Up in Honey's Room, Page 2

  That was a couple of months ago.

  Kevin Dean came in showing his ID, quite a nice-looking young guy who seemed about her age, Honey thirty now. He said he appreciated her seeing him, with the trace of a down-home sound Honey placed not far west of where she grew up. She watched him gather the morning paper from the sofa and stand reading the headline story about the invasion of Leyte, his raincoat hanging open looking too small for him. She saw Kevin as a healthy young guy with good color, not too tall but seemed to have a sturdy build.

  I have to fix my hair, get dressed, and leave for work, Honey said, in ten minutes.

  He had his nose in the paper, not paying any attention to her.

  If Walter's all we're gonna talk about, Honey said, let's get to it, all right?

  He still didn't look up, but now he said, We're back in the Philippines you read it? Third and Seventh Amphibious Forces of the Sixth Army went ashore on Leyte, near Tacloban.

  That's how you pronounce it, Honey said, Tacloban?

  It got him to look at her, Honey now sitting erect in a club chair done in beige. She said, I read about it this morning with my coffee. I thought it was pronounced Tac loban. I could be wrong but I like the sound of it better than Tacloban. Like I think Tarawa sounds a lot better than Tar awa, the way you hear commentators say it, but what do I know.

  She had his attention.

  You'll come to the part, General MacArthur wades ashore a few hours later and says over the radio to the Filipinos, 'I have returned,' because he told them three years ago when he left, 'I shall return,' and here he was, true to his word. But when he waded ashore, don't you think he should've said, 'We have returned'? Since his entire army, a hundred thousand combat veterans, waded ashore ahead of him?

  Kevin Dean was nodding, agreeing with her. He said, You're right, and took a notebook out of his raincoat and flipped through pages saying, Walter was quite a bit older than you, wasn't he? Honey watched him sink into her velvety beige sofa.

  Your raincoat isn't wet, is it?

  No, it's nice out for a change.

  Have you talked to Walter?

  We look in on him every now and then.

  You're wondering why I married him, aren't you?

  It crossed my mind, yeah.

  Being fourteen years older, Honey said, doesn't mean he wasn't fun. Walter would show me a political cartoon in his Nazi magazine, the Illustrierter Beobachter, sent from Munich he got a month later. He'd tell me in English what the cartoon was about and we'd have a good laugh over it.

  She waited while Kevin Dean decided how to take what she said.

  So you got along with him.

  Walter Schoen was the most boring man I've ever met in my life, Honey said. You're gonna have to pick up on when I'm kidding. You know Walter and I weren't married in the Church. A Wayne County judge performed the ceremony in his chambers. On a Wednesday. Have you ever heard of anyone getting married on Wednesday? I'm saving the church wedding for the real thing.

  You're engaged?

  Not yet.

  But you're seeing someone.

  I thought you wanted to talk about Walter. What if I asked if you're married?

  Having fun with him. She could tell he knew what she was doing and said no, he wasn't married or planning to anytime soon. Honey wanted to call him by his first name but pictured a guy named Kevin as a blond-haired kid with a big grin. Kevin Dean had a crop of wild brown hair Honey believed he combed in the morning and forgot about the rest of the day. She knew he packed a gun but couldn't tell where he wore it. She wondered if she should call him Dean, and heard lines in her memory, It was Din! Din! Din! You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been? Left there from a ninth-grade elocution contest. And saw Dean in the sofa waiting for her to say something.

  An easygoing type. He might not be her idea of a Kevin, but that's what he was. She said, Kevin, how long have you been a G-man?

  See if she could find out how old he was.

  I finished my training this past summer. Before that I was in the service.

  Where're you from? Honey said. I hear someplace faintly down-home the way you speak.

  I didn't think I had an accent.

  She said, It isn't East Texas, but around there.

  He told her Tulsa, Oklahoma. He went to school there, the University of Tulsa, graduated midyear right after Pearl and joined the cavalry.

  Making him no more than twenty-five, Honey at least five years older than this good-looking boy from Oklahoma. She said, The cavalry?

