by Jack Martin
Both men were silent for nearly a minute, then Bierce said, “That is why I want your word of honor as a gentleman that you and your people never breathe a word about this attempt, or about my involvement in taking down Dillinger.”
Purvis carefully leaned the rifle against the wall. He then looked at Bierce, silently bothered by the phrase “word of honor as a gentlemen.” Who used such language these days. Bierce was an anachronism, yet Purvis could tell the man was absolutely sincere.
“Harry, you have my word, but only on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“That I privately tell that bastard Hoover that this was your show. I won’t take credit for this, at least with those who matter. Let the blessed public think what they will.”
Bierce thought for a moment, nodded, then turned his gaze out the window again. Purvis joined him, and without looking at Bierce, said, “Dillinger had no politics. Someone paid him to do this. You going after that bastard?”
Bierce continued to stare out the window, saying nothing.
“Just want you to know you can call on me. Anytime. Anyplace.” Purvis turned toward Bierce and stuck out his hand. Finally, Bierce looked at him, and after a moment shook Purvis’s hand in return.
Thereafter, Bierce made his own request. “You know the Immigration people have seized Mrs. Cumpanas. I promised her that I would not let her be deported to the hellish hole that is Roumania.”
Bierce dug into the side pocket of his coat jacket and removed a large amount of cash, neatly secured with a rubber band. He handed it to Purvis. “I do not have time to address the wrong due her immediately. Please, use this money to hire a good lawyer to delay deportation as long as possible. Now, good day.” Again, he shook Purvis’s hand briskly, and left the astonished agent holding six months’ worth of salary.
“God damn you to hell, Earl,” roared Senator Huey Long, in a voice that sent his two henchmen easing themselves out of the luxury hotel suite, leaving Huey alone with his red-faced brother. “You drooling retard! I give you a simple assignment and you screw it up. You couldn’t pour piss out of a shoe with instructions written on the heel!”
“That ain’t fair and you know it,” replied Earl Long in a terrified, whiny voice. “You told me to get hold of Dillinger, and I did. Ain’t my fault the Feds shot him outside a movie house before he could do the job.”
Huey paused and did his best to bring his titanic temper under control. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He knew Earl was right, that his brother had done what had been asked. Still, he had needed to take out his anger on someone, and his dimwitted brother was the only one on hand.
“All right, Earl, I know it’s not your fault. It’s just that the damn man in the White House seems to have the devil’s own luck. I know you do your best for me. Always have, always will. Don’t take what I say serious, brother. It’s the rest of the family who treats you like shit, not me. I’m going places, and you’re going with me. All the way to the top.”
Huey remembered seeing his folks and his siblings treat little Earl like the village idiot, causing the child to cry himself to sleep night after night. He remembered how he stood up for his little brother at the cost of an occasional beating, and had been rewarded by the unreserved adoration of Earl. Huey swore to himself that someday he would have people kissing Earl’s ass. His mind snapped back to the issue at hand. “We can’t try the direct route again. We’ve missed twice now. Too much chance it could be traced back to me if we miss a third time.”
“Huey, maybe we should give up trying to take the easy way. Maybe we should work to take the nomination away from him, in two years’ time.”
“Do you have any idea how much money that would take? The entire deduct box would be a drop in the bucket!”
“Come on, big brother. The deduct box gives us absolute control of Louisiana, with cash to spare.”
“Open your eyes! This here is about the poorest state in the Union. We can control it for pocket change. To take the nomination away from FDR, we need to get the support of states like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio. We just don’t have the cash for that.” Huey Long rubbed his eyes, then continued. “Well, I have been working on a back-up plan, little brother o’ mine. We can squeeze our out-of-state friends for more—much, much more.”
“I tell you, they have no more to give,” Earl replied “They will if we point out what another six years of Roosevelt’s rule would mean to their interests. And who’s to say FDR would stop with two terms. How about three? Four? Besides, I think it’s time we try to see what we can get from some friends across the ocean.”
“Across the ocean? Goddammit Huey, you’ve gone plumb loco. Why would some foreigners give a crap about who runs the U S of A?”
“They care, never you mind why. A little bird told me they’re going to send a representative to talk turkey. You and me are the only people who know that, at least at this end. I want you to meet this representative and sound him out before bringing him to me, quiet like. Find out how much money he can get us. If it’s enough to take on FDR in two years, we’re back in business.”
“Now, just who is this representative you want me to meet?”
Huey Long told Earl, who responded with an uncharacteristic obscenity.
It was an unusually clear morning in New York harbor. On the deck of the ocean liner Bremen, the passenger in the dark, conservative suit stared moodily down at the dock where final preparations were being made before the passengers could disembark. His concentration, however, was not on the bustling workers, but on his mission, his family, and what he must do to keep them alive.
His papers identified him as Albert Schmidt, a representative of a large German winery seeking to establish new markets for the fine red wines of the Rhineland. They gave not the slightest hint that he was in fact Franz von Papen, and until the last month, the Vice-Chancellor of Germany. He had doubted that his disguise would pass muster, as his face was well known to the political world. However, Heydrich’s experts had been correct—shaving his moustache, dying his iron-grey hair black, and parting his hair in the middle rather than severely combing it toward the back of his head seemed to make him unrecognizable to the Americans.
