A Pure Double Cross (3 page)

“I'm not a G-man. The feds recruited me because I was a spy for the OSS.”

“And why would a clean cut agent from the Office of Strategic Services want to turn to a life of crime?” said The Schooler, hiking his eyebrows.

I hiked mine back. “If I'm going to risk my life again I'd like to get paid what it's worth.”

No response. My wit and charm weren't having their customary effect.

“The money's for real,” I said. “The richer the prize, the higher the stake. It's the cardinal rule of undercover work. Mr. Big's a rich prize. To win his trust the feds have ponied up a huge fund of bait money.”

Repeating myself, The Schooler inspecting that hook again and Jimmy's ragged hungry breath on the back of my neck. Not good, not good at all. Say something genius.

“Perhaps you're wondering how I plan to get away with this.”

The Schooler's stolid face flickered to life for half a second. I gathered myself, weight on the balls of my feet. If this didn't work it was time to go.

“The Bureau won't try too terribly hard to find me,” I said, breezily, hopefully. “J. Edgar's not going to want the world to know that a former OSS agent, and the Fulton Road Mob, played America's Bulwark of Freedom for suckers.”

The Schooler liked that. What crook worth his salt doesn't want to put one over on the Bulldog?

“Let's take a walk.”

He led me to a small room off the factory floor, a foreman's office. Jimmy stayed put and lit a cigarette against the darkness. There was a battered metal desk in the little room. The Schooler parked a haunch on a desk corner and set the flashlight upright like a candle. Mice scurried underfoot. The Schooler examined me for a good ten seconds. “I find you an interesting young man.”

What was I supposed to say to that? And I find you an attractive older gentleman?

“It's an interesting proposition, what you suggest. Before I take it upstairs I want to set you straight on something. Even if everything you say checks out you'll still have to pay your dues.”

“Meaning what?”

The Schooler shrugged. “You'll have to make the rounds, prove your loyalty.”

This wasn't what I wanted to hear. I had already proved my loyalty, already made my rounds. Basel to Freiburg to Ulm to Karlsruhe. Spies do that, double agents don't have to. Double agents have superior knowledge.

“The Krauts inserted dozens of spies into England during the war,” I said. “The Brits turned every one. But that's not the point, their…”

“How?”

“What's that?”

“How did the Brits turn them?”

“Uh, most were turned by capture, a few gave themselves up. And some just plain liked to play the game.”

“What game is that?”

“The double cross game,” I said. “But their Kraut spy-masters in Berlin never sniffed it out. They kept believing the horseshit troop movement and industrial production reports their agents sent back. Kept believing them right through Normandy, right up to VE Day.”

The Schooler ran the back of his index finger across his cheek. “You said there was a point.”

“Yeah. Loyalty is for saps.”

There was a grimy window in the little room. The Schooler turned to look through it. Jimmy was playing with his lighter. His jagged profile lit up and went dark, lit up and went dark. “Then fake it,” said The Schooler.

“What's that?”

“Loyalty. I'm riding herd on an itchy group of young men. They start thinking they can freelance and all hell breaks loose. Can you do that?”

Me? Pretend to be something I'm not? “Sure.”

The Schooler didn't budge from his desk corner. He had something more to say. I watched Jimmy firing his lighter through the grimy window, the tongue of flame throwing lurid shadows on his face, making him look like Bela Lugosi. Or Lucifer.

“Which type are you?” said The Schooler. “The type who likes to play the game?”

“No sir, I'm a post-war double agent. I'm just looking for a payday.”

My digs are in what they call the Angle, a slice of west side real estate just below St. Malachi's Church and just above the river, corner of Winslow and West 25
^th
. My room overlooks the ore docks and Whiskey Island. From what I've heard about the housing shortage I guess I'm lucky, if you can call a third floor walkup with a down-the-hall bathroom in Mrs. Brennan's rooming house - just
room, no
board - lucky.

Why not? Six months ago I didn't have a roof, a bed, clean clothes or steam heat.

I looked at the wall mirror where I'd stuck the creased and spattered photo I had carried through hell and back. It didn't do her justice. I told my pals in Youngstown that I didn't know where Jeannie was and didn't care but only the first part was true.

