Twisting Topeka (23 page)

“
I can’t believe it,”
Vivian murmured. And Beverly was right there, so she must be in on
it. Sure enough, Paul turned back to Beverly and stepped close.
Beverly opened her clutch and Paul tucked the parcel into it before
he drew her back onto the dance floor.
I’m
going to have to rat out my best friend--as a spy.
She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid she might
start bawling.

“
I’m sorry, Vivian. You
know I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Do you have a headache? I
have some of Daddy’s special medicine.”

Vivian looked at Julia’s open palm.
She held out a small pink tin labeled ‘Pyramidon’ in darker pink
script. “I never heard of it. Is it aspirin?”

“
No, it’s better. Daddy
orders it special from Europe. This one is for Sgt. Dawson, but he
said to hold onto it for now. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you had
one. He gets headaches, too. He says nothing works as good as this
does, but they don’t have it at the base.”

“
Why doesn’t Pau—Sgt.
Dawson come get this from your dad at his office?”

“
He does, silly. That’s how
I met him, and then he started talking to us at the Early Bird. But
he can’t leave the base whenever he wants to. So when he needs more
after office hours, Daddy has me bring it to him. Like tonight.”
Julia wrinkled her nose. “Are you all right, Vivian? Because you
look awfully pale. Here, do take one.” She finished in a whisper,
“It’s good for the cramps, too.”

“
How does your dad get this
from Europe, with the war on?” Vivian picked up the slender
tin.

“
Uncle Joseph still lives
in Switzerland. He sends it.”

“
Well, thanks. I’ll take
one and give the rest to the sergeant next time we dance.”
After I check it for some kind of coded message,
that is.
Could Dr. Detrick be a Fifth
Columnist? A sleeper agent for Abwehr, like the OSS men had told
her about?

Julia accepted an invitation to dance
from a dark-eyed soldier with a southern accent. She offered her
soda to Vivian, who took it on the pretense of needing something to
wash down the tablet of Pyramidon she had said she would take. A
few steps brought her to the deck of the pavilion, overlooking the
moonlit lake. She set the tumbler of soda on the stone railing, and
pried open the tin.

By the light of the full
moon, she lifted the creamy paper folded over the contents, and
counted twenty small round discs.
They
look just like aspirin tablets. The tin even has a Bayer company
logo.
She tipped the tablets out into her
hand, and examined the paper and the inside surfaces of the tin. No
messages. She still felt the tin of pills had to be related to the
spy ring somehow. Carefully, she replaced the tablets and paper as
she had found them, and tucked the tin in her purse.

She picked up the soda and made her
way back inside. Paul and Beverly met her as soon as she cleared
the doorway.

He grinned wide. “Where’d you get off
to? I’ve got something for you.” He dropped Beverly’s hand and
said, “Show her.”

Beverly did not appear as pleased to
see her as Paul had been. “Scoot over to the corner. I don’t want
to get caught.”

This is a nightmare. What
am I supposed to do?
Vivian allowed
herself to be danced over to a corner with a tall potted fern. They
huddled behind it and Beverly opened her clutch.

“
Hold out your drink,” Paul
instructed. He pulled the brown paper bag out, and twisted the top
off a half-pint of amber liquid.

“
It’s booze!” Vivian cried
in relief. Paul and Beverly shushed her.

“
It’s bourbon. Not rotgut
either.” Paul tipped a generous slosh into her
Coca-cola.

“
But there’s scads of
beer—” Vivian said.

“
Kraut stuff.” He took a
quick pull before he capped the bottle and tucked it in Beverly’s
purse again.

“
Where’d you get it?”
Vivian stalled. Beverly gave her a sidelong look.

“
Doll, musicians always
have some liquor on the bandstand. Helps lubricate them to play the
tunes and supplements their income. I was a horn player before the
army. Drink up and let’s dance.”

