt buckle.

  Col. Norwood hooted his approval. I windmilled backward, fighting for breath. Sedgewick closed in quick, peppering me with left jabs, then loaded up a lights-out right cross.

  And therein lies the problem with Western boxing – Western war-making too. An alert opponent can see what’s coming. It’s why spies were invented and taught ju jitsu.

  I juked left and threw out my right arm just as Sedgewick unloaded, catching the crook of his elbow in mine, using his momentum to dosey-do him around in a full 360.

  The Colonel found this very entertaining, Sedgewick less so. He set his jaw and rocked his head side to side. He was seriously cheesed.

  Norwood piped up about then. “Leslie,” he said crossly, “you’ve come all undone.”

  Sedgewick looked down. His bathrobe hung open, exposing his boxer shorts. They didn’t have little pink hearts on them or anything so I didn’t understand why Sedgewick blushed and gathered his bathrobe and tied it up tight. But mine was not to reason why.

  I shot forward and did what I had been trained to do to subdue an opponent quickly. A sidewinding heel kick to the shin, followed by a quick fist to the temple as the opponent bends forward in pain, followed by an acrobatic over-the-shoulder throw that requires hoisting the subject directly overhead.

  Sedgewick declined to co-operate with this last maneuver. He wrapped his arms around me and bulled me backwards, his big head in my gut. I cinched him under his belly, flopped backwards and used his momentum to flip him up and over.