GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES

by Parris Afton Bonds

  He could only shake his head, trying to restrain his superior smile. “Never say never. You just haven’t met the man to make you shiver in your boots.”

  “Does Miss Charlotte do that to ye? Make ye shiver in yuir boots?”

  “Let’s get back to reading.” But he felt uneasy, beleaguered by all this fortune telling shit of Romy’s. Because for the first time it occurred to him that he had, indeed. found the perfect woman in Charlotte.

  Surely, card reading was hokey pokey. And, strange, how similar the phrase was to hanky panky. Yeah, the unruly Gypsy girl could only mean trouble for him – and the wife he would be choosing.

  “Ye might try kissing her, Duke – ye know, the kind of life-awakening kiss that the charming prince gave Snow White. And before I forget it, Micah has a gobshite of a toothache. Next time ye go to town could ye bring back some gum opium and spirits of turpentine?”

  Relieved that she had forsaken the subject of Charlotte, he quipped, “What? No Gypsy cure?”

  She gave him a sleepy-lidded grin. “To be sure, but I dunna think Micah would like it. Ye cut the ear drum from a sow and paint – ”

  “Micah has a toothache not an earache,” he corrected.

  “They’re connected, dinna ye know? The ear drum and the teeth. Like I was saying, ye paint the eardrum red and tie it around yuir neck and wear it like a necklace.”

  “I think Micah would rather have the tooth yanked. Your turn to read.”

  But they had gotten no further than six or seven pages into The Sword and the Stone when he felt the weight of her head, drooping against his chest. In sleep, she was making the purring noise of a softly snoring child.

  With another sigh, he slipped his arm off the back of the couch to cradle her shoulders and the other beneath her drawn-up knees lapping against his thigh. Lifting her slight weight, he strode into his bedroom and lowered her onto his bed, drawing over her the quilt his mother had made from the scraps of his boyhood shirts.

  And this scrap of humanity would be the death of him if he didn’t find a way to unburden himself of her quick like. Troubling, he sensed every day she stayed would make it more difficult for him to do so.

  § CHAPTER NINE §

  “Champing at the bit, the cowboy is,” Lyndon Johnson said, puffing on a cigarette as he drove. During a telephone call to his Operation Texas coordinator, Rabbi Hickman, the congressman had learned McClellan was still determined to send his challenging charge packing.

  Well, Gideon could fully empathize with the rancher, having had more than enough of his own misfortune with the female charlatan. But he had hoped the “Snow White and Seven Dwarfs’ interlude at the Paramount Theatre would have mitigated Duke’s antipathy for sponsorship.

  Not that the company today of another dwarf – Morris Keller, or Moe, as the toadying man now went by – was going to alleviate the rancher’s adamancy against continuing as a NYA sponsor.

  Back in Austin from Washington, Johnson had drummed up this outing for a dual purpose – to check on his most recently relocated Jews, which also provided the opportunity to drop by his family ranch on the Pedernales River, only eleven miles from the S&S Cattle Ranch.

  Because of his position at Austin’s American Jewish Joint Committee, Moe had volunteered to accompany Johnson as a sort of liaison. Obviously, for the same reason Gideon had volunteered – in hopes of establishing a more closely working relationship with the congressman and cashing in on favors later.

  With Gideon’s sights set on becoming an American citizen, he was committed to courting Austin’s Jewish female community. Lavinia Spiegel was a promising beginning – her sound financial standing quite possibly could shorten the length of his wife quest.

  She had even initiated their upcoming date, mentioning she had two tickets to Hanukkah festivities to be held in the Millett Opera House next week.

  While not exactly taking him to task, her tone of voice expressed displeasure about today’s outing with Lyndon. “You must keep in mind, Gideon,” she said, her voice lowered companionably, “how common he is. Ever the skirt-chaser.”

  Not that he gave any credence to Romy’s card reading, but she had seemed to pick up on Lavinia’s more irritating personality traits. As an attorney, he was trained to do just that, read people – and that simply was all that Romy had done.

  But then a carping voice from his cerebellum demanded why at the outset had he not picked up on Lavinia’s more grating habits?

