(Recently the famous mystery writer Mickey Spillane passed away at the age of 88. At the University of Old South Wales a package was opened. It was left there by Mr. Spillane with the note "To be opened on my death." Inside was the following story which we present here.--Ed.)
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
I sat at the bar of the half-empty Bad Pawn Cafe and stared into my half-empty
beer stein. Once again some jamoke fired up the jukebox. My name is Charles
Applegate, Charley for short. I make my living grinding out short articles, some
on chess, others on heartbreak. Yet here I sat with a half-dead beer and a
half-dead cigarette while some half-dead hophead played some scratchy tune on
the vinyl monster. I was waiting for something. I didn't know what it was until
she walked in.
She was hotter than a Chicago typewriter and just as solid. Her eyes were a gun-metal blue and her hair fell all the way to her waist--and it was redder than the Communist Party. Her lip color came from a tube and her eyelashes from a bottle of mascara but the rest of her was as natural as the Catskills and twice as nice. She parked her sweet self on a barstool next to the chess men, who at that moment were the luckiest men in the joint.
I couldn't help but walk over to her. "May I buy you a drink?" I asked, figuring now was no time to be trying opening novelties. She looked me up and down like a school lunch lady eyeing a loaf of bread.
"I already have a drink. What would I do with two?" she cooed like a bird of paradise.
"You could share it with me," I said, glad my wit didn't desert me.
She looked me over again and smiled at me with a sly smile, like a cat that didn't eat the canary--yet. Another moment went by slower than the instant before the warden throws the switch on the hot squat. "Sure," she finally agreed, and I felt like I'd gotten the call from the Governor.
I called the waitress over and got her another--a Manhattan. She looked over the pieces and then at me. She was so familiar I had to ask.
"Are you famous, or something, sweetheart? I could swear I've seen you before but I know I've never met you before in my life. If I had, I would have remembered."
She tossed her head and then gazed at me like a trucker at a burger and fries. She tilted her head so the light caught her glossy red lips, and pursed them so I got a good long look at her kisser. Then in a smoky voice that would melt butter she asked me, "Were you in the navy or the merchant marine during the war?"
That's when it hit me. The poster. She was the model in the poster. She was Lucy Lipps--"Remember, boys, Lucy Lipps says loose lips sink ships." That poster was in the galley on the S. S. Sea Queen, a tub I served on in the U.S. Merchant Marine. I remembered the radio ad with the voice--I only now recognized her voice and her face. Lucy Lipps. She read my face like an open book.
"Glad you liked my work, all you boys out on the open sea. I know it was cold out there--I hope I made it a little...warmer... for you all." Her voice would make a man swim the English Channel. Suddenly I felt like a seventh-grader with a crush on his big brother's girlfriend.
"Do you play chess...Mr....?" As she asked she purred without purring, if that's possible.
"Applegate, but you can call me Charley. Yeah, I did in the war. I played a bit, nothing great. Hey, did you know there's a defense named the Manhattan, just like your drink? Can I show it to ya?" For years in the service I worked to make my approach with calculated coolness. But not this time. This was different. My eagerness broke through my cool veneer like a U-boat closing for the kill.
"Oh please, do show me." Once again she purred without purring. Something within me shouted to run, but that beauty of hers kept me pinned to my barstool like a butterfly to a mounting board.
I took the pieces and set them up with Black on my side.
1. P-Q4 P-Q4, 2. P-QB4 P-K3, 3. N-QB3 N-KB3, 4. B-N5 QN-Q2, 5. P-K3 B-N5,
"This is very interesting. It looks like the White queen's knight is in a devil of a fix. What should White do here, Charley? I'm just a novice chess player, not a champion like yourself." She struck up a Kool filtered and blew smoke rings out of her perfect lips, like that billboard on Times Square, though I never looked at that billboard with the fascination I had now. That voice shouting in my head was louder than my bo's'un's mate during a lifeboat drill. Yet I couldn't run away for the life of me.
