“Why L.L.Bean?”
“Our acronym LLB stands for ‘Late Life Bragging.’ L.L.Bean naturally came to mind.”
“You move old men to secure housing so their secrets remain secret?”
“Old men and old women. It’s authorized by FISA on a case-by-case basis.”
“You think CCC men knew of things dangerous to national security?” asked Lazlo.
“My thinking is this,” said Jacobson. “CCC men in the Flaming Gorge region of Utah and Wyoming knew something extremely valuable, dangerous, or embarrassing to someone or some organization. Whatever they knew, and some theoretically still know, must be very important to this person or organization to have lasted all these years.”
After leaving the FBI office, Lazlo walked toward the lakefront. The breeze had diminished and the sun was warm. He sat on a bench at Buckingham Fountain near a plaque commemorating its dedication in 1927. Despite the spring chill, several children ran in and out of the spray laughing and screaming. Lazlo wondered if the fountain had always opened this early. When he saw a city worker come out of a brick pump house imbedded in the sidewalk and walk to a city pickup truck in the distance, he realized the worker might have turned on the pump this morning for its initial test run.
Lazlo tried to imagine what it was like here in the 1930s, especially 1939. Simply swap the modern pickup for a ‘30s truck, ignore traffic beyond the fountain, and re-outfit the people. Women and girls wear dresses. Boys wear slacks, shirts, and jackets. Men wear suits and hats. Everyone dressed like they might meet someone important. The texture, sounds, and lighting are like an Edward Hopper painting, just enough detail for the mood of 1939.
Lazlo took out his cell phone and called Janos. They spoke Hungarian.
“I hope it’s not too late.”
“Not at all,” said Janos. “We’re in computer land.”
“Besides the year mentioned, has an American landmark with the word Flaming in its title appeared?
“It’s where the grandfather served,” said Janos. “It bridges two western states.”
“We’re on the same track. Soon I might be able to meet an American woman who also searches. A question, Janos. The doctor’s grandfather was named Bela, correct?
“Yes, why?”
“Perhaps it’s simply the name, as in Bela Lugosi movies, but I feel a connection. Here I am in Chicago in 2011 and I keep thinking of the year 1939.”
After the call, Lazlo walked across Grant Park and went into the Art Institute. He asked about Edward Hopper’s paintings and was told the paintings were on tour. But the gift shop had a Hopper calendar, which he purchased.
On the bus heading north on Michigan Avenue and again on the Chicago Avenue bus heading west, Lazlo flipped through the calendar. Eventually, he stared at the painting Nighthawks, in which three people sit in a diner with a single man behind the counter. All three men wear hats. The man behind the counter, in his typical soda-fountain lab coat, wears one resembling a white Army garrison cap. The men in suits at the counter wear felt hats with brims. The woman, sitting with one of the men, wears a red dress, her red hair done up in late ‘30s, early 40s style. No one smiles. They are, like him, thinking serious thoughts.
The blurb at the back of the calendar said Hopper was spare and strong in his paintings. Hopper admired economy in writing. One of his favorite short stories was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers.”
Lazlo closed the calendar and stared straight ahead as the bus lumbered down Chicago Avenue. Heads bobbed, but the only hats were those worn by a group of boys, their baseball caps various sizes and turned at different angles.
Lazlo imagined it was 1939, the boys in the bus are men wearing hats. He gets off at a stop and walks into a diner. Everyone inside is serious. Two guys in hats tie up some guys and wait. The one they’re waiting to kill doesn’t show up. He’s in bed at a boarding house, having given up. He’s going to die, but doesn’t seem to give a damn. Even though he’s a young man, his circumstances have made him into an old man who doesn’t care if he lives or dies.
When the bus arrived at his stop in Ukrainian Village, Lazlo got off through the back door. He must have read “The Killers” by Hemingway long ago as part of an English class. As the bus powered away like a banshee screaming, Lazlo recalled having spoken to the son of the man who’d been run over by a bus on North Avenue. The son was older than Lazlo and the father beneath the bus was 90. Too old for a drunk. What was the man’s name? What had been the results on the toxicology report? Certainly there must have been a toxicology report.
