The Predators (27 page)

His face had a big, happy grin. “Jerry, I’d like you to meet my wife, Ulla.”

I stared at him almost in shock. “You’re married?”

“It has to happen sometime and she picked me.”

I reached for her hand. She smiled nervously. “Ulla,” I said. “Welcome. Please come in.”

Buddy dragged his two duffel bags into the apartment. I gestured to them. “Please sit down. I’ll have some coffee ready for you in a moment.”

“Ulla will have a coffee; I’ll have a beer if you have one.” Buddy smiled.

I gave him a bottle of beer and turned on the gas burner to warm up the coffee. “Jesus!” I exclaimed. “When did you get in? When did you get married? Why didn’t you let me know?”

Buddy took a swig from his beer and laughed at me. “Okay. One question at a time. Ulla and I got married a month ago at her father’s church in Oslo. We got into Paris about two hours ago. I never got time to write you. I went straight to the club to ask Paul if he knew a place for us to stay. I met Giselle and she invited us to come up here.”

I stared at him. Something was different. Then I realized that he had lost his stripes—he was back to being a private. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m okay now,” he said. “Giselle said that we could use the extra bedroom until we got settled in our own place.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll move my things out of the armoire in that bedroom in the morning.”

“And what about you and Giselle? Serious?” Buddy asked.

“I guess so,” I said. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone before.”

Ulla smiled at me. “I was surprised when I saw you. I always thought that you were like Buddy.”

“You mean black?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“We are very much alike,” I laughed. “Only he’s black and I’m a Jew.”

“We don’t have any Jews in my town. It’s a very small town,” she said. “We are mostly Protestant. My father is a Lutheran minister.”

I was curious. “Do you have any blacks in your town?”

She smiled. “Only traveling jazz bands and in the movies. But in Oslo, it’s a much bigger city; there are many Jews and blacks.”

Buddy gave me a broad smile.

By this time the coffee was ready. I gave her a mug. “
Au lait?
We also have some baguettes and Gruyère.”

“Just coffee will be fine. All I really want is some sleep. The trip was tiring,” she said.

“Bring your coffee and you can go to the bedroom and I’ll show you where the lavatory is at the end of the hall,” I said, leading her to the doorway. “Just make yourself comfortable.”

I took out another two beers, one for myself and the other for Buddy. “She’s beautiful,” I said to him after she had gone into the bedroom. “Are you really married?”

He took out a folded formal sheet of paper. “Legitimate. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

I looked at it. It was in Norwegian. In the corner of the paper was a picture of the king of Norway, with writing on lines below. It was Buddy and Ulla’s names signed next to each other. I gave him back the paper. “I wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years. Buddy, a married man.”

He was serious. “When the war is over I want to take her home.”

“It’s not going to be easy for her. Harlem ain’t Norway,” I said.

“I’m not planning to go back to Harlem. I want to go out west. Maybe Los Angeles or San Francisco. We’re planning to have a family,” he said.

“Isn’t it a little too soon to start thinking about that?” I asked.

“Not really.” He laughed. “She’s already knocked up.”

“You have a family,” I said. “You’re going to need to make some money.”

He smiled at me. “That’s where you come in. When I got the orders signed from the old man that you were in charge of a special project, I knew there was money coming my way.”

I nodded to him. “Tonight you get some rest. There will be time enough in the morning to fill you in.”

He stood up and took my hand. “I really love her,” he said. “And I want to thank you for both of us.”

15

Paul found a studio apartment for Buddy the next day. He also gave Ulla a waitress job at the Blue Note. Buddy was really pleased. He only had one problem. The money we were making wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more action. In a week, he was back into his old gambling games that he had run before he was transferred to Norway.

Sergeant Felder, who was in charge of the work detail repairing the jeeps, was pissed off at Buddy. He came to me complaining that Buddy was hustling the others into gambling and they not only lost their money, but they also lost time at work.

I called Buddy on it. What he was doing was hurting all of us. I didn’t ask to get him back here to get us in trouble.