I could track her down. I knew her husband's name, Pappas. Old enough to be her father, so I was told. What the hell was she thinking? Those old country Greeks might come on ‘all wool and a yard wide' but once the knot's tied it's back to the twelfth century. I could track Jeannie down, but what would be the point?

I clomped down two flights of stairs to the parlor, hoping to cadge a newspaper and a cup of tea. Mrs. Brennan always had a kettle on. She had a thriving business, Mrs. Brennan, a biblical number of freckle-faced kids, a kitchen that doubled as a laundry and a no-nonsense manner. Mr. Brennan was ‘away.'

I leaned across the Dutch door to her kitchen. She was using a wooden paddle to haul sheets from an enormous pot of boiling water. “I'll take a cup of Bewley's and a corned beef sandwich.”

Mrs. Brennan did not dignify me with a look. “You'll take a boot in the arse and like it.”

I opened the Dutch door, walked over to her and took the wooden paddle firmly in hand. “This is not a suitable task for a woman of your quality.”

Mrs. Brennan snorted. “Sure of yourself, aren't you?”

“Always,” I smiled. “Now what am I supposed to do with this thing?”

“You're the smart one, you figure it out,” said Mrs. B and went off to pour tea. She brewed it black and strong as any java. I yanked a soaking sheet from the pot with the wooden paddle and held it up. It weighed a ton. Now what?

“Twist it, twist it around.”

I rotated the paddle so that the sheet wrapped around it.

“Hold it there and let it drip.”

I did that too, shoulder muscles groaning.

It wasn't the precise moment I would have chosen to have Jimmy appear. Yet there he stood, hands resting on the ledge of the Dutch door, wearing a dark fedora and a smirk.

-----

We drove down Lorain Avenue in the black Buick. Apparently I had passed muster with Mr. Big, though Jimmy hadn't said so. So far his end of the conversation consisted of “Let's go” and “Get in.”

The neighborhood was old and well-established, red brick apartments above corner stores with striped awnings. Irish pubs, Hungarian restaurants, German
Bäckereis.
We stopped at every one and collected envelopes. The owners didn't say much and Jimmy said less, just fixed them with that Cyclops stare and put out his paw. I stood back with my hands crossed and felt like a heel.

We even stopped at a shoeshine stand. Who shakes down a shoeshine stand? But it wasn't like that. The stand was a sports book the mob bankrolled. Moe the owner had a bad weekend, something to do with the Cleveland Rams not covering the
spread. Jimmy had to fork over a wad of bills. This put him in a foul mood.

We drove on. Jimmy pulled to the curb across from a block-long yellow brick building with a tall clock tower. WESTSI DE MARKET was spelled out in green letters along the roof-line. “Wait here,” said Jimmy and crossed the street. I counted to ten and followed him inside.

The place was a riot of shoppers pressed cheek to jowl at arcades of stalls in every direction. If Jimmy was here to collect protection money it would take a week. I spotted him elbowing his way through the crush.

I threaded my way past Sielski Poultry, Barbo's Pies and The Pierogi Palace. The aromas made me weak with hunger. Jimmy pushed his way to the front of a stall named Baleah Meats. The man behind the counter greeted him like a long lost friend.

Jimmy nodded and spoke an entire sentence, maybe two. The man behind the counter hurried off and returned with a package wrapped in butcher paper. Jimmy paid him with one bill and didn't wait for change.

Well, well, Jimmy was human after all. Just another Cleveland ethnic with a taste for the old country. But what the heck kind of name was Baleah? Seemed like I'd heard it before.

I hustled back to the Buick. Jimmy returned and stashed his package in the trunk. His mood had improved, he hummed a little tune as he hung a U and drove west on Lorain. He picked up speed, honked his way through an intersection and sang the words to the tune he'd been humming, a kid's song from the ‘30s.

“When I grow up I wanna be a G-man, and go bang bang bang bang bang. A rough and tough and rugged he-man, and go bang bang bang bang bang.”

Cute. I was about to join in when we screeched to the curb in front of Papa's Deli.

The place had a white porcelain deli case front to back, framed travel posters of
The Parthenon
and
The Blue Aegean
and no customers. A short swarthy man wearing a cheap hairpiece came running up.

“I don't wanna hear it,” said Jimmy.

“But the people, they don't come!”

“Not my problem.”

