Hold Tight (31 page)

“It has nothing to do with them. It’s the principle involved.”

“You’re not in love with Hank Fayette? Just a little?”

It was said idly, a random suggestion without any note of accusation. The suddenness of it stung Erich. He refused to be flustered. “No, sir. This assignment has not awakened any hidden desires, if that’s what you mean.”

“Just an idea. Something for you to keep in mind.”

Erich felt Mason had mentioned it only to cast doubt on his righteousness, and as a subtle piece of psychological blackmail. Side with us or we will suspect your sexuality. Erich held tight to his righteousness. “What we’ve done with Cooper and now with Fayette is identical to what we condemn the Nazis for doing.”

Mason’s eyebrows went up ever so slightly. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Erich. You leave me no recourse but to pull rank on you. Take out one of those triplicate forms for travel orders, will you?”

“Sir?”

“I thought we might reason this out together. Since you remain adamant…I have some documents I want hand-delivered to Washington. You’ll leave by train this afternoon and remain in Washington for a week. That should give our situation enough time to resolve itself.”

“Sir, I’d prefer to stay here while this is going on.”

“Why? What do you hope to accomplish?”

Erich was silent. He knew of nothing he could do, except continue his role as a witness, a voyeur.

“If you stayed, I’m afraid your conscience might lead you to do something dangerous, to both our operation and your future in the Navy. You do see my point? It’s either that, Erich, or I send you to the brig for insubordination. That could mean a month or more.”

“That’s my only alternative?”

“Yes. You know where you keep the forms. Get one out and type yourself a brief vacation. I understand Washington’s lovely this time of year, almost tropical.”

Erich went to the filing cabinet, found the correct form, sat down at the typewriter table and typed last name first, first name last. He went through the motions of obedience, expecting any minute to feel indignant again, full of anger over the easy manner with which Commander Mason got him out of the way. Instead, what Erich experienced was relief. It was being taken out of his hands. Erich could not, in good conscience, wash his hands of Fayette. But Mason was washing his hands for him. There was nothing to gain by standing to his principles and going to the brig. Mason already knew where Erich stood. There was nothing to do but obey. The tension of the past week, the past month in fact, suddenly gave way to a numb, soothing peace.

“You are to leave by noon, Erich. If you haven’t reported to the Office of War Information by seven tonight, you’ll be arrested by anyone inspecting your papers. I’m leaving you on your own cognizance. Don’t disappoint me.”

Erich typed in the correct times. “I won’t have time to see Fayette before I leave? I’d like to warn him at least against leaving the house, sir.” It was a final moral gesture, nothing more. Erich knew the request would be denied.

“You know too much. There’ll be the temptation to tell him everything. I won’t give you that temptation, Erich. I’ll go down there myself sometime this evening. Yes, I’d like to get a peek inside the house before this is over.”

Erich whipped the form from the typewriter and presented it to Mason.

Mason was suddenly suspicious, surprised by Erich’s quick obedience. Then, signing the order, he said, “I’ll have one of Sullivan’s men run you up to your hotel in his car. He can put you on the train. Any objection?”

“Not at all, sir.” It made Erich feel better, in fact. He was not responsible. He was not his own man anymore. He gave himself up to the machine, which was what he had wanted from the Navy all along. He was free from the terrible nuisance of self, morals and loyalties.

An hour later, a bored FBI driver escorted him beneath the soaring iron trellises of Penn Station to a smoking train packed with servicemen like himself.

The house stood at noon on the other side of the noisy farmers’ market. Disguised in a loud necktie and workman’s cap, Blair walked among the haggling Italians and Greeks who bought produce off the trucks to sell from their own street carts and horse-drawn wagons. The hot square stank of horse urine, human sweat and rotting vegetables. Blair bore with it all, keeping an eye on the door beyond the trucks and sun umbrellas, waiting. Once, he walked around the corner to the spot where he had killed a man. That seemed like days ago. The corpse was gone, of course, and the only blood was on the aprons of paper-hatted men lugging crates full of frightened chickens into the building. Blair stood in the sun, fingered the warm weight in his coat pocket and knew he could do it again. His only bad moment today had been when he tried Anna’s number. A man answered, said he knew of no such person, then gave the game away when he angrily said, “You are never to call this number again.” Blair could kill anyone who stood between him and Anna, even her father.

