Up in Honey's Room Page 22

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 grGce 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?

  While Vera was over there talking to Bo, Honey was able to take Carl's hand, next to hers on the sofa, and place it on the butt of the Luger stuck down between the cushions. When she put it there she was sitting where Carl was now, so it was his right hand that worked down to get his fingers around the grip. Honey told him it was ready to fire but on safety. Carl said he felt it and snicked it off.

  Honey said, Are you sure?

  Am I sure ? Carl said. Why wouldn't I be sure?

  He was pretty sure he'd never fired a Luger. A Walther P38, yeah, but not a Luger. He imagined pulling this one out of the sofa and putting it on Bohunk to shoot where he was looking, squeeze the trigger and make an adjustment if he had t
o and shoot him down. The Luger was a good-looking gun, he liked the way it fit his hand but knew he'd stay with his Colt after this.

  All right, when?

  When you're positive he's gonna shoot.

  You're serious? This guy puts on his best dress and makeup and brings along a machine gun and you aren't sure he wants to kill you?

  He wished Honey would quit rubbing against him. He'd told her, Knock it off, okay? She was probably doing the same thing to Jurgen.

  She put her head down and said, You boys aren't getting boners, are you?

  How'd she maintain acting natural when she could be dead the next minute? Always sure of herself. As soon as he took care of Bo he'd ask her how she stayed so cool.

  Bo said, Please don't take what I'm about to do personally. I have no more ill feelings than if I were to come face-to-face with you in combat, the way it was in Odessa fighting the Romanians house to house. He said, Let me revise that. I did have ill feelings about the fucking Romanians, so hot to kill Jews and Romas and boys like myself. The SS made us wear little pink badges and threw us in death camps to kill at their leisure. It was on this occasion I decided to turn beastly myself and cut a few Einsatzgruppen throats.

  Now, Carl thought.

  Call him. Tell him to put the machine gun on the floor and step away from it. You'll have a moment. Tell him if you pull a gun there's your moment, while he's thinking, What gun? you'll shoot to kill.

  Do it.

  Carl had a grip on the Luger to yank it free in the same moment the hard blunt bam of a gunshot went off in the room, made him blink and turn to see Vera holding her Luger out in front of her. Bam, she shot Bo again, took a step toward him and shot him again. Now she stared at Bo lying on the floor by the desk and shot him in the head; making sure.

  Carl watched her slip the pistol inside the Persian lamb handbag she held open and watched her place the bag on the side table, where Walter sat turned to stone. Now she was lighting a cigarette. Vera drew on it and blew out a stream of smoke, looking at Carl.

  Chapter Thirty-One.

  She blew smoke at you, huh? Doesn't care you're a federal marshal. Carl told his dad she wasn't blowing it at him.

  You say she was looking at you.

  I think it was like she's saying, 'You got a better way?' She seemed to have it pretty much worked out.

  Saved you from certain death.

  I didn't see it that way exactly. Jurgen did, he's telling her she saved their lives. Honey's already over there hugging her.

  Bare naked?

  Yes, she was.

  She put together okay?

  Miss America walking around in high heels, naked. Virgil said, Jesus Christ.

  Narcissa came from the stove with coffee to go with their Cuban brandy after the steak supper, saying to Carl, Virgil's gonna have a heart attack before you finish the story. She sat down with them at the round table in the back part of the kitchen, raining outside on Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1945.

  What about Jurgen, Virgil said, he ever get dressed? Yeah, but he left before I called Kevin.

  His dad was shaking his head. You let him go?

  Carl said, He left, disappeared on me. He was a felon I'd of locked him up. What he is, he's an unemployed German soldier, a friend of mine. I wouldn't be surprised he went to Cleveland.

  Cleveland? I thought he wanted to ride bulls.

  One of these days I believe he will. I think he'd want to check on his SS buddy Otto. Jurgen mentioned he's living with a beautiful Jewish girl named Aviva. Something Jurgen has to see for himself.