"Well...I'm no champion. I write some chess articles for Al Horowitz over at Chess Review. Have you ever heard of Al Horowitz?" I asked with all the enthusiasm and naviete of a choir boy locked in a closet with the preacher's daughter.
Her eyes opened wide and she cooed, "Who hasn't heard of Al Horowitz? Do you recall that terrible road accident in Iowa a few years back? What a tragedy. He was lucky he wasn't killed."
Wow! This tomato knew Al Horowitz from Adam! I felt more and more like that choir boy in the closet.
"Why don't you take the White pieces, since they are already over there. I'm sure you'll do fine from this position." I tried to be Mr. Cool but my heart was going faster than Jesse Owens in Berlin.
She started moving the pieces and I couldn't decide what to watch more
closely--her slender fingers and manicured nails on the White polished wood
pieces or her face as she smiled and cooed and arched her eyebrows at me when
she caught me looking at her.
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Bad Pawn Cafe;
Manhattan Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-Q4, 2. P-QB4 P-K3, 3. N-QB3 N-KB3, 4. B-N5 QN–Q2,
5. P-K3 B-N5, 6. PxP PxP, 7. B-Q3 0–0, 8. N-K2 P-B3, 9. 0–0 R-K1, 10. Q-B2 Q-K2,
11. BxPch K-R1, 12. B-Q3 Q-B1, 13. N-N3 N-KN1, 14. QR-K1
QN-B3, 15. P-B3 P-KN3, 16. P-QR3 B-R4,
17. B-KB4 B-K3, 18. P-N4 B-Q1, 19. B-K5 K-R2, 20. P-B4, and Black Resigns.
"Well, I guess that was beginner's luck, Charley. Let's try that line again,
only this time you play White." I called the waitress over and got a bottle of
gin. Not the high-class gin, but the stuff they use to clean car battery
terminals. I'd need it to keep my mind off the dame and on the game. She put
away another Manhattan and made her first move, at least her first move of this
game.
White: Charley Applegate; Black:
Lucy Lipps; Bad Pawn Cafe; Manhattan Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-Q4, 2. P-QB4
P-K3, 3. N-QB3 N-KB3, 4. B-N5 QN–Q2, 5. P-K3 B-N5, 6. PxP PxP,
7. P-QR3 BxN ch, 8. PxB 0–0, 9. B-Q3 R-K1, 10. N-B3 P-QN3, 11. Q-B2 P-N3,
12. P-KR4 N-B1, 13. P-R5 Q-Q3, 14. B-KB4 QxB, and White
Resigns.
"My my, Charley, you seem...distracted. Would you like to play Black a second
time?" I couldn't say no--she might leave without me. The gin was a third gone
by now and the voice in my head was a lot quieter, like the murmuring of a
diesel engine on a Liberty ship. I took Black.
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Bad Pawn Cafe;
Manhattan Defense. 1.
P-Q4 P-Q4, 2. P-QB4 P-K3, 3. N-QB3 N-KB3, 4. B-N5 QN–Q2, 5. P-K3 B-N5,
6. N-B3 P-B3, 7. B-Q3 Q-R4, 8. 0–0 BxN, 9. PxB QxBP, 10.PxP NxP,
11.P-K4 N(4)-B3, 12.Q-K2 Q-R4, 13.P-K5 N-Q4, 14. N-Q2 P-N4, 15. P-QR4
N-B6, 16. Q-B3 Q-N3, 17. BxNP NxB, 18. PxN QxNP, 19. N-K4 0–0, 20. B-K7
Q-Q4, 21. Q-N4 R-K1, 22. N-B6ch NxN, 23. BxN P-N3, 24. Q-N5, and
Black Resigns.
I sat there. I'd just lost three games to a woman I'd only seen on a poster and
heard on the radio. Not only did she beat me, she showed me the floor, face
first. I took another swig of gin straight from the bottle and looked at her.