Vivian only choked a little after she
swallowed a mouthful. Paul took the cup from her, and held it to
her lips until she took another swig that made her eyes water. He
handed the spiked cola to Beverly. As Paul led Vivian onto the
dance floor she looked back to see a sullen Beverly grimace at the
tumbler and set it on the refreshment table.

They swung along to
Jeepers Creepers
. Vivian
grew dizzy and sick to her stomach. She hardly ever drank hard
liquor. Unless this was something worse? Drugged, maybe? The paper
seal had already been broken on the bottle.

She lost track of where they were
among the dancing couples, and squinted, puzzled, when Paul paused
behind the bandleader and said something Vivian couldn’t
hear.

Moments later, the band
struck up
Intermezzo
, and Paul drew her tight against him.
What a smooth operator, I’ll bet he was asking for slow
dances.

Vision blurring, she let
her head drop onto his shoulder. Nice, broad shoulder, strong arms
but tender somehow. She drifted along to the next song,
I Only Have Eyes For You
.

“
That’s it, sweetheart,”
she barely heard him murmur.

The next thing she knew, she was
outside the pavilion gates. She clung to a pillar while Beverly
argued with Paul about—what? She tried to follow the
words.

“
I’ll see to it she gets
home okay,” Paul said. “I guess she can’t hold her liquor, that’s
all. She’ll be all right.”

“
You have to get back to
the base, don’t you? I’ll get a cab. You’ve done enough as far
as--”

Julia interrupted from somewhere
nearby. “Daddy will be here any minute.”

Paul spoke again, sounding irritated.
“Now, Beverly honey, don’t be that way. Jealousy is
unbecoming.”

“
Don’t flatter yourself. Go
away and let me take care of my friend.”

Atta girl, Beverly. I knew
you couldn’t be in cahoots with spies. Well, I hoped you
weren’t
. Vivian smiled muzzily at her
friend.

“
No skin off my nose. It’s
what I get for trying to show local rubes a good time. Give me the
tin, Julia.”

“
Vivian has it,” Julia
said. “I gave her one of the tablets, I hope that’s all
right.”

“
Vivian has it where?” Paul
growled. He made a grab for her purse, and somewhere in her foggy
brain, instinct sparked. She gripped the pillar and smacked her
knee into his crotch with a satisfying
thwock
. He folded in front of her,
bleating a curse.

Vivian closed her eyes and slid down
the pillar, out cold.

*****

When she woke, she found herself
tucked into bed in a blindingly bright room. Her mouth tasted vile.
A nurse in starched whites hung a clipboard on the end of the bed.
It sounded as loud as if she had hit the metal bed frame with a
sledge hammer.

“
Where am I?” Vivian
rasped.

“
Menninger Hospital, hon.
How do you feel?”

“
Like I’ve been turned
inside out. What happened?”

“
You had your stomach
pumped. You’ll feel better in a while.”

The nurse opened the door to leave. As
she exited, Mr. Humphrey and Beverly walked in.

Mr. Humphrey’s face came close to
cracking into a smile. “Miss Andrews, back among the conscious. If
you’ve had time to worry, we have told your employer and family
that you are on your way to visit your beau, newly reassigned to a
base in Virginia. Accompanied by your friend Beverly Ryan, as
chaperone. Which will be the case in a few days.”

“
You’re bringing Jack
stateside? Wonderful! And you got Sgt. Dawson? Did you catch the
rest of them? Julia didn’t know anything, it was her
father—”

“
They’ve figured all that
out.” Beverly crossed the room to sit on the bed. “Why didn’t you
tell me what they asked you to do?”

Vivian pointed. “He told me not to.
When I came out here for my fake job interview. I guess you’ve
figured out, too: this place is no mental institution--they’re
after spies.”

Mr. Humphrey cleared his throat.
“Strictly speaking, Menninger’s does still provide care for mental
patients. But there are people here whose skills are important in
wartime. Their work as the central office of OSS is an adjunct to
the original purpose of Menninger’s.”

“
What was the deal with the
Pyramidon? Was there a hidden message in the tin?”

