A Matter of Honor

Chapter Thirty-three

Greta stood at the stove, stirring a pan of cocoa. She wore a black crepe slip with thin gold-braid straps, gold mules, and her hair was piled high, tied back with a ribbon.

In the adjoining bedroom Duro Lasari stepped out of the shower, a towel around his waist. The bruises on his chest and groin had turned grayish yellow, the edges marked pink with signs of healing. The deep cut above his eye had healed but the hot shower had turned the welt an angry purple. A private’s uniform hung from a wall pole, a pair of regulation boots on the floor beneath. He would be making the return trip to Regensburg in a few hours; Strasser’s driver was coming by to take him to the bus depot. Strasser had made that decision in a drunken but defiant phone call to Pytor Vayetch last evening.

“I don’t care what you gentlemen got planned,” he’d said. “My orders come directly from Karl Malleck in Chicago, and he says no pussyfooting GI’s gonna be delivered back to his barracks by Porsche. He comes in by bus, he goes back by bus...”

Vayetch and Herr Rauch were scheduled to meet with Lasari at the apartment within the hour.

“You want some cocoa or anything, George?” Greta called out from the kitchen.

“No, I’m fine, Greta. That was a great farewell luncheon, by the way. Thanks.”

“You can’t leave without eating something more, George. The PX will be closed when you get to Regensburg. Too bad we don’t have jerky. You know what jerky is? Everybody on the ‘Bonanza’ show took beef jerky with them on trips, remember?”

Lasari put on his socks first, then pulled on khaki undershorts. “You don’t miss a thing, Greta,” he called out then turned as he heard the door pushed open.

Greta was smiling, almost shy. Lasari took a shirt off a hanger, put it on and began to button it.

“Why are you putting your shirt on?” she said. “I thought you were talking to me because you wanted me.” Her eyes clouded. “Ernie is always drunk and you act like I’m not here. You’re putting clothes on. I feel so useless.”

She came to stand close to him and raised one slim leg, running her fingers along the curve of the calf. “Did you ever notice I don’t shave my legs, George? I don’t have to. Blonde ladies are lucky about hair, a nice color. I’m that way all over.”

Lasari took his uniform trousers from the hanger, stepped into them and pulled the zipper into place. “Look Greta,” he said, “if this had happened at another time, if we’d met at a bar or a dance, and were both alone, I’d want to get to know you real well. I mean that. But you belong to Ernie Strasser.” As she began to frown, he held up a hand. “I don’t mean like his goddamn cat or dog, or his motorcycle. Not that. Strasser’s your guy, you’re his woman, and I think he feels for you.”

“Some boy friend,” she said morosely. “He can be sweet sometimes but he’s drinking like this because he’s a born coward. He was always afraid of Malleck and now it’s Eddie Neal and those other men.”

Lasari had taken his tunic jacket in his hand but made no move to put it on. “Here’s how I see it,” he said. “Strasser’s got some problems, sure, but he’s loyal and you’ve got to admire that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, Greta, I don’t know, but no matter how much I like you and want you, coming between two people who are together, that’s not my style. If you and I were alone here, if there was no Ernie Strasser, who knows what would happen? But this way, three people could get hurt.”

She was smiling again. “What you’re saying, George, is that if it weren’t for Ernie being my boy friend, you couldn’t control yourself, I wouldn’t be safe with you. Isn’t that what you’re saying? You’re crazy and sweet like Brett Maverick when you’re like this...” She stopped short, sniffing the air attentively.

“Damn! You’re right, Greta,” he said. “I smell it, too. You forgot that cocoa on the stove.”

When she left the room Lasari put on his tunic and walked quickly down the hall.

Lasari found Strasser sprawled in an armchair, breathing heavily and seemingly immobile, but with eyes open and wary. “Don’t think I’m drunk, Jackson,” he said. “I just want you off my ass and out of here.”

