The Bells of Hell

by Michael Kurland

  ‘So the guy was a Communist?’ Blake asked, pouring an unseemly amount of sugar into his coffee and then busily stirring it while watching the others.

  ‘That’s what an informant told the FBI. A man who would call himself Lehman was coming over from Germany to coordinate or instruct or direct some Communist activity in the United States, or at least in New York. But just what he was supposed to be doing here, we don’t know.’

  ‘Whatever it was,’ Covitt said, ‘somebody didn’t want him doing it.’

  ‘There’s that,’ Welker agreed. He stared at Blake for a long moment, his lips going in and out as though he were chewing on a thought. Then: ‘Blake, how’d you like a job?’

  There was about a three-second pause before Blake responded, ‘Sure, what you got in mind? I don’t suppose I have to add “anything legal” since I’m talking to a cop.’

  ‘Mostly legal, I guess,’ Welker said. ‘I was thinking of getting you a job working in a print shop.’

  ‘No shit? Letterpress? Rotary? Gotta be a union shop.’

  ‘I don’t know from the technical stuff. It’s a place in the city, down on Broome Street. They print a lot of newsletters and other stuff for the Bund. We have an in there, I think. I’ll have to work out the details.’ He paused and looked from Blake to Covitt and back. ‘I don’t know if it’s union. Probably not. You see, the job will just be a cover. I mean, you’ll have to work it, but what you’ll really be doing is working for us, watching and learning.’

  ‘Watching what? Learning what?’

  ‘Watching, with any luck, our German friends, and learning what they’re about.’

  ‘Hey,’ Blake said, pushing back from the table, ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to have anything to do with those people. Besides, I don’t know who they are or where they are. And I don’t want to. Those guys don’t – what’s that phrase? – work and play well with others? They don’t do that.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe, but you know what they look like and they don’t know what you look like,’ Welker told him. ‘Hell, they don’t even know you exist.’

  ‘And,’ Blake said firmly, ‘I’d just as soon keep it that way.’

  ‘Look,’ Welker said, ‘if you spot one of them I don’t want you to do anything about it. Nothing that could put you in any danger. As a matter of fact, nothing at all. Just tell me.’

  Blake thought it over. ‘I’m not sure I’d recognize any of them but the main guy,’ he said. ‘And the guy that searched the place and found my toothbrush. Well, I guess that’s about half of them, isn’t it? But what makes you think that one of them is going to walk into the print shop anyway?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Welker. ‘That’s the other part of the job. I want you to join the Bund.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, here in the city.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It’s the German-American Bund.’

  Blake looked at him. ‘The German-American what?’

  ‘Bund. It means like association, or group.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘They hold rallies, they give out pamphlets, they get into fights, try to intimidate Jewish shopkeepers and anyone they think is a Communist – which includes Socialists, they can’t seem to tell the difference. And like that. We think they’re financed and controlled to some extent by the German government, but we can’t prove it.’

  ‘But I’m not German. My folks are Scots and, I think French, if you go back a bit.’

  ‘That’s OK. As long as you’re not Jewish or Negro or any of the lesser races, you’ll be OK. They like to think that everyone who’s Caucasian is a German at heart.’

  ‘The “lesser races”?’

  ‘Indian, Mexican, Chinese, like that.’

  Blake shook his head. ‘Weird,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think about Jews?’ Welker asked him.

  Blake considered. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘except for my Uncle Max. I think about him.’

  ‘You have a Jewish uncle?’

  Blake nodded. ‘He married my mother’s sister Edith. Nice guy. Was a colonel in the war. Artillery, I think. Tells stories. Makes boats.’

  Covitt looked up. ‘Boats?’

  ‘Yeah. Sailboats mostly. Models.’ He held his hands about two feet apart. ‘Like this. For kids. The Kleinshif Model Company, that’s him.’

  ‘His name is Kleinshif?’

  ‘His name is Ardbaum. I don’t know where he got Kleinshif.’

