The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “Before you can wink an eye. Fifteen, twenty minutes. It’s about time you got around to it, Dekker. What name do I book her under?”

  “Use hers. Make it a suite for Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Majeski.” Jake spelled it out. “But the place has to be over on the Miami side, and on the bay so I can get to it by boat. Another thing. I know it’s short notice, but I want you to find me a girl who’ll take a plane to New York late tonight and stay over there a few days. Someone who looks like my girl.”

  “For a quick switch?”

  “Yes. So she doesn’t have to be her twin. Just small, blond, and well-stacked.”

  Magnes said: “Is it all right if it’s a professional from an agency I know?”

  “If it has to be. Get on it now. I’m up on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway. I’ll stop by at your place in about twenty minutes to work out the details.”

  Caught in the five o’clock traffic where it looked as if every car on the Beach was stacked bumper to bumper in front of him, he needed forty minutes to make the trip. Magnes took one look at him when he opened the door and promptly said: “Cool off. Everything is all fixed up.”

  “What are the arrangments?”

  “Expensive. The place is the Argyle East on the bay over in South Miami. Bedroom, sitting room, and private terrace for ninety bucks a day. Everything de luxe. She can check in whenever she’s ready.”

  “How about protection?”

  “Best thing about the place is it don’t cater to the hoods, which is why I picked it. But I’ll still talk to Security there about keeping an eye on her. And I already lined up a girlie for that trip to New York. You didn’t say what flight, so I picked the Northeast ten P.M. If you want, I can change it.”

  Jake said: “No, it’ll do fine. Tell your bagger to be in the ladies’ room nearest the Northeast counter at quarter of ten and carrying a pair of sunglasses in her hand for identification. And to take only a flight bag along. She’ll be given her ticket and money there, and I’ll throw in enough extra so that she can outfit herself in New York.”

  “I figured something like that. I told her fifty a day, all expenses included, so you’ll know what to give her. Now let’s hear what happened to shake you up like this. My guess is somehow or other you got to Frank Milan, and he shoved his thumb right in your eye.”

  Jake said: “That was one eye. The thumb in the other was from a shyster named Aaron Katzman. Milan’s fat mouthpiece. Do you know anything about him?”

  “Dekker, everybody in Dade County knows about him except maybe the tourists. This is the guy figured how to make the hoods who moved in here respectable with their skim-off money from Vegas and the Bahamas, and, once upon a time, Havana. He’s in with some of the hotel people and builders and union bosses, and he ties the hoods up with them so nobody can even figure who’s got a piece of what action any more. A real barracuda. And close to the biggest politicians in Miami and here on the Beach. Anyhow big enough so he was under indictment three times already, and he walked out laughing every time.”

  Jake said: “I should have known. I’ve met a lot of lawyers and most of them creeps, but I never met one before who practically admitted complicity in a blackmail ring, tried to extort money from me, and then threatened me with violence if I didn’t pay up.”

  “Threatened you?” Magnes said. “Or your girlie?”

  “Same difference. The point is that this guy knows the inside story about Thoren as well as Milan does, and neither of them could be happier about it. You people run quite a town here, don’t you? This place could give Tijuana lessons.”

  Magnes shrugged. “Who’s arguing? A complete hundred percent rotten it’s not, but I’ll have to admit it’s about as rotten as it can get. On the other hand, you can’t beat the climate.”

  “Except during hurricane season. Last point on the agenda. That guy you know with the speedboat. Would he be available for a job tonight?”

  “Him or somebody else like him. Don’t worry about it. Give me a couple hours, and I’ll fix you up with a fast boat and a deaf and dumb driver any time. When do you want him?”

  “Midnight at my place,” Jake said. “Twelve sharp. It’s the first house north of the one with the big light in the back yard. And tell him to ease up on the horsepower and keep his spotlight off when he pulls in. My neighbors are jumpy to start with. I don’t want him to panic them.” He pushed open the door. “What’s a good eating place near that library in Miami? Something with a little glamour.”