Although the summer morning was warm, von Papen shivered. Not from cold, but from fear. He had once thought himself a brave man, believed that his service as an advisor to the Turkish forces during the Great War had proven that. He now realized he was a small man, a weak man whose arrogance and miscalculation had placed his beloved wife and five children in mortal danger. He closed his eyes and reviewed the events that had brought him to New York under a false name, doing the work of a common spy.
The worst mistake of his life was to have ever entered the chaotic, political arena of the Weimar Republic. By birth and nature an aristocratic Prussian conservative, he had wended his way through the ever-shifting alliances and hatreds of Weimar, with each shift of the wind getting ever closer to the Chancellorship. He carefully cultivated the aging, increasingly senile President von Hindenburg, encouraging him to bypass parliament, and govern by Presidential decree, as was permitted by the Weimar Constitution. Then, in 1932, von Papen received his reward. Parliament was hopelessly splintered, no one party having a majority. Normally, the largest party would have headed a coalition government with smaller parties. Yet, the two parties with the most members were the Communists, who von Hindenburg hated with every particle of his conservative Prussian soul, and the Nazis, who he, too, despised for their unseemly anti-Semitism, and especially for the low social origins of their leader. Whispering into the aging war hero’s ear, von Papen persuaded him to appoint him Chancellor, despite the fact that von Papen was universally disliked and distrusted in Parliament as a scheming opportunist. Impertinently, von Papen felt he did not need to consider Parliament, as von Hindenburg had promised to implement the Chancellor’s laws by Presidential decree. Von Papen had made it to the top.
His victory lasted onl
y six months. During his reign, Parliament grew more agitated by his dictatorial role, and Nazi and Communist thugs ruled the streets of the major cities. Even the army had come to despise him, and refused to help restore order unless he was replaced as Chancellor by an army general. With great reluctance, von Hindenburg gave in and relieved von Papen of his duties, but the public disorder only got worse.
Finally, the leaders of the centrist and conservative parties decided that they would have to choose between the Nazis and the Communists. Given the Communists’ great allegiance to Stalinist Russia, most felt they had no choice but to turn to the Nazis, whose brown-shirted Sturmabteilung thugs could at least clear the streets. Surprisingly, they neither liked, nor trusted Hitler and his followers. So, when they offered him the Chancellorship, the only other Nazi allowed in the cabinet was the superficially charming Hermann Goering, a highly decorated war hero barely acceptable to respectable society. All other cabinet members were non-Nazis, who were acceptable to the army. President von Hindeburg did, however, give von Papen the position of Vice-Chancellor. In order to keep an eye on the “Austrian corporal,” as the dying von Hindenburg sneeringly called Hitler.
And then a dimwitted Dutch Communist burned down the Parliament building. The terrified legislature voted an “Enabling Act” that allowed the Chancellor to issue laws for the protection of Germany without consulting Parliament or the cabinet. Von Papen abruptly found himself living in a dictatorship run by a racist clearly intending to plunge Europe into another war. Von Papen had seen the previous war and did not want to see another. And although somewhat anti-Semitic, he was genuinely shocked by the blatant hostility, brutality, and discrimination that was being visited on what he considered “good Jews,” and which was getting worse by the month.
Much against his will, he slowly recognized that he had played a major role in handing the German state over to a thuggish monster. It hurt his monumental pride, but he could no longer conceal from himself the knowledge that his own lust for power and aristocratic disdain for the lumpish gangsters who ran the Nazi party, had blinded him to the threat they posed to his beloved Germany. Although it cost him weeks of agonized uncertainty, he finally decided it was his duty to clean up the mess he himself had helped create.
Only the army could now remove Hitler and his crew, but they would not move without the word of President von Hindenburg, who still retained the power to dismiss the Chancellor. With von Hindenburg senile and dying, his crippled brain often confusing Hitler with the Emperor Wilhelm, von Papen decided that harsh action must be taken to warn the people against the Nazis, something so dramatic that it would compel von Hindenburg to order the army to eject Hitler from the Chancery, and to sweep the ruffians from the streets. And of course, von Papen thought wryly, there would have to be a new, non-Nazi Chancellor. And who better than Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen?
So, with the help of his able secretary, Herbert von Bose, he drafted a stem-winding speech, one denouncing—in no uncertain terms—the lawlessness of the Nazi regime, calling for the end of Hitler’s rule by decree and restoring legislative power to the Parliament. He chose to deliver this speech at the University of Marburg, where the students and professors would guarantee him an enthusiastic audience. And they were enthusiastic. They cheered him for a quarter hour after his savoir faire.
But, nothing more happened. Minister of Propaganda Goebbels forbade any mention of the speech on the radio, or in the newspapers. Except to the relatively few who had actually been there, it was as if von Papen’s speech had never happened. So, the public concentrated on other things. There were rumors that the head of the Brownshirts, Ernst Rohm, was planning a coup, whereby he would replace the army with the SA oppressors. There were rumors, also, that Hitler was talking to army leaders, promising to curb the SA, if the army would support him. There were no rumors, however, about any speech at the University of Marburg. Then late one night it happened.
