Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories Read online

  You catch him making something up, Carl said, it doesn't bother him. Like it isn't important anyway.

  I didn't know they had to wear ties, Norma said. Bobby wasn't with Patton till after Normandy and never mentioned wearing a t ie. If he did he wouldn't of told me anyway, knowing what I think of George Patton.

  How do you see him?

  Carl, the man's a showoff, he wears a pair of six-shooters with ivory handles. But he can get guys like Bobby willing to die for him. She kept tapping her cigarette in the ashtray. How come you weren't interested in Jurgen before?

  We're starting to wonder if he's up to something?

  Like what?

  Some kind of sabotage. Set fire to storage tanks.

  Born on an oil lease she knew what he was talking about. Norma said, On his own? He'd need help. I told you the guards think he has a girlfriend and the only reason he escapes, it's to get his ashes hauled. They're sure of it.

  How come?

  'Cause whatever he's up to must be the kind of thing nobody ever sees you doing anyway. If you know what I mean.

  Carl said, You know the girl would have to live around here.

  Course she would.

  Carl said, You might even know her.

  Norma said, Or you might if I don't.

  *

  During the first World War young Wesley Sellers showed he was alert and liked being in the U. S. Army and made it up to captain without leaving Camp Polk, Louisiana. For this war he was brought back as a colonel in the Provost Marshal's office and appointed commander of the Deep Fork camp. He had told Carl sitting in his office he had 500 German officers in one compound of 30 barracks and 1700 non-commissioned officers and enlisted men in the other three compounds. All Carl could see, looking out the window and through the wire fences, were rows of tarpaper barracks down the left side of the road and gun towers around the perimeter. Wesley said he wanted the noncoms, not just the enlisted men out working during the day, even though it was up to them if they worked or not. So he made a deal with the staff officers: send all your boys out to work and the officers could have a soccer league and put on plays and musicals, have three-two beer served in the canteen and officer's club and their own chefs in the messhalls.

  Oh, they can look down their nose at you, Wesley said, and make demands, chew you out they think you aren't living up to the Geneva Convention. I run this place like they're guests of my hotel, the Fritz Ritz, as long as they don't break any of the house rules, like hanging around near the fences. I tell my boys in the gun towers, you see a prisoner approaching the fence, yell at him twice to halt. He doesn't back off, shoot him. I tell the officers this is the way it's gonna be, and the y u nderstand, nod their Kraut heads, 'cause these people operate on unconditional discipline. They give an order, it's obeyed. I said to an officer I can speak freely to, 'The war's over for you people, why do you keep playing soldier? Why do you let a few hardcore Nazis push you around?' This Kraut I can trust says, 'because they could be taking names, making a list of the ones aren't arrogant enough.

  Your guards shot any of 'em?

  One. Held on to the fence and dared the tower guard to shoot him, so he did. Other camps they've had to shoot prisoners. Up in Kansas a Kraut ran out of bounds after a soccer ball and was shot. He was told to halt, but kept going. Colorado, a guard back from combat shot three Krauts he said were coming for him.

  Wesley Sellers said he didn't worry about prisoners escaping. He had reports that listed eleven hundred sneaking out of camps or from work details during the past two years and nine hundred of them were picked up in a couple of days. Some of them, soon as they're hungry, they head back to camp.

  Carl said, What about Willi Martz?

  I asked several of the highest ranking officers here why they thought the man killed himself. They all said they didn't know, or 'How would I know?' Showing me they didn't care. I asked some lieutenants and they said he was ashamed of himself, a moral pervert who could not stand living with men who refused to speak to him. I asked if Martz was anti-Nazi.

  They said of course he was. I asked if he'd had any help hanging himself, since there wasn't anything he could've been standing on he kicked out from under him. I said it looked like some of you held him up while you put the rope around his neck and then let go of him. One of them said that would be a way to do it. They all said yah, nodding their heads, grinning.

  Be hard, Carl said, to keep your composure.

  When I was sheriff, Wesley said, questioning an offender, say a stickup guy, and he grinned at me like that? I'd punch him in the mouth. Why I always had leather gloves on me I was investigating a crime. But I can't punch any of these Kraut officers, can I? All dressed up in their uniforms with their medals and gee-gaws, their Iron Crosses.

