Hold Tight (9 page)

Broadway was just as crowded but not nearly as bright. The Astor bar was off-limits to servicemen unless they were accompanied by an officer or civilian. Hank was in his whites, so he stood outside and waited for Commander Mason. Two or three stories above the street, Times Square faded into darkness. The enormous signs that had been a blaze of light a month ago, before the brownout, now loomed black and sinister above the shuttling streetcars and taxis. The Planter’s Peanut sign was just a few black lines against the night sky. So much darkness made Hank think of home. You could even make out a few stars overhead.

People stopped along the curb to read the news bulletins that flickered across the electric sign around the
Times
Building. Nothing new: Germans in Russia, Germans in T O B R U K, whatever that was, Japs on islands whose names sounded just as made-up. Hank leaned against the hotel, reading what he could. He didn’t see Commander Mason anywhere. Then a short civilian with a big head and thinning hair stopped in front of him and frowned.

“Fayette,” the man finally said.

Hank dropped his bag and saluted. “Sorry, sir. I was expecting Commander Mason, sir.” But he didn’t recognize this man.

The man didn’t return his salute. “Do not salute me. I am not an officer. And don’t call me ‘sir.’ He wore a shiny black raincoat, even though it didn’t look like rain. Light flashed on a pair of eyeglasses when he glanced left and right. “Commander Mason cannot be seen going to this place. So he sent me to take you there.”

Hank recognized him. It was the enlisted man who had been in Mason’s office that day. Mason’s secretary or assistant, or whatever the Navy might call him. Hank was relieved. He felt more comfortable with other enlisted men. “Yeah? Okey-dokey. I guess you’re gonna be the one who visits me at this house?” Mason had mentioned someone coming to see Hank.

“Yes,” the man said curtly. “Are you ready? Let’s get done with this.” He stepped away and raised one arm to hail a cab.

The man sounded angry about something, and foreign. Not quite foreign-foreign, but Yankee-foreign, educated-foreign. He was as wooden as a new ensign. He didn’t look at Hank when they got into a taxi, and didn’t speak to him as they drove away from Times Square. All the windows were rolled down and the cool night air eddied in the back of the cab. The roof was so high Hank’s cap didn’t scrub the ceiling.

“Oh, I’m Hank. Since we’re going to be working together,” Hank told the man.

The man placed a finger to his lips and nodded at the driver’s cropped neck.

But Hank saw no need for silence and, anyway, this guy was no officer. “So what should I call you, mister? I got to call you something.”

The man sighed irritably. “Oh. Jones.”

Hank began to giggle. The man was so solemn it was funny. “But they’re
all
called Jones! I’ll get you mixed up with all the others.”

The man glanced at Hank, then faced forward again. He sat straighter than ever. “Erich, then.” It must have been his real name, because he hurriedly added, “Or whatever you like, it’s of no importance.”

Hank got the feeling that the man was afraid of him. If it was because Hank liked men, the man had nothing to worry about there. Erich’s face was soft like a boy’s, but he looked kind of doughy. And Hank never wasted his time on guys who weren’t openly interested; it was too much work. Still, feeling the man’s fear made Hank more comfortable with Erich, amused and almost protective towards him. Nervousness was warmer than Mason’s cool, insulting cheerfulness.

The taxi turned down a narrow side street where the streetlights were out and the only light came from tenement windows and doors and the taxi’s headlights. People sat on stoops and hung out windows, all of them turning their heads to see a taxicab go down their street. After another block, there were no people, only lettered warehouse walls and shed roofs like long porches. The taxi bounced and flew out of the street into an open space as dark and dead as Hades. Erich told the driver to stop.

“Middle of nowhere,” said the driver, but he pulled to a halt and flicked on the light. Everything outside the cab went black. “Mind if I ask what ya fellas are lookin’ for?”

“Yes, I do mind,” said Erich. “How much do we owe you?”

The driver told him, then wearily added, “Nope, none of my beeswax, bub. Just thought this place might be handy to know if I got more fellas who asked where they could go with their boyfriends.”

Dimes and nickels fell from Erich’s hand. He rapidly swept them off the floor, then jingled them into the driver’s palm and stepped out, blushing.

