Hold Tight (30 page)

“Cooper was a transvestite, a homosexual?”

“I do not know of these things, officer.” Mrs. Bosch glanced at Erich.

The sergeant explained that the boy had been found wearing the dress and “gay deceivers” now on his desk. The police assumed he had been prowling the waterfront, had propositioned a man, then was beaten to death by the man when he discovered the Negro was male. The sergeant asked what was Erich and Fayette’s connection with the deceased.

“They are my friends,” said Mrs. Bosch. “Here in my time of need.”

“I was Juke’s friend,” said Fayette, angrily.

The sergeant glanced at Fayette’s uniform, without noticing the slightly soiled cuffs and elbows. “I’ve got a boy in the service. Army Air Corps. As servicemen away from home for the first time, you boys are probably getting your first taste of a place like New York. There are certain elements you have to steer clear of. You probably have no idea the kind of sordid life you exposed yourself to by knowing this Negro.”

“You going to find his killer?”

“I got to be honest with you, son. Hardly a night goes by without some homo getting himself killed. We look into each case, briefly. But there’s not much we can do. And the general feeling is these fellas had it coming to them. Take my advice. This friend of yours was bad news. Forget him and be more careful in the future about the company you keep.”

Erich frowned at Fayette, trying to stop the outburst he thought was coming.

Fayette breathed deeply and surveyed the busy room. He abruptly stood up. “I want to get out of here.”

The sergeant said he was free to go, but he needed Mrs. Bosch a minute longer.

“Will you not wait for me, Hank? I am not wanting to go home alone.”

“I’ll wait for you outside,” Fayette snapped. He marched furiously through the room, hands rubbing his hips in a vain search for pockets.

Erich asked for permission to leave, then went after Fayette.

He found him pacing the steps out front, in the long shadow of the police building. It was still early and the sidewalk was full of seersuckered Americans on their way to jobs in the gaudy Viennese-looking buildings that surrounded City Hall. Fayette saw Erich, came up the steps and motioned him over to a fluted granite column.

“I’m terribly sorry, Hank. I know he was your friend.”

Fayette stood behind the column and looked down at Erich. “We know who did it, don’t we?”

“We don’t. The police are right. A boy like that might offend anyone. There’s no telling who may have met and killed him last night.”

The blue eyes stared coldly.

“I’ve thought about it,” Erich admitted. “Your man had no motive for killing the boy, no reason to believe the boy was involved in this. But the chief argument against it is that the man’s being watched by the FBI. He could not have killed the boy without being seen and stopped by whoever was tailing him.” Erich believed everything he said, but he was so accustomed to lying to Fayette that all beliefs sounded untrue the moment they were shared with the sailor.

“Maybe he lost his tail.”

“Maybe. But we don’t know that yet, do we? Let me speak to Mason this morning. The FBI can tell us where your man was last night.”

“No. I know in my bones he did it. Rich little bastard,” Fayette angrily muttered. “It’s our fault. It’s my fault, for taking that crazy kid into my bed that night. He had no business getting killed.” He slammed his head against the pillar. “Jesus. That crazy little nigger kid.” He sounded close to tears, but his eyes were bone dry.

“Stop talking like that. We don’t even know if he did it!”

“Oh, yeah? You were right about one thing, jewboy. You can’t be too suspicious.” He folded his arms across his chest, tightly, locking his fists in his elbows. “I trusted Mason and the rest of you to know what you were doing. But we’ve gone and got that kid killed by a loudmouth bum. If that bastard comes back to the house, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

“Don’t even think that, Fayette. He’s part of something much bigger. Don’t do anything until I’ve reported this to Mason. We have to let the Navy handle this.”

“I don’t trust the Navy now.”

“Then trust me. Let me learn what I can about this. You can trust me, can’t you?”

“Can I?” Fayette’s eyes burned through him.

“Yes,” said Erich. “You can.” And the words hung there not so much like a lie as a desperate, feeble wish.

Mrs. Bosch came outside, handkerchief still in her hand, mouth and eyes drawn down. She mournfully looked around before she saw them. She came over, grimacing when she attempted to smile. “Poor little Juke. So many times he deserved a good slap. But he did not deserve to die.” And the tears began to flow again. She could not say another word until she had blown her nose. “Did I do all right, Meester Zeitlin? I did not say anything I should not have?”

