The German (23 page)

“They’re all queer like Lang,” Hugo said. “They prefer to fuck children, but they do it to prisoners, too. Take away their manhood so they won’t try to be heroes, because a real and true man would rather rot in a cell then have to admit having that happen to him.”

“Rather die,” Austin said.

“But you don’t have to worry about that,” Hugo quickly added. “I bet your daddy just got lost in some woods, separated from his squad. He’s probably killing a dozen Nazis an hour, working his way back to camp.”

“Sure,” I said, not convinced.

“That’s the way it is,” Hugo said. “I’m sure that’s right. Your daddy is fighting on God’s side, so you don’t have to worry about him.”

“It’s that German across the street you should be worried about,” Austin said, scratching behind his ear like a dog with fleas.

Hugo dropped his cigarette and ground it into the sidewalk and then immediately lit another. He looked up and down the street. A group of five Mexican women walked toward us, wearing loose dresses in vibrant shades of yellow, blue, and red, and he stepped back next to Ben. I did the same, waiting for the women to pass.

When they did, he said, “Austin’s right, you know. We can’t trust that horseshit sheriff to do what’s right. I guess we’ve already seen that.”

“Can’t say,” Hugo told me. “He’s a queer and a murderer. It’s man’s business and we can’t take any chances. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re a baby or anything like that, but you might get scared, lose your spine and go yellow.”

“I’m no coward,” I said.

“Not saying you are,” Hugo replied. “I’m just saying that we can’t take any chances. That Cowboy is tricky. He fooled Sheriff Rabbit easy enough, fooled everybody, so we have to step lightly.”

I protested and promised, but the older boy released only the tiniest bits of information, bread crumbs to follow into a forest. Whenever anyone approached we all fell silent, waiting for them to pass. Ben and Austin nodded and added their agreement to Hugo’s line of thinking, and the thing that most stuck with me was that these older boys were treating me like an equal, like a friend. They didn’t censor their language or talk down to me. Hugo even offered me a puff of his cigarette, which I took, choking terribly on the smoke as he patted my back and told me, “It happens to everyone the first time.”

They had included me in their conversation, and as it progressed, I realized with great pleasure that I was also being included in their plan.

Everything Hugo said made sense. His words illuminated the crimson gem of my anger, refracting and reflecting as it hit the facets of my rage, and the splinters of light it cast off crystallized, creating dangerous edges. They never revealed the details of their plan – what they intended to do to the German – but nonetheless I felt certain it would be the right thing, and by the time our conversation wound down I was entrenched in the darkness and Hugo held the only light, and I couldn’t have found my way out on my own if I’d wanted to.

“You just put all of this out of your head until tomorrow,” Hugo instructed. “We have plans of our own tonight, and you can’t get mixed up in it. If you see that German piece of shit, you act nice like everything is just peachy. Don’t let him know you’re on to him. Then tomorrow you come to my house after your Ma goes to the factory. You’ll receive your orders then.”

“We’re going to show that son of a bitch he can’t get away with his shit here,” Hugo said. “He’s got himself a real lesson to learn about that.”

I walked home, swollen with pride, knowing I would be helping to teach the German his lesson.

~ ~ ~

Bum waited on my porch. I walked down Dodd Street, still wrapped in a sense of purpose and maturity, and I even managed to smile. When I looked at the German’s house my smile did not falter; I wouldn’t let it. The honed edges of my anger shifted upon seeing the place, jabbing and cutting at my gut, but I wouldn’t show it on my face.

The German had fooled me. Tricked me. He’d pretended we were friends, even helped me once, but it was all a lie. He only wanted me to think I could trust him so that when he came to take me, to rape me and kill me, I wouldn’t struggle. He’d probably done the same thing to Harold and David and Little Lenny Elliot. He was tricky, just the way Hugo had said. Well, let him try to fool me again, I thought. Just let him try.

Bum greeted me with a solemn handshake, and looking at his round, boyish face, I again felt that he didn’t belong in my life anymore. We were friends but friends separated by a widening gap. He didn’t understand my tragedy, and nothing he could say would alleviate the pain or the anger.

We spent the evening mostly in my room, saying little. He tried to get me to talk, but my thoughts had drifted to the yellow house across the street, where my missing daddy and those dead boys and every other misery I’d ever encountered resided. He stayed over night, sleeping on my bedroom floor like a protective hound, but I couldn’t sleep. I went to the window a few times, but mostly stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what Hugo and Ben and Austin had planned for the German.

And the thought warmed me, bouncing off the ruby of hate behind my ribs, lighting it up and making it grow.

August 11, 1944 – Translated from the German

The chickens are dead.

Their necks are wrung and their white bodies lie in the dirt of the backyard. I should have heard this happening, but my sleep was deeper than it has been in ages, rustled only by pleasant dreams. The gate of the back fence stands open and someone has carved a swastika in the wood, and my birds are dead.

Who has done this thing?

Tom was at home having supper when the call from Big Lenny Elliot came through. His stomach couldn’t take any more of the greasy food at Bob’s Stop so he’d driven home, and had just sat down to a plate of grilled chicken and bell peppers Estella had prepared for him when the phone rang. His gut curdled at the sound, and he leaned back in the chair for a deep breath before standing and lifting the phone from the wall.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Sheriff,” Big Lenny’s drawling voice said. “But Little Lenny just walked through the door.”

“Excuse me?” Tom said.

