Wolf's Mouth

by John Smolens

  I walked down to Tony’s Grill and ordered a beer and a pastrami sandwich. The place was quiet and Ginger came over to my booth, sat down, and lit a cigarette. Today her blond hair was worked up into a beehive, and her nails and lipstick were a matching hot pink.

  “How’s the sandwich, hon?”

  I nodded, taking another bite. “Best pastrami in Detroit.”

  “We pay for it, believe me.”

  The one customer at the bar left, and Tony came over to the booth and slid in beside his wife. “How’s the sandwich?” Tony asked.

  I shrugged. Tony laughed. Ginger picked a shred of tobacco off her tongue.

  “This shade,” I said, looking at the wall lamp above the table. “It’s developing a chronic case of bulb burn. I’ll bring over another one. You know, if you went with a different color, you could completely change the atmosphere in this place.”

  “You mean make it brighter?” Tony asked.

  Ginger exhaled and said, “No, dummy. Something mellow, sexy. Sure, Frank. Bring over something in . . . blue. Yeah, blue—it’ll enhance my cleavage. You know, the deeper the cleavage the better the tips. Some guys’ll stay for an extra drink just for another peek.”

  “Okay, I’m broad-minded,” Tony said, laughing. “Let’s try the blue.”

  Ginger rolled her eyes.

  “She doesn’t appreciate my jokes,” Tony said.

  “There are three types of men,” Ginger said. “Comedians, wannabe comedians, and straight men. Tony’s a wannabe. You never see Jack Benny or Milton Berle laugh at their own punchlines.”

  “She just doesn’t appreciate my material,” Tony said. “What about Frank? Straight man.”

  “Hundred percent,” Ginger said. “Never even tries to tell a joke, ’cause he’s not stupid.”

  A couple came in the door and sat at the bar. As Tony got out of the booth, he took a small envelope from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt and dropped it on the table. “That guy you were talking to last night? Stopped in earlier and left this.” He went around the bar to wait on the couple.

  I picked up the envelope, tucked it inside my suit coat pocket, and went to work on the second half of my sandwich.

  “Funny he doesn’t just stop by your shop down the street,” Ginger said. “Maybe he’s got a thing for you?” She took a drag on her cigarette. “Or he’s a spook.” She watched me eat, trying to maintain disinterest, but then she said, “What’s going on with you, Frank?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something’s different.” As I finished the last of the sandwich, Ginger stared at me, one elbow on the table, propping up her cigarette. “Everything all right with Claire?”

  “You’re a very perceptive woman, Ginger.”

  “I like to exercise my woman’s intuition. That’s how I ended up in this joint with the Tone.”

  “You’ll find out eventually—Claire’s left town for a while. We’re not splitting up.”

  She tapped her cigarette into the ashtray. “Where’d she go?”

  “I’d rather just leave it for the time being. We’re just taking a break.”

  The front door opened and a half dozen people came in and sat in the first booth.

  “Bluehairs,” Ginger said, getting up. “Real big tippers, no doubt. Cleavage don’t do squat for them.” She reached across my table, giving me a peek, and turned the lampshade until the brown spot was facing the wall. “Yeah, let’s go with the blue.”

  Her bracelets sang as she walked down to the first booth, one hand tucking a wisp of hair up in back.

  I took out the envelope and opened it. The slip of paper inside was folded once. Tony’s tonight, 10 p.m.

  17.

  I took the trolley on Gratiot and found Simmons’s apartment building, an old brick house behind a wrought-iron fence. At the next corner there was a pharmacy with a phone booth. I dialed Simmons’s number and he picked up on the second ring, his voice devoid of any European accent. I waited, and when he said hello a second time, I said, “Vogel’s here, looking for you.” I hung up and left the store.

