A Matter of Honor

Chapter Thirty-four

Private Neal had positioned himself in the middle of the room, dominating the space with his lean, taut body. Greta stood facing him. Neither was speaking but Lasari could sense the tension between them.

“No need for you to be sassy with me, Greta,” Neal said with a friendly smile. “I just asked for a stein of beer with an egg in it and some schnapps. Had an errand to run for your boy friend and I missed my lunch.”

“It’s the way you ask,” she said, “like I was a slave.”

“That’s just your kraut imagination, kid. The soldier here and I got business. So go in the kitchen and fix me a little nip, okay?” He laughed. “Ernie don’t always say pretty please with sugar on it, does he, fraulein? By the way, what did you do with First Shirt, Jackson?”

“He’s taking a nap, Eddie.”

“Fuck Eddie, ginzo. It’s Corporal Neal sir. You and the fraulein are getting pretty sloppy with your military discipline.”

“Sergeant Strasser is taking a nap, Corporal Neal, sir.”

“He real drunk?”

“More or less, maybe. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know shit, do you?” The voice was still good-humored but there was a muddy look to Neal’s eyes. “Everybody’s scared around here and it’s the wrong time for it. You, ginzo, you don’t know nothing. Strasser’s got his head in the bottle, the kraut cunt puts her nose in the air like I smell bad...” He took a step toward Greta looking down at her with an almost affectionate smile.

“Let me tell you something, Greta. My old man was over here in World War Biggie, same country, same krautheads, hands out begging for food after they’d thrown their guns away. There was no fraternizing then, my old man told me. He was an MP. One night he’s on duty and a German broad shoves her ass up against him and says, ‘How’d you like to fraternize with that, Yank?’

“Know what he did? He rammed her in that fat German ass of hers with his bayonet, straight through the lard to her hipbone. She didn’t have anything very smart to say after that, Greta, just lay nice and quiet, waiting for an ambulance.”

Lasari caught Greta’s eye and with a slight nod signaled her to leave. “While you’re fixing the corporal’s drink, I’d like a beer, okay?”

When she left, Neal settled down in the big armchair, crossing his long legs at the ankles. Lamplight glinted on his shiny mid-calf boots.

“She handles nice and easy with you, Jackson. You fucking her?”

“No, corporal.”

“How come, you afraid of Strasser? That rummy’s getting so cockeyed, he wouldn’t even know if you were fucking him.” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s the way you swing, Jackson. You go for boys?”

“No, Corporal.”

Eddie Neal grinned his down-home grin and rubbed a finger over his soft lips. “Maybe you’re too scared to go either way now, ginzo. Little old Sicilian cock shriveled up and worried to death about what’s coming. No need for that. We’re not gonna let anybody hurt you. You’re gonna arrive in Chicago safe and sound and I’ll be part of the welcoming committee. Just put a pair of blinkers on, do what you’re told — you got nothin’ to sweat.”

Lasari could hear the sound of Greta’s gold mules tapping around the kitchen. “It’s not Chicago I’m worrying about, corporal. What if I can’t get the stuff through German customs?”

Neal shrugged. “Unless they’re tipped off to something, they don’t check you going out. We’re guests in this country, here by invitation, billeted in more than three hundred towns. The military just come and go like smoke.”

“What you’re saying is, customs does check on the American side...”

“Why should they? On the plane you get a routine customs declaration to till out. What you declare is just nothing. They’ll take your word for it. Nobody’s gonna catch you dirty. You’re red, white and blue, Jackson.

“If they do open your duffel, what are they gonna find? Nothing again. Strasser has those bags custom-made. They hold six to eight pounds of pure white in the lining. There’s nothing suspicious, you sail through like a piece of cake. Customs gave us no trouble on the runs so far...

“You’re worrying about the wrong things, Jackson. You got fucked-up priorities. In this operation, everything starts and ends with Malleck and I’m Malleck’s man. That’s what you should be worrying about. When you get the stuff and leave Lucky Thirteenth, don’t bother to look over your shoulder for me. I’ll be there.”