Vice-Chancellor von Papen sat in his office, discussing with the loyal von Bose a plan to contact the leaders of the army directly. It being a hot summer’s night, the French doors leading into the garden were open. When he heard a faint, but distinctive sound of a pistol shot, followed by the stutter of submachine guns, Von Papen’s head jerked up. Prompted by a scream cut short by another burst of fire, both men rose from their chairs and hurried to the window. At first in the distance, the gunfire burst sporadically, then closing in, the men turned to each other, fear overtaking them. No sooner had the men turned away from the window, that through the closed inner-office door, they heard a commotion, shouting, and then von Papen’s wife scream, “Franz, help!” This, followed by the sound of a muffled blow.
“Martha!” he screamed, running full tilt towards the door, skidding to a halt as it was thrown open. Two soldiers, dressed in the black uniforms of the SS, towered in the doorway. Both were carrying Mauser pistols. With more courage than he had ever thought he had, von Papen ran at them, shouting, “Martha, I’m coming!” only to have the soldier on the right bring his gun down on the Vice-Chancellor’s head with stunning force. He staggered backward into von Bose’s arms, his loyal subordinate keeping him from the indignity of falling to the floor.
“Let us have no more of that, Mr. Vice-Chancellor,” said a soft, rather high voice from behind them. Von Papen shook himself free of his secretary, and turned toward the open French doors. Two men more men entered, the sight of whom turned his blood to ice. Both were jackbooted; both wore the SS black. One, a short, rather plump man with thick spectacles and the face of a bemused rabbit: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Hitler’s SS bodyguard, rumored to soon become chief policeman of Germany. The other, a tall, fit man, blond and blue eyed, the very image of the perfect Aryan: Reinhardt Heydrich, Himmler’s chief henchman, already spoken of in whispers as “The Hangman.”
Choking back his terror, von Papen spoke in a harsh voice, “Himmler, what does this mean? What have you done with my wife and children?”
“They are all right—for the time being,” replied Himmler in a friendly voice. “I take it that your companion is von Bose, am I not correct? The very man who so willingly drafted your Marburg speech.”
“Yes, he is,” von Papen defended, “but the speech was mine entirely, he only transcribed what I dictated.”
Himmler smiled, and gestured to Heydrich. The blond giant drew a Mauser broom handle pistol and shot von Bose in the head. The man fell, but Heydrich kept shooting until his ten-round magazine was empty. At the sight of his friend destroyed, his head literally obliterated, and the acrid odor of cordite filling the air, von Papen puked his guts out all over his prized carpets. When he finished being sick, the devoted Catholic von Papen stepped over to von Bose’s remains and made the sign of the cross over them. He then turned to face his own death, putting on a brave face, as a Prussian officer should.
Unexpectedly, Heydrich finished reloading his gun and holstered it. Himmler walked over and perched himself on the edge of von Papen’s desk. “The Leader apologizes that he could not be here in person, but he has commitments in Bavaria. He is directing the arrest of Rohm and his catamites on charges of treason.” Himmler rearranged the files on von Papen’s desk as he spoke. “They will be dead by sunrise.” The SS leader folded his hands across his propped-up knee and fixed his gaze upon von Papen. “So will a number of others—the Brownshirts, the army, even those in the Party itself—those who were attempting to overthrow National Socialism.”
In a seething whisper, von Papen replied, “When President von Hindenburg hears of what is happening, he will dismiss Hitler from the Chancellorship, and order the army to clear all you Nazis out of office.”
After a short laugh, Heydrich’s demeanor changed. “The President is in a coma, and all the doctors agree he will never come out of it. When he dies, he will be given a spectacular funeral, as befits a hero of the Fatherland. And after a decent interval, the Leader will combine the powers of the Chancellor and the President. He has also made a
deal with the army’s leadership. In return for reducing the Brownshirts to an impotent remnant, he will have the army’s total support. Of course, over time our SS will undertake the tasks the Brownshirts previously performed, but the Leader saw no need to raise that issue with the generals.”
“And now we come to you,” said Himmler as he stood and pointed his finger at von Papen as if he were a child. “You have been a very bad fellow. The Leader is very, very disappointed in you. He was inclined to throw you into the cells with Rohm and his fairy friends and have you shot tomorrow morning, but,” Himmler bowed slightly, “Goering and I persuaded him that could be unwise. The generals don’t care how many SA thugs the Leader has shot, but they would not accept your death. They dislike and distrust you, but you are, after all, a former Chancellor and a Prussian officer.” Himmler waved his hands before gathering them behind his back, standing even more rigid, as if he were about to undergo inspection by a superior officer. “That means a lot to those stiff-necked militarists, perhaps the latter, more than the former. So, we persuaded the Leader to accept your resignation as Vice-Chancellor, and promised him that you would use your remaining prestige to perform an important service for the Reich.”