  ‘It means little boat,’ Welker said. ‘In Yiddish.’

  ‘Oh,’ Blake said. He nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘I been to one of them Bund rallies,’ Covitt said. ‘On the job. In Madison Square Garden, it was. They had a big American flag and a big I don’t know what flag, kind of looked like the Nazi swastika, but not quite. And a big banner, said America First. And a great big picture of George Washington and a picture of Hitler. And the guy that gave the speech went on about how they were all patriots, and how the Jews control all the banks, and he kept calling Roosevelt “President Rosenfeld”, which he seemed to think was very clever.’

  ‘I thought you said he was a Communist,’ Blake said.

  ‘The guy who was killed was a Communist,’ Welker explained, ‘but it figures that the guys who killed him were something else. Probably Nazis, is my guess. He thought they were Gestapo. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to pay you to find out. If we get lucky.’

  Covitt put his coffee down and leaned back in the chair. ‘What you going to do if you find him?’ he asked. ‘You can’t hold him for anything, you got no proof.’

  ‘I can’t hold him for anything anyway, even if I wanted to,’ Welker told him. ‘I’m not a cop.’

  ‘So what you going to do?’

  ‘Improvise,’ Welker said.

  NINE

  Man is not what he thinks he is,

  he is what he hides.

  – André Malraux

  ‘I have to go away,’ Geoffrey announced, ‘for a few weeks.’

  ‘Hmmm?’ Patricia asked.

  They were in the living room of their Georgetown house, Patricia perched on a corner of the couch, legs under her in that way women find comfortable and men can’t manage, Geoffrey in his blue dressing gown standing on one leg like a stork, teacup in one hand and buttered scone in the other. It was an exercise he practiced regularly. Standing on one leg for extended periods of time improved the sense of balance and, Geoffrey claimed, developed character.

  ‘To London,’ Geoffrey explained, ‘and thence, I believe, to Germany.’

  ‘Ahh,’ she said. ‘One of your mysterious disappearances for the Foreign Office?’

  ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘Perhaps even more mysterious than usual.’

  ‘Where in Germany?’

  ‘Further deponent sayeth naught,’ Geoffrey told her. ‘Deponent, in this case Sir George, merely sayeth, “You speak German, don’t you, old man?” When I replied in the affirmative, he sayeth further, “You were at Oxford with HRH, I believe?” It took me a second to realize he was speaking of the erstwhile Prince of Wales, whom we called, among other things, David. When I sorted it out, I admitted as much, and he sniffed and told me to pack for a brief trip back to Blighty. He said “Blighty”, by the way, not I.’

  ‘Why would he care that you went to Oxford with the Duke of Windsor?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Were you close?’

  ‘David and I? Fairly close, I suppose. Close enough to call him “David”, which was his cognomen of choice among his circle. Most of the other chaps called him “your royal highness”, or “Prince Edward”, or, er, well, never mind that.’ He reached over for the bell pull. Half a minute later Milton, the butler they had gleaned from the last Passport Control Officer, who had been suddenly called away, appeared in the door. ‘Martinis, I think, please, Milton,’ he said.

  ‘Um,’ Milton said, and retreated back into the pantry.

 
‘Did you like him?’ Patricia asked.

  ‘The Duke? I did. He was not very full of himself, for all that he was at the time Prince of Wales.’

  ‘Have you ever met his wife?’

  ‘The infamous Wallis? Not I.’

  ‘It is rather romantic, I think, giving up the throne and all.’

  ‘Yes, many see it that way, apparently. Although you know he never wanted to be king.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, rather. Had he his way he would have been the second son, or even the third.’

  ‘A reverse on Mr Kipling: The Man Who Would Not Be King.’

  ‘He is not temperamentally suited for it. The king is, in many ways, more confined than the worst of his subjects. Although he eats better.’

  ‘And dresses better.’

  ‘Yes, that.’