The gin gave me double vision, not a bad thing with a hot number like her to
look at. "One more time. I'll be White." She smiled. She did that a lot. I liked
it. I liked it a lot.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Lucy Lipps; Bad Pawn Cafe;
Manhattan Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-Q4, 2. P-QB4 P-K3, 3. N-QB3 N-KB3, 4. B-N5 QN–Q2,
5. P-K3 B-N5, 6. PxP PxP, 7. B-Q3 P-B3, 8. N-B3 P-KR3, 9. B-R4
Q-R4, 10. Q-B2 0–0, 11. 0–0 R-K1, 12. P-QR3 BxN, 13. PxB N-K5, 14. P-B4 QN-B3,
15. PxP PxP, 16. BxN(6) NxB, 17. QR-N1 R-K2, 18. R-N5 Q-Q1,
19. N-K5 R-B2, 20. R-B5 RxR, 21. QxR B-Q2, 22. NxB QxN, 23. R-QB1 P-KN3, 24.
P-R3 K-N2, 25. R-B3 P-N3, 26. Q-B7 R-Q1, 27.B-N5 QxQ, 28.RxQ
P-R3, 29.BxP R-QR1, 30.B-B8 K-B1, 31. R-B6 K-K2, 32. B-N7 RxP, 33.
RxP R-R8 ch, 34. K-R2 P-R4, 35. P-R4 R-R7, 36. P-B3 R-R6, 37.
R-N5 RxP, 38. BxP NxB, 39. RxN R-Q6, 40. P-N4 PxP,
41. PxP K-K3, 42. R-K5 ch K-Q3, 43. R-K4 P-B4, 44. PxP PxP,
45. R-B4 K-K3, 46. P-R5 K-B3, 47. P-R6 K-N3, 48. R-R4 K-R2, 49. K-N2 R-QR6, 50.
K-B2 R-R3, 51. R-R5 RxP, 52. RxP, and Black Resigns.
"LAST CALL!" the barkeep bellowed. I groaned. I finally win one and the bar is closing. She'll slip out the door like Ingrid Bergman getting on that plane to be with Lazlo, and I'd be left with some Claude Reins look alike.
"Why don't you come over to my place for a nightcap? There's a twenty-four hour diner around the corner. We can get dinner there--or breakfast." She looked at me the way every man dreams of, all the promise of Lauren Bacall and all the sass of Jean Harlow. I couldn't say no. No man with blood in his veins could.
We rode in her Plymouth back to her place. She drove because I was too ginsoaked to see the road. We trudged up the stairs to her third floor flat. She opened the door and switched on the light. As she poured us a couple of drinks she lit up another Kool. She handed me my drink.
"Where can I hang my hat?" I asked in jest, hoping she'd say "the bedpost." Instead she looked at me and smiled.
"How about that hall closet?"
I took off my fedora and opened the closet. A guy fell out onto the carpet. This guy was dead. You could tell from the bullet hole in his forehead. This guy was deader than a bad meat ration and no black market in horseflesh would ever bring him back.
I looked at her in horror and she simply smiled back. "That's Ernie, my late husband. Late as in about nine o'clock tonight late. He came home and caught me with Ivan. Let me introduce you to him. IVAN!" she shouted and a door opened behind me.
Out stepped a side of beef the size of the Empire State Building. He held a rod in his right hand. There was nowhere for me to go, though the voice in my head was shouting like the captain yelling "Abandon ship."
"What's this got to do with me, sweetheart?" I asked, knowing I was a sap to fall for her Manhattans.
"We need someone to take the fall for Ernie there. When the police come by they'll find you unconscious and Ernie even worse. They'll pin it on you and Ivan and I will amscray for parts south, like South America."
"So you played me for a sucker, is that it?"
"No, Charley, no..." she cooed. "You're not a sucker. You're a patzer."
She flicked her cigarette at my feet. The curling smoked spelled out the word patzer.
Then it all went black.