George Minkus, torso pancaked on the morgue examining table, dead at 90 with a locket of red hair in his wallet. According to Janos, Doctor Marta’s grandfather saved hair. Bela Adamovych Voronko, born in Ukraine. The boy Lazlo shot near the Hungarian and Romanian borders had red hair, the mother saying her son’s red hair was inherited from a grandfather who ran away to America. Again, the word from Hungarian folk tales came to mind. Telepátia.
Chapter 13
Cold March morning, 1939. Columbus-bound bus outside a Youngstown, Ohio, recruiting office, destination Fort Hayes, being used as a Civilian Conservation Corps induction center for men between 18 and 25. “Jeepers Creepers” on a radio as they file out to the bus. A woman volunteer wonders aloud if “Jeepers Creepers” was played at an FDR party. Cheeky city boys sneer at her comment. The volunteer says, “The three Cs will take the starch out of’em.”
Several wore suits and ties beneath overcoats; some wore wool sweaters, no overcoats. A few well-dressed family members, gathered to see their boys off, were aware of worn and tattered fabric. All the young men except one were skinny. A few had sunken eyes, shirts bunched up at their waists, belts too long. One had used a rope to hold up his trousers.
The CCCs did conservation work, giving unemployed young men something to do. If accepted, they enrolled for a six-month renewable period and received 30 dollars a month, 25 of which was sent back to families. Although the Great Depression was supposedly winding down, obviously several getting on the bus hadn’t had a decent meal in a while. By the looks of relatives seeing them off, neither had they.
With his parents in disputed western Carpathia, Bela Adamovych Voronko designated Uncle Stephan and Aunt Helen as family. Their name was Voronko; no questions raised when he presented his application. European war rumors heightened the mood of volunteerism; CCC enrollees figured they’d eventually join the armed services. Some FDR critics claimed the CCC was one of many stepping-stones toward war.
FDR critics aside, the CCC was considered one of FDR’s most successful programs, especially because of the resuscitation of land ravaged by slash and burn farming, negligent mining, and forest fires. CCC projects included erosion control, building fire roads through national parks, and erecting park buildings. Most importantly, they planted millions of trees, thus giving them the name “FDR’s Tree Army.”
Morning sun warmed the bus and windows began steaming up. Eventually a recruit opened a window. Others in window seats, including Bela, immediately stood and struggled with their windows. Several were jammed, the driver up front yelling back, “It’s an old crate! You’re lucky you got those open!”
“How long we gonna sit here?”
“Keep your shirt on. You mugs think I like sitting here? One time in hot weather waiting for the go-ahead we made it a meat wagon and I drove to the morgue.”
Bela could see the driver grinning in his rearview mirror.
“I bet they were niggers,” mumbled a fat boy up front.
The driver’s grin disappeared, he turned, stared at the fat boy. “Don’t start out a bad egg in the Cs. They got special camps for Negroes. They work hard as anybody. Talk like that, maybe they’ll send you to a Fatty Arbuckle camp. You’re not boys, and you’re sure not men.” He raised his voice. “From now on consider yourselves enrollees!”
Bela’s window seat was o
n the right where the crowd had gathered to see them off. The enrollee beside him leaned forward to peer out the window. Bela leaned back.
“Thanks. Mom came but Pop’s got a job in Chicago. Mom and I are living with my aunt and uncle. My uncle’s here to make sure I don’t make tracks. I hear they give you steak, mashed potatoes, and ice cream every night.” He had sand-colored hair sticking out from beneath his cap. The cap was plaid with earflaps tucked inside. Bela decided to practice the English he’d been working on since his arrival in January.
“Do you think it’s cold where they’re sending us?”
“I’m used to cold. Like I said, I’m from Chicago, but we had to come live with my aunt and uncle.”
“For English lessons we read a short story from Chicago. Is it true there are criminals with guns in overcoat pockets?”
“Yeah, during prohibition. But that ended when I was a kid. What story did you read?”
“Something about murders by America’s famous Hemingway.”
“Probably ‘The Killers.’ I read it for school. Teacher said it was literature, something people will be reading years from now.”
