Seven Silent Men

by Behn, Noel;

  “Cincinnati,” Yates told him. “I was assigned to Cincinnati and then loaned out to Columbus for a while.”

  “The missus come with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The kids too?”

  “We don’t have kids.”

  “Couldn’t find a better place to start than Prairie Port. Good neighborhoods, good schools, lotsa churches … almost no crime, like I mentioned. For boys it’s ’specially good. Boys get all the regular sports plus riding and hunting and exploring. Even surfing. Surfing right here on the river. The Mississippi River has a freak midstream current running the length of Prairie Port and beyond called the Treachery. It’s like shooting the rapids getting on it. Yes, sir, if you’re a lad, Prairie Port is indeed a wondrous place. Tom Sawyer grew up just north of here. Hannibal, Missouri, is just upriver past Saint Looie. What kind of trouble did you get into back at Cincinnati?”

  “… Why would you think I had trouble?” asked Yates.

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “So?”

  Jessup glanced at the placid agent, who in three-quarter profile reminded him of Paul Newman. “Don’t you know about Prairie Port?”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s Siberia.”

  “Siberia?”

  “Billy Yates, you’ve been exiled.”

  Yates seemed not to comprehend.

  “Prairie Port may be heaven on earth to little kids and aging FBI men waiting to retire,” Jessup said, “but for most of the other agents it’s Siberia without snow. The Gulag. Elba. Banishment.” He reconsidered. “Well, maybe it’s not the ultimate exile that can be imposed. Not Butte or Detroit. When they’re not quite sure you qualify for Butte or Detroit, you come here. It’s kinda Purgatory’s waiting room. For years now, Bureau headquarters hasn’t sent Prairie Port anything but misfits, rebels and crazy people. It’s their way of getting back at Grafton for doing what he damn well pleases about Wilkie Jarrel and everything else. Headquarters brass won’t risk challenging Grafton directly. Not with him being as tight with J. Edgar Hoover as he is. So they punish Ed with transfer agents. You have no idea what they’ve dumped on this office in only the time I’ve been here. We had one agent transferred down from North Dakota who swore he understood animals. Actually could talk to animals and have them talk back to him, like in that song Rex Harrison sang. Know what, we darned near solved a case on what he told us a billy goat told him.

  “… We have another agent who’s always dying and getting himself reborn. A regular Lazarus. Ain’t that right, Brew?” Jessup happily called back over his shoulder. “A real live Lazarus, that guy?”

  “Real dead,” Brew yelled out from under his hat. “Tell him about Mata Hari.”

  Jessup grinned, said to Yates, “We got this other agent they call Mata Hari. He sees spies everywhere. Under the bed, in your soup. Thinks Washington is always sending in secret operatives to snoop on Grafton. Probably thinks you could be the latest spy working for Washington.”

  “Looney-toon thing about Mata Hari is,” Brew’s hat-muted voice interjected, “Mata’s the only agent in Prairie Port who doesn’t look on Ed Grafton like the second coming. Mata thinks Grafton’s nothing but gloss, but he goes right on protecting Grafton against spies.”

  “Yessiree, it’s crazy time ’round here okay,” Jessup assured Yates. “So crazy even sane agents start going wacko. Grafton was born a little prairie-mad to start, so he don’t really count, but not so Cub … Cub Hennessy, who was supposed to pick you up instead of us this morning. Cub’s a real good guy and honorable mention All-American at football. He even played a couple of seasons of pro as second-string middle linebacker for the Saint Looie Cardinals. Cub’s thirty-eight now and know what? He wants to make a comeback at football. Cub’s out there every free moment hitting the heavy bag and pushing a sled like he was twenty years old and expecting a coach to call. That’s real looney-toon, like Brew would say. Some folks think it’s Cub’s wife, Sissy, who’s driving him to it. Only Sissy’s one of the best wives and mothers ever, ain’t that right, Brew?”

  No answer came from the rear seat.

  “Strom’s even worse off than Cub,” Jessup went on. “Strom Sunstrom. Strom’s the assistant senior resident agent here and solid as a totem pole. Strom’s second-in-command to Grafton and the man behind the legend … the one who makes Grafton’s image look so good, if you ask me. Without Strom, Grafton’s shoeshine. Strom’s about the nicest guy ever born and the most efficient. He keeps the office running smooth as oil. Now even Strom’s gone wacko on us. Strom’s seeing ghosts! Real friggin’ ghosts!”