I,
The Patzer
I awoke with a splitting headache--which seemed apt as my head was split open and bleeding like a busted tomato. That got me to thinking about that Lucy Lipps broad. I glanced around. Just me and the stiff, her late husband. If only he’d been a little later he wouldn’t be late now. He was my problem now. The sirens I heard outside convinced me that an anonymous caller with a sultry voice tipped the cops to the location of this croaker, and that I was there waitin’ for ‘em.
I had to act fast. I struggled to my feet to search the room. You’d think searching a spinning room would be easy, what with stuff falling at your feet and all. It’s a bum business, worse than runnin’ numbers or fixin’ fights. I didn’t find anything on the desk or the bedroom bureau. Just as I’m about to hit the fire escape and make my getaway, I spot something in the trash. A ticket stub. I pull it out and give it the once over. It wasn’t all there, but I could see the name of the ship and its ports of call: S.S. Latin Queen,
She could get off at any stop. I needed to get on that rust bucket and fast. Too bad it didn’t tell me the pier number or the sailing time--it would be soon, for dollface Lucy wouldn’t wait for long.
I just had time to stuff the ticket stub in my pocket and stand up before I heard the famous words, “Put ‘em up nice and slow.”
I did as the voice asked. I didn’t need to see his face. His voice had ‘flatfoot’ written all over it. I knew I had to play it cool and try to get away at my first chance. Too bad my head still rang like a fire klaxon on the old Liberty ship.
I got the pat-down. The bull took my wallet and started flipping through it. I heard all my cash being pulled out and stuffed in a pocket. So much for bribing my way out of this. Then the copper spun me around and my night went from bad to worse.
“Charley Applegate. I been waitin’ for this to happen.” It was Detective Bill Coy, the worse Irish cop in the city. He used to be Captain Coy, before I ran a series of articles in The Daily Trumpet
“Hello Coy,” I said, before he gave me a five knuckle massage across the lips. I spat out the blood and straightened up.
“I can’t believe my luck,” he began, “all those hours I spent planning to make you take a long walk off a short pier with a pair of concrete overshoes and here you set yourself up for a hot squat. I can’t believe it. Maybe there is justice in the world.”
“Look, Coy,” I began, but he cut me off with an Irish roundhouse.
“Shaddap,” he explained.
I took a gander about the room. The meat wagon boys were takin’ away the husband. A junior dick opened the revolver and counted the rounds. He dropped the rod into his pockets. It was open and shut--like a coffin, but I was in it.
“Coy, I didn’t sho--” and Coy broke in with an Irish uppercut.
“Shaddap,” he explained again. This time I took the hint.
The junior slapped the cuffs on me and dragged me to the car. Junior flung me in the back and jumped behind the wheel. Coy stayed upstairs, probably looking for something else to steal.
“Do I get a phone call?” I asked junior.
Junior grunted. “Line’s dead at the jail. You’ll have to wait until morning to get yourself a lawyer.”
Great. Morning for a lawyer meant I couldn’t get arraigned until afternoon, and I couldn’t post bail for a day or two. The hot squat started to feel a little warmer.
I got booked and chucked in a cell with a wino. From the smell of him he was the happiest man in America the day they repealed Prohibition. He’d probably been celebrating every since. I sat down on the far side of the cell to avoid him, but it didn’t do any good. He up and ambled over to me and sat down on the bunk.
“My name’s Jupiter, Rex Jupiter, but you can call me ‘GC’, ‘cause everyone else does.” He held out a steady hand for all his boozy odor, and that hand was so covered with calluses that it looked like it dug the Panama Canal--all by itself. I shook with him. May as well be pleasant.
“What does the ‘GC’ stand for?” I asked. It was like opening up Niagara.
“It stands for ‘Geiger Counter.’ It all began before the war. I was criss-crossing the deserts of the great American southwest looking for gold--silver, too, or anything else that came my way. Well I musta staked more claims than stars in the Texas sky, and a bunch of them turned up nothing but pitchblende. I musta had me about fifty claims of that junk.
“That’s whut I thought for years. Then about ‘42 I’m in Carson City and I goes to register a new claim and the clerk says ‘Hey Jupe’--that’s my old nickname--’two fellers came here from Washington looking fer ya. They’re’s up at the Silver Dollar hotel. Their names are Heyes and Curry.’
