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Bullet to the Moon
Chapter Ten
After lunch White and Smith went out to tinker with their gizmo.
"I'm beat," Mr. Spitz said. "Come on, Bigelow, let's catch some shuteye."
When he said that my peepers turned to lead. I realized it was a long time since I laid down last. I was running on fear and scrambled brains ever since.
I followed him up stairs to where him and me was bunking up. It was a little room with crooked walls right under the roof. There was a narrow but soft bed against one wall and a army cot against another. He went right for the bed. I didn't squawk. He took the clothes folded on it and tossed them on the floor. The carton of Camels he tossed to me. He took his jacket and shoes off. Then he laid down on his back and folded his hands on his tie like Bela Lugosi and began to snore.
There was a little window over the cot that opened out. I leaned out and lit a Lucky. I liked a smoke before bedtime. The view was out the back of the house, opposite the sheds and barn. There was a yard with the windmill in the middle of it, then trees heading off to low hills. Little birds flittered and nosedived from one tree to another in the bright afternoon sunlight. I noticed that the trees grew in neat, straight lines. The hills looked like they wore green corduroy. I didn't know trees could grow like that. I shot the Lucky out to the yard and laid down on the cot and was snoring right quick myself.
When I woke up the little round alarm clock by Seymour Spitz's head said it was five o'clock. I didn't know if that was afternoon or next morning. Seymour Spitz snored.
I took a pack of Camels and slipped out. The house was quiet. Down on the first floor I was heading for the porch when I saw Verandah in the sitting room. She was sitting in one of the big overstuffed chairs with the radio on low. Some dame giving the latest word from the fronts. A Panzer division probed the allied line somewhere in Turkey. A sabotage bomb went off in the port of Liverpool, sinking a cargo ship. U.S. fighter bombers strafed a Russian position in some Alaska mountains. One of our fleets tangled with some Jap subs near some islands I couldn't pronounce.
I took a step in.
"Hello, Verandah. Thank you for them dandy meals."
She harrumphed. Not the word, the sound. I figured the fad didn't reach the coloreds yet.
"Say Verandah, you wouldn't know what the heck's going on around here, would ya?"
She stood up and switched off the radio.
"Ask me no questions I tell you no lies," she said. She picked up a big feather duster off the floor and began waving it over the Victrola.
"Not even what state this is?"
"Mister, can you see I'm working here? You wanna go in the kitchen and wash all them dishes for me, maybe I will have time for your nonsense later."
O'Grady was standing on the porch with one of his Old Golds. Clarence was down at the end of the porch showing us his back. I stood beside O'Grady and lit up.
"What you make of all this, Rushmore?"
"Applesauce," he rumbled.
"I'm with you," I said. "Say, you think about crashing out, would you let a fella know?"
He grunted.
Agent Brown came out the screen door with a big glass of milk. It went perfect with his wide shoulders and square jaw and flat top hairdo and clear bright peepers. He stood at the railing with us and swilled it down.
"Nice view," he said.
"Peachy," I said. "I like the one out back better. Never knew trees growed in straight lines like that."
He give me a look. "It's an orchard. They plant them that way. You ever get out of the city?"
"Why should I?" I said.
The screen door slammed behind us. Verandah stood there.
"Where you flicking them butts? You best not be tossing them in the lady's roses."
She banged back inside. A minute later she come back out and put a ashtray on the deck. Down at his end of the porch, Clarence looked at her, looked at the ashtray, and sailed his butt into the bushes.
"You keep looking for it, you little devil, I'm gonna show it to you," Verandah said.
O'Grady made his tumbling rocks noise.
One of the Clippers pulled up at the bottom of the porch steps. Smith was at the wheel.
Brown handed his empty milk glass to Verandah.
"Let's take a spin," he said to me.
"Where to?"
"You'll see."
He skipped down the steps.
With Verandah giving me fish eyes, I bent over the ashtray and stubbed out my smoke. It was a souvenir ashtray shaped like a big clam shell. Inside it was written Happy As A Clam In Huntington Beach, Calif. I wondered what Huntington Beach, Calif was like. Only beach I knew, souvenir from there would be shaped like a dead fish and say Packed Like Sardines Into Coney Island, NY.
Smith switched to the back seat with me. Brown and O'Grady got in front. Smith dangled a hankercheef at me.
"Cover your peepers," Brown said over his shoulder.
"For everyone's good," Smith said. "You get snatched, you can't give up our location."
"What about the rest of ya?"
"How'm I gonna drive blindfolded, dumb head?" Brown said.
"What about O'Grady?"
"Think he can't take his lumps?" Brown said.
"Think I can't?"
Smith grinned and laid her big mitt on my leg. It was like a octopus climbing up on a rock.
"Sure, you're a tough monkey. Turn your head."
I let her tie the thing on me. Brown kicked the motor and we bounced down the lane. Smith's mitt fell back on my leg. Then it just laid there. I didn't know better, I would think she was making a pass at me. Crazier things happen. Some big gals like a little guy they can toss to the mat when they feel romantical. Worse things could happen to a fellow.