  I went to language school to learn Japanese, then spent the next year with the First Cavalry Division in Louisiana, Australia, and New Guinea, training for jungle combat, the kind they had on Guadalcanal. I made second lieutenant and was assigned to the Fifth Cavalry Regiment, the one J. E. B. Stuart commanded before the Civil War. He was always a hero of mine, the reason I joined the First Cav, not knowing we'd be dismounted in the Pacific theater. You know the Stuart I'm talking about?

  You told me, Jeb Stuart.

  Shot through the lungs at Yellow Tavern, the war almost over. Do you have a hero?

  Jane Austen, Honey said. Where were you in the Pacific with the cavalry?

  Los Negros in the Admiralties, two hundred miles north of New Guinea, two degrees south of the equator. Destroyers dropped us off and we went ashore twenty-nine February of this year, to draw fire and locate enemy positions. I was with a recon unit so we were the first wave. We wanted an airstrip on Momote plantation, thirteen hundred yards from the beach, sitting in there among rows and rows of palm trees, coconuts all over the ground.

  Honey said, Were you scared to death? at ease with him, able to say something like that.

  You bet I was scared, but you're with all these serious guys sharpening their trench knives. On the destroyer taking us to the drop-off that's what you did, sharpened your knife. Some of the guys had brand-new tattoos that said death before dishonor and you start to think, Wait a minute, what am I doing here? What you don't want to do is throw up or wet your pants. Right before you go in is a tricky time.

  Well, you made it.

  I made it with metal frags in my back. The evening of the second day a Jap threw a grenade I saw coming and it took me out of the war. I never did get to ride with the cavalry. But I got a Purple Heart out of it, an honorable discharge and a visit from the Bureau. They came to the VA hospital and got around to asking if I'd like to be an FBI agent, since I'd finished college, had taken accounting and spoke Japanese, sort of.

  So they send you after German spies, Honey said. Tell me, does Walter still live in that house on Kenilworth? He's rigid about his appearance, but he sure let the house run down, never put any money in it. He was saving up for something.

  He turned the floor above the market into a small apartment.

  He isn't married, is he?

  Not since you left him. There is a woman who might be his girlfriend, Countess Vera Mezwa Radzykewycz. Kevin looked at his notebook. Born in Odessa, in the Ukraine. She claims she was married to a Polish count, killed leading a cavalry charge against German panzers.

  You and the count, Honey said, a couple of cavalrymen.

  He saw her smile and looked at his notes again. Vera came here in 1943 and leased a home on Boston Boulevard. She has a young guy, Bohdan Kravchenko, also Ukrainian, cooks and keeps house for her.

  If Vera lives on Boston Boulevard she's got money. Walter's interested in her?

  They see each other.

  The countess climbs the stairs to his apartment over a meat market?

  Most of the time it's at her place.

  Why do you think she's a spy, because she's keeping company with Walter?

  I'm not telling you everything we have on her.

  But she was married to a Polish count, a war hero?

  There's no record of the count as an officer in the Polish Army. That's the cover they made up for Vera. We believe she was trained by the Gestapo, was given money and credentials and came o
n a ship to Canada as a highly respected Ukrainian refugee. Vera moved to Detroit and gives lectures to women's groups, tells them how awful it is to live under the Nazis, no shampoo, no cold cream. We've got her down as a possible enemy alien.

  Doing what?

  Gathering information about war production.

  The Germans don't know we're making bombers? Now you're acting smart.

  What I'm asking, Honey said, is if you think what Vera sends the Germans does them any good.

  It doesn't matter. If she's working as a German agent, the U. S. attorney will bring her up on the charge and put her away. It doesn't matter if her information helps the enemy or not.

  What about Walter?

  He's been a U. S. citizen since he was fourteen. If he's involved in anything subversive it's an act of treason. He could hang.

  Kevin looked at his notebook and turned a page, then a few more and stopped. How about Joseph John Aubrey?

  Honey shook her head.

  Lives in Griffin, Georgia.

  Oh, Joe Aubrey, yeah, Honey said, owns restaurants. He was big in the German-American Bund at that time. Walter met him at the rally they had in New York.

  Madison Square Garden, Kevin said, 1939.

  Walter brought me along thinking I'd be impressed by all the fans Fritz Kuhn had, the American Hitler.