  “And holding exorcisms,” the voice beneath the straw hat addended.

  Jessup thought about Strom Sunstrom for a moment, noticed Yates watching him think, asked Yates, confidentially, “So who did ya hit?”

  “Hit?”

  “Slug. Belt? Punch out, to get sent to us?”

  “You have to punch out somebody to be transferred here?”

  “It surely does help,” Jessup said. “This is a very picky asylum. Very snooty. No matter who headquarters sends, damn few damned souls get let in. Technically, Grafton does the accepting or rejecting of transferees. When it’s left to Graf, he usually goes for some hotheaded, looney-toon bronco buster. Nine times out often, thanks be to God, Strom Sunstrom makes the actual selections, whispers in Grafton’s ear who to take and who to slam the door on. Strom favors the hotheaded and noble, but not looney-toons. Noble or chivalrous. I don’t figure you for looney-toon. Give you odds it was your SAC back in Cincinnati you laid out. Strom cottons strong to SAC beaters.”

  Billy Yates, for the first time during the trip, if only in bemusement, smiled. “You’re the one who sounds looney-toon.”

  “Oh, I am,” Jessup gladly admitted. “I’m the fella who thinks you’re the spy Washington sent in.”

  “You’re Mata Hari?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “I’m no spy,” Yates assured him.

  “It would be a helluva lot easier to swallow that if I knew who you slugged.”

  “Isn’t it conceivable I didn’t slug anybody?”

  “Young turkey, you’re speaking to a member of the FBI. Granted not the youngest member, but even these weary old eyes of mine don’t need specs to notice you’re covering up the knuckles on your right hand … skinned and bruised knuckles.” Jessup winked a self-satisfied wink at Yates. “Could be, of course, that you’re a slicky, that you’re covering up them knuckles kinda awkwardlike with malice aforethought … so I’ll think you’re too inept, so to speak, to be the spy?”

  “Mr. Yates?” Brewmeister, to be heard more distinctly, was holding the hat away from his face. “Might as well ’fess up to the fighting or he’ll go on and on. Like Jez told you, his eyesight’s not for dick. He wouldn’t have noticed your knuckles in a hundred years if the assistant SAC from Cincinnati hadn’t called up yesterday and told our office your personnel file hadn’t been sent on yet … and to watch out because you pack one helluva wallop. Only problem was, he hung up before saying who it was got walloped. Jez has been skulking around like something wild and unwashed wondering who it could have been.”

  Yates studied Brewmeister. “Did you hit someone to get here?”

  “No, sir,” Brew replied. “I’m an exception to the rule. I requested to be transferred in. I come from Prairie Port. That’s not to say I’m any less looney-toon than the rest of the agents.”

  “So who got slugged?” Jessup asked eagerly. “I say it has to be the SAC or assistant SAC.”

  “Neither,” Yates answered. “Cops.”

  “You hit policemen? In the plural?”

  “Afraid so. Around Columbus, Ohio. Maybe that’s why the Cincinnati office didn’t have the details.”

  “Details such as?” pressed Jessup.

  “I broke one cop’s jaw.” Yates was none too happy. “Did some pretty ugly damage to four more.”

  “Five cops in all?” Jessup said in
awe.

  Yates nodded.

  Jessup thought it over, frowned. “You bulling me?”

  Yates shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Let’s have a closer look at them knuckles!”

  Yates slid his right hand from under his left, held up the severely bruised knuckles for closer inspection.

  “It’s raw okay,” Jessup conceded. “When you say this happened?”

  “Four nights ago.”

  “Brew, you see that hand?” Jessup called back.

  “I’m seeing.”

  “So whatcha think?”

  “I think if he hits a softball as good as he hits cops, we can take the county championship.”

  Jessup glanced expectantly at Yates. “You heard the man, young turkey. How d’you rate yourself at softball?”

  “Better than with cops,” Yates told him.

  Jessup, unsure exactly what the answer meant, took a second, harder look at Yates.