  It was mid-afternoon with a cool breeze coming off the Detroit River and the sidewalk wasn’t very crowded, mostly old women pulling grocery carts and a group of school girls singing “Que Sera Sera.” Halfway down the block I saw a man come out through the wrought-iron gate. He headed west, with the stride of someone who intended to waste no time. Tall and lean in a brown double-breasted suit and a tan fedora, he had the bearing of a military officer. When he reached Gratiot, he hailed a cab, and I did the same. After about fifteen minutes of jogging north and west, his cab stopped in front of a Catholic church. I got out of my cab farther up the street, and as I paid the driver I saw Simmons enter the rectory.

  There was a park across the street from St. Stanislaus’s Church. I spent a half hour on a bench, watching pigeons and children. Many of the kids spoke Polish. Finally, Simmons and a gray-haired priest came outside and opened the garage behind the rectory. I walked out to the sidewalk as they pulled into the street in a black DeSoto Firedome and headed west. It was late afternoon and traffic was getting heavy. I found a taxi at the next corner and told the cabbie to drive west. I couldn’t see the DeSoto up ahead. We went for several miles, and I began to think that Simmons and the priest must have taken a turn somewhere behind me, until I saw their car parked in front of a restaurant called the Black Forest.

  Inside, I sat at the bar and ordered a beer, which came in a stein. The bartender wore lederhosen, and the waitresses all wore traditional German dresses. There was plenty of cleavage, and the clientele—mostly businessmen—looked like heavy tippers who could afford to stay for an extra peek. In the back corner, Simmons and the priest sat at a table with one of the waiters, an overweight man in a black vest and white shirt. By the way he spoke to the waitresses coming and going from the kitchen, I assumed he managed the place. I could keep my back to their table and watch the three of them in the long mirror behind the bar as they drank coffee and schnapps. They spoke quietly, hunched over the table. The waiter had a large head with heavy jowls and dark hair—too dark for a man his age, and oiled, so that it was slicked down on his scalp. His stubby fingers nervously touched his face and smoothed his hair back. The priest said very little. Finally, Simmons got up and came to the end of the bar. His right cheekbone was more pronounced than the left, seemingly from a permanent bruise, and a scar ran down his forehead, terminating in his right eyebrow. Using the phone on the bar, he made a call, and after a few minutes he became impatient. I heard him say in German, “We told you this would happen someday.” He hung up abruptly then and returned to the table. They talked for another few minutes, and then the waiter went back into the kitchen. When Simmons and the priest got up to leave, I paid for my beer.

  I left the restaurant and walked down to the intersection. Waiting to cross the street, I could see the two men come outside. They spoke for a minute on the sidewalk before the priest got in his DeSoto. Simmons watched him pull out into the traffic, and went back inside the Black Forest.

  I returned to our apartment and called the number in Sault Ste. Marie that Claire had left by the phone. Carmen Zampa, an elderly man who always sounded like he was about to clear his throat, answered; I had met him once, when we had returned to the Upper Peninsula for Momma’s funeral. I could hear his wife Louisa in the background, speaking Italian. When Claire came to the phone, she said, “I called the shop and Leon said you went off and he didn’t know when you were coming back.”

  “It’s been a busy day. How was your trip?”

  “Exhausting. There was a long wait at the straits because the ferry had some engine trouble. I fainted on the bus from St. Ignace to the Soo.”

  “You did the other times, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, every time, the day after I’ve fainted I’ve turned out pregnant.” Neither of us spoke for a moment. “Can’t you just come up here?” Then, lighter, as though trying to not sound desperate, she added, “You know
there’s still snow on the ground here?”

  I looked out the kitchen window: the maples lining the street were budding. It had been another warm day in Detroit and it was starting to rain. “This won’t go away by itself.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “I don’t know, Chiara.” I hadn’t used that name in a long time. “You’re all right?”

  “The Zampas are taking good care of me, though I’ll get fat the way they feed me.”

  “Get some rest, get nice and fat, and see a doctor.”

  “They have an apartment over their garage. I’ll be fine there, though lonely.”

  “I’ll call again soon.”

  “This is the only time I’m going to say it this way: Ti amo.”

