Voices of the Dead hl-1

by Peter Leonard

  “Harry, you were starving. Can I get you anything else?”

  “What about your photographs?”

  “You have to see them.”

  She walked out of the room and came back with two stacks of prints. Handed Harry the first one, stood by his side while he shuffled through them. There were a couple long shots of the MC and the uniformed Nazis on the dais.

  “I showed these to a former teacher this afternoon. Dr. Ritmeier, an expert on Nazis past and present. The MC is Franz Stigler, head of a local Blackshirt faction. By day he’s an electrician.” She paused. “Dr. Ritmeier doesn’t think the men on the dais are real Nazis. He tried to match the names and faces with known SS personnel at the camps and couldn’t.”

  “These neo-Nazi idiots are being duped, huh?”

  “Isn’t it amazing.”

  “What about Hess?”

  “Dr. Ritmeier has no information or evidence of Hess being sympathetic to their cause. It would be a serious conflict of interest.”

  Knowing it and proving it were two different things. The other photos showed the Nazi banners, cheering Blackshirts on their feet, raising their ax handles, showing Nazism was alive and well in Munich. He glanced up at her.

  “What do you think?”

  “They’re great. You really captured it,” Harry said. “Let me see the others?”

  She handed him the second stack and sat next to him. Individual tabletop shots of the things they’d found in the drawer at Hess’ apartment. Souvenirs Hess had taken from the people he’d killed. He’d bet the gold Star of David in the photograph he was looking at matched the chain the dentist in D.C. was wearing.

  She got up, stood next to him and put her hands on his shoulders. He untied the sash and opened the robe. She was naked underneath. He kissed her white creamy stomach, moving up to her breasts, lingered there for a while, stood, kissed her mouth and she led him to the bedroom.

  She took off her robe and kissed him and helped him off with his jacket and sat on the edge of the bed, naked, grabbed his belt, pulling him toward her and unbuckling it. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, slipped out of his pants and underwear and sat next to her. Now she got on her knees, sexy blue eyes looking up at him behind the tortoiseshell frames, and he forgot about everything that had happened earlier.

  Twenty-three

  In the morning, Harry took a cab back to his hotel. He got out at Königsplatz, stopped at a newsstand to buy a paper and that’s when they got him. He was glancing at the front page when the car pulled up and the doors opened. He heard the quick beat of footsteps on the sidewalk, and then he was lifted off the ground before he had a chance to react. Two Blackshirts carried him to the back of a Mercedes sedan, threw him in the trunk and closed the lid. He heard the tires squeal, felt the car take off, Harry on his side, trying to hold his position.

  There was a lot of stopping and starting as they drove through the city, and then he could feel the big sedan accelerate and maintain a constant speed.

  He knew who they were and who they worked for and it didn’t look good. But Harry had one thing going for him — a .38 Colt with a five-shot load tucked in his belt behind his back. They’d missed it or hadn’t thought to look.

  At 9:28 he felt the Mercedes slow down and turn to the right. Harry drew the revolver, put the hammer on a loaded chamber. Turned his body, legs bent, feet on the bumper side, gripping the Colt with both hands. The Mercedes hit a stretch of irregular ground and bucked up and down for a while before it stopped. Harry’s guess, they were in the woods somewhere and his time was up. He heard two doors open and close and movement on both sides of the car. The trunk lid sprang up. He saw two of them, eyes squinting, trying to adjust from darkness to bright light, seeing trees behind them.

  They reached in to grab him. Harry pointed the Colt, fired. Shot one and then the other, both in the upper chest. They staggered back and went down. He climbed out of the trunk, shot the driver as he was getting out of the car, turning with a shotgun in his hands. Went down and didn’t move. Harry slipped the Colt in his pants pocket, picked up the shotgun, and racked it.

  He was in the woods surrounded by pine trees. Stood over the two Blackshirts behind the car, aiming the shotgun. Both alive, staring up at him, but not for long based on the amount of blood. Both looking at him surprised. Where’d he get the gun? In German Harry asked who’d sent them. Neither one answered. He could see blood bubbling out of their mouths, and then they were gone.