Out in the square, he waited and watched. He burned to enter the house, but it wouldn’t do to ask for the sailor, go up to his room and shoot him there. The sailor was too large to be killed any other way except with the gun. Blair had to wait until he went out. Then he could follow and catch him alone. He hoped there would be enough light this time to see what a man looked like when he was dying.

H
E GASPED AND WOKE
up, as if he had dreamed something terrible. He remembered no dream. For a moment, he remembered nothing. It was as if he’d been knocked cold. He was naked on a sweat-soaked bed in a room where the only light was the yellow glow of a drawn window shade. A fly bounced against the glowing shade. Other beds, bunks, rooms and barracks came to mind until he recognized where and what he was. His cock was hard. Hank touched his cock, and remembered.

He quickly sat up, putting both feet on the floor. He could not stand. There was a taste of sickness, like the smell of boiled cabbage, and a feeling of anger so strong he seemed unable to move until he broke something, a window or something. He sat there for the longest time, thinking about the corpse this morning, then Juke, knowing one was the other. His mind shut off. He stood up and pulled clothes over the hot and cold of his skin.

His footsteps treaded the stairs—the house had never seemed so deserted and haunted during the day. Piano music played softly behind Mrs. Bosch’s closed door. Hank walked back to the kitchen, then turned around and walked back out. Juke’s absence was too present in the kitchen. He knocked on Mrs. Bosch’s door.

She looked up from the arms of her chair and turned on a lamp when he entered. She seemed to have been sitting there all day. When they got back from the morgue, Mrs. Bosch asked Hank to sit with her, but he had gone upstairs to be alone with his anger, only to fall asleep. She dabbed her eyes with a fresh handkerchief and turned the radio down. There was a glass of sherry on the table beside her and a half-eaten box of chocolates. She sniffed and sadly said, “I don’t know what to do about dinner, Hank.”

“Did Mr. Zeitlin ever call or come by?”

She screwed up her face to remember, then shook her head.

It didn’t surprise Hank. The little foreigner was as cold and two-faced as the others, acting more guilty than the others, but still one of them.

“But Dr. Mason—Commander, I mean. He rang up,” said Mrs. Bosch. “I am to tell you not to leave the house tonight. Because he wants to see you. Here.”

“What does that jackass want?” Hank sneered.

Mrs. Bosch looked at him funny, then raised her long nostrils and inhaled. “You do not smell so good, Hank. You will wash up and shave before our guests arrive?”

“Screw it,” said Hank and he left the room. He wanted to leave the house, Mason or no Mason. But he would stay here, and not because he wanted to hear what that glad-handing bastard had to say. There was a chance the biggest little bastard of them all would return tonight. His Nazi pretty boy, his spy. His spy was dumb enough to think Hank too dumb to know who killed Juke. When he returned, Hank would be here. He wanted to kill the bastard, but knew he shouldn’t. He didn’t know what he would do to him.

The sun went down and Mick, Smitty and the others began to arrive, then a few johns. Hank sat with them upstairs but spoke to nobody. He slouched down in the armchair in the corner and glared at everyone between his open knees. They chattered away like a treeful of cemetery wrens at a funeral. Sash strolled over, as cool and aloof as ever, glanced nervously at the others and bent down to whisper to Hank about last night. He was terrified Hank might tell the others he had seen Sash in drag. Hank had no idea Sash had been on the boat. Sash talked with great importance about being arrested, fingerprinted and jailed before his “friend” paid his bail. As if Hank could give a fuck.

“Where’s the nelly houseboy tonight? That was him with you on the boat, wasn’t it? He still in jail?”

“How should I know?” They hadn’t heard, but Hank refused to share Juke’s death with any of these phonies. Juke’s death was his, and his alone.

Hank never moved from his chair, only looked up each time a new man entered the room. Smitty teased him from across the room, asked if it was that time of month. Hank cut his eyes at him and looked away. Mrs. Bosch was in and out of the room, bringing up customers and refreshments, quacking in her usual singsong as if nothing had happened. If she didn’t mention Juke, it was only because talk of death was bad for business, Hank decided. She gave him a sympathetic look during one of her rounds, then quietly ignored his brooding. The longer Hank sat, the more blank he felt. He didn’t feel like he was grieving for Juke
or
burning to kill Juke’s killer. Grief and anger were so tightly knotted together Hank felt neither. All he felt was hatred, and a desire to explode like a bomb, blowing himself and the house to pieces.