Bela wondered what the world would be like years from now when someone else read “The Killers.” Perhaps, like the character in the story, everyone would have a different opinion of death; perhaps they’d view death as a gift. Thinking of death and his family and Nina Zolotarev trapped in his abandoned homeland saddened Bela. He held out his hand. “My name is Bela Voronko.”
“Mine’s George Minkus.”
After they shook, Bela said, “I’m glad to meet you, George.”
“Yeah,” said George, looking out the window.
Bela smiled toward Uncle Stephan and Aunt Helen, wondering how long they’d stand there. Aunt Helen was chilled, moving her feet up and down. Finally, a man came to the bus, spoke to the driver, the bus started up, the driver ground the transmission into gear, and the people outside stepped back. As the bus roared, Bela smelled exhaust coming out a pipe below his window. Exhaust flattened the paper flower in Aunt Helen’s hat as she and Uncle Stephan waved. The driver gunned the engine and finally got the bus moving with a lurch. Bela waved out the window, then leaned back so George could do the same.
The bus hit a bump, lifting everyone from their seats like a dance jump. The driver shouted, “Hope that wasn’t a hobo! I ran over one once taking a nap! Something I’ll never forget!”
After the driver shifted into second gear he yelled for them to close the windows. When an enrollee with a high-pitched voice at the back shouted, “Hey, there’s Myrna Loy and some Hollywood stars come to see us off!” several heads turned and a few on the left jumped up in the aisle to get a look.
“Those ain’t Hollywood stars,” said another enrollee. “The one looks like Shirley Temple’s my sister.”
“She sure don’t look like you,” said the high-pitched voice.
“Don’t get wise or I’ll—”
“Sit down!” shouted the driver. “I don’t need no Mickey Rooney or Clark Gable enrollees! And shut them windows!”
On the highway the smell of exhaust cleared, a fresh breeze coming in a window left open a crack. Houses and buildings spread thin and soon there were farms with fields being plowed for spring. A tractor in one field was red and shiny. When the farmer turned to inspect his plow he sat taller as if to show his pride. Perhaps, after years of depression and the dust bowl, any farmer with a new tractor would be proud. Farther down the highway more fields were being plowed. What fascinated Bela were the perfectly straight rows, like rulers had been used on the black Ohio dirt. Back home, only farmers with the best horses would have straight rows. On the Uzhgorod to Prague train he’d seen dead horses carved up at the side of the tracks. Soldiers had to eat, but without horses to plow fields…
Bela turned to George. “The office woman said we would go out west after Fort Hayes. I wonder if there are horses.”
“We’ll probably end up in the desert,” said George.
Bela looked at George’s thick plaid cap. “Your cap will be hot.”
“They’ll give us hats,” said George. “We’ll get outfits for all kinds of weather. Maybe we’ll be in the mountains. I heard they got lots of work in the mountains.”
“I was a boy near the Carpathian Mountains.”
“You’ll be right at home. That’s snazzy.”
“Snazzy?”
“Yeah. I mean, that’s good.”
“Okay,” said Bela. “Snazzy.”
George stared past Bela out the window with a heartsick look. “Well, Bela, I guess now that we’ve said so long, we’re really in for it.”
“Why do you say so long? You can leave in six months if you don’t like the CCCs.”
“So long means goodbye. What’s your accent? What country you from?”
“Accent is a mix of Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Slovakian. As far as country goes, it’s a long story.”
During the rest of the journey George told stories of being a kid in Chicago—baseball during the day, hide-and-seek at night, and kids he missed after they lost their apartment and had to move to Ohio. Bela told of his girlfriend Nina Zolotarev back home, the China Clipper flying boat photograph hung from a nail in the barn, his aunt’s hair found in the pocket of the suit they’d switched before putting his uncle in the grave, and learning how to cut hair from his uncle in Budapest. Judging by somber looks on the brash city boys, most conversations had become melancholy. One young man across the aisle announced that his fortuneteller aunt reminded him 13 plus 13 plus 13 equaled 39 and therefore 1939 was an unlucky year. Whereas someone would normally make a smart-ass remark, no one commented. The driver glanced into his rearview mirror, nodded, and smiled knowingly.
