December '41, page 6
“German? Like a Nazi?”
“Like Marlene Dietrich. There’s this one agent—he didn’t sign me—but he said he thought I looked like Dietrich.”
“Ah, you’re prettier than her.”
“Well … maybe with the war, I can play a German. You know, a good gal in Nazi-land, or a Nazi dame who won’t take any guff from the Nazi guys.”
“Sure, kid, sure,” said Nancy. “Why not? Take nothin’ from no one.”
“Yeah. Why not? I think I’ll start actin’ like that right now.” The girl got up, drained the coffee cup, hooked her purse over her arm, and walked the length of the diner, as fine and steady as Dietrich on the day she left Germany.
Nancy B. watched her go, then looked at Martin. “How’s the meat loaf?”
“Needs salt.”
Nancy grabbed the shakers and plunked them down.
Suddenly, Mr. Racing Form was shouting, “Hey! Hey! Cut that out!”
Through the window, Martin saw a swirl of yellow skirt, a car door swinging open, people grappling, all lit by flashing neon.
As the Racing Form flew, the old man ran out the door. A moment later, he slammed against the plate-glass window.
Nancy B. rushed out.
The grill man muttered, “For Chrissakes,” and whacked the spatula on the grill.
The kids gave a look, then went back to chitchat.
Martin sprinkled salt on his meat loaf and managed to finish half of it by the time Nancy B. had helped the old man back to his stool. “Looks like you got yourself a shiner, there, Jake. I’ll get you some ice.”
The grill man said, “You’re too old to be fightin’ like that, Jake.”
“But that gal,” said Jake, “as soon as she got outside, she said, ‘Forget it, Buddy, I’m not goin’.’ So Buddy Clapper, the bastard, he grabbed her and shoved her in his car.”
The grill man said, “Ah, she’ll be fine. Tomorrow, she’ll come in here and order roast turkey and Boston cream pie and pay with green cash money she’s earned just like an old-fashioned girl.”
Nancy told the grill man to shut the hell up.
Martin kept his head down until his meat loaf was gone. Then he asked for the bill.
Nancy came over, took out her pad, did the addition. “Twenty-five cents for the meat loaf. Five cents for the coffee. And five bucks for the egg.”
“Egg? What egg?” asked Martin.
“The egg you’re sittin’ on. You’re so afraid to get up and help that gal when they drag her off, I’m thinking you’re just a big chicken.”
Martin gave Nancy a look that warned her she was coming much closer to danger than she knew. Then he dropped a dollar bill on the table and left. But instead of heading east for home, he turned right onto Los Feliz Boulevard. Destination, Griffith Park.
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK PULLED UP in front of an apartment house on Echo Park Avenue. More Spanish, more stucco, more tile trim, a nice view across the street to the man-made lake. Kevin and Fritz Kessler had chatted the whole five miles from Deutsches Haus, but they’d said little, as if neither trusted the other.
The Murphy Ranch, the FBI, the war, these had all floated unspoken in the air between them because Kevin had tried a different approach, asking Kessler first about his family, his hopes, his work.
Fritz and his wife had come to America when the Communists were rising in Berlin and everything was “going to shit.” They’d come to Los Angeles for the weather and the work. Kessler was a bricklayer by trade. Work was hard to find, but the weather was wonderful. And the Bund made him feel part of something.
All good answers, thought Kevin, offered more gracefully than he’d expected. But now onto the nub of the matter: “So … what do you know about this Murphy Ranch?”
Kessler seemed to inflate with suspicion. “If I ever go out there, I will call you. Do you have a number? An address?”
Kevin knew a clumsy grab for information when he heard it. He didn’t like to lie, because lies led to more lies, and crisscrossing lies created an inescapable maze. So he gave up as little as possible. He said, “I know where to find you. If I get a gun, I’ll call.”
Kessler said, “I have a gun, Herr Cusack. I will use it on der Tag.”
“Der Tag. Right. That’s why I want my gun.”
“We should all have guns to shoot Jews on der Tag. I hope you are ready to shoot Hollywood Jews like Jack Warner and Hal Wallis. Or do you flatter them, too, the way you flatter Emile Gunst and Herr Schwinn when you come to the Bund?”
