Looking for Garbo

by Jon James Miller

  “I want to do it,” she said. “Anyway, you need me.”

  Hell, yes. In more ways than one. Sarah looked over my shoulder, shared a smile with Seth. Then she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. I stared at the door for a solemn moment. Then I turned around.

  Seth looked up at me, his slight frame reclined deep into the mash of white pillows behind him. He scrutinized me with a crinkled brow. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. A seriousness overtook him.

  “You got this?” he said and leaned his head back in exhaustion.

  “I got this,” I confirmed and walked up to the foot of his bed. Seth’s eyelids lowered until his eyes were all red, horizontal slits. “You just hold on. I’ll do the rest.”

  A couple minutes later, Video Guy appeared outside our window. Covered in snow, a suitcase in each hand. He’d obviously taken a fall or two wading in the deep snow to get to us. He looked like the Abominable Snowman gone on vacation.

  I opened the window, and he handed each case in to me. Next he climbed in. Seth looked over at him and gave a weak smile while Video Guy cleaned the snow off his jeans and out of his red beard.

  “The gang’s all here,” Seth said. His breath was visible as a fine mist, like it had been back in his cold apartment. But our hospital room wasn’t cold. Seth was.

  I helped Video Guy set up his equipment as Sarah returned to our little production. I introduced her to Video Guy, and she smiled at him. He wasn’t expecting a nurse—a beautiful woman at that—to be in on our little shell game. He gave me a conspicuous wink, letting me know he approved.

  “How did it go?” I asked her, scrutinizing Sarah for any signs of telltale damage.

  “Fine,” she said with a nod.

  “Do you think Martin saw anything?” I said. “Does he suspect?”

  “No.” Her voice had dropped an octave.

  “Well, what did you two talk about?” I said.

  “Talk?” Sarah shot me a look as if to say grow up already. Shut up and let it be.

  “To keep him preoccupied,” I went on. “You know, while Video Guy … while Tom passed by his window. What did you say?”

  “Really, James.” Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t have to say anything. I just flashed him my tits.”

  Sarah stared straight at me to nail her point home. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Sarah knew I was mortified. I was all for misdirection. But I wasn’t too sure I’d signed on for this. I mean, Goddamnit! Martin the fucker had gotten to see those beauties, too? Was nothing sacred?

  Then I heard a short, sharp hissing noise behind me and instinctively turned to Seth. For a second I thought his tank was leaking oxygen, and we were all about to be blown to kingdom come. Yet his eyes were open, and he was smiling. I turned further and saw that it wasn’t Seth, but Video Guy hissing. He was trying his best not to bust a gut.

  “Sorry, James,” he said.

  The big guy finally gave up and let out a thunderous belly laugh. Then Sarah and Seth joined him, laughing while I stood there.

  “Martin.” I shook my head. “What an asshole.”

  Then I laughed, too. The kind of laughter that brought tears to my eyes. Tears and relief surrounded by my little family of conspirators. I shared a moment of closeness that I hadn’t felt with anyone since my mother and I sat in a darkened movie theater telling each other fart jokes and cracking one another up. A long, long time ago.

  Video Guy mounted his camera on a tripod at the foot of Seth’s bed while Sarah helped with the cables. Meanwhile, I set up and turned on the two light stands placed on either side of Seth’s bed. I stood back in the relative darkness of the room and stared at a glowing Seth in the center of the scene.

  My mind reeled back to a scene in Queen Christina, where Garbo silently walks around the large room she shares with her Spanish envoy lover over the course of that three-day snowstorm. Enraptured, her lover, lying in front of the fire where they had been together only a moment before, watches her.

  “What are you doing?” he asks while she lightly touches a spinning wheel, looks in a mirror above a bureau back at him, then ends up on their bed staring down on him in a magnificent close-up. Garbo’s voluminous eyes reflected the fire and the man before her. Reflected her man with love in her eyes.