Sergeant Strasser had finished all the paperwork at his office yesterday, stamping, initialing and certifying the details of Private Jackson’s detached duty time on leave from the Lucky Thirteenth, specifying the assignment for Colonel Warneke in dog training. And he had cut orders for Jackson to rejoin the Lucky Thirteenth outside Kassel in two days.

Greta had prepared a lunch of fruit, headcheese, pumpernickel and canned white asparagus, but Strasser had pushed his half-filled plate away and finished off a bottle of white wine laced with Bols gin.

When the doorbell rang and Greta hurried from the kitchen, Strasser signaled her to go into their bedroom. He turned the radio on the bar to Viennese dance music and opened the front door.

Pytor Vayetch folded his coat over a chair and put his hat on top of it, but Herr Rauch sat with his overcoat on, his big shoulders hunched forward, face impassive, like a man who did not expect to stay long and who had not wanted to make this visit in the first place.

Both men refused Strasser’s offer of drinks and Vayetch began to pace back and forth. When he finally spoke, he talked slowly, picking his words carefully, savoring the tutorial role.

“The background of our operations, the financing, contracts, who’s who, none of that is relevant to your contribution to our project, Mr. Jackson. Everything is planned to move as smooth as honey, and you have to know only your function, your responsibilities, nothing more.” He paused and looked expectantly at Lasari.

“Goddamn it, soldier! Answer the man!” Strasser snapped.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Vayetch, yes, sir.”

“Even though you and I are not users, we share mutual knowledge. From your experience in Vietnam, I know you are well aware of how dependent servicemen can become. And our civilian users, too, of course. Worldwide, it is a seller’s market. Take Thailand, for instance. It used to be a major export country in our market. But the Thais began to enjoy their own product. Now that country imports more heroin than it exports. There are continuing shifts in both demand and supply.

“Some time ago the reliable Marseilles connection was permanently interrupted. That created a real hardship, especially in the United States, we learned. There are supposedly five hundred thousand heroin users in your country, but I believe that estimate is low by more than one hundred percent. Without Marseilles, the suppliers tried to fill their clients’ needs with Mexican brown and whatever medium-quality stuff they could get from South America. My partner and I were not idle,” He nodded formally at Herr Rauch. “It took time, but we were able to get our hands on a steady source of white, the finest there is, pick of the world market, worth top dollars. It is a quantity of this excellent product that you will be kind enough to take into the United States for us.”

Lasari glanced at Strasser, standing near the bar, and noted the tremor in his hand as he poured gin over ice cubes.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Vayetch,” he said again.

“Here is how you will proceed. In about two hours you will be taken to the bus station and boarded. You will be met in Regensburg. Tomorrow, at first call, you and a group of servicemen, regular NATO troops on assignment, will be flown by Army plane to Kassel in West Germany, a few kilometers from the Czech border. Sergeant Strasser has made all the necessary paper arrangements. You will be expected, there will be no surprises.

“The sergeant has requested you be put on the duty roster starting at ten tomorrow night. Your battery, a guard unit, moves out to grid coordinates A-12, a forward observation post. There are nine nations represented in the maneuvers, and one extra soldier in the area will be next to invisible. All you’ve got to do is keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and follow the scenario we’ve laid out for you.”

He turned suddenly to Strasser. “Turn off that music, sergeant, if you please. We are men of business here, not senile fools in wigs and waistcoats.”

When the gemutlich strains had faded away, he turned again to Lasari. “At 2:00 a.m., you’ll get an order for a cigarette break. You use that break to take a nature call. The latrines will be five hundred yards south of your positions, approximately at grids A-14.

“Stay in the latrine for exactly five minutes. When you come out, a soldier will ask you for a light. Hand him these matches.” Vayetch took a book of matches with the homed devil symbol of Teufel’s Atelier on the cover and tossed it on the table. “The soldier takes the matches and leaves behind a duffel bag with your initials and ID number on it.”