This was going nowhere. So Kevin jerked his thumb at the door. Get out.
Kessler appeared to reach for the handle, but instead came up with a fist that shot toward Kevin’s face. Brass knuckles flashed to a stop a few inches away from his cheek, a move so shocking that Kevin threw open his door and rolled out.
A Ford coupe squealed and swerved. A horn blared.
Kevin jumped up and shouted back into his car. “Beat it, you son of a bitch.”
Kessler got out on the other side and held up his brass-knuckled fist. “I carry these for men who betray us, for Jew lovers who pretend to be friends of the new Germany. Be glad that I pull my first punch.”
Over the roof of the car, Kevin said, “The next time you come at me with those things, I’ll have that gun.”
“Very wise, Herr Cusack. Very wise.” Kessler went up the walk, calling over his shoulder, “We are watching you. Auf Wiedersehen.”
Kevin jumped into his car and sped away. He didn’t notice that the driver in the Ford coupe had pulled over and written down his plate number. On a night when everyone was edgy, good citizens kept their eyes—and their pencils—sharp.
* * *
VIVIAN HOPEWELL HUNCHED IN the back seat of Buddy Clapper’s Packard. She was still screaming into the gag, furious at Buddy and at herself for getting into this.
“Stop it, for Chrissakes,” said Buddy. “I’ll give you an extra fifty. Just stop your fuckin’ screamin’.”
“You want me to whack her again, boss?”
“No, you stupid bastard. We want her lookin’ pretty. No shiners.”
“She got one of those already.”
Buddy was driving, and he’d brought along a bulky thug named Poke, who smelled of beer and onions. Turns out that Buddy was the charm of the operation. Poke was the muscle. From what Vivian could tell, neither of them was the brains.
Buddy looked into the back seat and said, “How about it? Another fifty?”
Vivian nodded. She decided to play it calm until she could run. She didn’t want the money. No amount of money was worth this. What she wanted was to go home, home to Maryland, home to life as just plain Kathy Schortmann.
They’d turned off Los Feliz and were now deep in Griffith Park, a world of mountainside, meadow, and canyon six times bigger than Central Park … and sixty times wilder, right in the middle of L.A. In daylight, she could’ve picked out a dozen spots where they’d shot movies. But at night, it was just black on blacker.
Buddy had even turned off his headlights. Maybe he knew there were military vehicles speeding through the park to get up to the observatory. Word was that they’d already sited antiaircraft guns up there. But most of the military action was along Vermont and Western. Down here on the east side, it was deserted.
By the time they got to the golf course, Poke had taken out the gag and untied her hands. She pretended she was calming down. Maybe she could find help in the building at the end of the parking lot. It looked like the clubhouse. But was anyone even there?
The Packard rolled across the lot. Trees lined the curb. The first fairway reached out into the night. Two men were standing by a darkened DeSoto sedan. One wore a double-breasted suit, the other a jacket. A flask flashed. A cigarette flared. A match flickered inside the car, where the third guy was lighting up.
Buddy parked beside the DeSoto. Then he said to Vivian, “Relax, kid. This’ll be the easiest dough you ever made.”
Poke put a hand on her knee. “And maybe after, we can get a free sample.”
She slapped the hand away and said to Buddy, “You better tell this gorilla to keep his paws off me, or I’ll scram the second this door opens.”
Poke leaned a little closer. “Where you gonna go, baby? You can’t run down the fairway in high heels. You’ll sink.”
Buddy turned off the engine and told Poke to get out and go around to the passenger side and keep watch. Then Buddy got out, too.
Vivian noticed that the dome light didn’t come on. These bastards knew all the tricks. She tried the back door on the passenger side. Locked. They’d even removed the little lock knob, leaving just the screw post. Then Poke leaned against that door for good measure. She was trapped.
She heard Buddy say, “So, fellas, did I deliver the goods or what?”
“Does she look like Dietrich?”
“See for yourself.” Buddy opened the back door.
The guy in the double-breasted stuck his fat face in. His breath reeked of whiskey. He grinned. “I always wanted to fuck Dietrich.”