  I imagine you took over the crime scene, Virgil said. Had everybody sit down?

  Nobody was going anywhere except Jurgen. We all talked awhile, Carl said. I called Kevin and he got hold of Homicide. We all made sworn statements to the fact Vera Mezwa acted in our behalf or we'd all be dead. Vera said she had no idea Bo was gonna get us bare-ass and then shoot us.

  You believe her?

  Homicide does. They talked to her over three days and let her go. I told you she had it worked out. I think Vera wore herself out worrying about Bo going crazy on her from the war. She saw what he meant to do, so she popped him and became our hero. It doesn't have anything to do with her being a spy. The Justice Department'll bring her up or they won't, I don't know. I think the first thing Vera will do is get out of town and become somebody else. She already had her car packed.

  You think they'll get her?

  If they want her.

  Narcissa said, What about Honey and Jurgen? You said they like each other. They gonna meet up down the line?

  Maybe, Carl said. I think Jurgen's luck'll finally run out on him. He'll be picked up and deported, once the war's over. Then have to find a way to come back, Honey waiting, looking at her watch. That's how I see her. But with Honey you never know. She might decide to go to Germany to be with him. It's the kind of thing she'd do, Carl said, but couldn't see her doing it.

  Virgil said, You had the hots for her, didn't you?

  Why're you asking me that?

  He's nosy, Narcissa said. Did you?

  Virgil said, She ever put her drawers on?

  He did watch her step in the skirt and pull it over her hips, then hike the skirt to slip her panties up her legs, and a picture of Crystal Davidson doing it appeared in his mind, in color. Honey's head came out of the sweater, her eyebrows moving up and down at him, her bra still on the table.

  Yeah, Honey got dressed, Jurgen got dressed, and Walter went in the bathroom to get dressed.

  Virgil said, What's gonna happen to him?

  I don't know, Carl said. I think he's stuck with being Walter the meat cutter and looking like Himmler, the most hated man in the world. His only friend was that rascal Joe Aubrey and they haven't found him yet. I should've asked Bo what he did with him. You know it? He would've told us. He was bragging about shooting people . . . cutting their throats.

  You say Vera got off, his dad said. Did you say anything to her?

  Honey was hugging her. I walked over and told Vera I admired her style. She said thank you, and gave me a kiss on the mouth.

  She's kissing you, you're buck naked?

  I'd pulled my pants on.

  You'll be telling Louly all this pretty soon, won't you? She's coming in?

  Saturday.

  That's tomorrow.

  Yeah, she's flying into Tulsa on a seventy-two-hour pass. She gets to fly just about everywhere she goes, as long as there's a military airfield.

  Let's see, Narcissa said, you gonna tell Louly about Vera kissing you?

  Louly doesn't have to worry about Vera.

  You gonna tell her about Honey walking around in her high heels, naked?

  About the Author has written more than three dozen critically acclaimed books during his highly successful career, including the bestsellers The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfi eld Village, Michigan. www. Elmoreleonard. Com Visit www. AuthorTracker. Com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Also by The Hot Kid The Complete Western Stories of Mr. Paradise When the Women Come Out to Dance Tishomingo Blues Pagan Babies Be Cool The Tonto Woman & Other Western Stories Cuba Libre Out ofSight Riding the Rap Pronto Rum Punch Maximum Bob Get Shorty Killshot Freaky Deaky Touch Bandits Glitz LaBrava Stick Cat Chaser Split Images City Primeval Gold Coast Gunsights The Switch The Hunted Unknown Man No. 89 Swag Fifty-two Pickup Mr. Majestyk Forty Lashes Less One Valdez Is Coming The Moonshine War The Big Bounce Hombre Last Stand at Saber River Escape from Five Shadows The Law at Randado The Bounty Hunters Credits Designed by Renato Stanisic Jacket design by Evan Gaffney Jacket photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Images Copyright This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual event
s or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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