Buddy stared at me. “I can get more money in the card and crap games in a day than we can make all week. I’ll cut you in for twenty-five percent. That’s as much as I give the old man.”

“You’re being stupid,” I told him. “This isn’t just the old man’s game, it’s the French and Corsicans.” I reached for a cigarette. “You’re a married man now. Your wife is working for Paul. Paul is a Corsican; he’s the one that got me into this deal. Corsicans are like the Mafia—they control practically everything. They gave the orders for the old man to go ahead on this deal. Otherwise, there would have been no deal. You want to kill it? We all get killed.”

“I’ve dealt with the Mafia. The Mafia ain’t so tough. The niggers in Harlem keep them in their place,” Buddy snapped.

“You’re becoming more stupid by the minute,” I said. “First of all, you got no niggers to back you up here in Paris. They’re Africans and they work as street cleaners and pearl divers in restaurants. The French don’t even let them in the army. And second, remember—here, you’re white.”

“What if I don’t let our soldiers in the game? I have enough players that are French.”

“Just as long as you keep your work up here,” I said.

“I’ll still give you your share,” he said.

“I have enough trouble,” I said. “You just keep it away from here. I want nothing of it.”

“The old man is taking his share,” Buddy said, smiling.

“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “He can go fuck himself for all I care!”

*   *   *

Giselle and I had set up a routine. Monday through Thursday were slow days for the gay clientele at the club. So I waited for her to come home early. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were busy nights for her. They all loved her and she worked late on those nights. After her late show she spent time at everyone’s table. I tried staying up late to wait for her, but four or five in the morning was too much for me. I still had to get up and go to work at seven in the morning.

Once again Paul came through for us. He agreed that Giselle could go home after the first show at midnight. It worked great for us. I would stay at the club until she was finished and then we went home together.

By the end of February the factory was going full blast. I was delivering blue suit a jeep each day and gray suit one every other day. Buddy and Felder were going crazy trying to figure out who I was really delivering these cars to. But Paul and I had a special system. I delivered the car to Paul at the club at night. Then the fat man would direct me to a different location for each car. When I reached that location there was a French one-striper private who I would hand the car keys. In return, he always handed me a brown envelope with my payment enclosed. Words were never exchanged. In a moment the fat man would arrive and take me back to the club in an old
deux chevaux.
On the nights that Giselle and I came home early, I waited until the morning to put the envelopes in the safe. On the weekends I always delivered them to the garage and put them in the safe.

In the first week of April I opened the safe and counted my share of the money. I had twelve thousand dollars. Sergeant Felder and the others had about the same. Buddy had gotten almost as much as I, but I never knew what he did with his money. His crap games and the poker games seemed to be profitable. I had once heard him mention that he had put together almost twenty grand and was planning on sending Ulla with the money to Norway when she was ready to have the baby.

The word was everywhere that the Germans were falling back every day and the war would be over soon. But you wouldn’t believe it if you saw the broken-down jeeps that came to us.

One evening when Giselle and I were having dinner at the Papa and Mama restaurant she began talking about what we would do after the war was over.

“I will go home to Lyons,” she said. “The life in Paris is not for me.” She looked at me. “Are you planning to go back to the States?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess so. The army will send us back to the States for discharge.”

“You can stay in France,” she said. “I would like to be with you.”

I looked at her. “I want to be with you, too,” I said. “But what could I do here? I don’t even speak French.”

“Maybe you can take me to the States with you,” she said. “I speak English.”

“We both have problems,” I said. “I love you, but my world is uncertain. Let’s not worry about our future until the war is over. Then we can really decide what we want to do.”

She reached across the table for my hand. “I love you, Jerry. I don’t want to lose you.”

I kissed her hand. “And I don’t want to lose you, Giselle.”