  “I’m good at softball,” Yates said. “Very good.”

  Jessup laughed. Yates grinned. Brew smiled, then almost rolled off the rear seat as Jessup made a two-wheel cut back across three lanes of the superhighway, held on for dear life as the careening car, at seventy miles an hour, rocketed down and around a circular exit ramp. Reaching the newly constructed service road at the base of the ramp, Jessup accelerated.

  Yates stared ahead through the windshield at the looming skyscrapers of the River Rise apartment project, some of which were completed, many of which were still under construction. An electrified billboard announced that River Rise was the “recreation of yesterday today.”

  “So what caused the fight between you and the five Columbus cops?” Jessup asked Yates.

  “Leave the guy alone for chrissakes,” Brewmeister said.

  “I was only being neighborly.”

  “Neighborly like a boa constrictor,” Brew commented.

  “I wanna know,” Jessup insisted. “A man’s got a right to know who he’s serving beside in the trenches.” He glanced over at Yates. “So why didya bash them, young turkey?”

  “… Ass.” Yates spoke softly.

  “Ass?”

  “As in behind,” Billy qualified. “I’m addicted to it. But only my wife’s behind. My wife’s name is Tina Beth and she’s as blonde and tall and blue-eyed and beautiful as any woman ever born. No bosoms to mention. But my God … my sweet Jehovah … what an ass! I am slave to a high-slung Nordic ass. Any little wiggle, any minimal flex of her derriere and I fall to my knees panting like a puppy dog. I once followed her down the street like that in daylight. She loves showing me her ass as much as I love looking at it. Generally she loves showing it without clothes on, which is why we both got picked up back in Cincinnati … got nabbed bare-ass as Venus right on the front lawn of the Taft Museum. Then came Columbus, the Ohio State football stadium at two in the morning. We only got a warning on the front lawn of the Taft Museum. At Ohio State it was the real thing. I understand all my file record says about the incident is ‘mistaken arrest for justifiable exhibitionism.’ Don’t you love that phrase? Don’t it just knock your socks right off?”

  Jessup remained silent, kept his eyes hard on the road ahead.

  “Anyway, there I was, chasing Tina Beth in Ohio State football stadium at two in the morning. I tried telling the cops I was an FBI agent and not to worry. I kept yelling at them to go away and leave us be. But what would you believe if you were a bunch of Ohio cops who found this stark-naked character scrambling, on his hands and knees, across the fifty-yard line after a naked lady’s tail?”

  Again there was no reply from Jessup.

  “Still feeling unchatty, are we?” There was a ring of amusement in Billy’s tone. “Can’t say that I blame you. Right now, if I was listening to all of this, I’d probably be wondering how a punk brick agent could get caught jaybird nude by seven cops and not be booted out of the Bureau in two seconds flat. Part of the answer is I was a flasher for the FBI. I was covert. Underground. Spying on the great American menace gnawing at the fiber of our university system … student radicals. When you look as young and rosy-cheeked and Norman Rockwell dewy-pure as I do, infiltrating campuses is no sweat. I ate and slept and rioted and skinnydipped with them. But I only slept with my wife. I don’t know if Mr. Hoover counted on the skinnydipping, but infiltration fattens on the motto, ‘Do what you have to do and don’t get caught.’ By the way, I met my wife skinnydipping. Not long after, we were married. With our clothes on. She was a coed at Ohio State University. My wife, Tina Beth, wasn’t a student radical. She was just in love. So was I. Ever been in love?”

  Jessup kept his eyes on the highway. “What about the cops you hit?”

  “I was chasing Tina Beth’s glorious bottom. The cops caught us and put blankets around us and took us down to the station house. One of the cops at the station house pulled the blanket off Tina Beth to have himself a look. I broke his jaw. I beat up four of the other cops who came at me.” Yates grinned sheepishly. “Now you know who’s serving in the trench beside you.”

  “… You bulling me, turkey?”

  “No, sir.”

  Brewmeister was sitting up. “Jez here grows on you, if you have undue patience. Every now and again, a real live beam of human sunshine breaks through that B.S. of his.” He gave Yates a reassuring pat on the back. “Any questions I can help you with?”

  Yates thought for a minute. “How much B.S. was his saying this is the boredom capital of America?”