  I don't know if you can or not, Carl said, I know the SS always beat up people they have in to question. Or pull out their fingernails.

  I don't believe in torture, Wesley said. All a punch in the mouth's for is to get their attention.

  You talk to Jurgen since he's back?

  I got him in what passes for solitary here, a room with a cot and a bucket, a narrow window that doesn't give much light. I could leave Jurgen in there till he tells me where he's been. Or, I could beat him up, I suppose if I cared enough, but I don't.

  I have to talk to him about the suicide.

  Come back tomorrow, Wesley said. Meantime, since you're close to home, go visit your old dad and sit on the porch with him.

  *

  It's what Carl did, drove around to the big California bungalow in the pecan orchard, his dad 70 years old now but had not changed much in Carl's memory. They sat in wicker chairs on the porch, Carl and his dad Virgil with bottles of Mexican beer, a pile of newspapers on Virgil's lap. The beer and the newspapers were from the oil company that leased a half section of Virgil's property, Virgil's share of the royalties an eighth of whatever the oil company made.

  They'd finish their beers and Virgil would raise his voice to say, Honey, what're you doing? and Narcissa, 54 now, would come out to the porch with two more of whatever they were drinking. Narcissa Raincrow had been living here since she was 16, hired to wet-nurse Carl when his mother Graciaplena passed away two days after giving birth to him. That was in 1906. Virgil had married Grace and brought her here from Cuba after the war with Spain. Narcissa wasn't married but had delivered a child stillborn and needed t o g ive her milk to a newborn infant, so it worked out.

  When Carl first brought his wife Louly to the house he told her that by the time he had lost interest in Narcissa's breasts, his dad had acquired an appreciation, first keeping her on as housekeeper, then as his common-law wife for the past 38 years. Virgil thought she looked like Dolores Del Rio only was older, and heavier.

  Virgil was telling Carl he wanted to hire a POW as a handyman for cleanup work, painting, whatever was needed done around the place. But the guy at the camp in charge of labor says I have to take three guys. He says the way it works, it's one guard for every three prisoners. He can't send a guard to watch one man. I said you don't have to send a guard, I'll watch the Hun myself. I'll give him a bottle of beer with lunch, he won't think of running off. The labor nitwit said it's one to three and wouldn't budge from it.

  Carl said, You remember Jurgen Schrenk? He worked here when you were gathering and shipping to wholesalers, the one I mentioned escaped every couple of months for a few days?

  Yeah, and I spoke to him. I asked Jurgen if he went out to find something of a military nature he could sabotage. I told him I was aboard the USS Maine when the dons blew her up in Havana harbor, February 1898. I said I doubt he could cause an explosion as earthshaking as the Maine going down with two-hundred and fifty-four hands. It got us hurrying to go to war with Spain. Jurgen said he just liked to get away from the camp, walk down a road with n o p lace to go. Oh, is that so? What do you bet he's got some farm girl thinks he stepped out of a dream in his short pants? The Huns look pretty much like us, except there's
something different about them. People'd come by to watch them work. One time -they're swatting pecans along the county road -I noticed a car stopped nearby. Pretty soon a guard come along and told the woman in the car to keep moving. The reason I know it was a woman, Narcissa's coming from town in our car and slowed up going past the car stopped there. She said it was a girl with blonde hair but didn't recognize her from anyplace.

  Carl said, What about the car?

  I thought it was a green Hudson with whitewalls. Nacissa says I don't know cars, it was a thirty-nine Lincoln-Zephyr. She reads the car ads and tells me what we should get after the war. But listen, the guard that told the girl to keep moving? I saw him a few times while he was around here. His name's Larry Davidson. From West Memphis, Arkansas, the poor soul. Young guy, sees himself as a hotshot the way he wears his overseas cap. Talk to Larry. See what he says.

  *

  Yeah, it was a green Lincoln, Larry said. I went over and told her she couldn't stop there.