The Packard was tall enough for hats and big enough so four men had plenty of room. Salvatore Cavallo Junior, no longer called Little Sal, sat in front with driver Lonzo. Salvatore Cavallo Senior sat in back with Uncle Rosario, who’d decided to come despite chest pains, insisting mountain air, as they drove through the Appalachians, would do him good.
They drove southwest out of New York, dropping down north of Philly to Route 30. Sal Junior wanted to drive, but Uncle Rosario said it was better Lonzo drive.
“I thought we’d be taking Route 6 west,” said Uncle Rosario.
Cavallo, sitting next to his uncle, waited a moment to see if Lonzo would answer, then said, “Recruitment’s at Fort Hayes outside Columbus. Route 6 goes too far north.”
“So, you up there,” said Uncle Rosario. “How does it feel going into the CCCs?”
Silence. Lonzo glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowed. Outside, trees along the highway were bare skeletons. Silence grew into tension Cavallo felt in his gut. He wished Uncle Rosario wasn’t along so he could straighten Little Sal out. Maybe mention Little Sal taking along the stiletto from Grandfather’s trunk stored in the attic. Finally, Cavallo broke the silence.
“Your great uncle asked a question. You so swell-headed you can’t answer?”
“Just thinking.”
Uncle Rosario broke in, his voice strong. “While you are thinking—turn and look at me when I speak!”
Sal Junior turned and smiled.
“This is no ordinary drive. We’re heading in a new direction. You’ll have time to be headstrong, Salvatore. But now I must say some things. Are you listening closely? If not, there are others who will rise to the top. Would it not be better that you rise to the top?”
Salvatore stared at his great uncle in the back seat, saw the seriousness in his wrinkled face. “Yes, Great Uncle.”
“Wipe the smile! Men in power do not trust snitch smile!”
“That’s better,” said Uncle Rosario when Salvatore looked serious. “Life is a ladder. If you don’t climb, others in the family will grab your ankles and pull you down. When I say there are others,
I’m serious.” Uncle Rosario sat forward and raised his voice. “A bullet through my great nephew’s head is not how your journey should end! Do I make myself clear?”
Cavallo turned and looked at Uncle Rosario with surprise. Lonzo stared into the rearview mirror. Salvatore began to look back to the front out the windshield, but turned and stared back at his great uncle.
Uncle Rosario continued, a vocal strength from long ago. “I do not make decisions lightly. Cavallo family members, living and dead, support this effort. Take me seriously, Salvatore, or family from old country will come for you. Even though your father sits beside me, I can say it. If you do not make the effort, expect to be taken for a different ride.” Uncle Rosario’s voice grew louder. “At the end of the ride someone will piss on your grave! The family name is all-important! It’s our legacy!”
Uncle Rosario coughed and took a deep breath. “You will succeed in the CCCs. Next will be the US Army. You’ll do what you are told. Eventually, you’ll realize your potential, go to university, and seek a government career. Your path is like this road, Salvatore. If you veer to the side, you’ll die!”
Salvatore, Lonzo, and Cavallo all stared wide-eyed at Uncle Rosario. Lonzo was the first to look away; there was a slow-moving truck he needed to pass.
Uncle Rosario continued. “The future is built on political power. Without power and the establishment of the Cavallo name in Washington, our name will be buried. Your father and I have chosen you, Salvatore, because you are the most intelligent and resourceful of the young men in the family. If you don’t wish to follow the path paved for you, tell us now and we’ll turn back to New York. If we turn back you’ll become another of the boys who stand around waiting for something to start. If you want to be another of the boys, say it now!”
Salvatore stared at Uncle Rosario. His father next to Uncle Rosario had sunken into the shadows. Uncle Rosario moved forward in the huge car, lowering the jump seat behind Salvatore, their faces inches apart. A horn blared and the Packard swerved, but neither the young man nor the old man flinched. From the far corner of the back seat, Cavallo watched as his son placed his hands on both sides of Uncle Rosario’s face and kissed him on the mouth. Uncle Rosario smiled, Cavallo in the back seat smiled, Lonzo smiled, and finally Salvatore smiled.
The Girl With 39 Graves Page 9