  Magnes considered this. “You could do a lot worse than the Columbus roof. On the boulevard about Northeast First Street. Good eating, and you get a very nice view of the Beach from there.” He added, deadpan: “You only see the buildings, not the people.”

  Anthony Aiello must have parked his green Chevrolet well out of range this time. Jake was halfway home before he caught sight of it in the mirror. He made sure it was with him until it pulled up at its usual station near the bridge to Daystar Number One.

  In the house, he stuffed five hundred dollars into an envelope and thrust it into his pocket. Then he hauled out two of his biggest suitcases and quickly packed them with everything Elinor had brought with her, a raincoat and head scarf going in last. These suitcases and her flight bag he planted on the rear seat of the Jaguar. He went back to the house, pulled out Elinor’s own two empty valises and loaded them into the trunk of the car.

  Passing the green Chevy when he recrossed the bridge to the Beach, he observed that the driver was not Aiello now, but a moon-faced, unmustached blond, so apparently the night shift had taken over. He led the Chevy across the causeway and down Biscayne Boulevard to the Columbus Hotel at First Street, where he turned the Jaguar over to a parking attendant. Then he walked to the library across the boulevard slowly enough for the moon-faced blond to mark his destination without trouble.

  Elinor was at a table in the reading room, a clutter of books and magazines before her. A tall, skinny boy with an unkempt mop of hair and a scraggly beard had managed to work his chair so close to hers that they sat almost head to head. He was talking to her in an undertone, one hand gesticulating passionately as he talked. She was focusing on an open magazine as she listened. The expression on her face was one of mixed irritation and amusement.

  She caught sight of Jake, and her face lighted up. He walked over to the table, and she said, “Hello, darling,” with the aplomb of a long-wed housewife greeting her mate on his return home from the office. Her companion looked at Jake. “Well, maybe they do,” he said to Elinor, and made his way off without waiting for an introduction.

  Jake sat down in the freshly vacated chair. “Who was he? What was that all about?”

  Elinor said: “Well, I’ve been telling him to quit hanging around, because my husband would be here soon and he’s very jealous, and he said they don’t make jealous husbands any more. I guess he changed his mind about that fast when he got a look at you. Poor kid.” She moved close to Jake, her thigh warm against his. “You don’t know how you look when you’re feeling hairy. It’s like a thunderstorm building up.”

  “Did he ask what you were doing here?”

  “He isn’t one of the bad guys, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s just a kid, goes to Miami University. Anyhow”—someone behind them made a shushing sound, and Elinor lowered her voice—“anyhow, the big thing is you were right about Thoren. Every which way. I mean, the submarine operation and everything else.”

  “I was? But I told you to call me in that case. Why didn’t you call?”

  “I did call. I’ve been calling every hour since three o’clock. And it’s half past seven now, so I would have called in another half hour again. I didn’t think you were home all day.”

  “I just came from there. You must have missed me, coming and going. Then it’s definite about Thoren? But he didn’t go under that name then, did he? He couldn’t have.”

  “He didn’t.” She gestured at the collection of literature before her. “It’s all
here. The only thing you were wrong about was the name of the operation. It wasn’t Operation Pretorius, it was Pastorius. One submarine landed at Long Island and two down here.”

  “Did you take notes on it?”

  Elinor patted her pocketbook. “It’s all here too. And all about who Thoren was and what he was doing here and how he met up with Earl Dobbs. The whole thing. Do you want to hear about it right now?”

  “No, while we eat. Remember that victory celebration I promised you? We’ll have it now.”

  “Now? Without going home to change?” Elinor looked down at herself in dismay. “I don’t think I’m dressed for high living this way.”

  “You’d be dressed for it in a flannel bathrobe and with your hair in curlers,” Jake said, and she enthusiastically bumped his shoulder with hers and said, “You convinced me. Let’s start celebrating in a nice restaurant and then go home to bed and finish celebrating there. Jake, it still works. When I saw you walk in just now I took right off. I mean, right into orbit. It’s wild, man.”

