Soldiers of ’44

Chapter Twenty-Two

December 22, 1944. Environs of Liège, Belgium. Friday, 1400 Hours.

After leaving the girl with the nuns, Larkin drove back into the mountains, where he surmised there would be less chance of running into either American or German troops.

Heading north and west for Liège, the cab warm and snug, he relaxed comfortably as the big truck powered its way up the grades in low gear, clawing through the slick, dangerous turns, dropping from heights into gorges and parting the thick fog and snow with the battering force of its wide grille and fenders.

He’d put the half empty bottle of whiskey on the seat beside him. He felt alert and confident and intended to stay that way. And he also wanted to save something to celebrate with, a couple of fingers of Cutty Sark when he collected his loot from Gervais. Driving fast but carefully, he leaned forward to peer through the flying veils of snow, then relishing the pressure against his back when he swept down the hills, the solid weight that came from dozens of crates of food and wine and whiskey... He thought cheerfully about the money he would collect in Liège and remembered with a good, warm feeling what he’d told Gervais, that nothing left the truck for the warehouse until he had his share in his hands, every damned one of those twenty-one hundred simoleons. He thought about Killjoy Kranston and that made him feel like singing, so he hummed a verse of “Molly Malone,” beating out the rythmn with his fingers on the steering wheel.

With his share of the loot, Larkin figured he wouldn’t have to kiss the Killjoy’s behind for a job when he got home. He could take a year off, let Agnes buy some furniture, and maybe even go back and finish that last year of high school. There wasn’t much mystery about getting ahead in the world. It wasn’t brains that made the difference, it was the breaks. And it wasn’t what you knew but who you knew. Except that made him remember something that dampened his spirits. He’d said that once in a bar in the Bronx and some smart-ass prick had corrected him, saying no, Larkin, you got it wrong, you dumb mick... it’s not who you know, but whom.

Well, fuck him, he thought, and Killjoy Kranston... and throw Docker in for good measure... Larkin knew he’d need a story when he got back to the section, Docker wouldn’t buy a con job about a flat or engine trouble or getting lost in the storm. Maybe the nuns would be his best bet... say he had to take the Jewish kid to her room, light a fire for her, then the nuns had asked him to bring in more wood for their cookstove... That would work okay, he could say he’d had a meal with them, something like that...

Braking his way into a hairpin turn, Larkin found himself wishing it had happened that way, that he’d in fact made sure the kid was safe in bed and maybe had some coffee or something with the nuns in the kitchen. He was sorry about how he talked to the little girl because even when you were being as honest as you could, talking about the priests and why you were afraid had a way of sounding dirty... Poor old Gelnick knew all about being afraid, so maybe it wasn’t the priests but a fear everybody had because they weren’t sure what would happen next, or whether there even was any next... what was her name? Doris, that was it. Maybe he and Agnes could take Gelnick’s wife to dinner when he got home, up to Frank’s in Harlem or somewhere on the Island or downtown to Neptune’s for their fish platter. They might even arrange to hook up with Docker and get him to come along...

Near big towns, Larkin knew, the traffic would be too heavy for the MPs to check everything on wheels, so he swung the truck into a downgrade and started back toward the valley and the river, figuring it was safe now for the final run into Liège. But when he came off the hill he saw a group of American soldiers standing near a recon car at the junction of the Salm River road. He told himself he didn’t have anything to worry about, the stuff he and Bonnard had packed into the truck was concealed by tarpaulins lashed from the top of the truck right down to the tailgate. Still, he felt a coldness in his stomach when one of the soldiers, an officer, stepped into the road and waved him down with a flashlight. He was sixty or seventy yards from them, so he braked the truck to a crawl to give himself time to think... Play it nice and easy now, real businesslike. On a tight schedule, hooking up with an outfit in Liège. Meeting a supply train. Something like that was always good. Or say they told me to pick up a general. General who? How the fuck do I know? They just said he’s wearing two stars, waiting at the railroad station, move your ass, corporal...

Larkin rolled the window down and saluted an American captain.

“What’s your name and outfit, soldier?”

