Dreams Bigger Than the Night (21 page)

“Range closes at four,” he mumbled, as he gummed a plug of che
wing tobacco. “Most do their shootin’ in the late mornin’ to avoid the ’skitas and ’fore the afternoon heat sets into the pines real good. But in the fall, any time’s good. Name’s Clarence, Clarence Herbert. Groundskeeper here. Keep the grass cut and the place clean. Used to be a gardener when people had money and fancy lawns and would spend summers in Wildwood.”

They chatted with Clarence in general about the town and which rooming houses were the most likely to be able to garage a fancy car. Clarence eyed them suspiciously, as if trying to make up his mind about something.

“Say, you boys ever shoot a Thompson submachine gun?”

Their negative responses led Clarence to open the shed and remove a shiny, fully loaded, newly oiled 1921 tommy gun. The old guy removed one of the targets, positioned it at a distance of about fifty feet, and, handing the gun to Jay, explained how to gently engage the trigger and cradle it against his shoulder. So quickly did the instrument spew bullets that it seemed to take only a second to fire off a round. The smell of oil and sulfur hung in a blue haze, befogging Jay’s senses before he realized that he had hardly grazed the target. Happily, he passed the gun to Clarence, who reloaded it and handed it to T, who reluctantly agreed to have a go. Feet astride, shoulder steadying the gun, eye peering down the barrel, T let off a burst of spitfire that ripped the target to shreds. Clarence exclaimed through pursed lips, “Whew,” but T’s accuracy left Jay mute. Suddenly, he saw him in a new light, as a warrior taking the fight to the Hun and leaping from one foxhole to the next and slaying the enemy. T must have been thinking in similar terms because he said reverentially:

“In my whole life, I’ve never been drunk like this, never with power. Now I know the thrill Legs Diamond and Vince Coll musta’ felt squeezing off a round. With a Thompson nobody would get in your way. My god, Jay, do you know what it means to have so much power at your fingertip? No one to push you around, order you off the sidewalk; no one to send you to the back of the bus. A tommy gun makes you an equal with one pull of the trigger. Jesus, just think what it would be like if the colored baseball leagues with one squeeze could join the white leagues.
This
,” he said, holding the weapon over his head, “is a miracle worker.”

Clarence added, “For some folks a gun’s a god.”

“My Lord,” T said proudly, “if the Negro races had some of
these
, the world would be a different place.”

Jay didn’t have the heart to tell him that armed Negroes would incite every fear and prejudice in the white community, and that all the bigots in America would love nothing more than to take up arms in a race war. Tommy guns would not provide the answer; with any luck, the legal system and education might.

A minute after the three men sat down in front of the shack to chew the cud, a shot rang out, splintering the wooden boards above Jay’s head. He and Clarence instinctively hit the ground, but T-Bone grabbed the Tommy gun and would have raced into the woods to pursue the shooter had Jay not told him to stay put, fearing T might kill the wrong person.

Several minutes later, all one could hear was the murmur of the wind in the trees.

“Some folks around here are plumb crazy, usually moonshiners. They’re thick as ’skitas in these woods.” Taking the gun from T-Bone, Clarence said he guessed the danger was past and insisted on showing them his pride and joy, a small stand of apple trees, neatly pruned and fenced. “I love when ripe apples drop about my head. This here patch gives me happiness, and a green shade.”

Jay suddenly had a green thought. “How would you like to landscape a lady’s house on Franklin Street?”

Clarence smacked his lips and spat some evil-looking black juice. “Right up my alley but . . .”

“Yes?”

“Will she pay?”

“No, I will.”

Opening his wallet, Jay removed a sawbuck. “You decide what plants she needs and keep something over for your labor.”

Clarence took the money and asked for the address of the lady who needed his expert gardening skills. Later, Jay wondered if he should have asked for a receipt, but T assured him the old man would show up and do a good job in the hope of getting more work.

That evening Jay told Miss Patulous about Clarence, bringing to her face a blush that spread from the roots of her hair to her neck. She protested that she had done nothing to deserve such generosity, but broke off when T said simply, “You let me stay here.”

In the morning papers, they read that another prominent member of the anti-Olympics crusade—the fourth in two months—had been shot to death. The victim was opening his garage door when someone hiding in the bushes pumped two slugs into him. His wife, hearing the shots, ran to the front of the house and found him lying in a pool of blood from wounds to the head and chest. Jay’s concern for Arietta now bordered on the desperate.

