BESSERWISSER: A NOVEL
Steve Anderson
Also by Steve Anderson
The Losing Role
False Refuge
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2009 Stephen F. Anderson
Cover: Tiny Little Hammers
Besserwisser: A Novel
Munich, 1990: American expat slacker Gordy Ford poses as a top Hitler scholar, all to impress a girl. Stuck in his scam, Gordy soon thinks he’s stumbled onto a shocking historical discovery that’s made him the target of a wannabe neo-Nazi and shady Russian mafia.
ONE
Gordy Ford could hardly believe the power of his little fib. Ray Sloane jerked forward to hear Gordy just right. Gordy repeated the gist of it:
“All I can say is, it’s about Hitler, it was top secret, and it could be real big.”
Gordy’s simple tale was changing Ray Sloane from a jaded, forty-two-year-old history scholar into a kind of hyper fanatic. Sweat beaded on the man’s long forehead. He scratched at his thin hair with clawed hands and flashed freaky grins at Gordy. Gordy hadn’t meant to lie, but here he was, and the ease of it was almost panicking Gordy too. Was it really this effortless to be someone else? In minutes, with only one bored stranger and a few cheap words (Hitler being the cheapest), Gordy had transformed himself from a near broke, twenty-something community college dropout into a calm and competent young scholar with a bright future. And yet he had to be honest with himself — the feel of his brand new skin was giving him the same warm and sugary buzz he got from the double bourbon and colas he drank on his plane ride to Germany.
Then Sloane seemed to rally. His slow moist eyes narrowed and darkened, like those of a wizened old bull sizing up a fresh salt lick. He snorted. “I don’t buy it, Gordy. No way. It’s too damn pat.” He shook his head.
So Gordy had no choice but to double down. He wiped Sloane’s sweat off his forearm. “I understand. But what can I say? I just got here and there’s lots of legwork to be done. Please, call me Gordon. Gordon K. Fordham. No one calls me Gordy.” Another white lie. Gordy had been Gordy from childhood on — Gordy Ford from Estacamas, Oregon, a strip-malled suburb of Portland. “I don’t call you Raymond,” he added.
“Yesterday when we met you said your name was Gordy.”
“Did I? It was the jet lag.”
“Right.” Sloane scratched at his chin, a crazy quilt of whiskers and acne, and fell into deep thought. He and Gordy shared an awkward look around like a couple on a blind date realizing they had nothing in common. All around them the 1990 Munich Oktoberfest was in full stride and the Paulaner beer tent hopping. They sat across from each other, right near the oompa band stage. The tent was more like a blimp hangar, a waving sea of heads and beer steins and enough cigarette smoke for a major harbor’s worth of dense fog. A couple tables over, horn players from the oompa band nibbled on spiral-cut radishes. One had removed his toupee and tucked it into the front panel of his lederhosen. Nearby someone was ranting about Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait and what’s George H. W. Bush going to do, how it was all about oil. Gordy tried not to stare at the strangely pent-up Sloane. The guy had acne at forty-two? The strong dork factor was matched only by Sloane’s envy and general contempt. And yet Gordy had to impress him? So what did that say about himself? The panic threatened again. Gordy killed it with two gulps of Oktoberfest-Bier from his thick one-liter stein that Bavarians called a Mass.
Sloane’s head snapped back, and he peered at Gordy. “What’s the K for? And where you from again?”
“What? Oh, Kirby. Portland — the city part.”
“School?”
“Told you — University of Oregon.” A good line, that one. Believable enough, but not prestigious enough that Sloane would know anyone there. Sloane was fishing, seeking a chink in Gordy’s armor. It was to be expected. Sloane only needed more detail. Gordy looked around, seeking more material. To his right sat a man grumbling in a Slavic language, hidden behind dark glasses and a mackintosh. To his left a man in a Tyrolean hat smoked from a cigarette holder as his bored, waifish Fräulein rested her head on his shoulder. Right then and there Gordy decided his story would be a mystery, if not a conspiracy, just like in all those hokey Nazi spy thrillers he’d read. So he leaned well forward, practically nuzzling at Sloane, and he whispered: “I’m telling you, I’m onto something big time. Bigger than the Hitler Diaries.”
“Stop, right there. Gord-on, the Hitler Diaries turned out a hoax.”
“Yes. That’s why this is bigger,” Gordy said.
“You keep saying that. Then throw me a bone. Jesus.”
“I told you. Have to protect my sources.”
“Sources,” Sloane snorted, nodding along. They had met the day before, in line at the American Express. Sloane was a PhD candidate from, as Sloane put it, the only university in Michigan that matters. Gordy nodded in confirmation, letting his silence hide that he wasn’t even sure where Michigan was exactly. North of Wisconsin? South of some Great Lake? As they stood in line Sloane had joked, with some bitterness, that he’d found salvation in academia — he welcomed the pressure to discover minor historical issues he would publish in complete obscurity. This inspired and terrified Gordy in equal parts, and yet something about it also hit home. He might have been a historian like Sloane had the chips fallen his way. So why not simply pretend that’s what he was? Believing was seeing. Besides, weren’t all people imposters to a degree? Happy lives were built on white lies, he told himself. It was better making friends this way than to go through life seething with envy.
This pretty much summed up Gordy’s worldview for the week. So how could he now just up and tell Sloane, hey, I’m sorry, only person I know in Munich, I’m simply making all this up? It was too fulfilling. He could be anyone he wanted here. The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain were falling down; and just across the border, in Prague and Budapest and East Berlin, awaited the new Wild West. Here he had no unpaid visa bills or loans, dead-end jobs or, dare he say it, his sometime girlfriend Gwen to ask him, yet again, when he was going to get his act together and move in with her for good?
Sloane had set down his Mass — a liter of lemonade instead of beer. He already had a PhD in Alcoholics Anonymous, Gordy had learned. Thus the salvation. Thus the lemonade. “You want something from me, is that it?”
Gordy screeched a laugh like a dachshund left out on the patio. He was no beast. He didn’t want to take a thing from Sloane. “God, no. Just thought you could appreciate it, seeing how we’re both scholars — one pro to another, you know?” All Gordy wanted was some company, and a modicum of mutual respect. Thus his tale — he’d come to Munich seeking a prized historical secret. The tale had the mystery, the conspiracy. All it needed now was a good threat, a hint of peril. Gordy lifted his beer, drank, set it down. “Ray, I like you. You’re a good dude. But I can’t involve you. The truth is, this could all be very dangerous.”