  Larry Davidson was telling this to Carl outside the camp administration building where you could smoke, a big tin can for butts fixed to the rail along there. I told her she had to keep moving as these were enemy soldiers, German prisoners of war working here. She said, 'Oh my, are they really Germans?' Sounding like she was surprised.

  Was she?

  I thought she was putting it on.

  She ask about any of the prisoners?

  What she asked me, Larry said, if they tried to run would I shoot them? I told her it's why I had the carbine. She said, but they were just like us, they come from nice homes, they miss their wives and sweethearts--She ask if you're friends with any of them?

  She did. I said, 'Are you nuts? Why would I want a Nazi for a friend?

  Carl liked this boy from West Memphis, Arkansas. He asked him, How old would you say she is?

  She's twenty-six, Larry said, according to her drivers license. Here's a good-looking girl my age drives a Lincoln-Zephyr. I'm thinking, Hmmmm, what have we here? I asked to see her license to get her name and address, but then talking to her she didn't seem like a whole lot of fun. She takes care of her mom, says she keeps her from becoming depressed. They live on Seminole Avenue i n t his great big house must've cost her, so I'd say she has money.

  You went to see her?

  Drove past the house is all. Her name's Shemane... I think Morrison.

  Shemane Morrissey, Carl said.

  Larry said, You know her?

  She was in all the papers ten years ago. A friend of mine wrote a feature story about her in True Detective, Carl said. 'Tulsa Society Girl Abducted by White Slavers.'

  Larry said, You're kidding me.

  They took her to Kansas City and put her to work in a whorehouse.

  Larry said, Shemane?

  Sixteen years old, all she was. But after a while, when she could've walked out? She didn't want to come home.

  She got to like being a whore?

  She liked Kansas City, the action, and got to like a guy who was high up in the machine that ran the city -the girl you didn't think would be much fun.

  Larry squinted at Carl. What's she done you're after her for?

  She drive a green Lincoln?

  Larry nodded. With whitewalls.

  The third time Jurgen escaped, Carl said, a witness swears she saw Jurgen get out of a green car and duck into the OK Cafe .

  You think Shemane's the one he's been seeing?

  I'm gonna to find out, Carl said.

  Chapter Three

  Is Carl Still the Hot Kid?

  Carl spent the night at his dad's. The next morning while they were having their bacon and eggs, Wesley Sellers called from the camp to say there was a deputy marshal by the name of Gary Marion in his office. Standing against my desk, Wesley said. He wants to question Jurgen Schrenk and says he has the authority. You know this boy?

  Carl could hear Wesley's irritation. He asked him to put Gary on the phone. He waited and now Gary came on to say, Yes sir . . .?

  What Carl knew about Gary Marion, from some little town near Waco, Texas, he'd been a marshal less than two years, was 25 but tried to appear seasoned in his cowboy boots and Stetson, an old hat with a narro w b rim he never took off. He wore this look on the short, stocky frame of a former rodeo bullrider, Gary's career before he joined the marshals. He said to Carl when they first met in the Tulsa office, You know what attracted me to law enforcement? I read your book, the one about you being the hot kid of the marshals service. Carl said it wasn't his book, as he didn't write it. Gary said no matter, it had inspired him, given him the chills and thrills reading how Carl had faced fugitive outlaws and shot them down where they stood. He said to Carl, Are you still the hot kid? Or is it time somebody took your place? Gary grinning but serious about what he was saying.

  Talking to him on the phone in the kitchen, his dad and Narcissa watching, Carl said, What are you doing there?

  I believe I can talk man to man with this Kraut, Gary said, get him to spill where he's been. Me and him are the same age, Carl. He'll understand where I'm coming from and tell me what I want to know.

  Carl said, Put Colonel Sellers on.

  Don't I have the authority as a federal agent, Gary said, to talk to the Kraut if I suspect he's up to something?

  No, you don't, Carl said, Put Sellers on.

  It took a minute or so for Wesley to pick up the phone. I sent him outside to wait. Is this boy any good?

  Put him in with Jurgen, Carl said, and we'll find out.