  “He exaggerated some,” Brew said. “There was real big excitement around here in 1935. Ma Barker drove right through Prairie Port in 1935 and almost got killed. Not that the FBI knew she was in town or had anything to do with her nearly getting crushed to death. It was those looney-toon mud volcanoes that erupt west of town every ten or fifteen years that knocked Ma’s car off the road and turned it upside down. Ed Grafton was the only FBI man in the territory in those days and he heard about Ma’s accident pretty fast. Ed could have arrested Ma if he wanted, but he was more interested in who she might be going to meet. So he let her steal another car and keep on traveling. He notified the boys down the line Ma was heading south. And they got her down the line. Had a gun battle at a place in Florida called Lake Wier and shot Ma and her boy Freddie to death. That’s when Edgar Hoover took a shine to Grafton, or so the story goes. According to one story, Edgar even thought of adopting Grafton as his own son.”

  Jessup slowed the car and prepared to display his FBI credentials at the police roadblock ahead as Brewmeister told Yates, “Maybe you’re the lucky charm. Maybe you brought us luck like Ma and mud volcanoes brought Grafton luck way back when. Maybe this bank robbery alert is the real thing. I sure do hope so … most fervently.”

  The clifftop mall ran the length of a massive high-rise apartment building at River Rise and had been built to resemble a turn-of-the-century Missouri street. A Sam Clemens street with each storefront a replica of what Huck Finn might have encountered. Fronting the shops were a wooden sidewalk with gas-lamp posts and a brick street. Beyond that ran a wide expanse of thick grass lined with stone benches and shaded by large, graceful trees. Beyond that was a forty-foot drop to the Mississippi River.

  Behind each tree and bench, toward the upstream end of the mall, was a helmeted and visored policeman in flak jacket with either a rifle or shotgun aimed. More combat-ready police lay prone behind the benches and trees, their weapons trained on the last storefront of the mall, the one at the corner of the building, directly over the water … the Mormon State National Bank, whose facade was an exact copy of the 1815, long-defunct Mormon State Bank in Chillicothe, Missouri … the bank Jesse James always meant to rob but was afraid to, according to legend.

  A solitary policeman in a flak jacket and holding a machine gun squatted on the narrow ledge of bank roof which protruded from the riverside face of the forty-story-high building. In the windows above him, several more armed policemen waited.

  “The police say they have seven t
o eight men trapped inside,” Cub Hennessy explained as Jessup and Yates and Brewmeister moved forward and lay beside him on the lawn. All four FBI agents were observers at the scene, voluntary observers who had encountered resistance trying to cross the police line blocking off the mall. “Six men are downstairs. One or two on the staircase leading up the bank proper.”

  “According to who?” asked Brewmeister.

  “According to the scanner,” Hennessy answered. “They’ve got that new Thermex ultrasonic scanning system on the premises. That heat and space variation gadget. It’s usually accurate when it’s been thoroughly checked out. Only this one hasn’t been totally checked. The bank doesn’t officially open until the day after tomorrow. The scanner was due for one last inspection and adjustment.”

  A SWAT team, with rifles upraised, dashed past and deployed.

  “We are asking you for the last time to come out and surrender,” a helmeted officer said through his electric-powered, handheld amplifier. “For the last time, come out and surrender.”

  Jessup recognized the two men behind the officer. The shorter of the pair was Ned Van Ornum, head of detectives for the Prairie Port PD. The taller man was Chief of Police Frank Santi.

  The officer with the bullhorn and Van Ornum turned to Santi. Santi, tugging at an earlobe, regarded the ground. He said something to Van Ornum. Van Ornum cocked a finger and pointed. A flak-jacketed policeman in tennis shoes rushed from cover and zigzagged across the brick street and dove forward on the wooden sidewalk below the bank’s front window, rolled on his back, training his weapon on the glass above. Moments passed. He reached up and tried the handle of the front door. It was locked. He signaled as much to Van Ornum. Van Ornum motioned the cop on the rooftop away, waved to the police in the windows above to get back … cocked his finger at the bank facade. The man on his back removed a glob of plastic from his flak jacket, slapped it to the bank’s door, stuck in a detonating pin, rolled over and ran for cover.