“Dangerous.” Sloane licked at his chapped lips, which seemed to make them drier. “Dangerous how?”
They heard shouting and hisses and rumbles. A gang of skinheads marched by, shoving people out of the way with fists and elbows, their pale skin bearing tattoos of Confederate flags and Imperial German crosses. In their suspenders and tight jeans with the cuffs rolled up, they reminded Gordy of drugged rodeo clowns (minus the clown makeup). Sloane glared at them.
“That dangerous,” Gordy said. “The wall’s coming down, true, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new threats. What I’m after, it jeopardizes, certain people, those who want to protect their, uh, politicized, dogmatic, fascist versions of history.” It was close enough.
“I don’t give a shit about neo-Nazis. They’re pussies; not like the real Nazis at all.” Sloane jerked forward again. “Let’s talk research. Where you looking? Huh? Just give me an archive.”
Gordy leaned back, smiling. Stalling. All those pretend years of scholarly triumph keeping him calm. “Oh, I see what you’re after,” he said, wagging his index finger. “You want to borrow my word processor.” Gordy had spent the last of his money on a portable Tandy word processor. He had written one letter on it, to Gwen back home, but he had no way to print it so he opted to mail a postcard instead. He really only bought the thing because the idea of carrying — with one arm! — a computer and floppy disks filled with words fascinated him. What a brave new world the 1990s were going to be.
“My typewriter works just fine,” Sloane said.
“That’s cool. Still, it’s amazing what they’re doing with technology. You know that people are now talking on portable phones no bigger than a shoe. A shoe!”
“Fuck ‘em. Tell me where.”
Munich had many archives, according to Gordy’s city tourist map. He blurted one that came to mind: “Bavarian State Archive. All right? There, I told you —”
“BayStaatsarchiv? No, no, no, that’s always a dead end. For dabblers and buffs.” Sloane belched, bringing a smell like lemony floor wax.
“That’s the beauty of it. The trick is to look in a place that’s not obvious. And there it’s safe, until I can get my arms around it.”
“Uh-huh.” Sloane’s claws had relaxed. He cracked his knuckles. He smiled. “Let’s go back. What did you say you were on again?”
“On? I’ve taken nothing. Though I’m sure we could score some here.”
“No. Your scholarship.”
“Oh. I didn’t. It’s a Fulbright. I’m a Fulbright.” Luckily, Gordy had sat next to a Fulbright scholar on the plane — Steve. Steve the Fulbrighter had also loved bourbon colas. Steve proved a gold mine for academic jargon, which Gordy could now put to good use.
“Kind?” Sloane said.
“Graduate Research Fellow.” Just like Steve.
Sloane nodded, and set down his liter lemonade as if it had a nasty crack in it. “With stipend?”
“You bet. And a travel grant — Lufthansa, rail, both ways.” Gordy had flown standby on TWA and Pan Am, a five-leg, twenty-five-hour nightmare, all of it in the smoking section. Frankfurt to Munich he’d hitchhiked.
“Sweet, I have to say.” Sloane’s shoulders slumped. Nice work, Gordy — balance restored. “I’m doing the Bavarian Farmer’s Movement,” Sloane said, sighing, “Fifteenth century, a field wide open, it’s really undiscovered territory...” He let the words trail off.
“Good, no, a niche is good,” Gordy said. Hoping he hadn’t gone too far. He had wanted to engage Sloane, not crush him. He touched Sloane’s stein with his.
“Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!” sang the Kapellmeister — the bandleader, proposing a tent-wide toast, and all across the tent people stood on their benches, swung their steins and sang along. Gordy stood and joined in.
Sloane reached up and pulled Gordy down to him. “Listen to me. I only got two weeks left,” he said.
“That right?” The band was doing “Country Roads” now. Gordy stood again. Who could resist John Denver?
“Two weeks. That’s it. Go back with what I got.” Sloane’s arms slacked and slapped at his sides.
Gordy was singing to the rest of the table, who sang back to him. He couldn’t believe he knew all the words. What a freaking blast.
Meanwhile, something changed in Sloane. Clicked in. As he glared at Gordy singing, he seemed to grow in stature and yet lose bulk at the same time. The aging bull was now a super alert, super fierce insect of human size. One badass praying mantis. Sloane glared, his eyes bulging and bloodshot and darting. Gordy kept singing: “West Virginia, mountain ma-ama, take me home —”
Sloane shouted in German, something about the Holocaust. He slammed down his stein, sloshing lemonade, shot up onto his bench and snared Gordy by the shoulders. “You got Holocaust proof. Don’t you? The doc where Hitler personally orders it? That what we’re talking about here? The one that’s never been found. Before you get sloshed. Let’s have it. Pronto.”
“Pronto?” Gordy said, fighting a laugh. Holocaust proof — was that what he had meant? Sure, why not. If that was what Sloane wanted. Gordy danced on, smiling and wiggling his shoulders, but Sloane moved onto the tabletop and clenched Gordy tighter. Their neighbors shouted and whooped at them, for they appeared to be dancing together now, one pink, balding praying mantis leading a grinning, oversized Alfred E. Newman look-alike (but more handsome) in Converse high tops and brown leather (okay, vinyl) bomber jacket.
“It’s the Holy Grail,” Sloane said. “You know that, don’t you? Everyone wants it.” Gordy, nodding, danced on. Sloane’s narrow hips rocking with his. “It’s a lost cause! So many have tried. I tried. There’s nothing extant, no good secondaries, not even any promising hearsay, accomplices almost all dead, hell there’s not even any lost docs anybody knows of, for Christ’s sake, man …”
Sloane let go. He stood back and watched Gordy, as if Gordy was his belly dancer. His head swayed, and he grinned. “It’s in Section Two, isn’t it? Yes! It has to be. And I bet I know just the box of folders.”
Gordy danced, drank, sang on. Sure. Whatever Section Two was. The white lies sure do pile up fast when you’re making friends. But there was not much he could do to stop this tonight, what with his belly filling with beer and Sloane all hopped up on citrus and sugar and breakthrough research. As soon as he had the chance, though, he would play it down. He didn’t want Sloane making the mistake of going to the experts with this — or worse yet to a journalist. Next time Gordy saw him he’d tell him, look Ray, sorry to lead you on, but it turned out to be a dead end, the whole thing, led to nowhere just like you said. I guess I just got excited — you understand excited? And, please, call me Gordy.