  ‘And is confined in much larger and more elaborate quarters.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘I grant you all the exceptions you can cite, and yet he is confined – in his choice of companions, in his travels, in his let us call it occupation, in his public utterances, in his avocations, particularly the illicit ones. You, for example, were you queen, would certainly have to give up your favorite, ah, hobby.’

  She thought that over for a minute. ‘I understand that Catherine the Great—’

  ‘Yes, she did, or so I’ve read. But she lived in a day before radio, or even newspapers, when the public had no access to court gossip. And yet the stories got out.’

  ‘Or we wouldn’t know them.’

  ‘Just so.’

  Milton stalked silently back into the room with a pitcher of martinis and two iced glasses, which he set carefully on the end table.

  ‘Thank you, Milton,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Is Garrett in his room?’

  ‘I believe so, milord.’

  ‘Would you ask him to come in here, please.’

  ‘Um,’ said Milton, as he retreated back through the pantry door.

  Geoffrey poured and distributed the beverage. They each contemplated their glass as they sipped. ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said after a minute, ‘I thought so.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It isn’t the alcohol that matters, it’s the ritual.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Patricia said, ‘it’s the alcohol.’

  Geoffrey stared into his glass for another minute, and then put it down. ‘I must pack,’ he said.

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s awkward,’ Patricia told him. ‘The party at the Italian Embassy is the Saturday after next, and I probably shouldn’t go without you. All that stuffy protocol stuff, you know. Like in the nursery rhyme, the husband takes the wife.’

  Geoffrey turned to stare thoughtfully at his lovely wife. ‘I am glad, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Really? What of?’

  ‘That I took you. That I married you.’

  ‘Well, I should think so. I’m the perfect – what is it? – beard. Who is going to believe that a man with as desirable a wife at home as you have is going to go chasing little boys?’

  ‘Little boys? Now really!’

  ‘You’re right. I apologize. You definitely prefer young men. I think that somewhere in your heart – or perhaps another part of your anatomy – you’ve never left Oxford.’

  ‘One never truly leaves Oxford,’ Geoffrey said. ‘One always carries pieces of it about with him, regardless of one’s, ah, proclivities.’

  ‘Well, you know,’ she said, ‘I’m ever so glad I took you. You have no idea how useful it is for a girl like me to have a jealous husband waiting at home.’

  ‘I do my best,’ he said. ‘I practice glowering at the men I suspect you of having been with.’ He took her hand. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘in my way, I really do love you.’

  ‘And I you,’ she replied. She rose and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  Geoffrey turned his gaze to the wall opposite. ‘You’re still determined to go ahead with your scheme?’

  ‘Indeed. Of course, why not?’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘A little flash, a bit of misdirection, and there you are. I used to do more daring things six days a week and lived to tell about it.’

  ‘As assistant to the Great Mavini? Not a reasonable comparison. This is actually physically dangerous, and besides, we have no idea whether it would turn out to be worthwhile.’

  ‘The only way to find that out, my love, is to do it,’ Patricia pointed out. ‘It’s not likely that the Italian Ambassador is going to post a notice, “The following most secret documents are in the safe in my study”, is it?’

  ‘Yes, but how likely is it that the Italian Ambassador will have any documents, most secret or otherwise, that would be worth the risk? Picture the headlines: “British Cultural Attaché Lord Geoffrey Saboy, Viscount McComb, Second Son of the Duke of Caneben, apprehended Rifling Safe of Italian Ambassador.” It won’t do, you know. They always pull out all one’s titles when one has done something reprehensible. The pater would have a fit, and my brother—’

  ‘I’ll do the rifling, my dear,’ she assured him.

  ‘That’s even worse, if that’s possible,’ Geoffrey pointed out. ‘“Wife of British Attaché”, et cetera. And how do you know that the safe is even in the study?’

  Patricia smiled sweetly up at her husband. ‘This is one of those things that you really don’t want to know.’

  Geoffrey turned to stare down at her, his eyes half closed. ‘I have found that it is precisely those things that one does not wish to know,’ he told her, ‘that one cannot do without knowing.’