“How will I know him?” Lasari asked. “What uniform will he be wearing?”

“You don’t have to know him,” Vayetch said. “He has seen pictures. He knows you.”

Herr Rauch put his hand into his overcoat pocket, brought out a small plastic bottle and handed it to Vayetch, who said, “With the duffel in your possession, you will promptly swallow three of these pills. They are harmless but powerful emetics; they will not blur your senses but you will be completely nauseated and run a high fever for twenty-four hours.”

He held the bottle out to Lasari.

For the first time Herr Rauch seemed interested, even amused. “Don’t worry,” he said to Lasari. “They are smart little pills. They know who their friends are.”

“Take your duffel bag and your sickness and get back to platoon headquarters immediately. Check in with a medic and get permission to bed down. In the morning insist that you be examined by a doctor. These pills will simulate all the symptoms of morbid dysentery and acute food poisoning. You and your precious knapsack will be back in Regensburg on sick leave two days from now. From then on, you’re on your way back to the States. Sergeant Strasser knows how to do his job.”

Strasser spoke then, but his words had begun to thicken. “The next friendly face you see, Jackson, will be at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Just one more GI on leave, carrying regulation duffel, right size, right weight, right initials, right ID number. You’ll be met by friends.”

The sergeant passed the back of his hand over his dry lips. “Customs does want to look at your gear, all they see is a couple of presents for the girl friend back home and a few changes of Army wardrobe.”

“And the heroin, where am I carrying it? How do I know you’re not tricking me?” Lasari said.

“That information is not relevant to your contribution to the project,” Vayetch said. “You just don’t need to know.”

The doorbell rang, four short rings, and Strasser called out, “Hold it, Eddie.” He turned a mirthless smile to the two visitors. “Change of guard reporting for the ginzo here.”

Herr Rauch stood and Vayetch did the same, pulling on his overcoat and creasing the crown of a velour fedora between his fingers. He put his hand out to Duro Lasari and the two men shook briefly and formally.

“As I said, Herr Rauch and I are businessmen. We have been successful in our ventures because we keep the operations simple and leave nothing to chance. ‘There is no greatness where there is no simplicity...’ The great Russian, Count Leo Tolstoy, said that, and I honor his words. I like to think that Count Tolstoy would have found us interesting men, self-reliant and alive to the realities of our times.”

Vayetch put on his hat, then took suede gloves from a pocket. He pulled them on slowly, smoothing the fine leather into the grooves between each finger, studying Lasari with a final, thoughtful appraisal. “I regret that we shall not meet again,” he said. “But even though you do not see us, Mr. Jackson, please do not make the mistake of thinking we do not see you.”

Eddie Neal held open the door with insolent courtesy and the two men passed him without speaking.

At a mumbled command from Strasser, Lasari helped the sergeant off the bar stool, steadying him as they walked toward the bedroom door. Lasari tapped the wood with the toe of his boot and Greta opened it.

She pointed to Strasser. “I’m not going to stay in here when he’s drunk. He promised me he wouldn’t spoil your last day.”

“Do what you like, Greta,” Lasari said. She slipped out of the bedroom and he pushed the door shut behind her. He guided the sergeant to the bed, letting him fall back across it, his weight creaking the springs.

“Let me take your shoes off,” Lasari said in a loud voice. “You’ll never get to sleep like that.” Swiftly Lasari untied the shoelaces, slipped off the shoes, and swung the man’s feet around onto the foot of the bed. Then he pulled open the drawer in a night table and rifled through the contents, a paperback novel, two candy bars, some loose Kleenex and a plastic flask.

He turned and ran his hands over the big sergeant’s body, feeling every pocket and moving down the seams of his trousers. There was no gun.

“I don’t need help from no ginzo,” Strasser muttered. “Get away from me, you cockamamie. If I wanna undress, my girl will do it for me.”

“Yes, sir,” Lasari said and walked out of the bedroom, leaving the door ajar.