"You know, I'm from a city too," Brown said. I figured he was talking to me.
"You don't say."
"Yeah, but they used to bring us out to the country all the time. Boy scouts."
"Never woulda guessed."
"Sure. Roasted frankfurters around the campfire and sang Gene Autry songs. You like Gene Autry, Bigelow?"
"I can take him or leave him."
"Bet you think that makes me the All American chump."
"Ain't thought much about ya," I said. "How's a boy scout wind up in this bent outfit?"
"I caught the assignment," Brown said. "Same as the others. Same as you."
"I mean why ain't a big strapping lad like you or them others off somewheres on the front line?"
"Weren't you listening, Bigelow? This is the front line."
"You don't say."
"I do. I was in college when the war came on. One of the first guys in line to volunteer. Being a college man, the army decided to send me to officer training. When I was there they picked me out for intelligence. So I never shipped off to the trenches, but I seen plenty action right here on the homefront. You know why they call it the homefront, Bigelow? Because it really is another front, just like the ones in Turkey or Alaska. Ask Smith. There are more rats in this country sneaking around, spying, plotting mischief than we got time or permission to tell you about. Jap rats, Nazi rats, Commie rats, you name it. If we told Average Joe half of what's going on right here in his own back yard, why."
His voice trailed off.
"You don't have to sell me, Gene," I said. "I already been volunteered."
I leaned back in the seat. Boy scouts running the war effort. No wonder we was in a pickle. Seymour Spitz was right. They should of let him run the whole show.
"So what's today's caper?" I asked.
"Back to the Antlers," Brown said, "and your pal Beemerman. Since we shook him down last night he's playing ball."
"Shoulda seen him come out the kitchen," O'Grady suddenly rumbled out of nowhere. "Shakin like a Halloween skellington."
"You're gonna slip him some paper he'll pass along to his friends," Brown said.
"Why me?" I asked.
"We let him think you're another mutt like him got his tail in our wringer," Brown said. "He may let something useful slip he wouldn't around us."
"How'll I know?" I asked.
Nobody answered me.
There was more people in the Antlers than the night before. Three or four couples and maybe half a dozen guys on their own wing. There was a dance band in the jukebox but nobody was dancing. They was too busy drowning their sorrows. The only bright thing in the dump was the eyes of them woodland creatures on the walls following me to the bar, where Beemerman was.
Theldy saw me coming and her face got cold as day-old oatmeal. She slid one hand under the bar. She was reaching for her niggerknocker sure as God made apples. Or either she had a pepperpot under there.
Beemerman saw her reach and slid a couple injuns at her. "Go make some whoopee."
"Ah make it yourself," she said. She went into the back.
"Might wanna tell her you and me's in the same soup," I said.
"Told her that already," he said, turning that paper-thin mug at me. "A blind chink could see you ain't a G. How they jam you up?"
"Ask me no questions I tell you no lies," I said. "I ain't no patsy for the natsies though. Let's get a table."
We took one near the jukebox. He sat with his back to the wall.
"So how we do this?" he said.
I fished a pack of Camels out of my pocket and shook it at him. He slipped one out.
"Got a light?" I said.
He patted his pockets and pushed a box of matches at me. I was already palming a box in my right hand. I lit us both up, palmed his box in my left, and slid my box across the table at him.
"Obliged," he said, slipping it in his pocket. "What's in it?"
"What you care?" I said. It felt good. "They told me to tell you to get it to your man quick."
"Ain't that simple," he said. "We got a schedule and this fellow's a real stickler. Kraut. I need a special appointment, I leave a code sign by the road."
"What kind a sign?"
"Neon. What you care? Then I wait till I see he left me a code sign that the meet is on. Could be tonight. Could be a couple three nights."
"I'll let em know."
He sighed smoke.
"Should of knew this was comin. Saw that young G of yours, one who look like a quarterback, putting some kind of move on my contact about a month ago. Asked my contact about it later, he said not to worry. American intelligence was a contradiction in terms and your man was like a kid at cops and robbers."
"Guess your man was wrong."
Beemerman shrugged. "Master race."
He sat back and looked around the joint like it was his last time.
"Bank's gonna take the dump away from Theldy if she don't come up with two thousand shells. Good riddance I say, but it's all she's got."
He looked at me.
"I ain't no sympathizer, see? Know what they doing up the plant, sport? Most the plant making parts for newfangled airplanes cuz the krauts already got um. Where they gonna find guys to put in um I don't know. It'll be women and children next. Meanwhile my division working on a new super duper explosive."
"Yeah I heard."
"So we rushin to get all this new stuff out and the krauts are too and soon they come up with something newer and then we will too. It ain't never gonna stop, see? They'll keep this up till we're all dead. Women, children, your old granny, everybody. I figure we gotta stop it ourselves. Us, the little guys. We all throw our weight to one side, we can tip it off the rails, see? I pick the krauts. I ain't no natsy, though I think they got the right idea about the kikes and fairies. I just think they got the stuffing to finish it off and we don't. Don't make me no traitor."