  They were outside the library doors when she suddenly clutched his arm. “My package,” she said. “I almost forgot,” and ran inside again to retrieve the Jordan Marsh box from the checkroom. Crossing the park to Biscayne Boulevard, she waved it at him. “Guess what it is.”

  “Not another present for me, I hope. It’s your turn.”

  “Hey, that’s right. You’re wearing my shirt, and I didn’t even notice. It looks great on you. But this package isn’t for you. It’s for like both of us. Go on and guess.”

  Jake saw the moon-faced blond man standing on the sidewalk at the foot of the path. As they approached him, the man slowly sauntered away. “Go on and guess,” Elinor said. “Take a chance.”

  “A black lace nightgown?”

  “Well, if you keep guessing the same thing all the time, you have to be right sooner or later.” She squeezed his hand. “But wait’ll you see it. Naked is nothing compared to it.”

  52

  The twilight view of Miami Beach from the Columbus roof was all Magnes had said it would be. As lights went on along the causeways and then in distant hotels and high-rises across the bay, Elinor said: “Now that’s what I call timing. How far away is it?”

  “I don’t know. At a guess, about five miles. What’ll you have to drink?”

  “Beer, if you don’t think it’s kind of crude for a celebration. And some rolls or something right away. I’m starved.”

  When the waiter had gone off with their order she pulled a collection of crumpled notepapers from her pocketbook and arranged them before her. By the time she had them organized to her satisfaction, the waiter was back again. She said to Jake with her mouth full: “How do you want it? Just the parts about Thoren and Dobbs, or Operation Pastorius from the beginning?”

  “Both. But boiled down to the essentials.”

  “Mmm.” She studied the notes. “Well, in 1942 this officer in something called Nazi Party Intelligence, Overseas Organization, gave a plan for sabotage to the German High Command. And they gave it to Admiral Canaris of High Command Intelligence. The idea was there would be three submarines sent to the United States, and each one would have four sabotage experts on it. The first”—she peered closely at the slip of paper in her hand—“oh, the first objectives for the men landing on Long Island were to destroy railroad communications into New York City and to blow up the Niagara Falls power plant. Then men landing in north Florida were to destroy railroad communications around Jacksonville, and the ones landing in south Florida were supposed to sabotage the submarine base in Key West. Then all of them would meet in the Tennessee Valley and sabotage the Alcoa plants there. That was the main objective, because that was our biggest aluminum works, and we needed aluminum for airplanes. Only nothing worked out right.”

  “Which was what I remembered of it,” Jake said. “One of the men in the Long Island party turned them all in to the FBI as soon as they landed. Right?”

  “Right. That was George John Dasch. He was head of the Long Island bunch, but he knew all the plans for everybody. So everybody was captured right away except one man from the south Florida bunch. And everybody captured, except Dasch and a guy named Burger who proved he had been forced to go on the mission, were electrocuted by the American army in August, 1942. Those two went to jail.”

  Jake said: “And the one who escaped was our pal Thoren. But under his real name, it must have been. What was it?”

  “Walther Stresemann. I mean, it had to be because Walther Stresemann was the one who got away. He was in charge of the south Florida bunch, too, and that makes it sure. The north Florida submarine landed at Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville on June seventeenth. The south Florida one with Stresemann on it was the last to come here. That was June twenty-first. They put Stresemann and the three men with him ashore at Juno Beach near Palm Beach, and next day those three were caught, but he got away. Now comes the best part, because it’s all about him.” Elinor planted her elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand. She stared long and hard at Jake. “You know you’re a genius?” she said solemnly.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I can see that’s something we’ll never argue about.” Abstractedly, she stuffed a piece of roll into her mouth. “I mean, like you really are. When Sherry told me about you she said you were smart, but it takes more than just smart to figure things out the way you did. Almost everything you finally figured out about Thoren was right. And you hardly had anything to go on.”

  Jake said: “I had more than it looked. And some luck. And you to come up with a couple of inspirations.”

  “You mean that? I really did help?”

  “You did. Now what about Thoren?”