“Well, I waren’t in no hurry to find them fellers. G-men usually mean trouble. I reckoned I musta staked a claim on federal land by accydent and they were gonna haul me before a federal judge. Well, I’m heading down the backstairs and I run into them very fellers! They put the arm on me and dragged me to the federal building in Carson City.
“I’m thinking about my mule and who’s gonna feed her and then this feller Heyes says ‘The government wants to buy your mining claims on these fifty properties.’ I took a long look over that there map and I saw that everyone of them was a pitchblende claim. Something was up, fer sure.”
I interrupted the old boozehound. “What is pitchblende? Why would they care?” Suddenly the coot changed his tone and accent right off.
“Pitchblende is the ore from which uranium is extracted, particularly Uranium-235, a radioactive element. It is used primarily in medical and scientific research, the main purchasers coming from states and nations with advanced universities. Uranium-235 occurs in about eight one-hundredths percent of pitchblende.”
I gaped at the old guy. Suspenders, wild hair, dirty boots--he looked like he stepped out of an old Western serial that played at the Bijou. He caught my look.
“Just ‘cause I’m a prospector don’t mean I’m uneducated. I’ve got a master’s in geology from the Colorado School of Mines.”
I frowned an approval. This was taking some of the sting out of the night’s bad luck. “Go on and tell me the rest.”
“Well, if the government wants to buy and you want to sell--don’t. Make ‘em pay. The government boys will always pay ‘cause it ain’t their money! So I tell’s ‘em ‘I’ll keep the rights but sell you a license to extract the ore. I get paid by the ton, four bit’s a ton--in advance.’ They said ‘all right’ and whipped out a contract and signed right there. Then they gave me a check, an advance on the first pull o’ ore--thirty thousand dollars! Why, that’s sixty thousand tons and that’s just the start! By the time the war was over I’d made several million, and the dough keeps rolling in--and it ain’t sourdough neither!” He cackled at the last.
I felt my face turn red. I’d been had. Old crabapple spun a yarn and I knitted an afghan with it. He looked me over.
“You don’t believe me now but you will come morning, when the federal boys come here to fetch me out. When they know ol’
GC tied on another one they always come get me.”
“Sure, pops, sure.” I sank back and held my head.
“Okay, have it your way, whippersnapper,” he replied genially. “Want to play some chess?”
Chess would pass the time. “Okay, gramps. You got a set?”
He reached under a mattress and pulled out a set of men and board. “I slip the guards a fifty to keep this here in this cell for me when I paint the town red. Sometimes they play me, but you’ll do tonight.”
We set up the men. I gave the old guy White as a courtesy. Maybe he had some other wild tales that I could steal and sell. If I got out of this alive, that is.
I hardly set up the pieces then he floored me right away. I’d never faced a Westerner over the board, so I guess I should have expected six-shooter chess.
White: Rex Jupiter; Black: Charley Applegate; City Jail; Lolli Gambit. 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. BxPch I sat up like a con who’s in the chair, but the first jolt turned out to be static electricity. GC grinned at me with a toothless, well-gummed smile.
“Ain’t you never seen the Lolli Gambit, boy?” he laughed.
“No, old-timer, I haven’t. I guess I’m not that old.” I laughed back.
“Don’t have to be old--just know where to look. This is analyzed in Greco’s book on the game, and you can read it in the special collections section of the Mechanic’s Institute in San Francisco.”
I pulled my head down and gritted my teeth. This couldn’t be good. I determined to hold on to the piece like heater with a full magazine.
5. . . KxB, 6. N-K5ch K-K3, 7. QxPch KxN, 8. Q-B5ch
K-Q3, 9. P-Q4 B-N2, 10. BxP ch K-K2, 11. B-N5ch B-B3, 12. P-K5 BxB, 13. QxBch
K-K1, 14. Q-R5ch K-K2, 15. 0–0 Q-K1, 16. Q-N5ch K-K3, 17. R-B6ch NxR, 18.