Hank stepped out, pulling his seabag after him and smiling over Erich’s embarrassment. You might have thought they were going to have a party and this was the guy’s first time.

The taxi’s taillights swung out and away, floated in the darkness and vanished.

Hank and Erich stood beside the hulk of a flatbed truck and a horse-drawn wagon without a horse. The first light Hank saw was a single bulb burning over a loading dock in the distance. The pattern of cobblestones toward the dock gleamed like fishscales.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Erich nervously. “The house is over here.” He took a step toward the far side of the square, and tripped. The man had no night vision.

Hank followed, hearing their footsteps and the whistle of Erich’s raincoat. There was starlight, once Hank’s eyes had time to adjust. Except for the hard, lopsided pavement, Hank felt as if he was walking the back streets of Beaumont again. He could smell the river, then—chickens? He inhaled a feathered, limey stink of chickens. “Hey. I think I’ve been here before.”

“Yes.” Erich sounded ashamed. “You have.”

Hank stopped and looked at the horizon of roofs against the stars, turned and saw a high, black warehouse that was big enough for the Coca Cola sign he had seen when there was light. “Yeah, we came from a different direction, so I didn’t—” He suddenly turned on Erich. “
Jesus peezus!
It’s gonna be the place where I got arrested!”

Erich stood ten feet away. His raincoat rustled. “They could not tell you before, in case plans were changed. They could not have you coming here before it was time.” Erich coughed into his hand. “I don’t see why any of this should matter to you. A brothel is a brothel.”

“Yeah? No. I guess.” It shouldn’t matter, but the secrecy of it bothered Hank. He was to work for them, find them secrets, and they kept secrets from him? Hank didn’t know what to make of that.

They were walking again and a bundle of narrow houses climbed up against the starry sky in front of them. Hank recognized the house, although all three stories of windows were blacked out, as if the place had been abandoned since his arrest. As they stepped to the right, a red light appeared just inside the doorway, glowing on a closed door and two signs: “Rooms To Let” and “No Vacancies.” There was a faint hum of machinery coming over the roofs, from the direction of the river.

“Please wait here,” said Erich. “Or you might walk once around the block. We shouldn’t be seen arriving together.”

“How come? Is there something else I’m not supposed to know about?”

Erich looked up at Hank, narrowed his eyes at Hank, startled by his question. “Uh, what makes you think that, Hank?” It was the first time he’d spoken his name, and he said it as if he was talking to a child.

“Nobody ever told me it was gonna be
this
place. A fella can’t help wondering what else you’re not telling him.”

“Oh? Of course,” said Erich. “If it had been up to me, I would have told you. But you know the brass. Who can understand why they do half of what they do?” He glanced at the house, then behind them, then continued to glance around while he spoke. “We cannot discuss this here, Hank. But they have their reasons. And they’re looking after your well-being, as well as the well-being of their—
our
country. I know no more than you do. But we owe it to our country to trust them.”

Hank had expected a simple, straightforward answer. He couldn’t understand why Erich had dragged their country into this. Of course he trusted his country.

“If it will put you at ease, we can enter together. Is that satisfactory?”

“I guess,” said Hank, although that wasn’t exactly what bothered him.

Erich drew a deep breath and went up the stairs to the door. He looked as if he was still blushing. It was only the red light on his smooth face, but Hank wondered if that was what suddenly made everything seem secret and fishy: Erich’s nervousness at being mistaken for one of “them.” Erich’s small hand reached out from his raincoat and rang the bell.

High heels clicked up to the door. The window behind the brass grill opened.

“Mrs. Bosch? We are the friends of Mr. Mason?” said Erich.

“Mr. Mason? I am not knowning any Mr. Mason,” said the voice behind the grill.

Erich cleared his throat. “Mason, Mason?” he repeated. He went up on his toes and furiously whispered at the grill, “
Commander
Mason?”

“Oh,
Commander
Mason,” the voice loudly sang. “Of course. Come eeen, come eeen.” And the door was opened by the long, ugly woman Hank remembered from his first visit. She wore a fancy silk party dress tonight, and had a gardenia in her hair. “Why didn’t you say you were from the commander?”

“Because we don’t want the whole world knowing.” Erich peered into the hallway before he stepped inside. He angrily waved Hank in and pulled the door shut. He stood there for a moment and listened. There was music upstairs.