  “Ti amo.” I hung up.

  I went to the icebox and found that there was some fettuccine left over from last night’s dinner. I sat down at the kitchen table and ate it cold.

  I got to Tony’s one beer before 10 o’clock. Tony and Ginger had gone home and the night shift had taken over. The place was quiet. I sat in the last booth with a Stroh’s, facing the door. The Tigers game had been rained out that afternoon and no one had bothered to turn on the radio. A few minutes after ten, Giannopoulos came in with another man; he was younger, with a military brush cut, and he remained by the front door—he looked like he’d been trained to stand watch in doorways—while Giannopoulos peeled off his raincoat and sat across from me in the booth.

  “Your friend with INS, too?” I said.

  “Jack? My assistant.”

  “Your protégé. You go to the same tailor.”

  The waitress, one of Tony’s cousins, this one named Annette, came and took our order; I had another beer, and Giannopoulos had coffee again. After she went back to the bar, I asked, “How long have you been in the INS, since the end of the war?” Giannopoulos looked displeased, though not surprised. “You think you know a lot about me,” I said. “It’s only fair I know who I’m dealing with.”

  Giannopoulos had a large gold ring on his right hand; he twisted it for a moment. No wedding ring. “Fair enough. I began working for the Allies, first as a translator and then in interrogation. I was all over Europe, but I was primarily based in Trieste.”

  “I had an aunt in Trieste,” I said.

  “Strange town,” Giannopoulos said. “It was Austrian, and then after the first war it went to Italy. It’s now what we call here a melting pot. In warm weather I used to like to eat outdoors at the restaurants on the canal, across from the Orthodox Church.”

  “I remember that church,” I said. “My aunt took me inside once, just to see it. I remember lots of gold, and candles. There were women weeping, and when I asked my aunt why, she said it was because the church was so beautiful.”

  Giannopoulos nodded. “Grand buildings over here, but they don’t bring you to tears.”

  We waited as Annette came to the booth and put the coffee and beer on the table.

  Giannopoulos sipped his coffee, his eyes, dark brown with heavy lids, showing complete disinterest now. “I want to make something perfectly clear,” he said. “You’re an escaped prisoner of war. There are only a few of you still out there walking around in the United States. I can pull you in any time.”

  “You can then always go to Stemple.” He didn’t bother to answer. I took out a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes, broke the cellophane, and offered him a cigarette. He took one. I lit our cigarettes and said, “Stemple knows Vogel’s in Detroit.”

  “How?” And then he said, “You told him?”

  “I called him.”

  “Just to piss me off.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Plus I wanted to see what he would do.”

  “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “It’s me Vogel’s after, so don’t talk to me about your plan.”

  “So. You called him. Then what?”

  “I said Vogel was in town and hung up. He left his apartment immediately and I followed him. Ever hear of a German restaurant called the Black Forest?”

  “Sure. Stemple owns it—we know that.” Giannopoulos shook his head in disgust.

  “He met a priest.”

  “What priest?”

  I smiled, and after a moment he did too, almost. “I don’t know his name,” I said. “He’s at St. Stanislaus Church. And there are others. At the restaurant they sat and talked with the manager, who was nervous. And Stemple called someone from the restaurant and spoke German. They’re all worried.”

  “All right.” Giannopoulos began to slide out of the booth. “I’ll check out the priest.”

  “I’ll go back to the restaurant. My wife is out of town and I have little interest in cooking for myself.”

  Giannopoulos stood up. “You know I didn’t have to tell you about Vogel at all.”

  “Don’t try to tell me you were doing me a favor. I’m bait, remember?”

  “Where’d you send your wife?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “It’s the first smart thing you’ve done.”

  As Giannopoulos walked to the front of the bar, Jack opened the door for him.