  *

  His dad watched him hang up the wall phone and return to the table in the back part of the kitchen, a view of pecan trees outside the windows. You been on the telephone since you got here, Virgil said, talking long distance to that True Detective writer when I went to bed.

  The one wrote the book, Narcissa said, warming his coffee as Carl sat down. He hasn't been here in a while.

  Carl said, You remember a piece Tony Antonelli wrote some time ago, 'Society Girl Abducted by White Slavers'?

  Shemane Morrissey, Virgil said. Nothing to it, the guard on the work detail gives you the name of the girl and you recall she was snatched from her home and taken to Kansas City, Virgil nodding, remembering. It had something to do with her dad.

  A Tulsa lawyer, Carl said, who got rich representing oil money. They're in society, lived in Maple Ridge---

  Alvin Morrissey, Virgil said, using his memory of newspaper headlines, got involved with a honky-tonk girl from Kansas City. Gave her a pile of money to move to Tulsa and become his mistress. They're in a suite at the Mayo, in bed having a smoke after doing it, a guy comes in and shoots them. I remember reading the bed caught fire from their cigarettes. The maid threw a pitcher of ice water on it.

  Alvin met her at Teddy's club, Carl said, where Louly worked for a while. Remember? Going by the name Kitty and serving drinks in her underwear.

  You went up and got her, Virgil said.

  And now she's telling marines how to fire Browning machine guns mounted in dive bombers. The guy that owns the club, Carl said, Teddy Ritz is the one told me if he ever saw me there again, I'd spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Teddy Ritz, the one had Shemane working in a whorehouse when she was sixteen. He was saying to her dad, you take one of my girls, I'll trade her for your daughter.

  I don't recall what happened after, Virgil said.

  Alvin used his influence on people he knew in Washington. They got some marshals to walk in the house with shotguns and set Shemane free.

  Virgil started to smile. And she didn't want to go home.

  She liked that fast life in Kansas City. Teddy took a look at Shemane for the first time, this 16-yearold cutie, and kept her for himself. He sends a guy to Tulsa to take out Alvin. Just Alvin, but the guy empties his gun at the bed and gets both of them. This is after I went up to get Louly. I never met Shemane or heard anything about her.

  You talk about Teddy Ritz, Virgil said, you always sorta smile you mention his name.
/>   Carl started to smile now, sitting at the breakfast table with his coffee. I get a kick out of Teddy acting like a bigshot gangster.

  Isn't that what he is?

  Yeah, but he wants to make sure you know it. Carl said, You know Tony Antonelli lives in Tulsa now? Loves it. I asked him if he knew Shemane had moved to Okmulgee. He said yeah, because he was thinking of doing a follow-up story on how she found the house for her mother since Gladys couldn't stay in Tulsa, not after her little girl became a prostitute and her husband's in bed with another one when he's shot and killed. Tony said you can't carry that kind of baggage around and still make it in Tulsa society. Then last year Shemane moved in with her mom, she said to sit back and take it easy after ten years of that life. She said being loaned to millionaires for out of town trips and popping out of cardboard birthday cakes naked. Tony said he ran into her at Deering's drugstore picking up a prescription. She said for something had been hanging on since Kansas City. I asked Tony if she meant a venereal disease. He said that's what it sounded like. He said Shemane and her mom dress for tea in the early evening, only they drink martinis and smoke reefer. I asked where she got the weed and he said Teddy Ritz, he's still taking care of her. Gives her gas stamps when she needs them. Tony says Shemane sips her martini and tells him in a soft voice what a relief it is to not have to go to bed with some guy because he was somebody. And then she'd say, 'But I learned a lot from those guys. They were smart, they ran things.' Tony said he changed his mind about doing a follow-up. What would it be about? Shemane and her mother putting on the dog and getting fried every night? He said it could be a funny piece but didn't want to make Shemane look pitiful. I said, 'Didn't you see right away you'd be making fun of her?' Tony said he kept going back out of curiosity. He had the feeling Shemane was up to something she didn't want anybody to know about. He said he suspected what it was but wouldn't tell me. 'If it gets out, Shemane would be in serious trouble.' I said, 'Oh , it must be about that German POW she's been seeing.'