Eddie Neal craned his neck to look down the hallway, then put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. “Where the hell is that broad with my drink?”

“Probably making sure the beer is cold, corporal. Greta knows the way I like it.”

“But you don’t know how she likes it, right?” Neal smiled his taunting grin. “You’re gonna be our golden goose, but we didn’t figure you for a faggot goose. No offense, for Christ’s sake,” he said as he noticed the burn of anger in Lasari’s face. “Just joking, Jackson.”

Eddie Neal stood and pushed open the bedroom door. Strasser was lying flat on his back, mouth open, snoring noisily. The man closed the door and shook his head in disgust.

“My old man used to say that a chain was only as strong as its weakest link. He told me that sitting behind wire in the visitors section of the federal pen in Anniston, Alabama, so maybe he didn’t know shit from Shinola anyway, but it’s something to remember.” He looked at his watch and sighed. “Ernie’s not pulling his weight. He’s supposed to take care of these details but everything’s on me all of a sudden.”

The corporal opened his tunic and began to feel through the inside pockets. Lasari caught a glimpse of the handgun in a shoulder holster. He found what he was looking for and handed Lasari a packet of folded forms. “And here’s a pen,” he said, holding out a ballpoint. “Where I put the x’s, you sign all four of them.”

“What are these?” Lasari said, smoothing out the papers.

“What do you care?” Neal said. “It’s part of the deal with Malleck. We want your signature and your ID number on each one.”

The numbered forms were printed in German with blanks left open and an X-marked line at the bottom of each. Lasari shuffled the forms, letting his eyes run quickly over the unfamiliar words and concentrating on the individual row of numbers on the top of each page. Except for the numbers, the forms seemed identical.

“What’s the matter, you read German?” Neal asked.

“No I don’t, but I can put two and two together. Their word ‘Register’ is the same as ours, and I saw this word on a building; ‘Postamt’. That means post office.”

“Just a little something the sergeants have going on the side. They picked some nice loot for you to mail back to a friend in Chicago.”

“Do I get to put in a card?” Lasari said.

Neal’s hand made a move toward the top of his boot, then stopped. “Go on and sign, smartass,” he said. “I’m getting nervous with Strasser passed out in there.”

Lasari wrote “George Jackson, PFC” and his ID number four times and handed the forms and pen back to Neal.

Greta brought in their drinks, placing the tray on a table next to the armchair. Lasari stood to serve himself, picking up a bottle of dark lager and a goblet decorated with a border of toadstools and dwarfs.

Corporal Neal stared with disgust at the big stein in which Greta had made his drink. Large flakes of eggshell floated on the sudsy beer. At the bottom of the glass was a yolk marked with red streaks of blood. A small glass of schnapps stood beside it.

Neal stood, put his hands on his hips and stared at Greta. “Now what the fuck is that supposed to be?”

“It’s what you ordered, Corporal Eddie. Schnapps and a beer ‘mit ei’.”

“Don’t give me any of that ‘mit ei’ bullshit!”

“You told me to put an egg in it. You don’t want an egg, say so. You speak English, don’t you?”

“I wanted an egg, you cunt,” Eddie Neal said, “but no eggshells and not a goddamn yolk marked with chicken shit.”

He was still smiling as he spoke, moistening his lips, ducking his head as if this were a friendly misunderstanding, a humorous mix-up. But Lasari could see the color rising in his throat, the dangerous look in his eyes.

“Greta,” Lasari said, “why not take the man’s drink and dump it down the sink. Just build him one the way he likes it.”

“Ginzo, if we’ve got a problem,” Neal said, “I don’t recollect asking you to help out. You hear me ask for advice?”

“No, corporal, I didn’t.”

Neal broadened his smile and said, “Greta, if that’s your idea of a tasty drink, I’m not gonna deprive you of the fun of drinkin’ it. You hear me, girl? Just pick up that stein and drain it back, eggshells and all.” He poured the glass of schnapps into the beer. “Down the hatch,” he said.

She shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t want it. I don’t like schnapps.”

