Sitting in a café with glasses of wine, Duff said, “I’ve been thinking hard about this. Let’s go home now, darling. If you leave the European Theater, it might just be easier for the Inspector General to drop all this, to simply abandon any notion of a hearing that would require them to fly you back to France.”
“It is a thought,” I said.
The fact I seemed warm to the notion seemed to surprise Duff. She said, “You’d really consider this?”
I took her hand, stroking its pale back with my thumb. “I would. Crazy as things are now, it’s not as if Höttl could track us on our way back to the States. We could safely get some time with Jimmy and Marie, then disappear into the desert and our air-conditioned hacienda. Just live as a couple of anonymous, oversexed gringos stalking the borderland cantinas and bullfighting rings.”
She smiled and raised my hand to her mouth. “You silver-tongued devil. Will you really consider this?”
“I’ll really consent to this,” I said. “I don’t even need the time to think about it.”
If only she’d suggested it a week earlier.
When we returned to the hotel, slightly tipsy and eager to get to our room, the concierge waved me over. He passed me an envelope with an army seal. Duff looked at the envelope and leapt to the obvious conclusion:
“Damn it.”
The Inspector General of the U.S. Third Army was ordering me to appear for a “judicial investigation” in Nancy, France on October 6.
George S. Patton’s Inspector General, of course.
33
The young military attorney, a guy named William Evans, Jr., said to me, “I want to assure you up front, Mr. Lassiter, I’m here as your advocate, and I will do my level best to get you out from under all this. I also want you to know, Mr. Lassiter, on a personal level, that I’m a tremendous fan of yours. Of your writing, of course. But I also admire what you did in theater, even if officially I have to lament it.”
I looked the young man over. He was crisply uniformed, fresh-faced and quick-eyed. Seemed like a bright kid. And I had to count on Billy, as I’d chosen to call him, to pull my ass out of this latest fire of my own reckless, feckless making. One of the few that really had me sweating.
“Nearly as I can tell, Mr. Lassiter—”
“Call me Hector, please.”
A smile. “Okay, Hector. Nearly as I can tell, the general sense is you were more armed combatant and guerilla leader than war correspondent. Some of your fellow journalists, the ones who weren’t so, well, let’s say patriotic, or at least not so intrepid as you, blew the whistle. You’re going to be accused of serving as a forward observer, of having functioned as a liaison between OSS and French Resistance. Of acquiring and storing arms for the Maquis. There are reports you held a key town in France for two days with a band of irregulars until our boys could get there and officially secure it. You also made it into Paris a very good bit ahead of our own forces. Reputedly, you arbitrated local disputes, established a field command and accepted countless German surrenders.”
All true.
And not nearly close to touching on the scope of everything else I’d done in zealous disregard of rules of conduct for correspondents. I’d been in it up to my eyebrows, of course, just as deeply as I had been in smuggling Gertrude and Alice out of Paris, in smuggling Marie out of Lyon and to the States.
I’d had me my own private war and I’d relished much of it.
“It’s not true,” I said. “Some of it is stuff presented in false light, without context. Some of it is just vicious whispers and tongue wagging from jealous sons of bitches who I scooped. Journalists are a low and catty breed, Billy. Take it from one who knows.”
“Good,” he said. “We hew to that tack. I’m sorry for all this, Hector. You did good, brave and important work. I have that from several officers who wanted to come here and defend your actions. But since we can’t acknowledge those actions, we can’t use those men to help us here today. I know that’s going to be the hard thing for you, Hector. But you’re going to have to deny every great thing you did for the war effort when we go before that board. You’re going to have to settle it in your mind now that you can never talk about this, and never write about any of it. Not ever. There’s no clock to run out on this, do you understand?”
“Completely.” I didn’t care about the rest; I knew well enough what I’d done, what I had contributed. All I wanted was to walk away from this drumhead trial with no sanctions from the Inspector General and no censure from some George S. Patton stooge.