Hank recognized the hallway, although he didn’t remember the new brass lamp that sat on a table against the wall, or the framed prints of dogs playing poker. He suddenly remembered sex, and the black-haired soldier who had danced the samba. Hank wondered if the soldier would find his way back here, too. That would be nice.

“You are the one?” the woman said to Hank.

“Uh, yes’m.”

“Ah! You are a nice big one.”

“You don’t remember him?” said Erich. “From the night you were raided?”

She squinted at Hank and looked him up and down, frowning with her big, painted mouth. She shrugged. “All these sayloors look alike to me. But you were here?” she asked Hank. “You poor boy. What a scare they give us. But that will never happen again. Will it, Officer?”

“I am your bookkeeper,” hissed Erich. “Mr. Zeitlin? Anyway, I’m not an officer.”

“Whatever. We will be as safe as we are in church.”

“Where is everybody?” Hank asked. He noticed no noise coming from behind the closed door to what he remembered was the parlor.

“Oh, things have changed since your visit,” the woman announced proudly. “I have expanded my business. It is all upstairs now, both floors. I use this floor for my offices and home. So people who drop by will not be seeing too much. Here, come into my offices and we will do what needs to be done.”

She opened the parlor door and bowed them inside. It wasn’t a parlor anymore. A green-shaded lamp cast its light on an opened rolltop desk, a green blotter, and an abacus. And a fat, moonfaced man in a white suit.

Erich froze and the woman had to push her way around him.

“Carlo!” she snapped at the fat man. “I told you to get out. I have no time for you now. I have business with my…bookkeeper.”

“But
cara.
Please.” The man was hoisting himself out of the chair beside the desk. “Two hundred dollars. If I don’t pay them tonight, they say they’ll break my legs.”

“Your gambling debts are no concern of mine.”

“You can’t loan me a little two hundred dollars? After all I’ve done for you?”

“You think I am made of money?”

“Valeska. Angel-blossom.” He stepped up to her, stroked her shoulders and kissed her neck. “For old time’s sake?”

The woman remained as hard as an axe, her thick red mouth pursed.

“Mrs. Bosch,” said Erich, “can’t this wait until we finish going over your accounts?”

“I will be with you shortly,” she told him and let Carlo kiss and stroke her a moment more. “Very well,” she told Carlo. “I will loan you money.”

“Oh, thank you, dearest, sweetest, kindest…” He kissed the hand and arm she held out to him while she turned her back to the others and fished out keys from somewhere on her person. He released her only when she went to the desk and unlocked a little door there.

“But two hundred is much too dear for me,” she said, pulling out a cash box and unlocking it. “I give you one hundred.”

“But, Valeska! I need
two
. If they don’t get the full amount, they’ll make me a cripple!”

“Nonsense.” She licked her fingers and counted out bills. “This will make them happy. What can they do?” She began to laugh. “Break just
one
of your legs?”

“It’s not funny, Val. You don’t know these people.”

“Then you are not wanting my little hundred?”

He grabbed her hand before she could return the money to the box. “I didn’t say that. I am grateful for this much. I am
so
grateful.” He kissed the hand that held the money until she let him take the bills. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you, my dearest rosebud.”

“You’ll repay me as you always do. At fifty percent. Now run along to your gambler friends. I have business with my bookkeeper.”

“Of course, my lamb. Certainly.” He bowed and backed away from her—and bumped into Hank. “I beg your pardon. I…Valeska? Should I take this young man upstairs before I go? Introduce him to the others?”

“No, Carlo. Run along. I will take care of him.”

Carlo nodded and left, delicately closing the door. They heard the front door immediately open and slam behind him.

“I thought,” said Erich through his teeth, “that nobody else would know about this.”

“That Carlo,” Mrs. Bosch sighed. “Not to worry about him. He doesn’t suspect a thing. He only hangs about and finds me customers sometimes. I help him out only because he was my second husband.” She locked her cashbox, returned it to its slot in the desk, then locked the little door. “Poor Carlo. I hope they don’t hurt him too much.”

Erich righteously cleared his throat. “Do you have any questions, Mrs. Bosch? If not, I’ll be on my way.”