Then another face appeared behind him, longer, thinner, a cigarette dangling. He had a flashlight. He flicked it on and shone it in her face.
For a moment, she couldn’t see anything.
He said, “She ain’t as bony as Dietrich. Nicer tits, too. But—”
That was all he said.
The flashlight flew, sending a crazy shadow spinning.
The fat man looked around and said, “What the fuck?” and something that looked like a leather blackjack smashed down onto his bald white head. He bounced off the open door and fell into the car, right on top of Vivian.
Outside, a dark shadow was moving, like a spirit.
Buddy yelled, “You! Why, you fuckin’ do-gooder.” And he pulled something from under his arm. It flashed in the dim light. A gun.
The blackjack struck again. The gun flew. Buddy’s arm broke. Vivian heard it snap. Then the blackjack uppercut into Buddy’s jaw and dropped him. The shadow whirled and met Poke with another blow. Vivian could almost hear the skull crack.
Was she next? Were they being robbed? Would this guy rape her? Vivian tried to push the fat man off, but he was dead weight. So she twisted around and tried to pull up the screw post and broke two fingernails.
Then she heard a car door slamming and tires squealing. The DeSoto was roaring off in reverse with a terrified conventioneer behind the wheel.
A new shadow appeared over her: a fedora, a leather jacket, a black knit tie. He pulled the fat man’s body off of Vivian. Then he extended his hand and said, “A lady should not be treated this way.”
She looked at the hand. She looked for the blackjack, but it had disappeared. She looked into his face but couldn’t make out the features.
He said, “We should go.”
She thought, yes. She should go. Going with him might be dangerous, but how much worse than going with Buddy and Poke? She smelled leather and Old Spice. She liked it. So she took his hand and let him draw her toward him.
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK PARKED ON Ivar, half a block above Franklin. He was still shaking from the run-in with Kessler. He wasn’t made for this stuff. He’d never come so close to getting his head bashed in by one of those Nazis before. So he’d driven home with an eye on the rearview mirror, and now he did a quick scan of the shadows around his apartment house. All clear. So he got out of his car and headed for the phone booth on the corner.
He hated that phone booth. Drunks used it to call cabs, and sometimes they used it to piss while they waited. But the light went on when he closed the folding door, which made it better than most phone booths, and tonight, extra light gave him a sense of security, even though it made him a target for anyone watching from the shadows.
He dialed the FBI office. Frank Carter picked up on the first ring.
Kevin told him what had happened with Kessler. Then he gave Carter an earful for putting him in danger and blowing the operation by coming in too early.
Carter said they’d seen guys sneaking out the back of Deutsches Haus, so they had to move.
“From now on, you can move without me.” Kevin slammed the receiver. Then he opened the folding door. As the overhead light went out, a fist burst from out of the night, right into his face.
Kevin flew back against the glass. He couldn’t tell who’d hit him, but he knew it wasn’t brass knuckles.
Then he heard the words “She’s mine. Stay away from her.”
Jerry Sloane, that son of a bitch … coming out of nowhere with a sucker punch.
Kevin was jammed into the booth, so he couldn’t do much to fight back, and he was too stunned anyway. So he shut the folding door and put his foot against the hinge. The light came on again.
Jerry Sloane’s face pressed against the glass, contorted with anger and whiskey. “Fuck you, Cusack. And fuck that Huston, too. She’s mine.” Then he went staggering off.
Kevin looked down at the blood covering his shirt and tie and decided that getting even with a sucker-punching drunk could wait. He had to take off his sport coat before the blood stained the tweed. Besides, revenge was a dish best served by getting lipstick on your collar, not blood.
* * *
MARTIN BROWNING PULLED DOWN the driveway and slipped into his garage. All the apartments were dark. People went to bed early in Glendale. But as he headed for his apartment, he heard a voice:
“Good evening, señor.”
He looked toward the little bungalow and the shadow of Mrs. Sanchez on her patio. He touched the brim of his hat. “Good evening.”
She said, “I have made a second pitcher of sangria. The first night of a war is not a night to drink alone, I do not think.”