“You were fine, Mrs. Bosch. Again, I’m sorry.” Her grief seemed genuine.

“Yes. We had our outs, Juke and me. But he was all boy.” She blew her nose again. “Hank, dear? Would you hail us a taxicab? I need to go home and lay down.” She waited until Fayette was down at the curb before she whispered, “Do you think what happened had anything to do with
our
business, Meester Zeitlin?”

“No, Mrs. Bosch. None whatsoever.”

“Good then. Because I could not live with myself if I thought our spying might have brought harm to the boy. Good day.”

A taxi had pulled to the curb. Erich followed her down to the street. Hank held the door open for her and Erich was able to speak to him while Mrs. Bosch climbed into the backseat.

“I’ll come to the house this afternoon, Hank. I’ll tell you everything.”

Fayette looked at him, lowered his eyes and got in beside Mrs. Bosch. He slammed the door, the taxi drove away and Erich knew he wouldn’t tell Fayette everything, despite the murder.

Church Street and Navy Intelligence were a few blocks to the south. Erich walked, steeling himself with speculations. He could not believe a foolish worm like Rice had killed the boy. He knew the type all too well—the superfluous man, a modern Hamlet, Marcel Proust among gangsters. Erich himself was such a man. Rice was incapable of murder, but it would be impossible to convince Fayette of that. Now, in addition to protecting Fayette from Mason, Erich would have to protect Rice from Fayette. He was helpless at both tasks. He wanted to step back, let Fayette kill Rice and go to the electric chair, ending the whole vile business.

Full of messengers and the clatter of teletype machines, the corridor seemed like part of a larger, efficient machine. Erich tried to feel impersonal and efficient. Full of urgent news, he knocked on the door of their office and entered without waiting for an answer. The commander was not alone.

Sitting across from Mason, frowning over their square shoulders at Erich, were Sullivan and yet another gray-suited, elderly boy from the FBI. An interrupted sentence seemed suspended above their heads.

“Excuse me, Commander Mason. I apologize for being late, sir. I’ve come straight from the city morgue. There’s something you should know immediately.”

“Good morning, Mr. Zeitlin. Something concerning this?” Mason took a sheaf of photographs off his desk and handed them past Sullivan to Erich.

The photos were large and shiny. The first was of a chalk rectangle drawn on a patch of ground beside some crates. A square marked off one end of the rectangle, like a head. The other pictures showed the same patch of ground, the chalk lines replaced by a body in a white dress. Head and dress were black with blood. Two policemen stood in the corner of several pictures, eyes cut out, mouths grinning.

“You can’t be so free with those pics, Mason.”

“Erich’s to be trusted,” Mason assured Sullivan. “He knows as much about this as we do. Almost.”

The death that had seemed brutal but clean at the morgue became horrifying in the photographs. Erich restrained his rage and coldly returned the pictures to Mason. “How did the police know to send these to us?”

“We asked for them.” Mason watched like a man waiting for you to get the punch line.

Erich knew what was coming. “How did you know the boy had been killed?”

“Because Sullivan’s man here—” Mason gestured at the young man sitting importantly in the other chair “—watched Rice do it.”

“You arrived too late to stop it,” said Erich.

The young man looked insulted. “No. I followed the suspect all night without losing him once. It was too dark for me to actually
see
the homicide, but I was close enough to hear it. A man makes quite a racket when he beats another man to death. I would have had no trouble stopping it. Of course, I couldn’t intervene without revealing to the suspect he was still being followed.”

“Do you see now?” said Mason, grinning happily. “Rice killed the houseboy. Which means Rice
is
a spy. He knows we’re on to him and thinks he can save himself by killing the witnesses. He doesn’t know about you and Sullivan in the basement or he wouldn’t have lifted a finger. But now he’s tipped his hand. We reported it to Whyte this morning and he agrees. We’ll be able to tail Rice through hell or high water, until he leads us to the others. Yes, my little brainchild is beginning to pay off.”

Erich felt sick. “But the boy. He was innocent.”

“It’s regrettable the colored boy had to die, but he was hardly innocent. Just your garden-variety Negro deviant. They have a high mortality rate anyway, second only to firemen.”