“But you said…”

“You signed the paper.”

The man shook his head, fuming. “If my brothers were here they…”

“Shut up, Dimitri, your brothers aren't here. Your brothers are back on Mykonos,
fucking sheep
!”

The deli owner threw a right that caught Jimmy just below the cheekbone. Jimmy grinned and said, “Hold him up.”

I hesitated. The man turned to run. Jimmy snatched him by the collar and dragged him back. Jimmy turned to face me. Both eyes seemed to focus, was that possible?

“Hold…him…up.”

I did so. I'd done worse.

Jimmy worked the man's midsection methodically. The man's hairpiece flopped off and clung to the side of his head by a stubborn wad of spirit gum. The toupee twitched and jiggled with every blow. Eight, ten, twelve. I felt Dimitri's legs give. I dragged him back and laid him on the shiny blue and white tile.

“He's out.”

And that would have been that if the dumb cantankerous son of a bitch hadn't groaned to life and sat up with a mouthful of very colorful curses. Jimmy whipped out a leather sap and waded in for the kill.

“Come on Jimmy,” I said, circling wide, arms outstretched. “We don't need this headache. Leave this stupid gink be and...”

Jimmy brushed past me and raised his sap. I snagged his arm on the way down and roped his stroke into a two-handed wrist lock. The sap fell to the floor.

“Dimitri?” called a female voice from the back room.

“Time to go, Jimmy. Time to go.”

Jimmy tried to twist around. I bent back on his wrist and drove him to one knee.

A young woman dashed out from the kitchen, looked down at Dimitri, looked up at me and put her hand to her mouth in shock.

It was Jeannie. I blinked and looked again. It was Jeannie, my Jeannie. We stared at one another, dumbstruck.

I released Jimmy's wrist. He swung around, raring to go. I snagged both his wrists and stood on his shoes. “Not now,” I said, two inches from his face. “Not now, not here.”

Jimmy bared his teeth. His breath was, of course, foul. I tightened my grip.

I imagine we looked pretty ridiculous, nose to nose in Papa's Deli, holding hands. God knows what Jeannie was thinking. This wasn't the romantic reunion I had dreamed about and pictured in my mind.

Jimmy grunted and closed his eyes. I took that for surrender and stepped back. Jimmy marched quickly for the door. I followed, with a look over my shoulder. Jeannie was bent over the deli owner, his head in her lap, soothing him.

Jimmy slammed the door of the Buick and gunned the engine. I had to hurry to jump in. Pappas Deli read the sign as we wheeled away.
Pappas
Deli, not
Papa's
Deli.

Well of course, numb nuts, what else? The swarthy man with the bad rug was Jeannie's husband.

Jimmy gave me the silent treatment on the ride back. Not his usual dull silence, this was a barely breathing level of silence, a picturing revenge in gruesome detail level of silence. He stopped across from Mrs. Brennan's rooming house and drove off before I had both feet on the pavement. I bounced off the curb, dusted myself off and climbed two flights of stairs.

I hunted up my bar of soap and my boiled-in-a-pot and baked-in-the-oven towel. I kicked off my shoes and padded down the hall to the third floor shower bath. I showered, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, slapped some Bay Rum on my face and returned to my room. I put on a freshly laundered white shirt and my blue tie with the red clocks on it. I winked at the picture of Jeannie tucked in the mirror.

I took the rattler down to Public Square. The Terminal Tower's cathedral windows were hung with giant Christmas wreaths, Santa's elves hammered away in the windows of Higbee's Department Store. I took the escalator to the Men's Department and bought a vicuna topcoat for $90. I walked next door to the Hotel Cleveland for dinner, had steak tartare and a snifter of 20-year-old cognac. What the hell, I was flush.

I bought a pack of Camels from the cigarette girl, though I'd lost the habit overseas. I couldn't carry American cigarettes and Kraut cigs taste like pine tar. I paid my check, washed up in the men's room and straightened my tie in the mirror. I was ready.

I took the streetcar across the Detroit-Carnegie Bridge and hopped off at the corner of Lorain and 32
^nd
. My wristwatch said 8:49. The window sign said that Pappas Deli closed at
nine. Mr. Pappas would be recuperating with a hot water bottle and a tumbler of Ouzo. Jeannie would be alone.