  The late afternoon was one of those sparkling autumn days, and the drive along the meandering ranch road, with its view of rolling hills and panoply of red-and-orange-leafed trees, bordering the Blanco in the distance, might have been scenic but for a broken-down tractor, a busted-out chicken coop, a fallen barbed wire fence – all of which signaled years of neglect.

  Swerving sharply to avoid the abandoned hay wagon that had lost a wheel, the 1934 Ford Phaeton’s heavy iron chassis careened down a ravine.

  “Oy gevalt!” Moe exclaimed from the sedan’s back seat.

  In the passenger’s front seat, Gideon knuckled a death grip on the door handle.

  The sedan rocketed up the ravine’s far side to regain the graveled road leading to the S&S. Lyndon Johnson drove with the same gusto he did everything else, including pursuing females; this, despite his recent marriage.

  Spraying grit from the open windows stung Gideon’s s eyes, but when his vision cleared, Johnson’s face with its rather long nose and protruding ears was turned to him in elation.

  “Hot damn,” the congressman shouted over the roar of the Ford engine, responding to his foot’s acceleration on the pedal, “that’s almost as fun as riding a wild horse or a horny woman.”

  Moe was the first out of the sedan, banging open the porch screen door even before Johnson had unfolded his lanky frame from behind the steering wheel. The house’s front door itself was ajar. Gideon knocked on the door frame.

  Moe called out, “Anyone home?” and charged on through.

  “The little pecker on a mission?” Johnson quipped behind Gideon.

  He shrugged and, pushing wider a front door that groaned on its rusted hinges, followed Moe inside.

  In the parlor, the dwarf stopped short before a wooden wall-box display. Rubbing his palms, he exclaimed, “Ay-yay-yay, a gold mine.”

  Gideon peered inside the box. War medals, many of them gold. Well, at least, McClellan’s father had amounted to something. If the ranch was anything to go by, the son was definitely not a chip off the old block.

  Removing his fedora, he stepped on past and glanced into the kitchen. From beneath the sink, shapely legs protruded, ending with a pair of small and dusty bare feet. The hem of a floral-print dress had ridden up at the thighs.

  “Rat shit,” came the young woman’s voice.

  “Uhhh, Romy,” he murmured.

  “Tis a bloody rat shit I need,” she spat again, apparently unaware she had three men in the kitchen viewing her gam display.

  He had forgotten what a fascinating specimen of perverseness she was. Fascinating, unpredictable, and irrational.

  “Uhh, little lady,” Johnson said, flicking back his coat panels to hunker down and tap her knee.

  Romy’s body jackknifed, and a “Jesus Christ!” was heard as her head collided with the piping above.

  Chuckling, Gideon said, “Allow me, Congressman.”

  Johnson scooted back, and Gideon reached down and grabbed her ankles, gently tugging her out from beneath the sink, while she struggled to tug down her ever-rising dress hem.

  Glaring up at him and Moe, she rubbed the crown of her head with its red-and-purple paisley handkerchief. “Ye two!” A spitting cobra looked friendlier. Then she spotted Johnson. Springing to her feet, she brushed her dirty hands against each other and had the grace to look embarrassed.

  The grin, spreading from one corner of Johnson’s rubbery mouth to the other announced his delight. “Rat shit? You don’t give a rat shit?”

  Gideon sighed. “I t
hink the scamp means she needs a ratchet.”

  “The wench needs a wrench,” McClellan said dryly from the doorway, his weight braced on his back boot and a muscle-strapped shoulder abutting the door frame. Mouth flattening, he eyed the opened canning jar on the stove top then cut his withering gaze to Romy. “I reckon you poured the bacon grease down the sink?”

  She gulped, then her mouth crimped a grin. “Ye’ve heard of greasing the wheels, have ye not?”

  His jaw flexing, McClellan transferred that stare of extreme displeasure to Johnson. “I don’t know why you’re here, Congressman, but it’s just as well, ‘cause we need to talk about this – ” he gestured at Romy, “ – this foolery of an arrangement I let myself in for with Operation Texas.”

  “The puir man has been upset ever since he lost his prize cow Lucy,” she explained with false sympathy.