“Corporal Matt Larkin, sir. The Two hundred sixty-ninth Automatic Weapons Battalion.”

“Where you heading?”

“Liège, sir.”

“Let’s have a look at your orders.”

“Well, I don’t have any, captain. Not written ones, anyway. We been out of touch for a week. This morning one of our officers told me to get over to Liège and pick up some other guys from the battery.”

“What the hell they doing in Liège?”

“It’s mostly the Headquarters clerks.” The inventions flowed easily and smoothly. “They got knocked out of their position the first day of the attack and hitched a ride with some medics over there.”

“What’re your officers’ names, corporal?”

“Lieutenant Bart Whitter and Lieutenant Longworth, sir. The B.C. is Captain Joe Grant.”

Several of the other soldiers came and stood behind the captain. One of them walked to the rear of the truck, inspecting the stake and lashings with his flashlight. They all wore MP brassards and VIII Corps shoulder patches on their overcoats and field jackets.

“We’re checking out everybody, corporal. The Germans have dropped troops around here in GI uniforms.”

“Yeah, we heard about that, sir.”

“Where you from in the States?”

“Lower East Side of Manhattan, sir.”

“Which way is Wall Street? Uptown or downtown?”

“About as far downtown as you can get, sir.”

“What’s the tallest building?”

“Empire State, sir.”

“What do they plant in Madison Square Garden?”

Larkin grinned and said, “Cauliflowers, sir.”

The captain looked a bit puzzled and his men shifted their weight and stared at Larkin. “I’m not sure I understand,” the captain said slowly.

Larkin felt a dryness in his throat. Stop the dumb jokes. Stop being a wise guy... play it straight...

“Cauliflowers, like in cauliflower ears, sir. The way the fighters get banged up, their ears get lumpy.”

“Yes, sure.”

And then, because Larkin felt he was practically home free, he grinned and said, “Maybe I better check you out, too, captain. Where you from in the States?”

“That’s smart, corporal. No point taking chances. I’m from Chicago.”

“What’re the names of your baseball clubs?”

“Cubs and White Sox. Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, Hack Wilson, Kiki Cuyler, Ted Lyons. Want some batting averages?”

“Frankly, I’d just like to haul ass, sir.”

“Well, if you’re ever in Chicago, stop and give a big hello to the little lady.”

While Larkin was wondering what that meant, the captain pulled back the sleeve of his overcoat and showed Larkin the blue and gold figure of a fan dancer tattooed on his wrist. “Sally Rand brings you greetings, and hopes her memory will send you speeding off to the whorehouses in Liège.”

Larkin smiled appreciatively, and he and the captain exchanged salutes.

One of the MPs waved him on, shouting, “Okay, buddy, move it, move it! Get the lead in!”

“An Italian salute to your mother, too,” Larkin yelled back at him, and cranked up the window, accelerating rapidly as he turned onto the empty road flanking the river.

He was still grinning and could see the flash of his teeth in the windshield, gleaming against his dark unshaven face. His spirits were exuberant. That business had gone off pretty damn good, and Larkin decided he’d earned himself a drink. So it’s not who you know but whom, was it? Fuck him, fuck everybody, he thought, and took a short sip of whiskey...

And then he remembered what the MP had shouted at him, and suddenly he felt the blood draining from his face. The whiskey couldn’t touch a dreadful coldness spreading down his legs and paralyzing his loins. The muscles in his stomach contracted abruptly and violently, the pain so agonizing it made his eyes water. He began coughing, his body wracked by convulsive spasms.

“Get the lead in!” Not out. Jesus, the guy had said get the lead in. And the captain didn’t know about cauliflower ears...

Corporal Matthew Larkin thought of the twenty-one hundred dollars and Agnes and a bartender named Tony at a steak house he liked in the Bronx, a place called Jackson’s on Fordham Road with sawdust on the floor, or maybe it was Dolbey’s where the Yankee ballplayers liked to eat after the games. Docker would probably know... but there was no time to think of anything else, because the dynamite charges on the frozen road exploded under the truck then and hurled the motor into his chest and a thousand fragments of glass into his already sightless eyes.