Eddie Neal caught the fall of hair tied at the top of her head and twisted it powerfully, forcing her to her knees. “If it ain’t good enough for you, it sure as shit ain’t good enough for me, fraulein.”

“Leave me alone, stop it!” she cried. “Make your own drinks!”

“I warned you about that sassy mouth of yours, lady.”

He plucked a switchblade from the cuff of his boot, flipping a catch that caused a four-inch blade to flick out like the tongue of a snake. He sliced through the golden braid of her slip strap, then twisted her head back, forcing her to arch her back with a gasp of pain. Half of her black slip fell away, revealing a soft, white breast.

“Maybe I should do something to help you remember your manners,” he said, “like mommies trying a string around a kid’s linger. Think you might pay more attention if I put my initials above your nipple?”

She began to scream, the cords straining in her throat. The bedroom door opened and Strasser took a lurching step into the room.

“What the fuck,” he muttered. “What the hell is this?” He blinked at the scene as if he were peering through layers of fog.

Neal smiled and laid the tip of his knife against Greta’s bare breast. He looked at the sergeant steadily. “My old man always told me, Top, that it don’t matter who breaks a filly as long as she gets broke. If this is your woman, no argument, but somebody’s got to teach this fraulein what a bridle and spurs are for. You teach her or me, Top, it don’t make no difference...”

For a moment Strasser stared down at Greta, his eyes focusing on the blade touching her breast.

Lasari put his glass aside. He was watching a man die, he realized, not all at once and not completely, but in a small way a part of Ernest Strasser had ceased to exist. He wasn’t going to challenge Eddie Neal and that decision would cause something inside him to shrink and wither away. He could live without it, maybe, Lasari thought. Sergeant Strasser might pull off the heroin scam, get his money, sit around a condo in Florida laughing and telling how he’d let one of his corporals in Germany put the fear of God into a nice piece of kraut stuff he’d had a fling with.

But at this moment, in a room crowded with cuckoo clocks and garish bric-a-brac, looking at a knife touching a soft, young breast and with three witnesses watching him, an essential part of the sergeant died.

Strasser laughed uncertainly. “Hell, you don’t have to make jokes with me, Neal. This filly knows how to take care of herself...”

He turned on unsteady legs and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door. They heard his body collapse on the bed.

“I believe in offering a lady a choice, Greta,” Neal said. “You want the initials above or below that cute little tit of yours?”

Lasari moved forward. “Put the knife away, Eddie. You touch her and you’ve got to kill me.”

“Hold it, soldier. This ain’t no concern of yours.”

“I’m gonna talk real slow,” Lasari said, “to try to get through to that Georgia peabrain of yours. You touch the lady and you’ve got to kill me. Maybe you can do that, maybe you can’t.”

“Hold it, boy!” Neal grinned and turned the blade toward Lasari. “I thought you said you wasn’t fuckin’ her. What the shit difference does any of this make to you?”

Lasari moved his hands out from his sides. “Try me, you cracker bastard. Then a couple of things are gonna happen real fast. You may try to cut my throat before I put a boot into that big buck mouth of yours. Or Greta runs outside and calls the cops. Or maybe Strasser has a nightmare, wakes up and takes your gun away, wastes me himself. But if the golden goose is dead, who picks up the stuff at the Lucky Thirteenth? Maybe I get buried in a deserter’s grave, but you get a general court-martial and a few dozen years for murder.”

Lasari watched the confusion in Neal’s face. “But I’ll tell you what else there’s no doubt about, Eddie. When you walk out of the federal pen, there’s gonna be somebody waiting for you, and you better be ready to tell Malleck why you blew his multi-million-dollar deal sky high just because you couldn’t keep your hands off Strasser’s girl friend.”

For a moment the only sound in the room was Neal’s harsh breathing and Greta’s sobs. Then the corporal loosened his grasp on her hair, shrugged and took a step backward, touching a button on the shaft of his knife. The blade disappeared in a silvery flash.