  “Not to mention giving up my bed for a couch, finding your hair clogging my bathroom sink, discovering you were using my mustache clippers, toothbrush and shaving brush, stepping on dog bones in the middle of the night, watching you bulldoze S&S’s front gate with my pickup, and, what’s more, realizing you can’t boil water without burning it.”

  “Why don’t we all just palaver in the living room,” Johnson said, cupping her elbow firmly and steering her through the doorway.

  Oh, this promised to be entertaining, Gideon thought, and took up the rocking chair opposite the sun-leached brown sofa, where Romy and Johnson had settled, his arm curved across the sofa’s camelback.

  Moe plopped down on an old, moth-eaten footstool and scooted it closer to Johnson, as a court jester would draw closer to his king.

  Arms akimbo, boots spread, McClellan remained standing, “This doesn’t take any long-winded jawing, Congressman. A ranch is no place for a lone woman and seven men. Find another gullible sponsor for your Artful Dodger – but, regardless, take her with you and out of my hair. Today.”

  Johnson raised an antagonistic bushy brow at McClellan, and Gideon felt anxiety beading sweat beneath his arm pits. Something had to be done fast, before this got out of hand.

  Of course, the grifter Romy rose to the occasion. The blink-blink of her lashes betrayed her nimble mind’s desperate search for a credible spiel. “The newsreels show Amelia Earhart and the men pilots working in close quarters. Dunna see why Duke and I canna, given time.”

  “You are no Amelia Earhart.” This from Moe. “I say the Operation Texas washes its hands of her, Congressman, and let our Joint Committee care for its own.”

  “Now just a minute,” Gideon heard himself saying. It seemed Moe was overly anxious to accommodate Johnson. Sure, Romy could finger Moe for blackmarketing, but then so could he himself. They three each stood to lose something if they started pointing fingers at one another. So, why was Moe suddenly singling her out for harassment?

  “It seems to me, this can be worked out,” Gideon went on in his attorney’s persuasive voice. At least, worked out to his own advantage in the long run. “McClellan, you lost a cow, you claim.”

  The rancher faced him off. “I don’t claim. I did.”

  Gideon shifted his attention to Johnson. “Congressman, your family owns a cattle ranch known for its prized Herefords.” Then, he reverted to McClellan again. “What if, in exchange for keeping Romy Sonnenschein on at the S&S, McClellan, Congressman Johnson brings one of his prized bulls around to breed with one of your heifers?”

  Gideon was banking on a strong hunch that the efficiency – and secrecy – of Operation Texas was vital to Johnson’s political ambitions and that he would be willing to compromise, if needed.

  Johnson rubbed his lantern jaw. “Seems fair enough to me.” He turned those fiercely competitive eyes up to McClellan. “You good for it, cowboy?”

  Hands braced low on his hips like pistols prepared to fire, mouth pressed flat and mustache drawn down, McClellan stared thoughtfully at the spur-scarred, plank floor. Gideon was counting on McClellan, too, having ambitions that he did not want to see burned on the pyre of his frustrations.

  The rancher’s washed-out red shirt expanded with his indrawn breath and exhaling grunt. Beneath his hat brim, his baleful stare clamped on Romy.

  The ends of her lips seesawed in a tremulous, imploring grin that cast its own peculiar charm. Her wistful, innocent expression – a sham.

  “She’s out of here come next October,” he qualified.

  At the year’s reprieve, a full-blown smile momentarily eased the strain on her fey features.

  Johnson’s hands slapped his knees, and he unfolded to his lofty height, exceeded only by McClellan’s. “Then, I strongly suggest we all adjourn to the Sawdust Saloon to celebrate our agreement.”

  A sweeping statement, Gideon thought, considering that neither Moe, nor McClellan, looked in particular celebratory moods. And despite her reprieve, Romy seemed uncommonly anxious. Did she know something he didn’t, something that could jeopardize their standings with the NYA?

  When she went down the hall to collect her purse, he followed. Bracing a hand on the bedroom door frame, he demanded, “All right, what is wrong? Wasn’t this what you wanted? To stay on at the S&S?”

  “Nothing, nothing is wrong.”

  Her less than grateful attitude irritated him. “It beats going back to Germany.”

  “Aye,” she said, her smile gritty, “especially if ye are a twin with the Angel of Death waiting with open arms to welcome you back to his lab at Sachsenhausen.”

