Up in Honey's Room Read online

  To Detroit.

  Kevin looked at his notebook again. The SS major is Otto Penzler. The other one is Jurgen Schrenk, a young guy, twenty-six, a tank commander with Rommel.

  Honey said in her way, Don't tell me Jurgen lived in Detroit before the war. What did his father do?

  She let Kevin stare as she drew on her Chesterfield, raised her face, and blew a thin stream of smoke before saying, Why else would he come here from a prison camp? He must have friends.

  Kevin said, You're having fun, aren't you? Jurgen's dad was a production engineer with Ford of Germany. He brought his wife and the boy along when he came here as an adviser on speeding up Ford assembly lines. Henry thought Hitler was doing a fine job getting Germany on its feet again. Jurgen's family made their home at the Abington Apartment Hotel on Seward. I think they were here two years, Ford Motor paying expenses.

  Honey said, How old was Jurgen?

  By the time they left Kevin looking at his notebook again he would've been About fourteen?

  Fourteen, Kevin said and looked up.

  You talk to Walter about the escaped prisoners?

  In the past week we've talked to most all of the names on our watch list of Nazi sympathizers, including Walter. He said he's never heard of Jurgen Schrenk. How'd you know he was fourteen?

  I guessed. 'Cause Walter was fourteen when he came here, Honey said. Or the way he used to tell it, when he was brought here against his will. We're at the Dakota Inn one time having a few, Walter said he attended a going-away party in this bar a few years ago. To honor a family going home to Germany after living here awhile. I don't remember how long exactly or the family's name, or if Walter said anything about the dad being with Ford. Walter was hung up on the kid. He said, 'Fourteen years old, the boy goes home to a new Germany, at the most glorious time of its history. I was fourteen, I was brought here and taught to cut meat.'

  That's how he said it?

  Pretty much word for word.

  This was before the war.

  I think he met the boy about 1935.

  If Walter missed Germany so much, what was stopping him from going back?

  You know how many times I asked him that? He'd say it was his destiny to be here, so he shouldn't complain.

  What's that mean exactly, his fate? There's nothing he can do about it?

  It means there must be something important he's destined to get involved in. I said to him, 'You don't want to go down in history as a meat cutter?'

  You picked on him like that, didn't you, and he always thought you were serious.

  Tell me who you think he looks like, Honey said. I don't mean a movie star.

  Kevin said, The first time I opened Walter's file and looked at his picture? I thought, Is this Walter Schoen or Heinrich Himmler?

  Tell him he looks like Himmler, Honey said, Walter nods, lowers his head and says, 'Thank you.' Did you know they're both born the same year, 1900, on the same day, October seventh, in the same hospital in Munich?

  Kevin stared, not saying a word.

  Walter believes he's Himmler's twin brother and they were separated at birth.

  He tell you why?

  Walter says he and Himmler each have their own destiny, their mission in life. We know what Himmler's is, don't we? Kill all the Jews he can find. But Walter I don't know five years ago, still hadn't found out what he's supposed to do.

  He isn't stupid, is he?

  He knows how to run a business. His butcher shop always made money. But that was before rationing. I don't know how he's doing now.

  Last summer, Kevin said, he bought a farm at auction, a hundred and twenty acres up for back taxes, a house, a barn, and an apple orchard. He said he's thinking about going into the home-kill business, have a small slaughterhouse and sell as a wholesaler.

  He got rid of his butcher shop?

  He still has it. But why would he get into meatpacking? It seems like every day you read about a meatpacker going out of business. The problem, shortages and price controls, the armed forces taking a third of what meat's available.

  Ask him, Honey said, if he's a traitor to his country, or he's selling meat on the black market and making a pile of money.

  She pushed up from the sofa and headed for the bedroom telling the special agent, I'll be ten minutes, Kev. Drive me to work, I'll tell you why I married Walter.

  Kevin walked over to Honey's bookcase and began looking at titles, most of them unknown to him, and saw Mein Kampf squeezed between For Whom the Bell Tolls and This Gun for Hire. He pulled out Adolf Hitler's book and began skipping through pages of dense-looking text full of words. He turned to the short hallway that led to Honey's bedroom.