  “I have been memorizing this room,” Garbo says, her glorious face taking up the entire, forty-foot-long by twenty-foot-high movie screen. “In the future—in my memory—I shall live a great time in this room.” My mother’s favorite Garbo line of all time. The one that always made her cry.

  Then my mother’s hospital room flashed in my mind. Mom was always there in her bed waiting for me. Always with a smile. Details of furniture, pictures, life-support machines burned in three dimensions into my memory so vivid that they had remained unchanged over time. We’d spent a lot of time in that room ever since she’d died. I revisited her there thousands of times over the years. Visiting hours were never over.

  “Honey Buckets of Love,” she would say. That’s what she called me whenever I dropped in. Like true love, honey never went bad, she had said. Honey, like her love, was forever.

  “Hi, Mom,” I’d always answer and smile back at her.

  “You go get ’em, tiger,” she’d say and let out a soft laugh. “You hear me?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I hear you now.”

  Video Guy nudged me back into this hospital room, back into reality. Everyone was waiting for me to call the shot. I looked at Seth from beside the camera. He moved his head up to meet my gaze.

  “You ready, buddy?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Seth said out of breath. “Let’s do this.”

  Sarah came up beside me and put her hand in the small of my back. Then she reached down while no one was looking and cupped my bare-ass cheek. My entire body flushed. Sarah had my back.

  “Camera,” I said.

  “Rolling,” Video Guy said and pushed his camera controls.

  I stared at Seth as the two lights bathed him in a warm, yellow-white glow. Seth’s face became younger in my mind’s eye. He was Young Seth again lying there before me, awaiting my command. Spellbound.

  Seth had done what I asked. Had held up his part of the bargain and was holding on. He was going to recount his story for Video Guy just like he’d told us, and then take us all along as it veered toward its fateful climax. Seth was finally ready for his close-up. Ready, because now I was too.

  “And,” I said, my face pointed forward, eyes always forward from now on. “Action!”

  22. TERRA INCOGNITA SETH

  I’d woken up gasping for breath, bathed in a hazy, amber-colored shaft of light that emanated from a porthole to my right. I was lashed with ropes to a me»tal crossbeam, part of a clockwork consisting of large gears and girders. My old buddy Heinrich, now armed, stood as a dark sentry in front of the metal door to the steel-reinforced room.

  Four load-bearing walls told me I was being held captive underneath something heavy. Somewhere I hadn’t known existed. Something on the Athenia I hadn’t seen before. I was in a pickle, all right.

  Garbo’s starlight had attracted some pretty evil customers. Now I sensed they were crawling all over the ship, looking for her. That they took the form of Nazis with guns made them only more ominous. They were playing for keeps. But so was I.

  I turned to my right and saw Lars, the porter, sitting in the shadowed corner of the hold.

  “Hey,” I said. “Is that you, Lars?”

  Lars looked up, then stood up and walked over to me. He didn’t say a word as he came straight up to my face.

  “What have you gotten me into?”

  “You?” I said. “I’m the one all tied up in knots.”

  I took a gander around the rest of the room, then my eyes came back and set on Lars unenlightened face.

  “Where’s Nick?”

  Lars scrutinized me and scowled. He seemed to be having some kind of internal struggle. I waited for him to come to
a conclusion.

  “You mean,” he said, “you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” I said.

  “You really don’t know?”

  “No,” I griped. “I really don’t know.”

  Lars took a step back. The column of light coming from port side of the ship caught him and lit up the left side of his face. He looked genuinely confused at my answer. Probably as confused-looking as I did to him.

  Then the door to the hold opened, and Heinrich made way for a dark visitor, standing still and silent at the threshold. I had been expecting Heinrich’s unseen Master. Knew the megillah wasn’t aboard alone, calling his own shots. The silverback probably couldn’t take a leak without asking for permission. Lars turned and we both stared at the lean shadow framed in the open doorway. My mind filled in the silhouette with detail even before he opened his mouth.

  “Am I intruding?” he said and stepped forward.

  “Not at all,” I said in resignation. “Nick.”