  He tossed the shotgun in the trees, stepped over the third Blackshirt, and got in behind the wheel. The keys were in the ignition. He started the car and drove out of the woods, spun around on the shoulder and went right on the highway. He saw a sign for Munich, 10 km. Harry knew that everyone connected to him was at risk now. He stopped at a gas station on the highway, called Colette. No answer. And remembered her saying she was going to Nuremberg to interview a Jewish couple that had been attacked by Blackshirts two days earlier. He hung up, tried Cordell’s hotel, asked for him, let it ring a while and hung up.

  Cordell had slept late, window open, cool night air coming in, all snuggly and such under the eiderdown comforter. Germans might be cold, but they knew how to stay warm. Didn’t want to get up. But at 10:04, he forced himself, got in the shower, stood under the hot water for fifteen minutes, thought he heard the phone.

  Got out, dried himself, stood at the sink, towel around his waist, shaved, checked himself out in the mirror. Brown eyes, nice straight teeth, chocolate-colored skin. Afro coming back, had like two inches up there. He turned his face right and then left, admiring his jaw line, his profile.

  Ladies grooved on him. Before the service he’d been bangin’ LaDonna, M’shell, Tifany, Bernita and Rochelle, shuffling them in and out of his crib, each thinking she the one. Now thinking back, it had been a lot of work. Maybe he didn’t need five at once. Did one, had to get ready for the next. Once, done all five the same day. Was so sore Mr. Johnson had to lay low, take some time off, Cordell horny all of a sudden, thinking about it.

  He heard Marvin in his head, danced into the bedroom, took off the towel, threw it on the bed, reached in his duffel, grabbed a pair of boxers, slipped them on, singing:

  Ain’t that peculiar?

  A peculiar ality…

  Now he was trying to decide what to wear, checking out his four leisure suits hanging in the closet. Wore powder blue yesterday. How about, go with the dark green today? Match it with the light green shirt had palm trees all over it.

  Cordell had been thinking about leaving Munich. Had to get away from Harry, man was bad luck. Like upside-down horseshoes, broken mirror and a black cat all in one. Man needed a rabbit’s foot in a bad way. Was thinkin’ of takin’ the train to Amsterdam, smoke some of that high-powered hootch was everywhere. Check out the red-light district, see what the Dutch ladies was all about. Sample some Netherland pussy.

  Phone started ringing, and then a knock on the door. He looked through the peephole, saw a white dude, face distorted. “Still in here. Come back later.” Phone kept ringing. He moved to get it, heard an explosion. Bullet blew through the door and the window behind him. Cordell ducked down behind the bed, got as low as he could. Two more rounds punched holes through the door. The phone was still ringing. Now the dude was banging against the door, putting his shoulder into it, molding splintering.

  Cordell moved to the window, opened both sides all the way, got up on the sill in his boxer drawers. Door sounded like it was going to give. He bent down and squeezed through the window, standing on a narrow concrete ledge, looking down at the dumpsters below him in the alley behind the hotel, holding onto the window, afraid of heights, knees weak and rubbery. But he couldn’t stop, moved across the ledge, taking little bitty steps to the end of the building and reached around the corner, tried to grab the downspout but was too far.

  Harry was driving like a maniac through the city, traffic surprisingly heavy for a Saturday morning. Cordell’s hotel was on Bayerstrasse ju
st south of the train station. A few minutes later he pulled up across the street from Pensione Jedermann, a five-story building with a mansard roof, and saw four Blackshirts getting out of an Audi sedan parked in front.

  Harry left the Mercedes at the curb, ran across the street and into the hotel. Saw the Blackshirts getting in an elevator. Harry crossed the small lobby, picked up a house phone, asked the operator to connect him to Cordell Sims’ room. It rang a dozen times. He put the phone down, ran back to the Mercedes, got in and drove around the block. He didn’t know what room Cordell was in or what floor he was on, or if he was even in the hotel at that time, but remembered him saying he had a great view of the alley. Harry drove behind the place, and there was a black guy in his underwear, standing on a narrow second-storey ledge. Behind him a Blackshirt with a gun was coming through the window. Cordell looked back at the guy, looked down at the dumpsters lined up below him and jumped. Harry heard him hit, saw him disappear under the trash. The Blackshirt aiming at the open dumpster, firing rounds that pinged off the metal.