  Did you read Mein Kampf ?

  There was a silence.

  I'm sorry what did you say?

  He crossed to the hallway not wanting to shout and came to her bedroom, the door open, and saw Honey at her vanity.

  I asked if you read Mein Kampf.

  I didn't, and you know why?

  She was leaning toward the mirror putting on lipstick, the kimono on Honey in the mirror hanging open and he could see one of her breasts, the nipple, the whole thing.

  Because it's so fucking boring, Honey said. I tried a few times and gave up.

  He saw her looking in the mirror at him, holding the lipstick to her mouth, and saw her move the kimono enough to cover the breast.

  She said, I don't think you'd like it.

  I wouldn't?

  The book, Mein Kampf.

  Chapter Three.

  They drove south down Woodward Avenue from Six Mile Road in a '41 Olds sedan, property of the FBI, Honey looking at shop windows, Kevin waiting. Finally he said, You and Walter started seeing each other and before you knew it you fell head over heels in love?

  Honey was taking a pack of Luckys from her black leather bag, getting one out, and using a Zippo she flicked once to light the cigarette.

  That's what happened, Honey said, I fell in love with Walter because he's such a swell guy, kind and considerate, fun to be with. She handed the cigarette to Kevin, a trace of lipstick on the tip.

  Now she was lighting another, Kevin glancing at Honey in her trench coat and black beret, pulled low on her blond hair and slightly to one side, the way girls in spy movies wore their berets. Honey was a new experience for him.

  She said, The whole time we talked, you know you didn't once call me by my name? Which one do you have a problem with, Honey or Miss Deal?

  He was aware of it and said, Well, if I called you 'Honey' it would sound like, you know, we're going together.

  My friends at work call me Honey. I'm not going with any of them. The day I was born my dad picked me up and said, 'Here's my little honey,' and loved me so much I was christened Honey. The priest said, 'You can't call her that. There's no St. Honey in the Catholic Church.' My dad said, 'There is now. Christen her Honey or we're turning Baptist.' She said, You want to know something? Walter never asked where I got the name.

  Did you tell him?

  We're coming to Blessed Sacrament, Honey said, where Walter and I met. It was after eleven o'clock Mass. Yeah, I told him but he didn't make anything of it. He called me Honig, if he called me anything.

  You took that as a good sign, meeting at church?

  I think it was the only reason Walter went to Mass, to meet a girl with golden hair. He stopped going once he had me, and I stopped since we were living in sin, not married in the Church.

  You believe that, you were living in sin?

  Not really. It was more like living a life of penance. I'll tell you though, I did like his looks, the way he dressed, his little glasses pinched on his nose, he was so different. I'd never met anyone in my life like Walter Schoen. I think I might've felt sorry for him too, he seemed so lonely. He was serious about everything and when we argued we argued all the time I'd keep at him, whatever we were talking about, and it drove him nuts.

  Determined to change him, Kevin said.

  Honey
sat up to look past Kevin. She said, There's his market, and sat back again. With a sign in the window, but I couldn't read it.

  Announcing no meat today, Kevin said. I passed it on the way to your place. So, you thought you could change him?

  I wanted to get him to quit being so serious and have some fun. Maybe even get him to laugh at Adolf Hitler, the way Charlie Chaplin played him in The Great Dictator. Chaplin has the little smudge of a mustache, the uniform, he's Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania. But the movie came out after I left.

  You think he saw it?

  I couldn't get Walter to listen to Jack Benny. He called him a pompous Jew. I said, 'That's the part he plays, a cheapskate. You don't think he's funny?' No, or even Fred Allen. We were at some German place having drinks, I said, 'Walter, have you ever told a joke? Not a political cartoon, a funny story?' He acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I said, 'I'll tell you a joke and then you tell it to me. We'll see how you do.'

  Kevin Dean was looking straight ahead grinning. You were married then?

  Ja, I'm Frau Schoen. I tell him the one, three guys arrive at heaven at the same time. It's been a very busy day, during the war, and Saint Peter says, 'I only have time to admit one of you today. How about whoever has experienced the most unusual death.' Have you heard it?