  Nick stepped into the fading daylight of the porthole. It was The Piano Man, all right, dressed in a Nazi uniform complete with Colonel’s cap. He came to stand next to Lars, not five feet away, and gawked at me, strapped to the crossbeam. I had been right about Nick. Thank God, I was finally right about something.

  “Hello, Moseley,” he said and smirked. “Surprised to see me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I was telling the truth. Ever since I’d set foot on the Athenia, I’d learned nothing was what it seemed. Everyone had played a role, including me. But Nick was the master at role-playing. He may have been the latest in a long line of broken illusions, but his had been carefully and indelibly crafted from the start. I wouldn’t underestimate him again.

  “The outfit is a nice touch,” I said.

  Nick turned back to Heinrich, dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The lug turned and exited stage left. The metal door slammed shut. Nick, Lars, and I were alone, staring at one another in silence.

  “That’s better.” Nick turned to me and produced a silver cigarette case from his breast pocket. “Cigarette?”

  “I quit,” I said. “Those things’ll kill you.”

  Nick laughed as he lit up. I wanted him to laugh. Laugh it up while I worked slack into my ropes. The flop sweat my body generated helped me squirm ever looser in my restraints.

  “You know Lars,” Nick took a deep drag off the cigarette while he stepped closer to scrutinize me. “I admire this man, Moseley.” The ember end of Nick’s cig burned ever closer to my face.

  “Why’s that?” I said. “Nazi pig.”

  This made Nick smile even wider. Lars, on the other hand, looked grim. He watched from behind Nick while the Nazi closed the gap between us. I peered into the black of Nick’s pupils. They were lifeless like a doll’s eyes.

  “I’ve obviously anticipated your every move,” he said.“Ever since you came aboard. And still you struggle, trying to escape. Such tenacity.”

  It was true. The Athenia had served as a floating mousetrap, designed by one big rat. Nick. I hadn’t figured he was a mastermind when I first met him. Didn’t think he was capable of duping me the way he had. But then again, I’d had blinders on. Ingrid had turned my head with her body and then the Garbo setup. And now we were all paying the price for our ignorance. First Ingrid. Then Lars and me. Next, Garbo.

  “So Nicky.” I tried to regain my footing on the situation, even as I stood tied to a metal girder. “What now?”

  Nick stared at me with those charcoal-black eyes. Not a hair out of place nor blemish on his face. He was the picture of healthy, well-tended evil.

  “Now, my journey continues” he said. “And yours, well, cursom perficio.”

  Ah, more Latin. A subject I’d unfortunately neglected back in school. Along with learning the virtue of staying on dry land even if that meant avoiding Toes to keep my toes. Ah, Toes. I was downright nostalgic for such an honest form of brutality.

  “Come again?” I said.

  “Your journey is over, my friend.” Nick said.

  I stole a glance at Lars. The kid was coming apart at the seams with fear. I liked Lars. Wished he hadn’t been dragged into this mess. But there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. And I was afraid life was only going to get scarier for the porter from now on.

  “Tell me,” I said, “did you kill Ingrid, too? Or did your big errand boy do your dirty work for you?”

  Lars eyes went wide with fear and shock while Nick calmly took another drag off his cigarette.

  “Ingrid the barmaid?” Lars said. “She’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, Lars,” I said. “Thanks to Nick here.”

  Lars turned to Nick, who took a step closer to me. Our faces were now a mere six inches apart. I could see the deep pores on his face. Smelled the sweat and cigarette smoke embedded in his uniform. I fought in my restraints while Nick leaned in to whisper in my left ear. I thought about biting him right in his five o’clock shadow, but I already had a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “I like you Moseley,” he whispered. “That’s the only reason you and the boy are still alive.”

  Then Nick pulled back and extinguished the cigarette on my chest. Hot, seering pain reignited my rage and I writhed in my restraints while Nick looked on, amused.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Nick said, back in his normal voice.