16

I was sitting at the small desk in the back of the garage. The last shipment of the jeeps for the week had been shipped and all the money had been paid to the men. I checked my share. Seventeen thousand dollars. I stared in awe at it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I was fucked. If I declared it, the army would have me thrown in the can. And if I tried to take it back to the States when I was discharged I would be picked up by customs, who would want to know how I got the money.

It was nearly 1800 hours when Buddy sat down in the chair across my desk. “We’re getting near the end here,” he said.

“That’s what everybody is saying,” I answered.

“What do you plan to be doing, then?” he asked.

“They discharge me, I go home,” I said.

“I heard they’ll be shipping many of us to the Pacific. Japan is still fighting and they don’t think that it will be over for a long time.”

“I don’t know,” I said kiddingly. “The president hasn’t given me his plans yet.”

“I don’t trust Truman,” Buddy said. “At least with Roosevelt we knew where we were going.”

I laughed. “We knew shit. They’re all over our heads.”

“One thing I do know,” he said. “I don’t want to go be in another war with Japan.”

“You’re full of shit,” I said. “We’ve never even been in any war. All we did was work behind the lines fixing jeeps. We never fought anything more than getting the grease off our hands!”

“When did you become such a hero?” he asked sarcastically.

“I’m not,” I said. “But I saw the newspapers and the newsreels. I think we’ve been pretty lucky.”

“The minute it’s over here,” he said, “I want to go home and get my discharge money and papers. I don’t want to be the last one to leave here, I want to be the first.”

“What about Ulla?” I asked. “I thought you were going to bring her home with you.”

“I checked it out,” he said. “The only way I can bring her into the States is on a Norwegian visa, with immigration papers.”

“You’re kidding. Even though you are married to her?” I asked.

“They’re pricks,” he said. “Immigration said there are too many foreign girls marrying American soldiers just to get into the country.”

“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.

“She wants to go home to have the baby. The baby will be an American citizen since I’m the father; we’ll register the baby at the American consulate. Then it will be easier to get her into the States.”

“You check all of this out?” I asked.

“Lawyers at the American consulate and army headquarters in Paris. They say it’s the way to go.”

“Then you have it all worked out. Congratulations!” I said.

“I still need your help,” he said. “I want you to have the old man okay my discharge papers as soon as this shit war is over.”

“I can send the orders to him, but there will be no guarantee that he will sign them,” I answered.

Buddy took a fat envelope from the inside of his shirt pocket. “There’s ten grand in here. Give it to him and tell him that it is his if he signs the orders.”

I couldn’t believe Buddy sometimes. “You mean you want
me
to walk into the old man’s headquarters and show him this envelope with the money and tell him that it’s his if he bails you out?”

“I can’t go into his office. Every asshole in the place knows that I was in the shithouse with him. Besides, he wouldn’t trust me to give him this money. He’d think I was setting him up. Every time I pay him for the action, he gives me a different meeting place.”

I shook my head. “No way for me to help you on this. I’m in enough trouble right now. If I get caught with this car deal, I’ll be in the can for life.”

“I’ll throw five grand in for you, too,” he said.

“What the fuck are you? A millionaire?” I asked.

“I been doing pretty good,” he said. “French love the action.”

“How much have you got?” I asked.

“I’m sending Ulla back to Norway with sixty grand. We’re putting the money in an account for the baby. When Ulla and the baby get to the States we’ll have enough to get settled.” He smiled at me. “Ulla’s honest. She doesn’t think the way that we think.”

“As long as she’s not like Kitty you’re way ahead,” I said.

“But you will send out the discharge papers for me?” he asked again. “You don’t have to take the money to him. I’ll find another way to get with him on this.”

“I’ll sign the papers,” I said. “But I won’t date it until the war is over. But you will be the first I send up.”

He looked at me. “You really scared, ain’t you?”

“You bet your ass I am. And if you’re as smart as I think you are, you should be scared, too!” I answered. “Don’t forget, you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got a family.”

17

It was April 20 when Paul came to the table where I was waiting for Giselle to finish her performance. He didn’t look happy. “Jerry,” he said. “We’re all fucked.”