Up in Honey's Room (23 page)

V
era came in talking about the weather, how she thought this morning, good, they were going to have a spring shower for her perennials, but no, the dreadful gloomy sky remained a bore, refusing to open up and rain, for God's sake. Now she waved to Jurgen, Carl and Walter at the opposite end of the living room. She gave Honey a kiss on one cheek and then the other, close to her as she said, “What are you looking for, chills and thrills? You're too smart to be involved with these people. You sell dresses.”

“Better dresses,” Honey said. “I have a cocktail dress, black, spaghetti straps, that would look stunning on you.”

“Really? What size?”

“Ten,” Honey said. “You haven't heard from Bo?”

“Not yet,” Vera said and brightened, as if starting over. “I'm sure he's with friends. He stays out all night, I say, ‘You can't call, let me know where you are?'”

“They have no idea,” Honey said, “how mothers worry.”

“I'm not his mother.”

“You know what I mean,” Honey said. “Come on, I'll get you a drink. Let me have your coat and your bag.”

Vera slipped off her black Persian lamb and handed the coat to Honey. “I'll hold on to the bag, with my cigarettes.” Now she was looking down the length of the room. “What are the gentlemen having? Is that an ice-cold martini Jurgen has? Bless your heart—make mine very dry, please. Only a drop of vermouth.”

Honey turned to the front closet and Vera raised her hand to Jurgen and Carl by the bookcase. Then to Walter seated by himself now, forlorn, frowning, and called to him, “Walter, hold your head up. Your intention will be remembered by all of us. Think of it as God's intercession, Walter, stepping in front of you to have His own way with the president.” She turned to Honey waiting for her. “You people must think I'm insane talking like that. Especially Carl.”

“He knows what's going on,” Honey said. “Everyone seems to know what's going on, but no one makes a move to do anything.”

“The end is near,” Vera said, holding her Persian lamb bag that matched the coat, and followed Honey to the kitchen. “Have you heard that expression?”

Honey stood by her bar set up on the counter. She watched Vera open her big envelope bag on the table to get at her cigarettes.

“With an olive?”

“Several, please, I'm famished.”

“I can make you a baloney sandwich,” Honey said. “Or an egg and baloney, with a slice of onion?”

“That's what you eat? I saw cheese and crackers in the other room, I'll gorge on that.”

Honey offered a martini, several anchovy olives crowding the bottom of the stemware glass. Vera came over for it and held up the martini, staring at it as she said something to herself—Honey watch
ing her painted lips move—and finished the martini in one motion, then paused and poured the olives into her mouth, catching each one to chew and swallow, and now she was lighting a cigarette.

“Another?” Honey said.

“Please,” Vera said. “I'll sip this one. Tell me how Walter's behaving.”

“He's drinking doubles,” Honey said. “He's louder than I've ever heard him and being very cagey. Only he doesn't know how to do it. He wants us to think he took some part in the president's death.”

Vera nodded. “Because he wanted so much to be his assassin. Poor Walter. What he knows how to do is cut meat.”

Honey poured Vera's second martini and watched her pick it up and finish the drink in two swallows.

“You didn't get olives that time.”

“It's all right. I'll have one more,” Vera said. “You can tell me how you're doing with the Hot Kid.”

“We came close, but now it's cooling off.”

“You're losing interest? I see Carl as a prize, if you can subdue him.”

“I'm pretty sure I could get him to fall in love with me,” Honey said, “if he isn't already. But I don't want to break up his marriage, be the other woman nobody likes. That's a drag.”

“You don't lack confidence,” Vera said.

“And I want to stay alive,” Honey said. “His wife's already shot two guys trying to mess up her life.”

Vera said, “What about Jurgen? You could go for him?”

“He's at the top of my list,” Honey said. “He's the best-looking guy I've ever met, he's kind, he's thoughtful for a Kraut. He takes his clothes off—now there's a picture you want to keep.”

“I can imagine. I actually can,” Vera said. “Oh, you could have done so well in a job like mine. I can see them telling you whatever you want to know.”

“I've got a question for you,” Honey said. “Aren't the police looking for Bo?”

She watched Vera deciding how to answer, her makeup overdone but it was Vera and it worked for her. Now she was starting to smile. “Who told you that?”