And that would be that. No harm done.
The full-strength Oktoberfest beer struck Gordy just as the oompa band began pumping out “Y-M-C-A.” Back up on the table, Gordy linked arms and sang with the man wearing the Tyrolean, who ended up giving Gordy his hat, Gordy liked it so much. Gordy only slipped and fell off the table twice. By now the stale smoke and spilled beer smelled wonderful. He breathed it in. After swigging his fourth liter he danced with the rest of them, there were Italians, Finns and Brits, the whole table up now, and some time later he was laying on his back with full steins weighing him down and beer running down his neck, the object of some unknowable drinking game.
Wait. Hold on. A woman was now with Sloane. Gordy sat back down and faced them, his hair damp with beer. She had auburn hair. Her skin glowed, fair but fresh and rosy from the fall sun.
“Gordy — Gord-on, this is Jane,” Sloane said. He pulled her close by a shoulder. “She’s my gal.”
Jane shot Sloane a look that sent him for his lemonade. She was drinking strongest and darkest beer that only the hardiest old-timers dared to quaff. “Acquaintance, to be precise,” she said in a throaty yet polished accent.
“Hi. Acquaintance,” Gordy said, hoping to say something profound but this Jane was beaming at him, her eyes sparkling green, and all he wanted was to touch her hair because it probably smelled like strawberries, and … he forgot what he was going to say. He would have guessed a dowdy girl for Sloane. But Jane was practically Joan Jett in her jeans, tee, and three-quarter length black leather jacket. What was she?
“What are you?” Gordy blurted.
Jane eyed him, the sparkle dimming. “Deutsche. A German. Duh, as you say.”
“Ach ja, Deutschland,” Gordy said, faking a German accent and not sure where he was going with it. Sloane and Jane left him to his beer and faced each other. They fired off exchanges as if they were on a game show with a time limit. Sloane asked her where she’d been. He needn’t know everything all the time, she shot back. Her full, confident lips. Her short and smart bangs. She too had freckles like Gordy’s but hers were faint and spaced evenly apart. Fascinating.
The band started up again. As Gordy leaned forward to hear her, the Slavic grumbler to his right slid a brown cigar-like cigarette into his mouth and lit it. It seemed like a brilliant idea. Gordy couldn’t hear much but he could tell Sloane was talking about him, rolling his eyes, and so he smoked, and he drank, doing his best to keep his back upright and his shoulders square, the Tyrolean hat perched so far forward it touched his nose. Sloane droned on and on. Gordy heard the words “Holocaust,” “Hitler,” “Section Two,” “deep hidden,” and “big-time proof,” then something about how Sloane had been scraping — slaving — for years and now this junior Fulbright comes up with the goods? Jane nodded along. She shot him a glance.
“It’s true,” Gordy said. “And I’m so close, now that I’m finally here.” Shaking his head at his own dumb luck. He couldn’t help it. How could he come clean now? “But then again, true research is three parts’ hard work,” he added. His hat slid down his nose and dropped onto his stein, where he let it sit.
Sloane looked away. Jane turned to him. One corner of her mouth had turned up. She was smiling again.
“But remember, it’s dangerous. Very dicey,” Gordy added.
“Dicey. A nice English word. I’ll remember that.” The band was doing “Country Roads” for the fourth time Gordy could remember. The rest of the table was calling for him. He waved them off. But what to say?
“Jane — borrow my word processor?” he blurted.
“Your what word?” Jane said. Sloane laughed.
“Nothing ...”
The beer. Das Bier. He had liters of it inside him. His lips had become twitching worms, his thoughts a scramble of the comic and the bleak. Sometime after his fifth liter he could barely stand without Sloane’s help. Sloane and Jane escorted him as far as the main exit, a giant plywood mockup of a fairytale castle gate. Other drunks streamed past staggering as if blindfolded. Somehow the Tyrolean hat was back on his head. He tipped it to Sloane, Jane.
“Seeing you, Ray. Was nice. Do it again. Jane, is nice to be meeting you. We’ll see you in town?”
They nodded, smiling. Then Sloane leaned into Gordy, as if to hug him. “So, I guess the race is on,” he growled in Gordy’s ear.
“Race? Who?” Gordy stumbled backward. “Right now?”
“You heard me. So don’t toy with me.” Sloane drew back, sucking on his teeth.
“Are you all right to make the trek home?” Jane said to Gordy.
“Oh, yesh. Yes. But remember — loosh lipsh shink ships.” He put a finger to his lips. “Ver-y dicey. Shhh ...”
Sloane turned to leave. Gordy reached out and touched Jane’s hair. She let him. “Pretty, pretty,” he muttered, stroking, and she watched him with a light, open smile, like an adult admiring a child in a petting zoo.
She grabbed his hand and placed it on his heart.
“It’s best you go now, Gordon K. Fordham.”
“Okay. Hey — you living in Munich? After he’s gone? What’s-his-hoosey.”
“Ray. For you that depends, does it not? Off you go.”
“Okay. Bye bye.”
It was dark now, a warm late September night. Gordy waddled and zigzagged along, stomping at earth, passing Bavarian yokels in tight jeans, blue-haired ladies swinging purses, American GIs pushing strollers, and young couples in love. They lurched and swayed to avoid him. They laughed and he laughed with them. Flashing carnival lights stretched to the horizon, a kaleidoscopic forest fire. Roller coasters glowed in red and blue and orange, like neon Alps. Little red shacks sold shots of schnapps as groups of old friends crowded around, hoisting glasses. It was all straight out of the Nineteenth century, and Gordy loved that about it. He passed a flea circus, a freak show, a real gypsy fortuneteller and, best of all, stalls hawking gingerbread hearts glazed with sappy Bavarian sayings, just like Valentine candy. “Be Mine?” “Say Yes.” “I Love You.” And Gordy wondered if Jane liked the gingerbread hearts, too, and if a guy like Ray Sloane really knew or cared about anything apart from getting at Gordy’s big-time find that really wasn’t.