“You got guts, ginzo,” he said with an admiring smile. “A gutsy guy, a lot of sand to your bottom. You smart, too. First things first, you see that. Let’s just call this unfinished business between you and me.”

He brushed the palms of his hands against his trousers, picked up his topcoat and walked to the door. “I’m gonna wait downstairs in the fresh air. When Strasser’s driver shows I’ll give you a whistle under the window.” He paused at the door, his hand on the knob, his expression shy and awkward. “Yeah, Jackson, we still got some things to settle.”

Greta was crying softly. “It’s over,” he said. “You might as well forget it.”

He helped her from her knees and pulled together the ends of her slip strap and tied them in an expert square knot. She looked at it gratefully.

“It’s almost like it’s on purpose,” she said. “Like a decoration.”

He brought a clean napkin and a glass of water from the bar. “Here. Fix yourself up, you’ll feel better.”

“Eddie could have killed you, George.”

“The odds were against it. He’s not that dumb.”

“Ernie wouldn’t have stopped him, Ernie didn’t care what he was going to do with me.”

“He’s drunk, Greta, he probably won’t even remember it.”

“So then I should forget it, is that what you’re saying? That man I live with, who’s going to take me to the United States, that dummkopf who doesn’t even care if someone carves initials on me? Ernie told me he has a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes,” Lasari said. “The Midwest, green country with fir trees and lots of snow in winter. Like Bavaria without mountains.”

She looked around the cluttered room. “Ernie said there are lots of Germans there, that they like cuckoo clocks and strudel and they’d like me... He’s a fucking liar, isn’t he?”

“I think he means it,” Lasari said.

Her eyes were suddenly wide and frightened; her voice dropped to a whisper. “I have something for you, George.”

A whistle sounded from the street below. Lasari went to the window and looked down. He could see a jeep at the curb, Neal standing beside it.

Greta had gone into the bedroom. She tugged at Strasser’s body till he rolled over on his back, coughing and moistening his lips with spittle. She took a key ring from his pocket and unsnapped it from the chain that held it to his belt.

Lasari stood in the bedroom doorway. “I’ve got to go, Greta.”

“He won’t help me,” she said, as if talking to herself. She unlocked the double doors of a floor to ceiling closet, then selected a key to open a drawer. “He’ll never take me to Wisconsin, he’ll run out on me. Ernie’ll give me a couple thousand DM and a teddy bear that plays ‘Tannenbaum’ or something and I’ll never see him again.”

Inside the drawer was a heavy metal box with a separate lock. She opened it.

“Nobody ever did anything for me in my whole life, not my family, not Ernie, no one until you almost let Eddie kill you,” she whispered. She took something from the box, closed it and secured all three locks. Then she stepped back into the front room.

“Don’t tell me a fucking thing you’ve got planned George. Then they can’t make me tell them anything. But I can see it in your eyes, I saw it when you looked at Eddie. You’re not going to do what they say. You’re going to take a chance and run for it...”

“You said to tell you nothing, Greta.”

She held out an American passport. “It was supposed to be for me,” she said. “He paid twenty-five thousand DM for it. It’s a perfect fake, you just have to put your name and the right picture in it. There are machines at the PX that take those pictures.” She sighed. “He’d have sold the passport back on the black market before he’d give it to me.”

She put the passport in Lasari’s hand and closed his fingers over it. “Who loves ya, baby?”

He shrugged. “Kojak, I guess.”

She was beginning to cry. “I was never as dumb as you thought, George. Those TV people aren’t real, they can’t help you, I know that. But at least they can’t hurt you.”

The whistle sounded again and in the bedroom Strasser stirred and threw an arm over his face. “Listen, Greta,” Lasari said. “If Strasser finds out, tell him I stole it. Better still, get out of here tonight, before he wakes. I never thought you were dumb, now for Christ’s sake prove it.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Not yet. I’ve got to figure out how much he owes me.”

Lasari went down the stairs to the street, where an icy wind was rising off the river. As Neal held open the door of the jeep, Lasari glanced up at the apartment windows. They were clear yellow squares against the darkness, bright but empty.