“Carl said Bo took after him with a machine gun.”

“Bo? No, it must be someone else has it in for Carl.”

“What's Bo got against him?”

“I didn't mean it that way. Bo has only met him I believe once.”

“Carl sent the Detroit police after him.”

“That's who it was,” Vera said. “The police came to the house, I told them Bohdan was up north with his friends. They go in the forest, usually at the time of the equinox. They dance—Bo calls it a rites of spring celebration.”

“You're putting me on,” Honey said.

“Really. Bo asked me to come along. I told him I'm not much on pagan rituals.”

“You're changing your story,” Honey said.

“Am I?”

“You said you haven't heard from Bo and wish he'd call.”

“Only to keep it simple,” Vera said. “Otherwise you'd want to know if the police believed me, what they said. One of them asked me, ‘Oh, they do the dance of the fairies up in the woods?'”

“Do they?” Honey said.

 

Earlier that evening Bo had thought of taking one of Dr. Taylor's pills, but wasn't sure which way to go, up or down, wide wide awake or loose as a goose. He had a few belts of ice-cold vodka before they left the house, Vera saying in the car, “Can't you wait?”

“For what?”

“Until we get there.”

“You want to socialize first? Have a couple of drinks and say, ‘Would you all form a line here, please, against the wall?' Darling, I'm going to walk in and hose the fucking room. Whoever's there will be lying in a pool of blood as we amscray.”

“Please, not Jurgen,” Vera said.

“Yes, Jurgen. We agreed, anyone who knows what you've been doing. Unless you want to clean the prison shithouse for twenty years. Anyone with style, that's the job you get. You have to realize, Vera, Jurgen is not fundamental to our future. He could fuck up our ability to stay out of prison. So I told the feds where to find him.”

Vera said, “You didn't—”

“Thinking they'd scoop him up and Jurgen would be out of the way. But nothing happened and now he's at Honey's. I can't help that. I prayed to the Black Madonna asking that only certain ones would be present. The Hotshot Kid I'm hoping for. Walter, we don't know what's become of him. Perhaps he'll make up for not getting to Roosevelt in time and assassinate Harry Truman.”

The car was packed for their getaway: suitcases in the trunk, personal items and Vera's shoes in cardboard boxes on the backseat. She had deposited Joe Aubrey's check for fifty thousand in a new account; later on they'd see about making withdrawals.

Bo pulled into the no-parking space in front of Honey's apartment building. He said to Vera, “If you don't have the stomach for this, don't watch. But once they're down we strip them of money, anything we see of value, and we're off to Old Méjico humming ‘La Cucaracha,' unless you know the words. Oh, once she buzzes you in, use something to jam the door open.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Anything, a box of matches. How I get in, Vera, is crucial. You take the elevator to the apartment. Honey's waiting at the door. You greet her, give her a kiss. And push the button to unlock the door. Can you do that?”

“All you have to do is knock. Don't you think she'll see who it is?”

“Vera, will you please unlock the fucking door? I want my entrance to be a complete surprise. ‘Good God, where did he come from?'” For several moments he was quiet, thinking. He said, “You brought the umbrella.”

“In the trunk.”

“I place the Schmeisser in the umbrella—”

“You like calling it that, don't you? I wonder why?”

“With the stock removed,” Bo said, “and come up the stairway, so I don't run into anyone. I enter the apartment—”

“With the burp gun still in the umbrella?”

“What did I tell you?” Bo impatient now, his nerves irritating him. “I insert the magazine while I'm in the hall, before I make my entrance.”

“You come in shooting.”

“Yes, and it's done, all she wrote.”

“I wonder,” Vera said, “if one ever says it's all
he
wrote?”

“I've only heard it's all
she
wrote,” Bo said. “But I don't think the
she
refers to a particular person. But you know what? I should say something as I come in.”

Vera said, “You are pointing der Schmeisser at them. What's there to say?”

“I want to get them all looking at me.”

“How about
Achtung
?” Vera said.

“Or I say, ‘You know what this is for?'”

“Let them each take a guess?”

This time Bo grinned. “Yes, each one has a turn. Come on, what do I say to get them looking at me?”