TWO
Hiccupping, Gordy descended the long metal escalator deep into the Munich U-Bahn subway, a Legoland of oranges and blues, plastic and tile and concrete. Giant happy billboards loomed. A rush of warm air hit his eyes as the train pulled in and stopped with a hiss. He tugged the Tyrolean hat down tight and staggered aboard. “Zurückbleiben, bitte,” screeched the speakers, “stand back, please,” the doors slapped shut and the train rolled on.
He hiccupped, four then five in a row, each more violent than the previous one, a human machine gun of hiccups. The riders stared, stone-faced. Another beer-soaked foreign maniac had invaded their commute and the vomit was sure to come. Act normal, Gordy told himself. Best not to make eye contact. He grabbed at a handle but missed and stumbled into a thick-faced Munich Frau who shoved him off and he hurtled back into an empty seat, where he sat. Facing the window, he pulled a postcard from his bomber jacket. On the front was a blurry retouched photo of Seattle’s Space Needle at night, or possibly at dusk. “The Space Needle?” Gordy groaned. It wasn’t like Gwen to send a cheap postcard; she would spend ten bucks on a postcard if they made such a thing. But there it was. Cheap. On the back she’d scribbled:
What am I going to do with you? You’re a big dork in the body of a cinema star. Quaff one of those big Munich beers for me.
Quaff. Cinema star. Gwen loved outdated words. She used them to compensate for the current words she didn’t know. The least she could have done was written how she liked Seattle now that she’d finally moved there. Or ask him, as she had so often, when was he going to join her there? She’d promised to fill him in on the latest episodes of “Twin Peaks.” Not now. He got only a blurry Space Needle and outdated words. At least his hiccups were gone.
Leaving the subway, Gordy stumbled through a sprawling maze of decaying concrete tenements. The streetlamps flickered and buzzed like mammoth killer fireflies. This was once the athletes village for Munich’s 1972 Olympics. It was still called the Olympic Village, but it had been turned into student housing. It reminded Gordy of a junkyard of cheap hotels, that or a lost movie set from “Logan’s Run.” Like a real village it had no sensible layout, and Gordy found his building only after going in a circle twice and tracking back three times.
The elevator shimmied and whined as it climbed, and Gordy’s stomach settled between his ankles. He closed his eyes, fighting the spins. Entering the eleventh floor lobby, he checked his mailbox. Inside was an actual letter, no, wait, the very letter he’d been hoping for — postmarked USA, self-stamped and -addressed to “Mr. Gordon K. Fordham.” He stared at it. It was to bring dark news, he thought. No, it was a godsend. He tore into the envelope:
Dear Mr. Fordham,
We discussed your proposal, The Fordham Historical Travel Guide To Fascist and Communist Landmarks of Europe, and I am sorry to report that it is not a likely prospect for us.
We appreciate your submission and wish you the best of luck in your publishing pursuits.
Kindest regards,
Lionel Marsee-Chandler
Senior Acquisitions Editor
He read it again. And a third time. He held it up to the light. He read a fourth time but stopped at the words “not a likely prospect.” It was the last rejection of some twenty publishers. He slid down along the wall to the floor. It had seemed a sure thing for the times. They had sightseeing books for gourmands, mystery buffs, and even porn lovers, so why not give them Nazi gold caves, Karl Marx statues, and Stalin’s dacha? Mr. Lionel Marsee-Chandler, who he’d imagined only hours before as kindly and balding with dentures yellowed from pipe tobacco, was now a Gordon Gekko with a deep tan and gold cuff links, his billboard-sized window offering the best view not of Central Park but a continent-sized crater of molten lava.
Why hadn’t he just told Sloane about the book idea instead? Maybe he didn’t really believe in it? And yet it had provided the rationale for all that he had now. His Tandy portable word processor. His one-way ticket over (it was all he could afford). For the book, advance in hand, he was to see Prague and Budapest, East Berlin and St. Petersburg. Instead he’d spent way too many marks at Oktoberfest. He’d even sprung for Sloane’s giant lemonades. His pulse raced, and his head spun again. He lowered his head between his knees, breathing slower ... Some time later he tried to pull himself up, but his head felt heavy like he was wearing a helmet of rebar-laced concrete. His stomach had now wedged itself under his tongue. He felt a piercing rumble there, and an icy cold sweat broke out on his upper lip and down his spine.
Next thing he knew he was hugging his toilet, heaving up Oktoberfest.
Some time after that he was lying on his narrow twin bed. On his back. In the dark. He tried to imagine this room — what it looked like — but couldn’t. He could have been anywhere. He was in the dark.
He woke the next morning on the bed, in his sleeping bag, and had to squint at the harsh gray light from the balcony. No wonder he couldn’t recall his room in the dark. It had as much character as a voting booth. The ‘72 Olympians’ quarters had been the guinea pigs of modern pre-fab construction. Most of it was a grimy matte white, and he could reach any wall in three long paces. The Formica desk had only one shallow drawer. The desk chair was molded plastic, the shelves and closet made of a heavy particle board covered with more Formica that was chipped and peeling. Over in the corner was a kitchenette counter little wider than a sandwich, a tiny sink, and a mini fridge below that. The place was like a death row cell for a kindergartner. He wondered, in all seriousness, if he hadn’t gotten the former quarters for dwarf Olympians.
And yet a pad like this was a score in cramped Munich. He’d told Ray Sloane it was all Fulbright. The truth was, he was the closest thing to being a squatter. Gwen knew a German exchange student back home who needed to sublet her Munich apartment, so Gwen had offered to rent the place and use it as a base for traveling. At which point Gordy had offered to arrive early and watch it until Gwen could come over. But first, there was Seattle. It could be months, Gwen had said. I will make due, Gordon had said. By then he would have found a publisher, he had assured himself.
If only. His mud-caked Converse lay in the middle of the floor. His throat burned, his nostrils were clogged and his teeth felt raw and chalky, as if stripped by paint thinner. He pulled back his covers to find he was wearing two pair of underwear and one sock, and nothing else.
As Gordy endured the worst hangover of his life, he decided that misleading Ray Sloane was not right. He would meet with Sloane and confess, whatever it took. He had no working telephone, so he tried Sloane from a phone booth. Repeatedly. Sloane was never at home. For a week Gordy called him, at least once or twice a day, and even switched phone booths for better odds. On the third day Sloane’s landlady began hanging up on Gordy. On the fifth day she barked at him in English:
“Herr Sloane gets all messages so quevit calling so much — perhaps he doesn’t vish to speak vit you.” She’d shouted it, as if reading from a cue card.