  ‘I shall write that down,’ Patricia told him.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, there I was in the embassy with Marcello at one in the morning – he was on night duty – and we had retired to the ambassador’s study to engage in some, ah, healthy exercise …’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Geoffrey shifted his gaze from his wife to a painting across the room. It was of a waterfall. It had come with the house. He didn’t like it.

  Patricia smiled a wide and knowing smile. ‘I knew I shouldn’t put that image into your head, my dear. I do believe you’re jealous. You’d like to have him for yourself.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Geoffrey said firmly. ‘He is pretty, but he’s really not my type. But,’ he added sternly, ‘the image I have, the image I’d rather not have, is of you and Nero—’

  ‘Marcello,’ she interjected.

  ‘Yes. Him. Of you and him in flagranting your delictos when the ambassador walks in. It would ruin Marcello, and it would ruin us. He would be sent back to Rome in disgrace, with his wife – I believe he’s married?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patricia said.

  ‘With his wife weeping and wailing. And I’d be the cuckolded husband. I’d have to disown you and go about showing my shock and outrage. Go about back in London, incidentally, as I’d certainly be recalled.’

  ‘My,’ Patricia said, ‘you are fanciful. It’s that wee bit of adventure, you know, that adds spice to the event.’

  ‘You get the spice,’ Geoffrey told her, ‘all I’d get is the tummy ache.’

  Garrett came in through the hall door. ‘You wished to see me, my lord?’

  Ex-Sergeant Randolph Garrett, a tall, broad-shouldered, self-contained Irishman with a malicious sense of whimsy, had been in Geoffrey’s employ since shortly after the War. He occupied various positions in the Saboy household as the occasion demanded: valet, aide-de-camp, confidential agent, chauffeur, bodyguard. He was, as Patricia had put it to a friend, Geoffrey’s man of hench.

  ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘I’m going away for perhaps two weeks. London and thence, I believe, Germany.’

  ‘Am I to accompany you?’ Garrett asked.

  ‘Not this time,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘I need you to stay here and look after things while I’m gone. There are a few, ah, professio
nal matters that you’ll need to stay on top of, or, possibly sharply to one side of. And it might be that you may have to, quietly and discreetly, bail her ladyship out of jail.’

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Geoffrey said.

  Garrett bowed slightly and retreated back through the door.

  ‘Bail me out indeed!’ Patricia said, her voice rich with feigned indignation.

  ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t come to that already,’ Geoffrey told her. ‘What with your nocturnal trysts.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t get caught, did we? And if we had done, the ambassador would, in all probability, express his shock and outrage, and then hush the thing up. Perhaps see to it that I’m no longer invited to embassy functions. Perhaps, indeed, send Marcello home, which would not please him. But then,’ she added with a pixieish smile, ‘perhaps he would think it had been worth it.’

  ‘Then again,’ Geoffrey said thoughtfully, ‘the ambassador could have decided it was an attempt at espionage. Some sort of honey trap.’

  ‘No!’ Patricia said. ‘I would never think of trying to blackmail poor Marcello. Anything I get from our, ah, association will be by theft and subterfuge, fair and square.’

  ‘Very reassuring,’ Geoffrey told her. ‘Sex is your weapon of choice, but you never indulge in direct assault.’

  ‘I leave direct assault to Marcello,’ she said.

  Geoffrey sighed. ‘Well, you know what Kipling said.’

  ‘Something about being a man, my son?’

  ‘I was thinking of, “There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right!”’

  ‘Kipling?’

  ‘Even so.’

  She smiled. ‘Who would have guessed?’

  Geoffrey put his glass down and carefully folded himself into the straight-back chair opposite the couch. ‘You have a crooked tooth,’ he told her. ‘Funny, I never noticed it before. I think it’s a bicuspid. It’s right next to the pointy one on the left, which I think is a cuspid.’

  She got up and went over to the mirror on the wall next to the bedroom door. ‘Your left or mine?’ she asked. ‘Top or bottom?’