  Cordell rose up out of the garbage, flipped over the side, landed on his feet and ran down the alley out of the line of fire. He was fast. Harry followed in the Mercedes, clocked him doing twenty, pulled up next to him, side window down.

  “Man, what you doing?” Cordell said, slowing down, stopping, body bent over, holding his knees, breathing hard.

  “Need a lift?” Harry said.

  Cordell went around the front end of the car and got in next to him, grinning. “Harry, you never cease to amaze me. Where the fuck you come from?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “In the neighborhood, huh? Where’d you get this?” Cordell said, nodding, eyes moving across the dash.

  “I borrowed it,” Harry said, accelerating down the alley.

  Cordell shook his head. “You somethin’ else, Harry.”

  He glanced at Cordell’s boxers. “That a new look you’re trying out?”

  “It’s part of my new Save Your Ass line. Like when crazed neo-Nazi motherfuckers try to bust down your door, don’t have time to get dressed.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you were a boxer man.”

  “Why is that?”

  Harry said, “They don’t seem fly enough.”

  “Oh, fly, huh? ’Cause you now an expert? Got nothing to do with fly, Harry. Got to do with comfort. Freedom. Understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I had my boxer period,” Harry said. “Switched back to briefs. I look better in them.”

  “Better for who?”

  “Whoever I’m with.”

  “Listen to Mr. Vain himself.”

  He took a left and a right on Bayerstrasse. Cordell’s hotel was behind them about a quarter mile. “We better go to the police.”

  “We tried that,” Cordell said. “What do you think they gonna do?”

  “Then we’re going to have to pick up an outfit for you. Head over to Maximilianstrasse.”

  “Ever since I run into you, it’s been an adventure,” Cordell said.

  Harry parked, took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to Cordell along with a pen.

  “Yeah, Harry, I know where you work at.”

  “Write your sizes down. Shirt, pants, shoes. I know what you like. I’ll see if I can find a Louis the Hatter. Pick you up a leisure suit, rhymes with pleasure, right?” Harry said, having a little fun with him. “Don’t go anywhere.” He was grinning when he got out of the car and walked down the street.

  Hard to explain, Harry’d get him in trouble, show up get him out. Cordell didn’t know what he’d a done, Harry hadn’t come when he did. He checked the glove box, found the owner’s manual and car papers, Benz was registered to Friedrich Acker. Wondered if it was reported stolen? Wondered if the police were going to show up like they did last time? Cordell promised himself he got out of this mess today he would leave town, not look back. He sunk down in the seat watched people walk by the car, no one really paying much attention to him, brother sitting there practically naked.

  When Harry finally came back, he was carrying two shopping bags, got in the car, slid them over to Cordell.

  “Here you go,” Harry said.

  He opened the first bag, looking at green suede knickers and a white shirt. “The fuck is this?”

  “Selection wasn’t good,” Harry said. “It was the best thing I could find.”

  “Best thing you could find? You go to a costume shop?” Second bag had hiking boots and green knee-highs. “This some kind a joke?”

  “Try it on,” Harry said. “It’s temporary. Just till we get your clothes.”

  Cordell slid the shirt out, unfolded it, took all the pins out and put it on. Now he grabbed the shorts, slid into them. Put on the knee-highs and the boots. Saw Harry look over with a grin. Met his gaze. “Don’t say nothing.” He leaned forward, grabbed the rearview mirror, tilted it to the right and looked at himself. “Who am I suppose to be Harry, Hans the mountain boy? Feel like I’m in a Shirley Temple picture.”

  Harry started the car, checked the mirrors and pulled out of the parking space, punched it and they were moving in traffic.

  “Where we going now?”