“Where is he, right now? Will you tell me?” Gordy asked in his rough German. “If you tell me this, I will leave you alone.”
A gasp. A grunt. “In the archive, where else?” landlady said in German and hung up.
A man in shiny leather pants was banging on the phone booth so Gordy kept the receiver to his ear, as if still speaking. He slumped against the grimy glass, trying to think. Why would Sloane avoid him? And in which archive was he? — Munich had so many archives. Then he remembered what he had told Sloane, and what Sloane had made of it, and what Sloane had whispered in his ear the last time he saw him.
The race is on. Do not toy with me.
Gordy’s current phone booth was in Schwabing, just blocks from the Bavarian State Archive. To play it safe, he bought a disguise at a discount store on the way — dark sunglasses, a used purple plastic rain poncho and tweed bucket hat. Then he headed down the Ludwigstrasse, the grand avenue that linked the university to Old Town. He found a narrow side street, the Schönfeldstrasse, and turned into a cobblestone courtyard walled in on three sides by high arched paths.
The afternoon light had thinned, turning the cobblestones black. In the middle of the courtyard stood the statue of a general Gordy didn’t know (but told himself to look up). Across the courtyard stood a gray box of a building. On the ground floor, a row of windows was illuminated yellow from desk lamps glowing inside. Silhouettes slouched over brown folders and, here and there, a portable word processor. Gordy lurked at the wide, heavy door to the right of the windows. A tarnished plaque read, Section Two — the very archive Sloane had mentioned and the kind, Gordy presumed, where you needed actual credentials to access.
He placed himself between the door and windows and peeked inside, scanning the scholars so frozen in their work they looked like marble busts. Could they see him? Just then one burst out laughing and Gordy reeled back. He needed a better cover. Deep inside a poncho pocket was a half-empty pack of HB cigarettes. A fine ruse, he thought — archives had to be the only place in Germany where no one dared to smoke. He slid an unlit cigarette in a corner of his mouth. And took another peek.
At the back, in a corner, sat Ray Sloane, a box of folders to either side of him. As he read he rocked back and forth, as if praying.
The door opened. A security guard strode out, his thumbs tucked in his belt, and nodded at Gordy. Gordy smiled. The guard muttered in Bavarian dialect. Gordy nodded. The guard drew a lighter, held it to Gordy’s HB, and lit it. Then he walked off, humming. Gordy muttered a “danke” and inhaled. A firestorm scorched his throat like the black exhaust from a diesel Mercedes taxi. He fell forward, hacking, panting, sweating. Inside, the people peered out into the dark and then went back to work.
Gordy waited a half an hour, but Sloane never came out and Gordy desperately needed water — better yet, a tall lager beer. He left. The next day Gordy donned his disguise and repeated his stakeout. He waited until closing — five p.m. Gordy was behind the general statue. Sloane was the last one out, clutching a cheap vinyl briefcase that glimmered from a high streetlight. He wheezed and coughed a couple times, blew his nose. Gordy stayed put. He heard footsteps, sharp clicks on the cobblestone. It was a woman. It was Jane, from Oktoberfest.
Gordy recoiled into a dark arch. How could she see him like this? Sunglasses at dusk, a purple plastic poncho, and a bucket hat? He looked like a blind retiree fresh from a sex shop. She strode up to Sloane with her arms folded high on her chest. No kiss, not even a hug for Sloane. Gordy couldn’t hear them. Jane handed Sloane a tissue, and Gordy watched them march off into the Ludwigstrasse.
Gordy followed but lost them. And yet he was prancing along, on the balls of his feet, practically dancing. Seeing Jane had filled him with such a warm feeling in his belly he kept it going by heading into the nearest pastry shop for two sweet dumplings with plum filling and a pot of dark coffee. He had thought she only infatuated him because he’d been drunk that night at Oktoberfest. It had happened before. A four-hundred pound cavewoman could infatuate him drunk, provided she wore a modicum of lipstick. But this was different. Again her auburn hair shined and her skin glowed, defying even the darkness.
The next morning he was still thinking about her. By the afternoon, he had decided to lose the disguise this time and bring along his Tandy portable word processor. On the way he even bought a pocket pack of tissues for Sloane.
It had been cloudy all day and the air was wet, preparing another cold rain. Sloane stayed inside until closing time. But Jane had not showed. Gordy watched from behind his general. Sloane, again the last one out, wiped at his nose and looked around, checking his watch. Gordy hesitated. What would he say? How to admit you’ve lied?
Sloane huffed and spat and bounded across the courtyard, forcing Gordy to crawl on his knees around the general. Sloane turned away from the Ludwigstrasse and Gordy followed, down a narrower stretch of the Schönfeldstrasse, past wrought-iron gates and low-hanging linden tree branches. Sloane picked up the pace.
“Ray?” Gordy shouted.
Sloane stopped, in the middle of the sidewalk. He pivoted with care, his praying mantis arms bent outward, as if Gordy had a gun on him.
“Ray. Hi. Hey. It’s me. Gordon.”
They faced each other, about ten feet apart. Sloane glared, hunching forward, his briefcase hanging off a shoulder. “You?” he said.
Gordy held up his Tandy portable word processor, using two hands the thing was so heavy. “Doing a lot of research? Thought you might want to use this.”
“You’re the one? Calling and scaring the hell out of Frau Miesle?”
“Who?”
“You know who — my landlady. Frau Miesle. Frau Miesle says you been calling three, four times a day.”
“What? She’s got it wrong. Okay, once I did call twice.”
“You calling the good Frau Miesle a liar?”
“No.” Gordy heaved the word processor back on his shoulder, and stepped forward. “Look, never mind that, I wanted to tell you —”
“Stop right there.”
“Just let me explain. Please? I’ll buy you a beer.” Gordy drew the pack of tissues and held them out for Sloane. “How about a tissue? I bought them for you.”
Sloane lunged and slapped at the pack. It hit the pavement. He kicked it down the sidewalk. “Told her you’d spare her life if she gave me up? You freak. She’s an old woman. What’s the deal with you?”
