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20

Bern Heller sat in the marina’s business office, still queasy from being seasick, looking at a computer screen in the late-night quiet, his condition not improved by what he had just read:

At the request of Swiss authorities, Nazi Adolf Eichmann required that all Jewish passports must be stamped with a large red letter “J.” It was not only to restrict Jews from emigrating to Switzerland. The infamous red “J” was also a way of identifying Jews who wanted to leave Germany, so they could then be diverted to death camps…

Bern couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe. He read the same paragraph several times.

He’d brought a few items from the briefcase, including the old man’s earliest passport, the one with the swastika embossed on its green cover. He had Googled a few key words, then opened an Internet article that included a photo of a German passport that also had a swastika embossed on its cover.

The passport was identical to his grandfather’s: Nazi eagle, and the word REISPASS on the inside cover. Stamped on the word was an oversized J. J for Jew. The passport had been issued to a woman, but everything else was the same.

Bern opened his grandfather’s passport and checked again. There it was, a big red letter J on the page opposite the old man’s name and photograph. Frederick B. Roth, issued 1938, Berlin. Just like the passport on the computer screen. Hard to believe that the J didn’t stand for jerk, knowing his grandfather. But Bern couldn’t argue with history, which was right here staring him in the face.

A Jew? My grandfather was a Jew?

Bern thought: Perfect. I spend the day puking, wanting to die. Now this.

Shock and self-pity, his first reaction. A dizzy unreal feeling. Then he began to think about it.

His grandfather was a Jew? No way. There had to be another explanation.

The Internet article contained more photos—peasant faces with graveyard eyes; skeletons covered with skin. There was also an article. Bern reread portions of it now, hoping to find something that would hint at another explanation. Had to be one: Nobody hated Jews more than Grandpa Freddy.

…Hitler was determined to solve what he called the “Jewish problem” (Judenfrage), and put Eichmann in charge of Zionist Affairs. On August 17, 1938, legislation forced German Jews to adopt the middle name of either “Israel” or “Sarah” if the bearer did not already have a very distinct Jewish name—

Bern paused to look inside the passport again, seeing Frederick B. Roth written there, signature below. He didn’t know what the B stood for, but at least it wasn’t Israel. Was there a distinctive Jewish name that began with B?

Bern sat thinking about it. There could be hundreds of them, for all he knew. He’d never had reason to keep track.

He said it again, whispering: “The old man was a Jew.” Thinking: Finally, something that explains why he was such a world-class asshole.

He spun the passport onto the desk, as if the thing was poison, and stood. He ran a hand over his bald head, and looked out the office window toward the bay where, for no reason he could think of, someone had started the bulldozer. He could hear the irritating bleep-bleep-bleep the machine made in reverse. Probably that retard Moe out there doing extra work to make up for puking all over his boss who had every right to rip the Hoosier’s head off—and he would, when the time was right.

Not now, though. Bern was dealing with something a lot worse. He felt dazed. This was about the most shocking thing he’d ever experienced. It was right up there with the first time he went a little too far; felt a woman—a stranger—go limp in his arms, breathing stopped, heart silent…which he wasn’t going to think about…no, he wasn’t going to revisit that nightmare again. Not right now.

He shifted thoughts to a more pleasant shocker, the Packers sudden death win against Chicago, tied 6–6, at Lambeau Field, when the Bears blocked a field goal attempt. But their kicker, this little Polack rocket, recovered the ball and somehow managed to run twenty-five yards without tripping or stopping for a cigarette. Packers win one for Bart, 12–6.

No…this was far more serious and shocking because it meant that if his grandfather was Jewish, then…then his mother was Jewish, too, and …Wait a minute.

Damn.

How’d he missed that? Bern began with a B.

Was Bern a distinctive Jewish name? Or Bernard, which he was sometimes called. He’d never been told that it was Jewish, but think about it: Who in their right mind was going to walk up to a guy his size and say, “Hey, what’s the deal with the Hebe name?”