His attention was also drawn to a newspaper article about the opening of a gun show, to be held under a large tent in Cape May Township. Knowing Arietta’s pistol skills, he thought, why not give it a try before heading back to Newark? He wondered if they would run into Clarence, who, in fact, was one of the first to arrive. Jay parked in the large lot next to the tent. A few yards away, a Packard sedan pulled up, and a fellow in a sporty tweed suit, white collar, and striped shirt stepped out, carrying a black briefcase. He had a mangled left ear that resembled a cauliflower.

If intuition is a mixture of savvy and luck, Jay had both, because when they entered the tent, he saw Arietta admiring a long-barreled pistol, with her father some distance away studying the floral display that ringed the tent. Arietta was dressed in a natty suit with a jaunty black hat and looked fetching. She revealed more leg than other women were inclined to show, giving her the appearance of a John Held model on the cover of
Vanity Fair
. Mr. Magliocco, seeing Jay approach, reacted with astonishment and then pleasure. “Do you know that fellow?” Mr. M. asked in a troubled tone of voice, pointing to the cauliflower ear who was bearing down on Arietta.

“No, but I’ll check.”

Unnoticed, he approached Arietta and Cauliflower. When he spoke, they swiveled as one.

“Miss Ewerhardt,” said Jay, deliberately using her undercover name, “you have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

On seeing him, Arietta cast her eyes so low, he thought they’d suffered an eclipse. Cauliflower, on the other hand, stiffened his back and set his jaw. Before she could respond, Jay added:

“This is my good friend T-Bone Searle.”

Arietta introduced her “friend” as Rolf Hahne, with whom Jay shook hands and feigned cordiality, remembering all too well what Francesca Bronzina had said about a man of that name. Arietta’s expression bespoke relief, which suggested that Cauliflower was menacing her.

“At last I’ve found you,” Jay said. “We’ve been sick with worry, but we can’t talk here. Would you mind accompanying Mr. Searle and me to the parking lot? Your father can join us.”

An uninvited Rolf Hahne followed a few steps behind.

Stopping under the leafy gold canopy of an oak, Jay said loud enough for all to hear that he would be only too glad to drive her back to Newark. T-Bone and Mr. M. could follow in the Waterhouse sedan. Before he could say more, Cauliflower opened his briefcase, removed a Luger, and stepped forward.

“She’ll be traveling with me,” Hahne said, placing a hand on her shoulder and pointing the gun toward his car. “The fourth one on the left . . . the Packard.”

T suddenly bolted behind the line of parked cars. For a moment Jay thought he’d done so from fright. But T had found Hahne’s Packard and, kneeling on the far side of the back wheel, was letting the air out of the tire. Rolf, after shoving Arietta into the passenger seat, came to the driver’s side, saw T, and pistol-whipped him.

Jay and Mr. M. had stood transfixed, worried about Arietta’s safety.

“Get rid of your car keys,” Jay muttered to Mr. M. “I just tossed mine into the bushes.”

Cauliflower immediately returned with Arietta in front of him.

“Your car keys!” Hahne demanded.

Jay turned out all his pockets to show that he had none.

“Give me yours,” Hahne said to Mr. M. “And don’t tell me you have no car.”

Mr. M. also turned out his pockets. Nothing. By this time, all the commotion had attracted the attention of a policeman patrolling the grounds. Jay could see panic in Cauliflower’s face. Without a car, what could he do? Take Arietta hostage, but where? Spying a man in the distance entering his car, Cauliflower forgot about Arietta and raced toward it. When the car started to ease out of the parking spot, Cauliflower ordered the driver from it, slid in behind the wheel, and drove off. The owner of the hijacked car came running toward the policeman, yelling:

“Stop him, stop him. He stole my car!”

“Who is he?” asked the cop.

A badly frightened Arietta replied, “A man from Berlin.”

At that moment, T-Bone, temporarily blinded by the blood running down his forehead and into his eyes, staggered toward them.

“I’ll get out an alert at once,” said the cop. “And let’s get this man to the hospital for stitches.”

But T refused to leave, using his handkerchief and Jay’s to stanch the bleeding. When the Maglioccos suggested coming to their rented cabin where they could attend him, Jay insisted that they all return to the Patulous house.