“Spare her life?” Gordy giggled, waving his hands. “No, look, it must have been my crappy German, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“And what’s the big idea, threatening me? Me! You freak. Can’t handle it, that it? Can’t handle the competition, can’t handle the pressure. That it, Fulbrighter?” Sloane licked at his lips, his hands clenched like claws. Praying mantis claws.
“What? No, I —”
Sloane threw down his briefcase. “And now you’re following me?” he screamed, jabbing a finger. “What the fuck’s that?”
And he rushed Gordy, his eyes bulging white, his knees high and those mantis claws flailing.
THREE
“What are you doing?” Gordy screamed, stumbling backward. “Stop, stop it.”
Sloane kept coming, lunging. Gordy lifted the word processor to shield his face. Sloane swung, smacked the word processor and shook his fist in pain. “Aw shit. Shit!”
Gordy had fallen. He scrambled up and sprinted off down the sidewalk and around a corner, the word processor stuffed under an arm like he was a running back.
“Stop it? You want ME to stop it?” Sloane was shouting. Still coming.
Gordy slowed, looked back over his shoulder. Sloane was sprinting around the corner, his fluffy hair glowing with streetlamp light, his long legs loping high like he was about to attempt a triple jump.
Sighing, Gordy turned to face him. After all, he had helped create this mad research fiend once known as Ray Sloane. “Please, I’m begging you, stop — I was only trying to help —”
“Trying? Dish it up but you can’t take it, huh?” Sloane kept coming, his arms out wide for tackling.
“I think the term is ‘dish it out,’ oh, screw it —” Gordy hurled the word processor with both hands. It bounced off Sloane’s chest and hit the sidewalk with a great crack.
Sloane, stunned, coughed and stomped in a circle, his hands clenching his thighs like a sumo wrestler.
“Okay? Will you listen now?” Gordy said.
“You bastard, you mother …” Sloane was growling, low like a wounded hog. He swiped at Gordy with both arms, trying to snare him in his mantis claws. Gordy ducked and bobbed and dipped, and for a moment they were dancing again like at Oktoberfest.
“This is crazy; will you stop?” Gordy shouted as he trotted back the other way, wanting to laugh. Both were gasping. Gordy turned another corner. Sloane followed.
“Only, when you stop,” Sloane panted, “when you, stop the harassment.”
They were a block off the English Garden, passing fashionable row houses and stately residences that had survived the war. Gordy staggered into a small, dark courtyard and stopped, hunched over, his hands on his knees, sweat rolling off his nose. Sloane shuffled up behind him, coughing. He blew his nose into the sleeve of his anorak.
“Got a flu,” he wheezed.
“You should have taken the tissues,” Gordy panted.
As Gordy caught his breath he heard orderly footsteps, like a uniform trot, what sounded like marching.
Sloane glared, listening. The boots pounded at cobblestone. “What the?”
The boots stopped. Facing Gordy and Sloane were three silhouettes. The middle one had a head of thick spiked hair, but the other two had round heads — shaved heads, which were polished pale yellow by a distant street lamp. Their faces were shadowed, their shoulders close together. Peering Gordy saw the same rodeo clown getups he had seen on the skinheads at Oktoberfest. Nazi tattoos, suspenders, the rolled-up jeans.
“Yes? Can I help you?” Sloane said, rising up, his claws fanning out.
They laughed, and Gordy winced at the tang of strong beer they gave off (his hangover came roaring back). The skinhead to the right stepped forward. He pushed at Sloane’s chest.
“What the hell’s this all about?” Sloane growled in German.
“Shut up,” the middle one said in English.
“Uh, I wouldn’t screw with him if I were you,” Gordy said.
The two on either side began to laugh, but the middle one with the spiked hair shut them up with a wave of his hand. Clearly, he was their leader. He didn’t wear the suspenders or jean cuffs; and the way the skin around his eyes creased in the light betrayed him as somewhat older.
“You,” the leader said to Gordy.
“Ich?”
“Yeah. Come on. For you it’s safe now.” The line of three opened up. Gordy, shrugging, passed out of the courtyard and through them. He stood behind the three. Maybe he could still find out what the hell this was really all about. Yes, Sloane had tried to tear his head off, and he wouldn’t mind seeing this badass mantis get his ass kicked. Then again, how could he just leave the guy? Even if it was a foreign country.
From his trap in the small courtyard, Sloane sneered, at all of them. He spat and wiped at his mouth, his eyes bulging. “I know you dumb asses, sure I do. You were at Oktoberfest.”
The two outside skinheads exchanged glances. Sloane was right, Gordy realized. They looked to their leader, who shrugged. “You,” the leader said to Sloane. “Here is the deal with you. Just what the hell you think you’re doing, messing around like you are?” His English was Americanized, but the accent reminded Gordy of a bad impersonation of a German, like a bad comic doing Schwarzenegger. And yet the guy was definitely a German. “You need to lay off her, hear me?” he continued.
“Don’t you mean lay off IT, as in, the research? Gonna speak English you need to get your pronouns right.” Sloane advanced a step, out of the courtyard darkness and into the street lamp night. He was grimacing, ready for more.
“I’m telling you guys, you don’t want to screw with him,” Gordy said, stepping back.
“Halt, I say,” the leader said, but his voice creaked. “This is my warning — getting the hell out of Germany is the best thing for you.”
Sloane, taking another step, pointed at Gordy. “I see what’s going on here. You, Fordham, you really did mean it. At Oktoberfest. About it being dangerous. So I really am on to it, aren’t I? It’s a conspiracy. And you — you’re behind it.”
All three looked to Gordy, their brows wrinkled.
“Behind what?” Gordy said.
“Don’t gimme that shit. The research. The secret. Hitler’s secret!”
Gordy sputtered a laugh. He held out his hands and shrugged, but, sadly, this only resembled a curtsy. “No, I … See, this is why I came looking for you. I was going to tell you the truth, but I didn’t know how. I hate to spoil your good time. See, I was only making it up —”
“Spare me,” Sloane said, waving a hand at Gordy. “Stimmt das, Jungs?” he said to the three. “He put you up to this? Or did someone bigger? Yes, I bet this goes a lot higher than our jerkoff Jr. Fulbright here.”
“I’m not a Fulbrighter,” Gordy said, sighing.
Again the two skins looked to their leader, who scratched at the back of his neck, immobilized.
Sloane, seething, seemed to hear nothing now. “Leave Germany, you say? Leave this!” he shouted and rushed the three swinging. He caught one skin on the jaw and the skin stumbled back groaning. Sloane pounced on the other skin and the skin took off down the street yelling, “Help, help!”