He was tempted. But a drink might lead to more. And he had done one foolish thing already that night. He shouldn’t compound it by doing another. Every foolish thing he did, whatever the reason, could endanger his mission. So he said good night.
As he drifted to sleep, he considered the job he had been chosen for. And he considered his place in this enormous, ambitious, undisciplined, and profligate country. He’d spent his adolescence here, but he felt no loyalty to America. His loyalty was to the country of his birth. And his responsibility was to history, for it was now within his power to change history: one man with a pistol, firing two shots on Christmas Eve at the Reich’s greatest enemy. That would be the real day of days, the real der Tag.
And Franklin Roosevelt would die.
TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 9
AS DAWN BACKLIT THE mountains, Vivian Hopewell awoke and wondered: Was this all a dream? From the lowest point in her life to this … in just twelve hours?
She lay on clean sheets, in a bed occupied by herself … and only herself. That alone was an achievement, because she hadn’t screwed anybody to get there. She’d come close, but her mysterious savior had proven to be a gentleman.
She rolled over and ran her hand across the monogram on the pillow: R. The Roosevelt Hotel, on Hollywood Boulevard, where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had rented the penthouse until they moved to Encino.
She sat up and looked around. And yes. It was all real. An open door led to a private bathroom. Tile gleamed. Sunlight slanted. And through the front windows she saw … a pagoda? She hopped out of bed and looked across Hollywood Boulevard at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, shimmering as magically at dawn as it did during a nighttime premiere, with fans screaming and searchlights sweeping the sky. Two-Faced Woman, starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, was the feature.
How many times had Vivian dreamed of her own name on that marquee? Vivian Hopewell starring in … Rescued from Griffith Park?
It was as if the night before had been a movie, not a dream.
After the fight scene:
EXT GRIFFITH PARK NIGHT: Camera FOLLOWS Vivian and Stranger to his car. She begs him not to hurt her. He promises he won’t. She begs him not to take her back to fleabag boardinghouse, as bad guys are sure to follow. He promises they won’t.
EXT GRIFFITH PARK LONG SHOT: Dodge coupe speeds out of park. At Los Feliz Boulevard, it turns toward Hollywood, not Glendale.
INT DODGE MEDIUM SHOT: Vivian asks where he’s taking her. He says, “Someplace where no one will bother you.” She asks, “Who are you, mister?” He answers, “A friend.”
INT DODGE CLOSE on Vivian as she thinks that over. A friend? Really?
But that’s what he’d proven to be, delivering her to the Roosevelt, paying for four nights, and watching her sign in with “Kathy Schortmann.” At the elevator, he’d bid her good night, and she’d asked his name.
“Call me Harry. And if I call, I will ask for Kathy … Kathy Schortmann.”
“That’s my Maryland name, my real name. I might go back to it if I can buy a bus ticket home. But I don’t even have the money to buy a hamburger.”
He’d said, “Check your pocket.”
As the elevator doors closed, she’d pulled out fifty bucks in small bills.
A friend, indeed.
* * *
MARTIN BROWNING SLEPT AWAY his exhaustion and didn’t wake until ten. Then he walked around the corner to the pharmacy in Adams Square. While the cash register rang and the radio murmured, he sat at the soda fountain and read the late morning edition of the L.A. Daily News.
The front page proclaimed FDR’s declaration on Japan, but no news of Germany. The centerfold offered photos of the president, the emperor, and a file photo of American battleships in happier days, steaming through a sun-drenched sea.
The next page reported on a news conference at the Los Angeles FBI headquarters: “Chief Agent Richard Hood announced that his 25 field agents had arrested 325 Japanese, 52 Germans, and 9 Italians. Most of them are still in the County Jail, but three busloads, some sixty in all, have been transferred to the Federal Detention Center on Terminal Island in San Pedro. More arrests are scheduled.”
A photo accompanied the story: four men boarding a bus, led by a badge-wearing FBI agent in fedora and dark suit. None of the prisoners looked as arrogant as they surely had the day before. One of them, in rimless Himmler glasses and bottlebrush Hitler mustache, was Hermann Schwinn.