Evidence was stacking up.

Son of a bitch.

Some situations, profanity was appropriate, and this was one of them because there was no dodging the implications.

Bern spoke aloud again, not whispering: “Shit! This means I’m a Jew, too. A Jew?”

Talk about a brain zap. Meant that as a kid, that’s what he was, even though he didn’t know. Riding his bicycle, giving punks a pounding when he felt like it, working around the farm—pigs? Playing college ball, then two years in the pros, same thing. The whole time, he was a Jew but acted normal like anyone else because his grandfather had hidden it from them all these years.

Bern felt as unsteady as he had that morning banging out into the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel Lighthouse off to the right, into waves as high and gray as March snowdrifts back in Wisconsin. Who would know about this stuff? A doctor? Maybe there was a test you could take to find out for sure…

On the computer, a timeline from that era was included. Bern took the time to read it, thinking he might be able to think better if he was calmer.

1938

April 26: Mandatory registration of property owned by Jews inside the Reich.

August 1: Adolf Eichmann establishes the Office of Jewish Emigration and increases forced emigration.

August 3: Italy enacts anti-Semitic laws.

August 8: Concentration camps open in Austria.

October 28: 17,000 Polish Jews expelled from Germany, 8,000 stranded.

November 9–10: Night of Broken Glass: Anti-Jewish demonstrations destroy 200 synagogues; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen).

November 12: Jews forced to transfer retail businesses to Aryans.

November 15: All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools.

January: Hitler in Reichstag speech vows that if war erupts, it will mean the extermination (Vernichtung) of all European Jews.

Whew—talk about yanking the welcome mat out from under a whole tribe of people. Jerk or not, he had to admit that his grandfather showed brains getting out of Germany when he still could, 1938 obviously not a good year for the Hebes…

Careful.…for people of Hebrew extraction.

“Solve the Jewish problem?” He’d done the six-year red-shirt program at Badger U, and knew what that meant. Truck innocent people off to the gas chambers or burn them alive. What kind of scum did that sort of thing to their fellow human beings?

Bern spent a moment picturing himself in Germany, 1938, a group of soldiers dressed in gray approaching him, but each one scared crapless because Bern wasn’t about to run from a bunch of cowardly Nazis. Grab one by the throat, that was the way to start, then kick the legs out…

Enough, enough…

He wanted to be damn certain of this before he started casting Nazis as bad guys.

Thing was—and this still made no sense—Bern couldn’t think of anyone who hated Jews more than his grandfather. Of course, the old man hated every shade of colored person, too, plus Catholics. People from the South—rednecks or white trash. Florida? They were retard Crackers, and who could blame the man, frankly. California Commies, same thing. The Wegian Legion from Minnesota, don’t get Grandy started on them. The Wegian weenie whiners. But why would his grandfather, Frederick Roth, hate Jews if he was one?

Or…maybe this was all bullshit. Everything in the briefcase fake.

His grandfather had done some bizarre things in the twenty months he lived after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’d changed his will umpteen times, depending on who in the family had pissed him off most recently. Bern, who he despised, was suddenly made chief executive officer of all the old man’s holdings in Florida. A shocker—apparently forgetting that Bern had spent three weeks in a teenage psych ward for braining the old bastard with a ball-peen hammer. Also forgetting the feud the assault had signaled, grandfather and grandson trying to top the other’s vicious attempts to get even.

Another shocker: Augie, the old man’s pet, had been demoted from his cushy executive job in Oshkosh and transferred to Florida to be Bern’s assistant.

Behavior that was as weird as the old man leaving a briefcase that contained passports and other stuff—and Bern had to admit this—that were sucking the joy right out of knowing the old bastard was rotting in his grave. Which probably was the intent.

How could he fake the briefcase’s odor, though, the smell of rodents’ nesting? And why the photo of the glamorous woman with the smoldering eyes?

Bern wished now he’d brought all the passports with him so he could compare the photographs again. The young blond Jewish guy was actually his Hebrew-hating grandfather?