“
No, but you were on target
suspecting a role in espionage. Abwehr uses invisible ink and
Pyramidon is an essential ingredient. The message can only be
revealed with a special reagent we are still trying to duplicate.
Dr. Detrick has been supplying Pyramidon to heartland Fifth
Columnists. He and Sgt. Dawson are in custody, along with some of
the musicians from the Lake Shawnee dance. Information was being
passed on sheet music using the invisible ink. This band travels
extensively in the US. From base to base, in fact. We are learning
a great deal about the breadth of the spy network.”

“
I always liked Dr.
Detrick,” Beverly said quietly. “He seemed like a good
man.”

“
Perhaps. The doctor tells
us he has a brother in Switzerland who was sending the
Pyramidon.”

Vivian nodded. “Uncle Joseph, Julia
said.”

“
Yes. Their parents were
living in Austria, under occupation. Both sons were coerced into
espionage, told it was the only way to keep their parents alive.
That may be considered at his trial.”

“
But now will the Nazis
hurt his parents?” Beverly asked.

“
Intelligence we’ve
obtained indicates both parents have died, but the brothers were
never told.”

Vivian frowned. “And Julia? She’s kind
of a flibbertigibbet. She can’t have understood what her father was
asking her to do.”

“
She was, as you say,
unaware of her father’s true activity. He took pains to protect
her. Sgt. Dawson’s interest in you three distressed him, and the
doctor has been cooperative since exposed.”

Beverly took Vivian’s hand. “But was
Sgt. Dawson trying to get rid of Vivian? Is that why he slipped her
a mickey? Did he know she was onto him?”

“
We believe his motives
were more…basic in her case, Miss Ryan. He claims he was unaware
the liquor had been adulterated. While not yet confirmed, we
suspect the drug was intended to eliminate Dawson. We chose you to
observe him instead of one of our operatives, in hopes we wouldn’t
tip him off. But it seems the organization had already decided he
was a liability, taking too many risks.”

“
And Dawson hasn’t got any
noble reason to betray his country.” Beverly jerked up her chin.
“He’s just in it for whatever gives him the biggest payoff. Rotten.
Kudos to you, Viv, for helping catch him.”

“
Thank goodness this is all
over.” Vivian sighed as she ran a hand through her tangled hair.
Beverly pulled a comb from her pocketbook and held it
out.

“
About that,” Mr. Humphrey
said. “You two impressed the team here. I’ve put forward the idea
of having you assist OSS with another matter, while you are at the
Virginia base. If you are amenable to that?”

Vivian met Beverly’s gaze and
half-smiled at what she saw there. “Tell us more, Mr.
Humphrey.”

Afterword

Fiction writing is one way of
reframing our past and present to express ourselves and our desires
for our community. We all envision a different Topeka. Each day,
choices are made which change the narrative – our community’s
future pivots on individual actions, election results, and every
possible diversion point in between.

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public
Library has published four community-written novels since 2012. In
those projects, each author contributed a chapter to advance the
story. The writers were challenged to build on the chapters before
and leave possibilities open for the chapters that would follow.
Working together to edit and publish a cohesive novel was a
learning experience for everyone involved.

For the 2016 Community Novel Project,
we offered writers a greater opportunity to collaborate on the
writing, workshopping, revising and editing of the work, supported
by skills-based workshops throughout the year. The writers
themselves determined the theme and parameters for the anthology,
provided feedback to each other on story elements, and copy-edited
the manuscript.

At the January 2016 organizational
meeting, writers brainstormed over a dozen thematic possibilities.
We asked them focus on identifying a project that would work
cohesively in an anthology and reflect positively on our community,
and to consider the marketability of the theme to our readers. As a
group, we chose to create a collection of alternative history or
speculative fiction stories set in the Topeka region. We asked
interested writers to imagine “What If?” stories. What if something
in the past happened differently than it did in real life, leading
to a different present? What if you looked at things happening
right now and speculated on what the future could hold? What if a
big change pivoted on a small moment?