“‘It was nice knowing you'?”

“I'll think of something.”

She opened the car door. “I ask only one favor,” Vera said. “Make sure, please, I'm not in the fucking line of fire.”

“You have the Luger, just in case?”

“In my bag.”

I
t was in Vera's mind she'd forgot to do something, one item on Bo's list of instructions.

She had her handbag, holding it under her arm, martini in her other hand. She had come out of the kitchen to stand by the dining table at this end of the sitting room, Honey still in the kitchen making drinks.

Honey had put on a record, American Negro music, a little-girl voice asking wasn't she good to some guy.

Vera could sing it to Bo.
Baby, ain't I good to you?

Letting him do this, and Bo saying what was three more after Odessa? Now four.

Coming in she saw Carl immediately and thought, Ah, Bo will be happy; though the sight of Carl, unexpected, caused her stomach to turn and gave her an uneasy feeling and she wanted Bo to come in and see Carl and shoot him before saying a word. Get rid of the Hot Kid quick or he'll put a notch on his gun to represent Bo—Carl in a Spitfire with German crosses on the fuselage, Bo
flying an ME-109 or a Focke-Wulf and if Bo didn't shoot him please right away before Carl says what he said each time,
If I have to pull my gun
…Once Bo shoots him he can say what he wants if he can keep it short. Get the other three together in front of the bookcase. It would be in newspapers tomorrow, late, in the newspaper wherever they were and in all the newspapers in America because one of the “Four Murdered in Detroit Apartment” was a German prisoner of war. What was he doing there? Were these people spies? Who killed them? Or were they executed? By then she and Bo could be in Texas. She was counting on Carl having gas stamps and expense money.
Sorry, Carl, it's the war
. The fucking war. Honey might have a few stamps. They'd look in her desk—there against the wall opposite the sofa and the bookcase. Bo would stand by the desk. Come in and take his position.

Wait. What did Bo say was crucial?

And thought of what she'd forgot to do because she didn't write it down and look at the words.

Unlock the door.

 

Carl and Jurgen were talking about rodeo-ing.

Carl thought Jurgen was the right size to ride bulls, though on the high end, as most big-money bull riders tended to be small guys, five six, a hundred and a quarter. You'd think a long-legged rider'd fit the bull better. Carl said he never stayed the eight seconds on a bull any time he tried the amateur circuit on weekends when he was eighteen. He switched over to saddle broncs, couldn't stay on 'em either and went to college two and a half years and joined the marshals.

Jurgen said he knew he could ride bulls and be good at it. Know why? Because when his family returned to Germany after
living here, it was 1935, they stopped in Spain and went to bull-fights, good ones in Madrid and different towns and he wanted to be a
matador de toros
. He said he would cape bulls in a way that was both cold and serene, feet planted in the sand, taking the bull's charge and then killing the bull in the manner of Joselito, the stylist, perhaps a show-off, dead at twenty-five, but one of the great matadors of Spain. You would have worshipped him, Jurgen said to Carl.

But Jurgen didn't become a matador and kill bulls. He said now, he becomes a bull rider and the bulls will know, the way they know bull love, he never tormented bulls with a cape or ever killed one of them. He said the ones he rides will be grateful and take it easy on him.

Carl said he thought it sounded more like bull shit than bull lore. He told Jurgen if the bulls don't twist hard you don't make points riding 'em.

Honey brought them each a martini, Carl switching over because Jurgen's silver bullet looked so good in the delicate glass. Honey stayed with them. Jurgen was saying how he devoured Hemingway's book, talking about the one on the shelf here, because he loved the idea of Spain at that time, not because Germany was behind Franco. Jurgen was for the Loyalists, like Robert Jordan whose job in the book was to blow up a bridge. Carl said he read most of
For Whom the Bell Tolls
at his dad's house and thought of it as a western, up in the mountains riding horses. They could be in Mexico. Jurgen said he started reading Zane Grey at the camp, speaking of westerns.

Carl said, “‘When you call me that, smile'? I didn't care much for Zane Grey.”

Walter stepped over to them. He said, “You don't think Roosevelt's death was, well, curious, coming as it did?”

Carl said, “Jesus Christ, Walter, go sit down, will you?”