Billy said, “If it’s any consolation, Hector, you’re not the only one facing this threat of court martial today. Just on the other side of that wall is the great man himself. Almost identical allegations have been lodged against him.”
I frowned. “The great man? Who is that?” I suspected, of course, but that ‘great man’ descriptor chafed.
“Hemingway. His hearing is just before yours.” Billy smiled. “Now that I think on it, aren’t you two friends? I could take you over for a brief chat. Might take both your minds off this other stuff to commiserate for a time.”
I looked at the wall as though I could maybe see through it if I stared long enough. “No, thanks, Billy,” I said softly. “Hem’s probably using this time the same way I am, to run practice answers through his head. You know—deny, deny, deny.”
My young counsel smiled. “My friend caught Hemingway’s case. My understanding is Papa will be doing just what you’re doing. He’ll probably walk away from this as you will. Well, except for one allegation. Seems there’s a claim, with a witness, that Mr. Hemingway personally killed a sniper at the request of a Miss Sylvia Beach.”
Christ. I’d heard that story, too. From Sylvia. I thought about it, then said, “When did this crazy thing allegedly happen?” I already knew the answer: August 25th, about six hours after Hem saved my ass from Werner Höttl. Billy rattled off the date from a clipboard.
I said, “That’s so much bullshit, Billy. Hem was with me that afternoon into evening. At that time, he was supposedly shooting that Kraut, he was knocking ’em back with me and my wife in Gertrude Stein’s place. We were among those babysitting the joint against Nazi art plunderers pending Gertrude’s return. Hem was at the spirits a good bit harder than me. Probably lost track of time. But my wife and I can vouch for it all. That was us—just some drunk reporters playing unarmed art cops.”
Duff had wanted to come to Nancy but I’d argued her out of it. I pointed out it she was in situ to use a term I’d come to mock, it made it too convenient if some son of a bitch did want to use her against me. And hell, she’d been in the Marie affair up to her neck, herself. I figured, if needed, I’d have plenty of time to get word back to Paris to Duff to support any cover story that would help Hem.
Billy wet his lips and said, “You’d testify to that?”
“Sure,” I said. “And, Christ, I’m obviously close to hand.” Hell, I owed Hem.
“Excuse me a minute. Going to go give a heads up to my friend.”
I sat there alone, staring at the wall between us. Hopefully, Hem wouldn’t be so pissed off as to reveal me as a liar despite the rope I was throwing him.
After about five minutes, Billy returned. He smiled. “Papa said I should tell you he wasn’t that drunk but thanks you for correcting his memory. He said something about you being even. Well, that’s good news all around. I think with your testimony on his behalf, both of you will walk, now. Honestly? You’re both too famous, too important as men and writers back home for command to risk dressing you down for fighting the damned Nazis. Nobody would be served by punishing you two. I expect there’d actually be a backlash from home for that. They need heroes back there. Been a hard few years.”
I slapped his arm. “Well, at any rate, I get it, Billy, and the secrets die with me. Tell you what, son. Next war, I’m going to get the Geneva Convention tattooed on my ass in reverse so I can read it in the mirror.”
***
> The hearing board was mostly an annoyance. Me in a chair sitting across from a bunch of pinch-faced, constipated looking officers and conscripted judicial types. I denied every single thing, re-contextualized other things. I embroidered, distorted and twisted damning actions through convoluted prisms to make them look innocent or misunderstood.
As a fiction writer, and a fast one, I have certain advantages as a liar.
My worst moments came very early, when I was first planted in that stiff-backed wooden chair. I realized that unconsciously, I was pressing my legs hard against the seat and chair legs to keep them from shaking. I was gripping the vertical posts supporting the arms of the chair in the same way. My posture and position was almost identical to that I had been forced into when Höttl’s men had tied me to that other chair in Paris.
When I realized what I was doing, I crossed one leg over the other. I got permission to smoke through the interrogation. My hands steadied after the first blessed hit of nicotine.