  Mein Gott.

  § § §

  With its plethora of German and Czech beer gardens, the Hill Country music scene was drawing crowds from far and wide.

  Romy had seen an array of performance sites in her short twenty-one years, but the town of Stonewall on the Pedernales captured her fancy.

  The barn-like Sawdust Saloon was shouldered on either side by a taxidermy and a Texaco filling station, and backed by a limekiln. The honkytonk was the moving pictures’ Old West dance halls made manifest.

  Swinging batwing doors admitted the would-be revelers to a two-story high, long room with but a scanty number of patrons that early in the evening. Falstaff Beer and Royal Crown Cola signs fought for wall space with six-foot steer horns and mounted deer and turkeys. Sawdust carpeted the cement floor, and the woodsy-dust scent filled her nostrils.

  Along one side of the tin-topped building stretched a highly polished oak bar with a gleaming brass footrail. Standing ready nearby was a row of spittoons and a ledge of hooks from which towels were suspended for wiping beer suds from patron’s mustaches.

  Well, Duke could use that.

  Toward the back, a conglomeration of tables and chairs of every fashion served the customers, with a scattering of tables visible in the loft. Cattycorner, across a dance floor, the stage seized her attention immediately. Or rather, the unusual music taking place on it.

  “That’s one red-hot electric guitar,” Johnson said, drawing up a seat for her near the stage.

  “Electric?” she murmured, all the while acting as if his display of gallantry were her due. She seated herself royally, much as the newsreel had shown the Duchess of Windsor when she had visited Adolf Hitler the year before. “So, that is the reason for what I be hearing – a grand thing, that music is.”

  She plopped Irina’s purse in front of her on the round table and out from it shot the Bicycle card package. She had forgotten where last she had stashed it. She groaned, but no louder than did Duke who sat opposite her.

  “Romy,” he said, his voice a tumbling boulder, “I warned you.”

  On her left, Johnson’s brows shot up like chute gates. “You play poker?”

  To her right, Gideon said, “She tells fortunes, Congressman.”

  Moe crossed his short arms on the table and leaned forward, eyes squinched on Romy with officiousness. “You are doing that without a work permit?”

  She tried to swallow down the panic that seemed to be choking her. She had not wanted to come along, not with Moe. She did not kn
ow how far she could push her luck with the scumbag.

  “Oh, we can afford to bend the rules a little,” Johnson said, his earthy smile of camaraderie taking in the four of them. “After all, Operation Texas has bended the rules like a horseshoe.”

  He looped an arm around the waist of a gum-chewing young waitress who appeared with pad and pencil. “A round of Cutty Sark and soda, little darlin’,” he said, with a crude charm that included a sweeping hand of the table and a casual disregard for drinking preferences.

  “I’ll have a Lone Star,” Duke corrected.

  Johnson turned his attention back to Romy. “Give me a demonstration of your fortune telling, gal.”

  Holy Fookin’ Moses. Mess this up, and it could land her arse back in Sachsenhausen.

  Moe flashed a jack-o-lantern’s malevolent grin.

  With four pair of men’s expectant gazes upon her, she riffled the deck and passed it into Johnson’s hands, as large as Duke’s but squarer and without their lengthy elegance. “Shuffle it and cut it into three,” she told Johnson, while her mind raked through plausible scenarios of which she could make use.

  He was a politician. Politicians thrived on power. Cash in on that. He liked the women. Play upon that. A strong woman it would have to be, she mentally added.

  Wondering what tale she could possibly weave, she turned over the bottom card of each pile.

  Curiously, all three top cards were trump ones – and all spades. the King of Spades, the Jack of Spades, and the Ace of Spades, which was the Death card. Well, that would not serve her well to inform Johnson he was about to belly up. How to spin out a fanciful story?

  She waited until the waitress had dropped off the drinks with a departing sultry smile for Johnson and a sidelong, meaningful look for Duke and Gideon.

  Romy downed her drink like it was iced water. Tears pooled. She coughed, cleared her throat. She tapped the King. “As a man of authority, tis a great future ye have, Congressman Johnson.”

  He brightened. “Lyndon to you, little lady.”