Honey said, “We don't accept your theory, Walter, whatever it is,” and said, “I tried Zane Grey once, I thought he was awfully old-timey the way he wrote.”

Carl said, “His books don't sound like he had any fun writing them. But you see ads, you can buy every book Zane Grey wrote and fill up a whole shelf. For people who don't know any better.”

Honey said, “What's Vera doing?”

Carl and Jurgen looked over to watch her open the apartment door, look out in the hall and close it again.

Honey called to her, “Vera…?”

She came over to them with her Persian lamb handbag and held up her martini to Honey. “Notice I'm sipping now, having quenched my thirst.”

Honey said, “What were you doing just now?”

“I must be hearing things. I would swear someone was at the door.”

Carl said, “We expecting somebody else?”

“Not that I know of,” Honey said.

“No, no, I was mistaken,” Vera said, “there's no one else.”

It was the way she kept looking toward the door, fidgety now, taking quick little sips of her drink, Carl would bet all the expense money he had in his billfold, $124, Bohunk was about to walk in.

 

Vera would look toward the door.

So would Carl, over his shoulder.

Honey saying, “Why're we standing when we can sit down? I'll put on another record. How about Sinatra?”

Vera finished her martini, placed the glass on a bookshelf and glanced toward the door.

Carl did too, turning his head.

He watched the door come open a little at a time until there was Bo in a gray sweater and skirt holding his machine gun, Carl turning to Vera as she said to him, “Do you like Frank Sinatra?”

“I like the one playing. You know what it is?”

“‘Oh Look at Me Now,'” Vera said. “How do you see what's about to happen?”

“That's a skirt Bo's wearing?”

“I said to him please, not tonight.”

“He might've left off the makeup. What I'm wondering,” Carl said, “if that's a war souvenir he wants to show us. It isn't, will you tell him to lay it on the floor?”

Honey said, “She isn't his mother.”

“Thank you,” Vera said. “I'm a guest here. You can tell him if you want.”

Bo, coming toward this end of the room along the opposite wall, stopped at the bedroom hallway to glance in.

“They're all here,” Vera said to him.

 

Bo was facing them now with the machine gun, one hand on the trigger, the other on the magazine that held thirty-two rounds.

Jurgen said, “Bo, what are you doing?”

Honey said, “Bo, would you like a drink?”

Walter, in Honey's favorite chair, didn't speak.

Bo did. He said to Vera, “I told you to unlock the door and you forgot.”

Vera said, “How did you get in, darling?”

“I told you, as soon as you get here, unlock the door. I told you to write everything down. You forgot and I'm standing in the hall holding a fucking machine gun?”

Jurgen said to him, “You have a Schmeisser, uh? I like that name even though it's not accurate. But I'll tell you something,” Jurgen said, “you should never hold a
Maschinenpistole
by the magazine. You put stress on it, it jams very easily.”

Carl liked that—remind the boy he didn't know what he was doing, holding a loaded weapon while he argued with Vera. Now he was facing them.

“I want you three, Jurgen, Honey and Carl, to go sit on the sofa. Walter, you're all right, old boy, but move your chair closer to where your comrades will be sitting, we'll get this done. Go on, you three, please take your seats. Right
there,
” Bo said, raised his machine gun and fired a short burst, loud, quick, that left bullet holes across the back cushions of the sofa.

Honey stared at Bo, not saying a word.

Maybe he did know what he was doing, Carl watching the way he handled the weapon, familiar with it, telling Jurgen, “As often as I've fired a machine pistol I've never had a problem. I was out of practice when I went after the Hot Kid.” He said to Carl, “Did you know it was I?”

“It had to be you,” Carl said.

“No other asshole would do,” Honey said, holding her hard look on Bo.

It seemed to stop him for a moment, his eyes on Honey, but let it go and said, “Now I would like the four of you to strip. Take off all your clothes. You, too, Walter, stand up. And I'd like the Hotdog Kid to remove the revolver from his person and place it on the cocktail table.”

“If you try to use it,” Vera said, “Bo won't hesitate to shoot you.”

She brought the Luger out of her Persian lamb handbag and put it in Carl's face.

“Or I will.”