  Twenty-four

  “Lisa’s office,” Harry said. He parked, took the Colt out of his pants pocket and turned the cylinder to a live chamber. Two rounds left. He could feel Cordell’s eyes on him.

  “What’re you going to do with that?”

  He glanced at Cordell. “Defend myself.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Where’s my gun at?”

  “Stay behind me.”

  “Harry, you a bad-ass now. That right?”

  He had two rounds in the Colt and five more in the safe in his hotel room.

  They took the elevator up to the fourth floor, room 412, ZOB in black type, all caps, stenciled on the frosted glass panel in the door.

  “What’s ZOB mean?” Cordell said.

  “It was named after a Polish resistance group during World War Two, the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa. They fought the Nazis.” Harry knocked on the door. No one came. He turned the knob. It opened. He stepped in, turned on the lights, saw something was different immediately. The bookcases were empty. The photos of at-large Nazis had disappeared from the wall. The top of Irena’s desk that had been covered with stacks of files and paper was now bare, nothing on it. He took the Colt out of his pocket, holding it with two hands, Cordell to his right but behind him, crowding him a little.

  “Sure this’s the right place?” Cordell whispered. “Looks like they moved.”

  Harry turned to him, put his index finger over his mouth and walked into Lisa’s office, aiming the Colt. It was in the same condition, no pictures on the walls, desktop clean, drawers empty. Not a piece of paper anywhere. Everything was gone.

  He checked the other offices, checked closets and under desks, checked file cabinets. Everything had been cleaned out. Except for the sign on the outer door, it looked like the ZOB had never been there, never existed. Harry wondered how they did it, the manpower it must have taken to pack and move all that stuff so quickly. No sign of Leon and Irena either, but it was Saturday. Maybe they hadn’t come in to the office. He knew they lived together, had their address back at the hotel.

  “Now what?” Cordell said.

  Rausch had watched his men surprise the Jew, pick him up and drop him in the trunk of the stolen Mercedes, and slam the lid closed. Over in ten seconds. Exactly the way he had planned it. He had phoned Hess mid-morning, telling him the situation had been handled, taken care of. “Forget about Harry Levin. He is gone.”

  “You are sure?” Hess said. “You saw the body?”

  He was always skeptical unless he was involved. “I wouldn’t be calling you unless I was,” Rausch had said.

  But now it was after 3:00, more than six hours since the Jew had been abducted and he had not heard from Trometer or any of them. He guessed they were in a ratskeller, getting drunk. He thou
ght back, remembered exactly what he had told them. “Take the Jew in the woods, shoot him, bury him. Call me when you are finished.” What did they not understand? The outcome seemed certain, foregone. But then, they were not trained soldiers, and Levin was unpredictable.

  Rausch recalled the scuffle at the restaurant in Washington DC. He had underestimated him and look what happened. He glanced in the rearview mirror, ran his fingertip over the scar on his cheek, the cut that required four stitches to close, remembered the unassuming Jew throwing him over the table, plates and glasses shattering, landing on the floor.

  Rausch had never lost a fight in his life. Harry Levin from Detroit had made him look like an amateur, embarrassed him. He remembered Hess, angry, questioning him on the way back to the embassy.

  “What happened?” Hess had said. Make a mistake and he would rub your face in it, make you feel like a fool. “Maybe I need a new bodyguard, Someone younger, more capable.”

  “Maybe you do.” Rausch wasn’t going to play the game. He had just turned fifty-one. It sounded old, but he was in shape, ran a couple miles every day, lifted weights, boxed and spent time every week at the shooting range.

  Then Hess smiled and patted his shoulder. “Arno, of course I am joking.”

  Rausch wasn’t so sure.

  The black man, Cordell Sims, was another story. He had jumped out a second-floor window into a trash bin and disappeared. What were the odds of doing that without sustaining injury? According to their contact at the Munich police, Sims had been a soldier stationed in Heidelberg before being dishonorably discharged for striking his platoon sergeant. The thought of it infuriated Rausch. Soldiers followed orders, you did what you were told. They should have put him in prison, or shot him. He would do it for them when the opportunity presented itself.