The first skin was sitting on the sidewalk, sniffling. The leader was backing away, his hands up. “Next time, I bring the big guns,” he said.
“Ha!” Sloane shouted and jumped at the leader, who ran off, around the next corner. Sloane started after him.
“Shit,” Gordy muttered, following at a safe distance.
After all they’d been through, it looked more like a race-walk than a run. They were heading for the English Garden, a black mass of woods in the night. “You do not want to toy with me!” Sloane was yelling after the leader. “I’m a guest here! Got that? — a guest of your goddamn government!”
A wide trailhead opened up ahead, pooling with moonlight. From just beyond the trees Gordy heard what sounded like the pit-pat of horses, and the rattle of wagon gear. And singing?
Just then it came into view — a true Munich beer wagon like Gordy had seen in the Oktoberfest parade, the horses and barrels clad in sky blue-and-gold livery, all Löwenbräu brewery banners, sequins, swags and shiny leather, the men driving up top roaring with laughter while their women rode on the big barrels drinking and singing (no one wore lederhosen or dirndl dresses, to Gordy’s disappointment).
The horses charged out from the trail into the street and the wagon just missed the skins’ leader, who sidestepped and darted into the woods.
The wagon veered, the horses’ hooves and the wheels smacking at cobblestones.
Sloane was still running forward but sneering back at Gordy when the wagon veered. And ran right into Sloane. And through him, over him. The horses gasping and the wagon screeching a wild jangling skid as Sloane threw up his arms and vanished underneath. High squeals rattled Gordy’s ears, but he couldn’t tell if they’d come from the horses or from Ray Sloane.
FOUR
Leather straps snapped and gilded chains popped and the beer barrels tumbled off onto the street, some bouncing and rolling for the curbs and others bursting on contact, releasing foaming gushes of Oktoberfest beer across the cobblestones. The racket was like garbage trucks colliding. Gordy stood half a block back, frozen in the darkness, awestruck. The riders on the beer-wagon storm could not have seen him as they, all unhurt, gathered to scream at the gangly tall (and most likely demented) man who’d thrown himself under their fine steeds’ hooves. Gordy retreated the way he had come. In horror. A zombie. Back over on the Schönfeldstrasse he could still smell the tangy aromas of spilt malt, hops, barley, and water freshly brewed. His Tandy portable word processor still lay on the sidewalk in its thin nylon case. Before he’d heaved it at Ray Sloane it had been the size of a small ice cooler. Now it was a lump, like a pile of laundry, a collection of broken yellowed plastic parts never to be resurrected. Walking on, Gordy picked up the pack of tissues, opened it, drew a tissue and blew his nose. Sloane’s briefcase was there, too. He took it. Why not. By the time he reached the U-Bahn station on the Ludwigstrasse he heard the sirens (those cool sing-song German sirens), and he was shaking. How could he go back now? He’d already left the scene of an accident, and in a foreign country at that.
He went straight to the sublet, packed up his backpack, and curled up in his sleeping bag in utter fear. As he tried to sleep he imagined Interpol posting all-points bulletins Europe-wide and a covert search op coordinated between select units of West Germany’s GSG-9 and the CIA. It did give him an odd consolation to imagine black-clad agents busting down his particle board-and-Formica door. All those Polizei motorcycles and armored cars with water cannons would be kind of cool.
But nothing of that sort went down. “Yank Scholar Smashes Famous Fancy Beer Wagon!” announced the next afternoon’s Bild, Munich’s top-selling tabloid, the headline crammed in the corner beneath the lottery jackpot numbers. Gordy read the story on his bed drinking lukewarm instant coffee. The crew of the renowned Löwenbräu beer wagon had been on an unauthorized joyride that night. The American Ray Sloane broke bones in his arms, ribs and an ankle. Liability had not been clarified. Perhaps to stave off any lawsuits, the brewery was setting Sloane up in a VIP hospital room for his last five days in Munich. The next day, Bild had the photos. Brewing executives in Hugo Boss suits posed with Sloane as busty models in skimpy dirndls stroked his three casts. The papers had nothing about a search for anyone else; it was only reported that Sloane claimed some toughs had chased him, and the papers surmised these had to be Turkish or the new East Germans flooding into the West.
Gordy had planned to visit Sloane at the hospital. He’d return Sloane’s briefcase and make amends once and for all. Maybe he’d get to meet the brewery models. But there were too many risks against it. It could be a trap. What if he entered the room and the nurses and doctors were police and they drew Walther pistols and MP-5 machine guns and knocked him to the floor? Equally cool, but not worth it.
The more Gordy considered the situation, and the more lukewarm instant coffee he drank, the worse his quandary became. There was only one reason why he had remained in the clear. Sloane really had been onto something in that archive Gordy had randomly offered up, and now Sloane didn’t want to draw attention to his find. By the same token, could this mean those skinheads really were hunting down Sloane? They might have been dispatched to prevent Sloane from pursuing his find. So, to Sloane at least, it really could appear that Gordy truly was behind all this. Gordy wanted to laugh, but all he could get out was a nervous giggle that stuck in his throat and made him cough up the instant coffee onto his toes. It was too chilling. The horror of what he had caused. He had played the trickster, and this was his trickster’s curse.
Gordy coped by keeping busy. He hit the flea markets for some silverware, a clock radio, and more disguises (just in case). He bought a used Langenscheidt’s German for Foreigners Dictionary and a German Playboy. He had phone service reinstated in the apartment, a minor expense he was sure Gwen could afford when she arrived. He used Gwen’s name, of course. He used the new number as a good excuse to call Gwen long-distance in Seattle, but she wasn’t home, so he left the number on her machine.
Three days later, the phone rang. He waited until the second ring to pick up. “Hier ist Fordham,” he said.
“Just say ‘Hello,’ Gord. You’re an American.”
Tad Parkerfield. The only person who’d ever called him Gord, and only when he needed something. “Parkerfield?” Gordy said. “You’re my first call?”
“Thrilling, isn’t it?” Tad said. “What’s this Fordham bullshit?”
“What? Aw, must have been mumbling. Where are you?”
“Train station.”
“Here?”
“Yes — in Munich, and this phone booth reeks. Tell me how to get there.”