After an hour, I figured I’d pretty well deflected every charge against me. Then one of the old warhorses threw me a wicked and charged curveball.
“Mr. Lassiter, what is your obsession with Werner Höttl? You’ve been making inquiries after his whereabouts for the past several weeks now. Why?”
Through the first smoke of a freshly lit cigarette I said, “The one allegation in all of your charges I don’t deny is attempting to protect the life of female Jewish child from that bloody bastard’s attempts to murder her.”
“There are recorded threats you made against Herr Höttl’s life in our records.”
I shrugged. “Herr Höttl is a Nazi who revels in murder and torture. We’ve killed so many Nazis these past several years, what’s one more?”
One of the hearing judges, a particularly patrician-looking man with gin blossoms in both cheeks said, “Werner Höttl has been deemed to be of future intelligence-gathering value to the United States government. If you are released back into civilian life, we’ll need some assurance you will desist from your search for Herr Höttl, but also from issuing any more threats, even if they might be no more than swaggering macho posturing or you mouthing off in your cups. Do you understand, Lassiter?”
If you are released back into civilian life? That bit nearly sent me out of my chair.
I said tersely, “I hear you.”
“But do you agree to these terms?”
What else could I say? In Army prison, I certainly couldn’t kill the scar-faced son of a bitch.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Okay.”
“Okay? Well, then.” The Inspector General tapped a hammer and said, “You’re excused, Mr. Lassiter. An M.P. will escort you outside now while we deliberate.”
***
I planted my ass in another goddamn chair for the better part of an hour. Most of the time, I found myself staring at that same wall, wondering how things were going for Hem, wondering if I’d be called to repeat the lie I’d told Billy.
Other than some news photographs and dust jacket photos, the truth was I hadn’t seen Hem since 1937. Some mutual friends had said he’d undergone some severe personality changes in recent years. His marriage to his third wife, I’d heard, had also soured but they’d not yet divorced. That bitch had been a wedge between us, too.
The door swung open and Billy slid out, smiling. “You’re clear. Hemingway, too. Now you both just have to walk the straight and narrow, and don’t put anything contradicting any of what you testified to in there in any letters, novels or short stories. Got it?”
I stubbed out a cigarette, rose and shook his hand. “Oh, I thoroughly get it, Billy.”
Billy grinned and squeezed my arm. “Great. It’s been pleasure doing this for you and a personal thrill meeting you and your friend over there. Now, for God’s sake, Hector, stay the hell away from this Werner Höttl, whoever the hell he is.”
34
Over the course of a lazy, hedonistic weekend, Duff and I made our last tour of Paris.
We briefly crossed paths with Marlene Dietrich outside the Ritz. Marlene tried to drag me inside in order to single-handedly foster a rapprochement between Hem and I.
I kissed her cheek and urged the Teutonic chanteuse to drop it. “I want to leave Paris tomorrow only with good memories,” I said. “Please believe me, Kraut, neither Hem or I are ready or any reconciliation like you envision.”
As we moved through the city, I kept to cafés and restaurants that weren’t filled with memories of Brinke, Molly or Victoria, the key women I’d memorably shared the city with in the 1920s. Still, Brinke visited me more often in my troubled dreams, her memory stirred by our city.
We dropped by 27 rue de Fleurus one more time to share a last late-afternoon drink with Gertrude and Alice.
Our last stop before heading back to the hotel was at Shakespeare and Company to visit Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier.
The women were mulling whether to make a go of the store again, whether to move back into the shop all of the books and records that now resided in an apartment above 12 rue de l’Odeon, the place where they’d been hidden from the book-burning Germans. The books had remained safe even when Sylvia was interred by the Nazis for half-a-year.
Sylvia hugged me hard and said, “With you and Hem in town, it’s almost like old home week.”
We shared some wine with the ladies and talked about old days. Sylvia, something of a champion of mine in my hungry years, was careful to avoid mentions of the women who’d passed through my life whom she had come to know back then.