“The damn fool ran off to enlist, the way everyone thought Harold Ashton did. Folks made such a fuss about how brave and noble Harold was, Little Lenny got in his head to follow through on what Harold, God rest his soul, couldn’t. He left a note but one of the young ’uns dragged it off the counter and painted over it with molasses, and neither Kathy nor I ever saw the damn thing. Then the damn fool tells the army he’s seventeen and they pack him on home. Didn’t even have enough sense to get his lie right.”

“He’s home?” Tom said, feeling tendrils of relief easing into his veins. This was about the only good news he’d had in weeks.

“Sorry we put you through the ringer on this one, Sheriff. I’ve a good mind to tan him from here ’til Tuesday, but I’m so damn happy to see him.”

Tom remained motionless against the wall as if pinned by a stone and not the slight body of a beautiful girl. Estella wrapped her arms around his waist and peered up at him with her soft, chocolate-colored eyes, a look she’d frequently offered before Tom had invited her across the threshold of his bedroom, but he felt no desire for Estella now. She appeared younger to him, perhaps too young, and he thought back on their nights of intimacy with more than a little shame, though he didn’t understand what element in their relationship had changed.

She’d come to his room two nights ago and he’d sent her away claiming exhaustion, which, while not strictly a lie – as he hadn’t enjoyed a full night’s sleep in weeks – was also not completely true. She was still beautiful, but Tom no longer drew desire from that beauty, and when he tried to pinpoint the moment his feelings about the girl had changed, he found himself at a loss.

Tom gently grasped Estella’s shoulders and pushed her away. The warm expression on her face changed to one of confusion and then embarrassment.

“I am sorry,” she muttered, lowering her head.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said still holding her shoulders. “You haven’t done anything to be sorry about. I just have to get to the station. These days even good news requires a lot of work.”

He smiled at the girl, but she continued looking at the floor. A needle of inexplicable guilt pierced his chest as he stepped away. At the door, holding his hat in his hands, he looked back at the girl in the kitchen, head down, arms crossed over her stomach looking so terribly unhappy and he tried to conjure a phrase that might make her feel better, but his tongue and his mind were dry.

Tom put on his hat and left the house. In the Packard he lit up a cigarette and smoked, trying to file and understand his maddening emotions, all the while telling himself he should return to the kitchen and Estella and try to explain what was in his head, except he didn’t know what was in his head. So he finished the smoke and drove away.

~ ~ ~

At the station he instructed Muriel to call Walter back from Dodd Street. The surveillance on Ernst Lang had produced nothing of value, and with Little Lenny Elliot safe at home, the reason for having the German watched had been eliminated. There were better uses for the manpower. Besides, Tom still had strong doubts about Lang as a suspect in the Cowboy murders, no matter what Burl Jones or Doc Randolph said. Then he told her to get on the phone with Marty over to the
Barnard Register
and let the reporter know, Little Lenny was safe and sound.

Back in his office, Tom tried reading. A pile of reports had grown from the top of his desk – mostly interviews his men had conducted with suspects – and he needed to make a dent in the stack before he called it a night.

His mind wasn’t on the work though. For the first time since Harold Ashton’s body had been found, the business of the Cowboy became a secondary consideration.

Estella was in his thoughts, and he found it impossible to reconcile his feelings for the girl, which more and more resembled shame. They’d shared a bed several times in the last seven months, and he’d never given it a second thought – outside of pleasant reminiscences when he was away from her. He had never once forced her either physically or by threat to be with him, and she had invariably been the one to initiate their lovemaking usually by waiting in the hall outside of his room, yet he still felt as if he’d taken advantage of the girl.

But why? he wondered. What had changed?

He still thought of Estella as a wonderful girl, more so now that she had picked up a bit of the language, and he enjoyed hearing her voice in the house, glad that she no longer remained a mute spirit, flitting through the rooms. It made no sense that he should find her age inappropriate now, yet he did.

The certainty that he had done something wrong gnawed at him, and he chewed back, grinding his thoughts to mush, hoping an answer would appear in the gruel. He eventually decided it had to be the business with the Cowboy. The crimes and his inability to protect those young boys must have been getting to him. He didn’t know how that might be, but it was an explanation he could accept even in its imprecision.

Anticipation built in me throughout the day. Bum left early so he could get home to his chores, and I promised to call him later, though I had no intention of doing so. When I said goodbye, it felt like a real goodbye – one that genuinely ended an association. The minutes dragged. I found myself in a constant state of motion, going to the living-room window to observe the German’s house; going to my room to pick up a comic book only to drop it after the first page failed to tame my wild thoughts; going to the kitchen and finding nothing appealed to my appetite; flipping through the radio dial, finding nothing important enough, funny enough, or exciting enough to keep my attention; and then back to the window to keep an eye on my neighbor, hoping with all my heart he stayed home so our operation wouldn’t be postponed. I didn’t know Hugo’s plan, and that made the waiting all the harder. Speculation created myriad possibilities, and my mind fired like a machine gun barrage. I pictured the filthy German sitting on his couch with his hands tied in his lap and a hangdog expression on his scarred face as we presented him with irrefutable evidence of his guilt; I saw the man sobbing and begging for understanding, trying to bribe us so we didn’t turn him in; I imagined the sheriff shaking my hand and congratulating me for my part in the deviant killer’s capture. Childish thoughts woven from a thousand threads of radio-drama plot, where the hero was never in any genuine danger and always saved the day.