Gordy gave Tad directions.
“Thanks champ.”
The last thing Gordy heard was a staccato rap he recognized as Tad spanking a fresh pack of Marlboros. Tad had hung up without a good-bye, like people did only on TV. But that was Tad.
Half an hour later, the doorbell rang. Gordy sounded the entry buzzer and peered out his front door as Tad made his way down his floor’s long dim corridor. Tad had on a definite Tad-outfit — suede ankle boots he called Chukkas, wrinkled khakis, an olive polo shirt too large for his slight build, and a white tee underneath. V-neck sweater wrapped around his waist. Like Gordy Tad bounced as he walked, which Gordy figured was somehow native to Estacamas — the revenge of the local white trash. Yet while Gordy bounded up and down like a lamed Sasquatch, Tad rolled and glided, like a medal-winning ice skater. He had his mother Vivian’s wavy blond hair and peach fuzz skin, his father the Senator’s patrician nose, high cheekbones and cleft chin.
He saw Gordy and waved, his smile growing whiter as he neared.
“Parkerfield! Hey, man.”
“Hey,” Tad said, as if they’d last seen each other yesterday instead of over two years ago. And yet, Tad’s sky blue eyes seemed to have brightened. He looked happy enough for an expatriate drifter. One might never guess he had been born into a sad American cliché and understood it all too well. Thaddeus Mitchell Parkerfield was the son of a powerful, ever-incumbent D.C. pol — Oregon’s legendary, four-term Republican Senator, Fletcher J. Parkerfield — who only returned to his home state for re-election bids and holiday photo ops. How many times had Tad joked about it? Got to know father by reading US News & World Report and Congressional Record. His mother an over-caring lush who kept him in an Oregon public high school, to which the Senator never objected. For how better to validate the populist spin the Senator revived for every tax-cut bill?
Tad halted in the middle of Gordy’s twelve-by-ten room. “Oh, Christ,” he said, staring at the bare walls. “So this is Gwen’s doing?”
“More or less.”
“And there you were. At the ready. Good boy.” Tad chuckled. He tossed his brown leather daypack on the bed and stared into the bathroom across from the kitchenette. The Waschzelle, or “washing cell,” was another guinea pig relic of early ‘70s modular construction — the walls, floor, toilet, shower, sink, ceiling, everything formed from a one-piece mold of white plastic. Nicks and scratches showed everywhere. A deep cigarette burn marred the sink rim. Tad flipped the light switch and winced at the blinding white light. “My god. It’s like ‘Logan’s Run.’”
“Exactly,” Gordy said, smiling. Tad crossed the apartment to the glass wall facing outside. On the other side was a tiny balcony. Green nylon netting stretched across it, torn and clogged with feathers and bird droppings. “Pigeons,” Gordy explained. “They still squeeze through, some even choke trying. And once they’re in they’re too stupid to find their way back out.”
“Yes, but, what a view.” Tad pressed his palms to the glass, staring out. Up in the hazy gray sky loomed a massive round BMW logo, as if trapped in the netting. BMW’s headquarters stood just across the street, a skyscraper — by German standards — in the shape of three cylinders. Tad turned and grinned. “Under a beemer moon. Little cleaning up, warmer weather, I could sleep out there.”
“Sleep?”
“Okay I crash here? Just got a couple things at the station. In a locker.”
“Sure. But, for how long were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?” Tad frowned. “You’re worried about Gwen.”
“Course not. It’s just that, well, it is kind of cramped for you.”
Tad dropped on the bed, stretching his arms and yawning.
Next thing Gordy knew he’d be sleeping out on the balcony — that or curled up in the washing cell. He stood over Tad, forcing a grin. “So, I have a question. Six months ago I send you a letter telling you I’m coming over. I hear nothing. And now you just show up? How’d you get my number?”
“How else? Marty’s number leads to Gwen’s Seattle number, and then to you. Weird chick, your Gwenners. Know she actually likes Seattle? Or so she says.”
Marty was Gordy’s dad, an aging hippie Tad had always treated like some gullible preteen in marching band. Once he even got Marty high on dried cow dung. “What else did Gwen say?” Gordy said.
“Not much. She said to say hi.”
“Oh. That all?”
“Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. She was going to call you ... real soon, she said. It’s expensive.”
“Ah. “
Tad stared out the glass, at the BMW sign. “She’s fine. You’re fine. It’s me you should be worried about. Been a lot going on. Tell you what, let’s get a brew. After all, outside this cell of yours we are in Bavaria.”
Gordy and Tad rode the escalator up from the subway, Munich’s bland train station rising at their backs. The glow of the high clouds made Gordy squint. Horns blared, motor scooters sputtered, the wind reeked of diesel, and they had a load to carry, since Tad’s “couple things” in a locker turned out to be a bulky jumbo duffel bag that jingle-jangled like a sack of tire chains, a second backpack, and a suit bag.
“How’d you lug all that on your own?” Gordy asked, panting. “And why the suit?”
Tad wasn’t breathing hard despite the Marlboro in his mouth. “I have my ways. The suit, it comes in quite handy. In a posh city like Munich, convention hotels offer catered events every day — which means crowded buffet lines. Which means a tolerable lunch on the go. There’s also the free light breakfast for guests. If I have to, I mean.”
“Right. Should have known.”
Tad grimaced. “Don’t tell me you don’t have your ways. Your little scams and shams. I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?”
If Tad only knew. But Gordy wasn’t about to take the bait so easily. After all he’d gone through with Sloane, it was better just to shut up. “I’m surviving,” he muttered.
They turned into the Bayerstrasse heading east, a comatose carnival of stores unloading cheap stereos and half-price souvenirs, Turkish kebob shops, and soft-porn theaters. A tall blue sign read Mathäser Bierstadt. They pushed through double wooden doors and the smells of smoke, pork fat and malt tightened Gordy’s sinuses. Once a rival to the celebrated Hofbräuhaus, the Mathäser was a cavernous old-school beer hall much too close to the train station for its own good. The poor Mathäser, Tad explained, only did brisk business when it was able to book — or lure — a passing school or tourist group. Today the place was mostly empty. They threw Tad’s bags under a long plank table. An old waiter with a handlebar mustache appeared, sneering and giving off the minty odor of menthol rub. Tad went for a liter of dark and a shot of Jägermeister. Gordy, a lager.
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