What would Fayette do if he learned this? And thinking about Fayette, Erich recognized something else. “If Rice thinks there are only two witnesses, then won’t he try to kill Fayette?”

“I’m sure of it. You might tell Hank to take care next time he sees Rice. Without giving away too much of the game to Hank, of course.”

“I just spoke to Fayette. He already thinks Rice killed the boy.”

“A natural paranoid response,” Mason explained. “Although in this case he happens to be correct.”

Erich took a deep breath. “You should know, sir, that Fayette talks about killing Rice the next time he sees him.” He wanted to wake up Mason to the fact that the violence springing from his clever scheme threatened to be endless.

And Mason became more serious. “We can’t let that happen.”

“No,” said Sullivan. “I’ll instruct my men to intervene if that looks likely.”

“The way
he
intervened when Rice killed the boy?” said Erich, nodding at Sullivan’s man.

Sullivan glanced at Mason, blaming him for his subordinate’s disrespect. When Mason said nothing, Sullivan said, “That was different, Zeitlin. We have priorities. Our chief priority here is to keep Rice alive until he leads us to others in his organization. Sometimes the only effective means of intervention is a gunshot.”

Erich had to fill in the tense gaps between Sullivan’s matter-of-fact sentences, as if they were code. “Do you mean…if it looks like Fayette might kill Rice,” he said, “you’ll shoot Fayette?”

“If it’s absolutely necessary, yes.”

“But if Rice tries to kill Fayette—?”

“We have to live with it.”

Erich looked at the calm faces around the desk: Sullivan annoyed that an explanation was necessary, the younger man impatient but polite, Mason mildly curious about Erich’s reaction.

“No, it’s not really fair,” Mason admitted philosophically. “But wartime, Erich. And all is fair in love and war.”

“But we’re not at war with
Fayette.
He’s one of us.”

“Well,” went Mason. “Yes and no.”

Erich exploded. “You can’t let him be killed just because
you
think he’s mentally defective! That’s murder! You’re his commanding officer. He’s in your care. Would you let your own son be murdered just because he’s a deviant?” Erich was so angry he grabbed at any argument, no matter how irrational.

“I told you not to let your subordinate in on this,” Sullivan grumbled. “These Jewish intellectual types are all alike. They care more about splitting hairs than getting a job done.”

That infuriated Erich further, made him too furious to speak.

“Let me handle this,” said Mason. “I know how to talk with Erich. You and your man may go now. Again, you’ve done a remarkable job.”

The FBI men stood up and stepped around Erich without looking at him. He stood helpless with anger, burning from Sullivan’s rebuke, unable to come up with an answer until the men closed the door behind them.

“Killing a man—two men—for no clear purpose,” he told Mason, “is better than doing nothing at all?”

“You’re overreacting, Erich. Sit down. You saw the body at the morgue? It’s natural you’d be upset right now.”

Erich sat down. He wanted to stay angry, but anger confused him. He wanted to take refuge in Mason’s calm rational manner.

Mason leaned back and pulled the cord on the venetian blinds. The slats opened and there were trees and sunlight outside. The room became less sinister, more normal, even commonplace.

“You know,” said Mason, settling into his chair. “There’s a very good chance Hank won’t be killed. By either Rice
or
our friends. That’s the worse that could happen. Things don’t always turn out as badly as we fear.”

“Why not send Fayette away from here? Place him somewhere where Rice couldn’t get to him. A ship or jail. Even a mental hospital.” Erich could mention the hospital only because anything seemed preferable to death now.

“No. Sullivan needs him on the street. New York’s a difficult place in which to follow someone. The job’s much easier when you know what your subject is after.”

“Fayette’s life is at risk because Sullivan needs bait?”

“There’s more than just individual lives at stake here, Erich. There’s a war on, to coin a phrase. What we uncover with Rice may save thousands of lives.”

“Or none at all. His spy ring could be as inept as he is.”

“There’s that possibility. There’s also the possibility that, if Hank were still at sea, he would die anyway. Ships are torpedoed every day.”

“Americans die in auto accidents every day. But that doesn’t justify letting them murder each other.” Erich looked down at the police photos still on the desk.

Mason looked down and saw them, then abruptly turned the sheaf of pictures white side up. “Who
are
these people to you, Erich? What makes you so concerned about this riffraff?”