But Arietta seemed to think that she and her father were safe in their current digs. Mr. M. agreed, fetching his car keys and, with Arietta in tow, making for his auto.

“Where are you staying?” Jay shouted, but they made no reply.

“Those folks huntin’ you,” mumbled T, “are bad ’uns. You’d best hear what Jay has to say.”

The Maglioccos listened, but Jay could sense that more than the fear of Nazis had driven them to flee. They did, however, collect their belongings and stay with Jay and T at the Patulous house. They all ate together that night in Frog Hollow, with Jay and T taking turns keeping watch outside the Maglioccos’ bedrooms. By morning, they looked and felt pretty ragged. From afar, Sunday church bells sounded. When the Maglioccos appeared, Jay said they should leave directly for Newark; but Arietta insisted that they first had to drive to Chatsworth, in the Pine Barrens, to see her Aunt Amalie’s son, her cousin. He knew that in matters concerning her mother’s family, there was no point in arguing. She described the area, which sounded prelapsarian, and suggested a picnic and swim to put them both in a better mood. He grudgingly told himself that another day wouldn’t matter. Arietta packed a straw basket and took some towels from the linen closet.

“A swim in one of the cedar lakes would be absolutely divine,” she said. But Jay found her enthusiasm insincere; moreover, the water in May could be pretty damned cold.

Mr. M. volunteered to take T fishing, on an excursion boat, so that Arietta and Jay “could have some time alone.” They all agreed on that plan, with T and Mr. M. leaving first. As Jay said goodbye to Miss Patulous, she whispered:

“Your friend is quite a beauty. Good luck.”

Jay gassed up at a station on the other side of the causeway and continued north. At first, he and Arietta said nothing, but slowly they reestablished a communion of words, seeking safe ground by identifying the wild flowers as they inched along the road in the Sunday traffic. Once they had exhausted the innocuous subjects, they gravitated toward the real one.

“You are wondering how I knew about Axel’s death. An anonymous caller rang me and said that unless I cooperated—his word, cooperated—I would be the next one to go. Frantic with fear, I told my father about the call. It was he who insisted we leave at once.”

“I thought there might be more to it.”

She nodded. “There is.” She studied a fingernail and looked out the side window. “I feared that my work for Mr. Zwillman would be exposed.”

“You supplied him with information, until Longie asked you for a favor that was a bridge too far. Right?”

Putting one hand on the dashboard and the other behind his seat, she turned to face Jay and, in this S-shape, marveled at his disclosure. “How did you know?”

“Longie told me.”

“Frankly, I liked working for him—he paid me well—until he asked me to steer someone to a particular Portuguese restaurant near the station.”

“Axel, you mean?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“A man marked for murder?”

“For roughing up, I was told. When I refused, he threw a paperweight against the wall, swore, and walked out.”

In light of Longie’s extravagant praise, her story rang only partially true. Jay couldn’t believe that one refusal would have angered him; she must have not only refused the assignment but also cautioned Axel to lie low. That would explain his absences from the Friends meetings. If Arietta had indeed saved his skin, albeit temporarily, it made sense that Axel would shower her with affection. But apparently she rebuffed him. Jay didn’t like the direction of his logic. If Longie hadn’t hit him, then who had? Jay wondered if that enigma might explain her running away.

“Who do you think killed Axel?”

She bit her lip and resumed her former posture, looking straight ahead at the road. They bumped along, past shacks and gritty farms and thousands of blueberry bushes, through stands of pitch pine and different kinds of oak—white, scrub, black, and chestnut—smelling the wild laurel and the heavy air, until finally she spoke. “If I give you a name, you’ll be equally at risk.” Resuming her former S-shape, she pleaded passionately, “Don’t you see? That’s why my father and I can’t return. Mr. Zwillman knows that I know.”

“Knows what? I’m confused.”

“There were two murders: Heinz Diebel and Axel Kuppler. As far as the police are concerned, they both remain unsolved.”

Jay could hardly keep his eye on the road. “Do you know who shot them? Was it one of Longie’s boys?”

“Please don’t ask me that question, Jay. As far as Mr. Zwillman’s concerned, I’m the unknown, the X factor, the person who could be caught and made to talk. Of course, I would never say anything, but could I convince Longie of
that
? He wants to pack me off to Canada, for safekeeping.”