Wanting to question whether that was true was something that seemed less and less weird.

B ern signed off from the computer, picked up the passport and other stuff he’d brought—a bottle of Pepto-Bismol because he still felt seasick, a garbage bag just in case—and went outside into the sodium daylight of a marina after 10 P.M.

Yes, there was Moe out there by the docks, riding the dinosaur-sized dozer, cowboy hat tilted forward on his head as if he were on a mechanical bull. What was the retard doing this time of night? Outside, with a storm forming, too, light flashing in mountainous clouds to the east. The sort of day Bern was having, he’d probably be struck by lightning. Maybe for the best.

Bern walked toward the bulldozer. What he wanted to do was take the Luger replica he’d bought in Milwaukee and shoot the man between the eyes. Same one he’d used to scare the dork Ford, and stuttering what’s his name following behind the Viking so close Bern could hear them laughing their butts off whenever he stopped puking long enough to catch a breath.

To Moe, Bern had said, “You could’ve spewed on them but chose me instead?” The two of them finally on the dock; Bern on his knees, running cold water over his head. He’d wanted to say, “That shows questionable business judgment…a decision an executive probably wouldn’t make. Like handing the cops several thousand dollars’ worth of stuff that’s rightfully mine. A death wish, motherfucker, that’s what it shows!”

Another situation in which profanity would have been appropriate.

Take the Luger, stick the skinny barrel in the Hoosier’s ear, and squeeze off two or three from the eight-round clip. No…better yet, use Cowboy Moe’s own weapon, the chrome .357 six-shooter he carried in his truck. Afterward, turn himself in, and tell the jury exactly what had happened: I’m sitting there, minding my own business, so sick I wanted to die. Seriously—die. On the back of a boat, trying to breathe air that didn’t taste like diesel fumes. Finally, getting a little better—dozing, I’m pretty sure—when I feel what I think is salt water hit me in the face. But guess what…?

Not guilty. Even if only one of the jurors had experienced a hell trip like today with his idiot nephew. First time in his life Bern could actually smell colors. Reds, blues, greens—each with its own unique diesel stink, and they all triggered the gag reflex.

B ern was determined to keep his temper, though. He needed Moe. Couldn’t fire him yet because no way was Bern going out in rough weather again, no matter how much he loved the Viking. So Moe’s scuba and boating skills would be needed. Bern didn’t care anymore about profit, but he still wanted to find the wreck. For one thing, he wasn’t going to let the nerd laugh at him, then steal what rightfully belonged to him. Something else: His grandfather knew the wreck’s location. Why?

Bern had a lot on his mind—the Jewish thing drifting in and out between thoughts of holding a gun to the Hoosier’s head…of wondering what the old man’s real motives were…also seeing the glamorous woman, imagining her photo, hoping she was still around with those smoldering eyes. She had to have been some beauty queen the old man was wild about—why else the photo?

Forgiveness, as the old man used to say, was for people who didn’t have the balls for revenge.

That’s how Bern planned to spend the evening: sit in his condo, and leaf through the leather-bound journal, hoping a woman’s name jumped out at him from all that faded writing. The other papers, too, most of them in German, which he didn’t understand, but a name, at least, might point him in the right direction. Tell him the woman’s identity.

How would the old man feel if he knew Bern ripped the clothes off his old sweetheart?

Go insane, that’s what he’d do. Touch the sacred flesh was the best way to screw his grandfather.

Tomorrow, he’d put a call in to Jason Goddard, the old man’s personal assistant. Leave a message, because it was Saturday, then try a cell phone number that might still be good. Also, he was thinking of asking Augie to contribute his expertise, the little brownnoser who’d learned to speak and read German to get in good with the old man.

Trust him with the old man’s journal? He’d give some thought to that.

Now, though, Bern had to make nice with the redneck Hoosier—and do it in a hurry, too, with that thunderstorm coming. Moe was working overtime, trying to make up for what he’d done that afternoon.

Not a chance in hell.