As we were leaving, Sylvia said, “Oh, Hec, remember when I used to play postmistress for you and Hem? Well, a letter was mailed here a few days ago. A letter for you.”
I didn’t even need to see the envelope to guess at the identity of the sender. I slipped the envelope in my pocket and hugged Sylvia and Adrienne a last time.
Pulling her coat closer against the chilly October wind as we slipped from the empty bookshop, Duff said, “The letter, is it from Höttl?”
“Who else?”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
I shook my head. “Not without a deep drink in front of me.”
***
The letter was posted from the one place on earth I couldn’t chase Höttl, much as I was spoiling to make him extinct. He’d mailed the threat from Madrid, Spain.
Huddled close against me at our fireside table, sipping some good red wine, Duff read along with me:
Lassiter:
Your luck, for the moment, is better than mine.
But you’re not safe. Any time left you between Paris and our next encounter you should regard as “found time.” Accept it as an intermission, so to speak, before you again sit in my chair, subject to my bloodiest whims.
We will finish our discussion at that time, under the hot lights, and if in the meantime I should find the child on my own, I will still make it my mission to strip you and tie you to that chair under my bright lights, anyway.
When that day comes that we resume our talk, I will begin by cutting off your thumb. That will be a mere tease for the main show to come. I’ve determined your deconstruction will be the centerpiece of my film, The Garden of Suffering.
Duff hugged me close. She said in my ear, speaking above the raucous din of the café, “I’m so sorry, darling. I erred calamitously. I should have violated orders. I should have gone up those stairs after Höttl myself, all consequences be damned.”
She pressed her forehead to mine. She said, “Hell, as we’re married, maybe they’d even have let us rut and rot in the same cell. That wouldn’t have been so bad, would it?”
***
That night, I had a dream about being back in Höttl’s chair. I had the same dream every night until we reached New York.
35
It was a crisp November afternoon in Euclid, Ohio. Jimmy had insisted upon barbecuing, despite the cold.
Jimmy and I stood in the backyard of his sister Fionnula’s place, drinking bo
ttled beer and watching Pancho lope along after Marie as she ran through crunching leaves. She was bundled up in a puffy winter coat and wearing corduroy pants. She was much taller than when I’d last seen her and reedier, too. At age eleven, you could see the intimations of the teenager she would become.
Marie didn’t seem to remember me much. Duff, on the other hand, seemed to ring a bell for the girl. Maybe it was that striking, long red hair of Duff’s that made memories of her cling.
Pancho, seeming older and a bit fatter, remembered me just fine. In terms of table-scrap finger-food, he also rightly regarded me as his likeliest mark after Marie. Not a bad judge of character at all, that dog.
Jimmy pulled the zipper up higher on his leather coat. His hair was a tad grayer; his midsection a bit thicker. He said, “Duff filled me in on the Höttl stuff while you were playing fetch with Marie and the cur.”
“I’m so sorry, Jimmy.” I ground out my cigarette on the sole of my shoe. “Duff had to agree to let Höttl walk in exchange for saving my ass. And then Patton’s Inspector General made me promise—”
Jimmy waved a hand; with the other, he used a spatula to flip a piece of meat. “Forget all that, Hector. It’s past and done, and it’s not like you two were drowning in options.” He turned over another piece of meat. “He was really filming your torture?”
“Really.”
He shrugged off a chill. But then it was getting nippy. “Soon as I get these grilled through, we’ll take ’em inside and eat by the fire. Fionnula, she keeps a cozy house.”
“They’re all happy together?”
“Ecstatic,” Jimmy said. “Deliriously happy.”
“Then it’s been worth every risk.” I lit another cigarette. “Duff and I, we’ll be scarce for a time after this, Jim. I don’t want Höttl, or some private eye this side he might hire, maybe some nested Buckeye Bund member, if such types exist, tracing you through me and maybe tracing Marie through you. Until Höttl is dead, I think it’s best you and I keep it rather distant.”
Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 19