  Elinor returned to her notes. “Where was I? Oh, he got away. But they had the roads blocked to the north, so he headed south. What made it hard for them was that he had a valise with eighty thousand dollars in it which was supposed to cover expenses for his unit, so he had enough to keep buying beat-up old cars for cash and throw the FBI off the trail that way. Between Palm Beach and Miami, he bought three different cars. He had been fixed up with a driver’s license and army discharge papers and whatever else he needed to pass himself off as an American, but from what I make of it he didn’t have to use any of that stuff while he was on the run. That’s why there was no record anywhere of the name Thoren, which was the one on his papers.”

  “What about the language problem?”

  “There wasn’t any. He got out of college in Germany in 1935 able to speak good English, and then he went to the University of Minnesota here for a year and for another year to MIT before he went back to Germany. No language problem at all.

  “Anyhow, the FBI and army people after him thought they finally had him bottled up in Miami, but he got away and headed for the west coast of Florida on the Tamiami Trail. But when you’re on the Tamiami Trail—”

  “I know,” Jake said. “Once you’re on it, there’s only one way off before you hit the coast. Route Ninety-four. When he realized they were on to him again and had blocked the way to the coast, he took Ninety-four into the town of Crosscut.”

  Elinor said: “You see? You’re making like a genius again. But that’s what happened. And that’s where Earl Dobbs comes into it. And his Uncle Jesse. Stresemann put a gun on them and made them hide him out. So they did. Like on a little island right in the middle of the swamp there.”

  “Dobbs Hammock.”

  “Dobbs Hammock. But that night the uncle tried to kill Stresemann and get away. He hurt him bad with a broken bottle, but didn’t kill him, and in the end the uncle got shot to death and Earl Dobbs—he was only a kid then, fifteen years old—got a bullet in him that made it look like he was dead too. He almost was by the time the FBI found out about this island and how to get to it. And by that time Stresemann was gone for good. Just took the Dobbses’ boat and disappeared. They hunted all around the swamps for him, but they never found any sign of him or the boat, so they wrote hi
m off as dead. I mean, what with being wounded so bad, and the alligators and snakes and all, it made sense that way. But of course he wasn’t dead. Somehow he made it back to Miami and became Walter Thoren for good.”

  Jake said: “You have to admit he was something of a genius himself, wasn’t he?”

  Elinor shook her head. “Maybe. But I don’t dig geniuses that go around shooting old men and kids.”

  “You don’t think Fidel and Che ever did anything nasty like that?”

  “No. They wouldn’t.”

  “Remember,” Jake said, “you don’t have to pull the trigger yourself to be the killer.”

  Elinor knit her brow over this. Then she said unhappily: “I don’t know. I mean, if they did anything like that, it’s because they were leading a people’s struggle, weren’t they?”

  “Sweetheart, that’s very pretty, but Thoren could offer even a better excuse. He was trying to stay alive, which happens to be the name of the game. And he won the game with all the odds against him. Give him credit for that at least. This guy had brains enough and guts enough and cool enough for ten people. His hard luck he didn’t finish off Earl Dobbs then and there.”

  “Ah, Jake—”

  “No, I’m not crying over what happened to Thoren. I’m just sorry that when he was finally brought down it had to be by a couple of hyenas like Dobbs and Gela. He probably thought the same thing when he saw he was at the end of the line.”

  Elinor said: “And Mrs. Thoren is probably thinking it now, wherever she is. Magnes didn’t find her yet, did he?”

  “Not yet.” Jake pointed at the notes. “Is that the whole story?”

  “Uh-huh. Unless you want all the details about everything. Like this Admiral Canaris they brought the scheme to at the start said it was flaky, but nobody listened to him. They said go ahead anyhow. Stuff like that.”

  “No, we can skip the details.”

  “Yes, sir. Then that’s the whole story. Any questions?”

  Jake thought it over. “Two questions. First, what did German Intelligence have in mind for these guys if they pulled off their mission? Were they supposed to be picked up by submarines at some later date? Brought back to Germany?”