"Yeah you a real patriot."
"Ah forget it." He tossed his butt in the corner. "We're squared off now, right? I mean I'm taking a big risk here. They find out I crossed um it'll be my neck."
"Askin the wrong guy," I said. "We just the water boys, you and me."
Theldy came out of the kitchen with a platter of industrial strength coffee mugs and banged it on the bar. She did that tricks dames who're mad at you can do of staring at you without looking.
"She worth it?" I asked him.
He turned his hatchet face at her.
"Is any of them?"
When I slid back in the Chevy Smith was behind the wheel and O'Grady beside her. No Brown.
"Boy scout pull a Crater on ya?" I asked. Pull a Crater was how we said take a powder.
"He'll catch us up later," Smith said. "Say anything useful?"
"He did it all for Theldy."
O'Grady snorted.
"Also, boy scout need to brush up his injun tracking skills. Scarecrow says his handler had him pegged for a while now."
Smith turned around in her seat and give me a serious face.
"He said that?"
"No joke, doll."
She turned back around.
"He's lying," she said after a few seconds. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "Put your blindfold on."
"Say, I'm about topped up with this business," I groused. "Doin all the work around here and you still givin me the high hat."
O'Grady swiveled his potato sack around and blinked his .22s at me.
"All right, ya big ape," I said. "Don't boil over."
The bandana was on the seat beside me. I tied it on.
"But I done my part now, right?" I said. "Now I go home?"
"Couldn't say, Jeepers," Smith said.
I knowed she was going to say that but my heart sank anyways.
It was midnight when we got back to Al Falfa's farm. The house was dark and sleeping. Verandah left out ham sandwiches and jugs of milk. Smith and O'Grady went at it like it was a royal feast.
I was too tuckered to eat, but I didn't want to go up and listen to Mr. Spitz snore, either. I was that kind of tired that's too tired to sleep. Inside my nut my brains was buzzing. It felt like I done more and heard more in the past two days than in the ten years before them. My brains was too old for this. Even though they wasn't the sharpest brains in the land, they knew that Mr. Spitz probably wasn't going to get up the next morning, pin a medal on me, kiss me on both cheeks and send me on my way.
I went out on the front porch and smoked a Camel. There was a full moon over the trees. I couldn't get over how big and bright it was. In the city it looked smaller and grimier. This one was bright as a bulb. It looked close enough you could reach up and paint a big swastika on it.
I walked down off the porch and went for a stroll around the house. I couldn't help feeling a little raw for Beemerman. Yeah he was a lousy rat who deserved whatever he got and then some. But he probably believed half that hooey he give me about stopping the war. He for sure took the money for Theldy. Anyone could see he was in up to his earholes for her. I hoped she appreciated what he done.
Around the back of the house the moonlight really brought out the corduroy effect of them trees in the orchard. Sarge was curled on the grass at the bottom of the steps that come down from the kitchen door. Dead to the world. Champeen watchdog.
A light went on in the kitchen windows. Al Falfa didn't have blackout curtains in them. In the city a Home Guard geezer would dock his ration book for that. I saw Smith moving around in there, cleaning up after the big feed. It was funny to see that big gal doing girl work. She had that peaceful, dreamy look they get on their pusses when they in a kitchen. Even my mom got it once in a blue moon when she was sober enough to heat us up a can a beans.
Smith was wrong about the boy scout. Beemerman wasn't lying. I figured in his own way he was trying to tell me bent guy to bent guy to watch my back around these junior G-men. It was nice a Smith to defend Brown's honor, but if I had to choose a opinion on this one, hers or the Scarecrow's, I was with the Scarecrow.
Light went out. The night come down all around me. Sarge lifted his puss in the dark at my feet and then dropped his chin on his paws and went back to dreaming about whatever mutts dream about. Rabbits and sammiches and such.
I was looking at them rows of trees wondering how far I would get if I followed them over the hills when I smelled rose water. Two mitts big as hams fell on my shoulders. My knees near folded. Smith leaned her bigness up behind me and I sank in a ways. I felt like a ball in a catcher's mitt.
She bent her lips near my ear. "Still planning to bolt?"
"Wouldn't you?" I said.
The meathooks of her good hand dug into my shoulder like a vise.
"Can't go now, Jeepers. You're in the game."
"I liked it better from the bleachers."
"Anyway you wouldn't get far," she said. "Countryside stinks with folks on the hunt for us."
"Yeah? We been drivin over hills and dales and ain't seen a one," I said.
The fingers of her bum mitt squeezed my earlobe. She was doing it playful and it was somewheres been a hard tickle and a pinch.
"Maybe you're our lucky charm."
I shrugged my ear out of her grip.
"Then you really sunk," I said.
She patted my arm.
"Let's get some shuteye," she said. "Who knows what tomorrow brings?"
"Toots, I start thinking about that I won't sleep a wink," I said.
When I got back up to me and Seymour Spitz's little room I noticed she didn't tell me not to call her toots. That gal was definitely going soft on me. I don't say I minded. Just that it was maybe the daffiest thing about the whole caper.
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