Mrs. Bosch returned with Mr. Charles, fat and debonair, great black bags under his eyes. With Mr. Charles tonight was a teacherly-looking gentleman with twinkling eyes and a bushy beard. There was a flurry of looks and whispers through the room when people noticed the man with the beard. Mrs. Bosch herself seemed particularly pleased with Mr. Charles’s friend. Her house was beginning to attract stars.

“He’s one?” Sash whispered in awe.

“He? Who he?” said Smitty.

“Don’t you know anything? That’s the Beard. In the movies? Woolley Monty.”

“Monty Woolley,” a customer corrected Sash. “Hmmm. Wait until I tell the girls.”

The famous man looked over the room, smiling in his beard as he shared a joke with Mr. Charles. He stepped over to the sofa, sat down and was instantly surrounded—Sash on his left, Smitty on his right, Lou sitting at his feet and eventually in his lap. Mr. Woolley chuckled at the boys and addressed them formally, like an uncle among nephews. He showed pleasure in being wicked only in the occasional glances exchanged with Mr. Charles.

Mr. Charles remained standing, looking disappointed that his usual man, Mick, was apparently off with another customer. Hank had gone up once with Mr. Charles, then left when the man explained what was wanted: Mr. Charles liked to be whipped. That was too strange, both cruel and silly, but the idea felt less strange tonight. Hank needed to hit something hard or he was going to go crazy. He stood up and approached Mr. Charles.

“Want me to beat you?”

Mr. Charles smiled. “My dear fellow.” He glanced at his famous friend, then led Hank into the corner. “I thought that wasn’t your cup of tea.”

“Shut up. Do you want it or don’t ya?”

“I like your attitude. Yes. Let’s give it another try.” He made a courtly bow to his friend across the room, proudly pointed out Hank to Mr. Woolley, then followed Hank into the hall. “Do you have any ropes or straps?” he asked on the stairs. “What kind of belt do you wear? Ah, one of those webbed ones with the metal tips. Never mind. You can use my belt.” Mr. Charles continued to talk once he was in Hank’s room, carefully folding his clothes. “You’re a big one. And you look mean. You look like a killer. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear you once killed a man.”

Hank almost slugged him. He opened his fist and slapped the man across the face.

“Oh!” The man was overjoyed. “Here. Take my belt. And be careful about the face. Marks, you know.” He quickly finished undressing, then dropped down on his knees and clasped his hands together. Naked, he was as pink and plump as a baby. “Mercy!” he cried in a different voice. “Punish me, yes! I deserve to be punished! But please don’t kill me! Anything but death!”

Hank knew it was playacting, but he felt mocked and angered by the man’s fantasy. He snapped the belt across the man’s back.

“Yes! And spit on me. I deserve to be spit on.”

Hank’s mouth was dry. He hit the man with the belt again.

“Oh, yes!”

Hank worked his arm back and forth, whipping the man’s front and back. The pink skin turned red; the man’s breathing grew more excited. When he jumped up to scramble on to the bed, the bud of genitals under his belly had opened out. He lay face down on the bed and covered his head with the pillow. His body was heaped on the mattress like a block of fat.

“Anything now,” he called from under the pillow. “This vile, disgusting flesh.”

And Hank laid into him, listening for the crack of leather against skin, the moans from beneath the pillow. The flabby back and ass were criss-crossed with red stripes. Hank swung harder, wanting the stripes to break open, as if the man were his spy and he could whip him to death. The man wasn’t his spy and the belt was too wide to break the skin.

Then the moans sounded less like pain, more like fucking, and Hank felt a sudden warmth around his eyes. The man squirmed and moaned like he was fucking Hank’s bed. Hank thought of Juke. He was whipping Juke, beating Juke to death. He continued to swing the belt, less furiously now, while the warmth around his eyes spilled over. He was crying.

The man groaned louder than ever, and was still.

Hank stopped swinging. He used his free hand to wipe his eyes, but the tears continued to run. Juke was dead. He was grieving for Juke. Whether Juke was friend or lover or what, it didn’t matter now that the kid was gone.