  I don't think so.

  The first guy tells how he came home unexpectedly, finds his wife in bed naked and tears through the apartment looking for her lover. He runs out on the balcony and there's the guy hanging from the railing, twenty-five floors above the street. The husband takes off one of his shoes and beats on the guy's hands till the guy lets go and falls. But he doesn't hit the pavement, damn it, he lands in a bushy tree and he's still alive. The husband, furious, grabs the refrigerator, drags it out to the balcony and pushes it over the railing. The fridge lands on the guy in the tree and kills him. But, the exertion is too much for the husband, he has a heart attack and drops dead. Saint Peter says, 'That's not bad,' and turns to the second guy who wants to get into heaven. This one says he was exercising on his balcony, lost his balance and went over the railing. He's a goner for sure, but reaches out and grabs the railing of the balcony below his apartment. Now a guy comes out and the one hanging twenty-five floors above the street says, 'Thank God, I'm saved.' But the guy who comes out takes off his shoe and beats on his hands gripping the rail till he falls. But he lands in the bushy tree, he's still alive, his eyes wide open to see the fridge coming down to blot out his life. Saint Peter says, 'Yeah, I like that one.' Turns to the third guy who wants to get into heaven and says, 'What's your story, amigo?' The guy says, 'I don't know what happened. I was naked, hiding in a refrigerator . . .'

  Honey paused.

  Kevin laughed out loud.

  He think it was funny?

  He didn't smile or say anything right away. He's thinking about it. Finally he asked me which of the three guys did Saint Peter let into heaven, and where did the other two have to wait, in limbo? I said, 'Yeah, limbo, with all the babies that happened to die before they were baptized.'

  Why didn't he get it?

  He's managed to stick his head up his ass, Honey said, and the only thing he sees up there are swastikas.

  This sweet girl talking like that. Kevin said, I'm never sure what you're gonna say next.

  I tried one more joke on Walter, Honey said. I told him the one, the guy comes home, walks into the kitchen with a sheep in his arms. His wife turns from the sink and he says, 'This is the pig I've been sleeping with when I'm not with you.' His wife says, 'You dummy, that's not a pig, it's a sheep.' And the guy says, 'I wasn't speaking to you.'

  Kevin laughed out loud again and looked at Honey smoking her cigarette. You like to tell jokes?

  To Walter, trying to loosen him up.

  Did he laugh?

  He said, 'The man is not talking to his wife, he's talking to the sheep?' I said yeah, it's his wife he's calling a pig. Walter said, 'But how does a sheep understand what he's saying?' That was it, Honey said. There was no way in the world I'd ever turn Walter around. It was a dumb idea to begin with, really arrogant of me to think I could change him. But you know, I realized even if he did lighten up the marriage would never last.

  There must've been something about him you liked, Kevin said, I mean as a person.

  You'd think so, wouldn't you? said Honey in the black beret nodding her head. Something more than his accent and his stuck-on glasses, but I can't think of anything it might be. I was young and I was dumb. She smoked her cigarette, quiet for a time before saying, That year with Walter did have some weird moments I'll never forget. Like when he'd aim his finger at me, pretending it was a gun and cut one.

  Kevin said, You mean he'd pass gas in front of you? In front of me, behind me But now they were coming to Seward and he had to tell her, Here's the street where Jurgen Schrenk and his mom and dad lived in the thirties. The apartment hotel's in the second block.

  The Abington, Honey said. I had dinner there a few times they have a dining room. This guy I knew always stayed there. He said he'd walk five blocks south to the General Motors Building on the Boulevard, and walk back with a signed contract in his briefcase.

  What kind of contract?

  I don't know, he never told me exactly what he did. He was from Argentina and had something to do with Grand Prix auto racing in Europe before the war. He always called cars motorcars. He'd stay at the Abington in a one-bedroom apartment that had a tiny kitchen. If there were twin beds he'd pull down the Murphy bed in the living room. He was a little guy, very slim, but liked big beds. Honey said, You know, I remember reading about Jurgen and the SS guy escaping. It was in all the Detroit papers.