  The following day I spent in my office, and mid-afternoon I walked down to Tony’s, watching the cars pass on the street. Detroit built cars; Detroiters were obsessed with cars. In 1956, who you were was defined by what you drove. I didn’t own a car, so for several years Tony and I had an arrangement where I could use theirs, a ’54 Pontiac Chieftain V8 4-Speed Hydra-Matic, lime green with a white roof. My part of the bargain was to keep the tank full and the oil changed regularly. I took it to the car wash every week and stored my sample books in the trunk.

  I drove the Pontiac to the Black Forest. It catered to a very different crowd from Tony’s Grill. The men all wore suits, and there were some pricey-looking women: jewels, necklaces, mink stoles. Again, I sat at the bar and ordered a stein of beer.

  After a few minutes Stemple came out from the kitchen. He made the rounds, talking to customers at various tables. As he came along the bar, he paused by my stool. “You look familiar,” he said pleasantly. “Weren’t you in here . . . yesterday?”

  I nodded.

  “Back for something to eat?” His eyes began to scan the tables. “There might be something open in, oh, ten minutes.” He took one of the menus from under his arm and handed it to me.

  There were small lamps on the bar; I looked at the nearest one. “You have too much ambient light in here.”

  “Ambient light?”

  “Right. These shades, they let too much through this fabric. If you went to something denser, say, a forest green with pleats, or maybe a nice Venetian linen, the light would be contained, creating a distinct pool on the tablecloth or bar. More shadows, which would make the place more romantic and, well, forgiving, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” he said vaguely.

  “Plus, these shades are looking a little worse for wear. See these little runs in the fabric? It’s sort of like a nylon stocking—once a run starts, there’s no stopping it.” He was looking at me now with genuine curiosity. “Sorry,” I said. “Can’t help it. It’s the salesman in me.”

  “Lampshades.”

  “That’s right. My name’s Frank Green.” I keep business cards in my coat pocket for just such moments. I took one out and placed it on the table, and he glanced at it as we shook hands.

  “Carl Simmons,” he said.

  I put the menu on the bar. “How about the pork chops, Mr. Simmons?”

  “Excellent choice,” he said, looking across the dining room again. “Yes, I think we can get you seated in a minute.”

  Simmons found me a table for two, back by the kitchen door, where I wouldn’t feel too conspicuous as the only person eating alone. The pork chops were done perfectly, accompanied by applesauce, Brussels sprouts, and späetzle. Simmons waited on me personally, and I could see as he moved around the room, he was looking over his lampshades with a critical eye.

  When I finished my meal, he brought my coffee an
d two snifters of schnapps, and sat down across from me. “You do this every time you walk into a place, knock their shades?”

  “Only if they’ve seen better days.”

  His smile was stiff, formal, something acquired to survive in America. “I’ve been thinking of having the place painted, but I wonder if I could get by for another few years if I reduced this—what was it, ambient light?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “The right shades will provide a most forgiving light, and it would prove less expensive than a paint job.” We sipped our schnapps and coffee, and I offered him a cigarette. When I had both lit, I said, “You’re a member of St. Stanislaus’s parish? I saw one of the priests in here yesterday.”

  “Yes, Father Brosnic. Louis is a dear man.”

  “Ah, that’s right.”

  “If you know him, why didn’t you come over to the table? I don’t believe he recognized you.” His eyes were wary now.

  “I don’t really.” I waved a hand through the cigarette smoke drifting between us. I leaned toward him, and said, “You both seemed . . . worried. It’s very understandable, under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “I mean Herr Vogel.”

  Stemple was trying to look as though he didn’t recognize the name, but he must have realized it wasn’t working. “You know this Vogel?”

  “The Bird,” I said. “Yes, he’s here, in Detroit—yesterday you told Father Brosnic, and you called someone else. At least three of you are concerned, and rightly so.”

  His face was now slack with dread. “You work for Vogel?”

  “Of course not, Herr Stemple.” He leaned back in his chair. I got my wallet out and put a twenty on the table.

  “Please, it’s Simmons. Or maybe I could call you by your real name?”

  “Folks just call me Frank.”

  “Yes, America is so informal—and new: new identities, new possibilities.”