  Over twenty thousand, Kevin said, they filled the Garden. You met Joseph J. Aubrey, talked to him?

  You don't talk to Joe Aubrey, you listen to his rant or walk away. Joe was an active member of the Bund and a Grand Dragon of the Klan. Bund get-togethers he'd say, 'Heah's some more of the dirty tricks international Jewery is doin' to spread Common-ism.' That's what he called it, 'Commonism.' At Klan rallies he'd say, 'We gonna have integration, nigger kids and our white children goin' to the same school '

  Over his dead body, Kevin said.

  You're close. Joe said, 'When they pry my hands from my empty rifle and lay me to rest in the cold ground.' Joe Aubrey never shuts up. He got rich in the restaurant business promoting finger-lickin' barbecue.

  He has a plane, a Cessna?

  Yeah, he'd fly up and spend a few days at the Book Cadillac. He always stayed at the Book. One time he was there, Joe said he was at the desk registering, he looked up and could not believe his eyes. He said, 'You know that dude nigger Count Basil? Wears that kind of skipper cap so you think he has a yacht? He's walkin' around the hotel lobby bold as brass. What was he doin' there? He couldn't of been stayin' at the ho-tel.'

  Kevin said, Who's Count Basil?

  He meant Count Basie. Joe doesn't know the 'One O'Clock Jump' from 'Turkey in the Straw.'

  Kevin looked at the notebook page he held open.

  Did you know a Dr. Michael George Taylor?

  I don't think so.

  He might've come later, Kevin said, looked at his book again and said, No, he was at the rally in New York. Though I bet Walter knew him from before.

  That rally, Honey said, a sports arena full of all these boobs sieg heil ing everything Fritz Kuhn said, this thug in a uniform standing in front of a giant portrait of George Washington. He led the crowd in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then talked forever, saying President Roosevelt was part of the international Jewish banking conspiracy. I remember Joe Aubrey calling FDR Frank D. Rosenfeld and the New Deal the Jew Deal. That's what the whole thing was about, blame the Jews for whatever was wrong with the world.

  Kevin said, But you don't remember a Dr. Michael George Taylor. An obstetrician, he has quite a large practice here, a lot of German-American women.

  Honey shook her head. I don't think so.

  He studied in Germany a few years, Kevin said, looking at his notebook. He thinks the Nazis have the right idea about the Jewish problem. He says their methods are extreme, yes, but they do the job.

  How did you learn that?

  Kevin was still looking at his notes. He said, Dr. Taylor is a friend of Vera Mezwa and a frequent visitor. On one occasion he told her he would be willing to do anything, whatever he could, to further the cause of National Socialism, even if it meant incarceration or even his death. He said, quote, 'The world would be a far better place for my children to live' Kevin looking at Honey now 'under the guidance of the firm Nazi philosophy.'

  He sounds like a bigger idiot than Joe Aubrey.

  They're his words, what he believes.

  You tapped the phone?

  Kevin shook his head. We didn't get it that way. I'll tell you something else. Dr. Taylor supplied Vera with amedo pyrine. You know what it is? One of the ingredients you use to make invisible ink.

  The German officer, Honey said, unfolds the blank sheet of paper, looks at it and says, 'Our Vera has a beautiful hand, no?'

  I'm serious, Kevin said, these people work for the German Reich.

  How'd you find out about the invisible ink? Honey waited, watching him. I won't tell anybody, Kevin, I swear.

  He said, We've got somebody on the inside. And that's all I'm saying.

  If I guess who it is, how about, just nod your head. Come on I'm not playing with you.

  Is it Vera's housekeeper? What's his name . . . ?

  Bohdan Kravchenko. He's a lightweight, but there's something shifty about him.

  What's he look like?

  Blond hair like Buster Brown's, we think is dyed.

  He's queer?

  Possibly.

  You turned him around, Honey said, didn't you? Brought him in for questioning and used a sap on him, got him to talk. Does he give you good stuff ?

  We don't hit people, Kevin said, when we're asking them questions. What I'd like to know, was Walter close to Fritz Kuhn.