  It brought Kevin back, his image of Honey and a suave type of guy who looked like a tango dancer gone from his mind.

  She said, Jurgen might be the same boy Walter told me about, or he might not. Walter did write to someone who was in the war. I remember he got a letter postmarked from Poland in 1939, but Walter never said anything about it. By that time we were barely speaking.

  Jurgen Schrenk was in Poland before going to North Africa, according to the marshal in Tulsa. The guy who swears Jurgen's here, hiding out.

  You said he's famous?

  A book was written about him, all kinds of magazine articles, a long one in True Detective. The book, Carl Webster: The Hot Kid of the Marshals Service , came out about ten years ago.

  Have you read it?

  Yeah, I got hold of a copy it's good. Carl's been in some really tight situations. I've talked to some agents who know him, they all say he's the real thing. He's shot and killed at least a dozen wanted felons, or otherwise known bad guys like Emmett Long and Jack Belmont. Kevin paused. No, it was his wife Louly who shot Jack Belmont. She shot another bank robber too, but I forget his name.

  Honey said, His wife goes with him, he's after bad guys?

  They were unusual situations. Louly was related to Pretty Boy Floyd's wife, and for a time everybody thought Louly was Floyd's girlfriend.

  Before she married Carl Webster.

  That's right, and now she's in the Women Marines, teaching recruits how to fire a machine gun from the backseat of a dive-bomber. Kevin said, All the guys Carl Webster shot, he used the same Colt .38 revolver, the front sight filed off. No, one he shot with a Winchester at four hundred yards. At night. Kevin said, Something I don't understand, you see his name in the paper or in the book, it's Carl Webster. But when he calls me he says, 'This is Carlos Webster.'

  That's his real name?

  Carlos Huntington Webster. His dad was in Cuba with Huntington's Marines at Guantssnamo in '98, during the Spanish-American War. Carl's mother was Cuban and his dad's mother was part Northern Cheyenne. But does he go by Carl or Carlos?

  How old is he?

  All he's done, you'd think he'd have some years on him, but he isn't yet forty years old.

  Have you met him?

  Not yet. He was ready to come to Detroit on his ow
n, help us look for Jurgen and the SS guy, Otto. But Carl's boss, the Tulsa marshal, retired and they made Carl acting head of the office. He raised hell saying he'd never had a desk job and never would.

  The marshals office in Washington said okay, they'd look around and find someone to take his place. He told me, if we don't have Jurgen by the time his replacement arrives, he's definitely coming. Kevin looked at Honey. He loved looking at her profile. She had a cute nose like the girls in the Jantzen swimming suit ads. She didn't act like she knew she was a knockout, but he would bet she did and knew how to use her looks without letting on too much.

  You want to meet him if he comes?

  I wouldn't mind, Honey said. But why would he bother seeing me?

  Walter, Kevin said. He wants you along when he talks to him.

  Chapter Four.

  Every time Carl approached the Mayo he thought of the guy who tried to shoot him in the back as he entered the hotel.

  The Black Hand extortion guy ten years ago. With an Italian name Carl couldn't think of. The doorman that day had been holding one of the doors open for Carl. He started in and the glass in the door next to him and in the door swinging closed behind him both shattered, blown apart with the sound of high-caliber gunfire and now tires screaming, the Ford coupe gone by the time Carl came around with his Colt revolver.

  Today the same doorman was holding the door open, Marvin, a black guy, Marvin asking Carl as he approached the entrance how he was this spring morning. Now looking past Carl and saying, Uh-oh, under his breath. Man has a gun.

  Carl stopped. He heard his name called and turned to see a young guy in black holding a big heavy show-off nickel-plate automatic against his leg, the shoulders of his suit wide, zooty, the pants pegged at his light-tan shoes. There he was, a full head of black hair shining in the hotel lights, a young gangster, Italian or Jewish, here to shoot Carl Webster. If the kid was Jewish he'd be a kin of the Tedesco brothers, Tutti and Frankie Bones from the Purple Gang. That time in Okmulgee they came around on him pulling their guns, Carl fired twice and the Tedescos went down.