  He swiveled his head down and away from me like an automaton. Reached in the right side pocket of his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a black button with a long tail of wires attached to it. Two fingers dangled the doo-hickey before my eyes.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “Your butt plug?” I replied and continued to work on the ropes behind my back. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know how stupid I had been.

  Nick turned to address Lars, who had stepped back into the shadow of the wall where I had first spied him.

  “How about you, young Lars?” Nick said.

  “No,” Lars said.

  “It’s called a bug,” he said, unfazed. “An electronic listening device. They’re the latest thing.”

  A cold sweat broke out all over my body. I stopped twisting and stared up at the thingamajig Nick dangled in front of me. Identical to the one I’d pulled out of Cupid. I knew what he was going to say next. Still, I willed him not to. Didn’t want to hear it.

  “I heard everything you and Garbo said.” Nick smiled. “And everything you did.”

  Lars and I exchanged a glance. The kid was getting an earful. Probably thought even less of me now that there was definitive proof I had defiled Garbo. We both turned back to Nick.

  “Where was it?” I asked.

  “Inside the cherub lamp,” he said, gloating. “On her night table.”

  Nick mugged while I played along. I wanted him to think I was beaten. I lowered my head and pretended the news was taking its toll on me. Taking its toll on me instead of restoring my resolve to fight. Fight on to the bitter end.

  “Now I know Fräulein Garbo’s true intentions,” he said and smiled. “Thanks to you.”

  Nicky was good. Really good. I could tell he was someone who practiced torture. Had studied and mastered it like an art form. He was a natural at inflicting pain. A born Nazi.

  “Ingrid was another story,” he said, twisting the verbal dagger into me ever deeper. “She wouldn’t betray Garbo, no matter how persuasive my methods. But I knew I could depend on you, Moseley. And in the end you betrayed Garbo, however unwittingly, just like I knew you would.”

  Nick pocketed the electronic bug. I felt a crackling energy coming off him. Some kind of dark vapor trail of evil surrounded him, tugged at me in an unnatural, ghostly way. Like a shadow that didn’t rely upon light to be cast. Nick was at his diabolical best.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” I said.

  “Fräulein Garbo?” Nick mocked me. “She will continue her journey to Germany.”

  “But why?” I
said. “When Hitler finds out—”

  “Herr Fuhrer believes Garbo is a goddess,” Nick said. His eyes lit up, his facial muscles animated. “A goddess of Aryan perfection. The Mother of his Master Race.”

  “A mother who wants to kill him,” I chimed in.

  Nick moved in quickly. He reached in his breast pocket and produced a penknife. Then he pointed it at my heart, just below where he’d burned me while extinguishing his cigarette.

  “He believes she is immortal,” Nick said and pushed the knife into my skin short of puncturing it. “He believes that anyone who mates with an immortal—impregnates a deity—will become immortal.”

  I stared at Nick more in wonderment than hatred. He was addressing me, but I could tell was talking more to himself. The thought of Hitler having his way with Garbo made me sick to my stomach. If I was lucky, maybe I’d get to vomit all over Nick before he moved away. One more projectile spew for old time’s sake.

  “How much would you pay, Moseley,” he said, “to be immortal?”

  Nick removed the offending penknife from my chest and laughed. Put it back in his breast pocket as a spot of blood formed on my shirt. Appeared as black wetness on the black shirt fabric. Nick had nicked me, after all.

  “You’re insane,” I said. “You think you can hold Garbo for ransom?”

  “I don’t think anything,” he said. “I’ve spent two years planning this mission. Right down to the very second England and France declared war on Germany. Hitler needs Garbo, now more than ever. He’s obsessed with her. He’ll pay, all right.”

  I couldn’t help but register shock at the audacity of Nick’s confidence. Was this some cruel joke to extract as much anguish out of me as possible before finishing me off? Nick had absolutely no reason to bluff, but there was still something about this whole mess that didn’t quite add up.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” I said. “We’re surrounded by Nazis. As soon as they realize—”

  “Realize what?” he said. “This whole mission is top secret. Only a select few know Garbo is even aboard. And after tonight, even fewer.