  Walter would talk about Fritz and his eyes would shine. We got home from the rally in New York, I was ready to leave him. But once he found out Fritz had swung with about fifteen thousand from the rally proceeds, Walter changed his tune. He was quiet for a while, I think confused.

  Did Walter know Max Stephan?

  Honey said, Jesus, Max Stephan. That whole time he was in the paper it seemed like every day for months I wondered if Walter knew about the German flier. What was his name, Krug?

  Hans Peter Krug, Kevin said, twenty-two, a bomber pilot. He opened his notebook. Shot down over the Thames estuary. Sent to a POW camp in Canada, Bowmanville, Ontario. Escaped and reached Detroit eighteen April 1942. Found a skiff and paddled across the Detroit River with a board.

  Walter's name was never in the paper, Honey said. So I assumed he wasn't involved. You understand this was three years after I'd left Walter.

  But you knew Max Stephan?

  He was a jerk, as pompous and stuck on himself as Walter, and crude. But this was before Max was charged with treason.

  She knew the details: how Krug dropped in on Johanna Bertlemann, a Nazi sympathizer who used the German Red Cross to send canned goods, cakes, clothing, to the POWs at Bowmanville. Krug had copied her address in Detroit off a package she'd sent to the camp. Johanna introduced him to Max and Max took him around to German bars and clubs before sending him off to Chicago. Someone snitched. Krug was picked up in San Antonio on his way to Mexico and Max was arrested.

  Kevin said, He told the agents who arrested him he thought Americans were 'frightfully stupid.' He said he visited some of our major cities, Chicago, New York, and was rarely questioned or asked to show his papers.

  Part of everyday life in Germany, Honey said.

  But to convict Max Stephan of treason, Kevin said, they'd need two eyeball witnesses. Or, get Krug to tell how Max helped him. But why would he? All he's obliged to do is identify himself.

  But he did tell on Max, didn't he?

  The U. S. attorney sneaked up on him with questions that put Krug at ease and made him look good. How did he escape from Bowmanville. Why did he come to Detroit. Krug said his purpose was to get back to his squadron. He was talking now. He said yes, he knew Max Stephan. He told the whole story, how he said no when Max offered to get him a prostitute. He des
cribed everything they did during a period of twenty-five hours before he realized he'd given Max up. And he said we were stupid. Max was found guilty and sentenced to hang, the date, Friday, November thirteenth, 1942. But FDR commuted the sentence to life. His home is now the federal pen at Atlanta.

  What happened to the pilot, Krug?

  The Mounties came and got him. He's back in Bowmanville.

  I read about German POWs escaping, Honey said, but most of them turn out to be funny stories.

  They're picked up in a couple of days, Kevin said, walking around with PW painted on their work clothes. Or they get hungry, miss three squares a day at the camp, and give themselves up.

  So it's not a problem.

  Kevin said, Except I've got a guy calling me, a U. S. marshal and stopped.

  Honey watched him bring out a pack of Chesterfields and hold it out to offer her one. The good-looking special agent seemed right at home on her sofa. Honey took a cigarette and leaned over him for a light, saying, You look so comfortable, I hope you don't fall asleep. Close to him, Kevin trying to keep his nose out of Honey's orange, red, and ochre kimono. She sat on the sofa now, the middle cushion between them.

  You've got a federal marshal calling you?

  From the Tulsa office, yeah. He asks for me by name since I'm the one spoke to him the first time he called.

  He knew you from home?

  Actually, Kevin said, I'm originally from Bixby, across the river from Tulsa. I don't know this marshal but I'd heard of him and I find out he's famous. Law enforcement people respect him, so you listen to what he has to say. He makes remarks the way you do, with a straight face. Anyway, he had the Bureau office in Tulsa send us additional information about the two escaped POWs. They're from a camp near Okmulgee, Afrika Korps officers, one of them a major in the SS. With the information was a statement from the Tulsa marshal saying he knows one of them from lengthy conversations and observing him for a time.

  Which one, Honey said, the SS guy?

  The other one. Kevin checked his notebook and Honey laid her arm along the sofa's backrest. Kevin looked up saying, The marshal claims he knows the guy, and knows doesn't just have reason to believe he knows they came here when they escaped.