Carl said, “You want to reach in my coat and get it?”

“I want you to take the coat off,” Vera said, moving away from them.

 

Honey saw the Luger in Vera's hand and nudged Jurgen, the Luger exactly like the one Darcy got from Bo for the Model A and gave to her for safekeeping. The one Jurgen checked and said was loaded, ready to fire and she'd shoved down between the seat cushions of the sofa. Where Bo wanted them to sit.

She watched Carl take off his coat and now his holstered .38 was in plain sight.

Bo said, “Will you people,
please,
get undressed? We don't have all night.”

Honey pulled her sweater over her head, stepped out of her skirt and moved to the sofa.

“You have a cute figure,” Bo said.

“The bra too?” Honey said.

“Of course the bra, the panties, everything. I want to make sure you're not concealing a weapon. I hid a razor-sharp butter knife up my butt and used it to cut the throats of three death-squad SS guards, each one in turn lying drunk on
horilka,
Ukrainian vodka. I put my hand over each one's mouth, stuck the knife into the throat and cut. I did it naked knowing there would be a torrent of blood. It bathed me. It was a stimulating experience. You can understand why it's the most memorable event of my life. Though shooting Mr. Aubrey and Dr. Taylor wasn't bad. One shot for each. Rosemary was different. I shot her, yes, but it was more like drowning a kitten. My mother made me do that when I was a boy, hold the kitten under water. Every time I thought of Puss and saw his little face looking up at me, I cried.”
Now he said, “Mr. Hotsy-Totsy, are you going to lay down your gun or not?”

Honey watched Carl step over to the sofa before pulling his revolver—Bo with the machine gun raised, aimed at him—and lay it on the cocktail table, the grip toward the sofa. Now he stood there pulling off his tie, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Bo said, “As gingerly as you can, Carl, would you shake all the bullets out of that gun, please? It makes me nervous to see it sitting there, the front sight filed off. You are a ferocious man, aren't you, Mr. Hotsy-Totsy?”

Honey watched Vera, holding the Luger down at her side now, walk over to Bo and say something to him.

 

“You're talking too much.”

“Darling, I'm doing this for you.”

“You're performing. ‘How could a cute boy like me cut throats?' Trying to be funny and ghastly at the same time.”

“You want me to do it or you want to leave? A moment will come and I'll kill them, left to right starting with the modest Nazi, Walter, and pop pop pop the rest. I started with twenty-eight in the magazine and have twenty-four left. I fucked up showing them where to sit and fired one round too many. You may have to do a coup de grâce or two.” The next moment he was grinning. “Vera, look. Nudes on parade.”

What astonished Vera—well, it did surprise her to see how casually they stood about naked, not at all self-conscious, quite different tan lines on the two men: Jurgen, a slender god, had kept much of his tan through the winter and was white around his loins; Carl's face and arms were weathered while the rest of
him would be called white, but wasn't; his skin toned with shades from Cuba and the Northern Cheyenne.

No, what astonished Vera was how neat they were about the clothes they took off and folded on the coffee table in three piles, while Walter was holding his clothes in his lap.

Bo said, “Go take Walter's clothes away from him. He refuses to give them up, shoot him in the head, please.” He said, “Notice, the two boys are hung about average. Ah, but they're both straight as gunshots. They were raised to be men who use women, love women, even adore them and dream of pussies. I see the way they look at you. Vera, you could take Carl anytime you want. But when I swish around them like I'm on the make, they don't mind, they think I'm funny. The ones who don't think I'm funny I look out for. You think I'm funny, don't you?”

“Yes, you are,” Vera said. “But sometimes you aren't. This is taking too long. You understand? Bo, look at me. Do it, please, when I'm out of the way.”

 

“Nuts, she's walking off to the side.”

Honey said it looking down past her bare breasts to her bare thighs she kept slender swimming once a week at Webster Hall, a midtown hotel.

This was great, get to sit between two naked boys, both of them with neat packages, nice slender bodies with scars all over them: Carl's she thought from gunshots, Jurgen's skin tight and shiny in places where he'd been burned. These guys were all-guy. Jurgen turned his head and smiled at her and she smiled back at him. Then she smiled at Carl and Carl said, “What?”