QxN ch K-Q4, 19. N-B3 ch KxP, 20. Q-B4 ch K-B4,
21. P-QN4ch K-B3, 22. Q-B4ch K-N3, 23. N-R4 mate.
White: Rex Jupiter; Black: Charley Applegate; City Jail; Lolli Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2.P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. BxPch KxB, 6. N-K5ch K-K1, 7. QxP N-KB3, 8. QxBP P-Q3, 9. N-B4 Q-K2, 10. N-B3 N-B3, 11. 0–0 B-N2, 12. P-Q3 R-B1, 13.Q-N5 B-K3, 14. N-K3 K-Q2, 15. B-Q2 QR-K1, 16. N(B)-Q5 BxN, 17. PxB N-K4, 18. N-B5 Q-B2, 19. NxB R-K2, 20. Q-B5ch K-Q1, 21. N-K6ch K-K1, 22. NxR KxN, 23. QxN(3), and Black Resigns.
I no sooner tipped over my king then GC set up the White men on his side of the board. I felt my jaws tighten like a vise on some deadbeat’s hand in a loanshark’s office. He had me and I couldn’t back out without embarrassment. I had to take it like a man until I beat him.
White: Rex Jupiter; Black: Charley Applegate; City Jail; Lolli Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2.P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. BxPch KxB, 6. N-K5ch K-K1, 7. QxP N-KB3, 8. QxBP P-Q3, 9. N-KB3 N-B3, 10. P-Q4 Q-K2, 11. 0–0 B-Q2, 12. P-K5 PxP, 13. PxP N-Q4, 14. Q-K4 B-K3, 15. B-N5 Q-B4ch, 16. K-R1 N(3)-N5, 17. P-B4 N-N3, 18. P-QN3 B-K2, 19. N-Q4 B-N1, 20. BxB QxB, 21. N-B5 Q-Q2, 22. Q-R4 R-Q1, 23. Q-B6 and Black Resigns.
Our score was three to three. Three wins for him, three thrashings for me. Like the rest of my night it looked to only get worse before it got even more worse.
White: Rex Jupiter; Black: Charley Applegate; City Jail; Lolli Gambit. 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2.P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. BxPch KxB, 6. N-K5ch K-K1, 7. QxP N-KB3, 8. QxBP P-Q3, 9. N-B4 B-K3, 10. P-K5 BxN, 11. PxN B-K3, 12. 0–0 K-B2, 13. R-K1 P-Q4, 14. RxB KxR, 15. Q-KN4 ch K-B2, 16. Q-R5 ch K-K3, 17. N-B3 B-B4 ch, 18. P-Q4 BxP ch, 19. K-R1 BxN, 20. PxB QxP, 21. B-N5 Q-K4, 22. Q-N4ch K-B2, 23. R-KB1ch K-N1, 24. B-K7ch, and Black Resigns.
I finally gave in. First this toothless old mook would clobber me, then Coy would railroad me, then I’d ride the lightning. I let loose of anything hope of catching up with Lucy Lipps and sinking her ships--among other things.
White: Rex Jupiter; Black: Charley Applegate; City Jail; Lolli Gambit. 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. BxPch KxB, 6. N-K5ch K-K1, 7. QxP N-KB3, 8. QxBP P-Q3, 9. N-B4 R-N1, 10. 0–0 B-K2, 11. P-Q4 R-N5, 12. Q-R6 R-N3, 13.Q-R4 Q-Q2, 14.N-K3 Q-R6, 15. Q-B4 Q-R4, 16. N-B3 N-B3, 17. QN-Q5 NxQP, 18. Q-B2 N-K7ch, and White Resigns.
I couldn’t believe it. Something finally went right. The hayseed sat back, snapped his suspenders, and then pulled a flask of cheap brandy from under the mattress. I wondered how much the guards got for this one. He passed it to me and I noticed the tax seal intact--I figured I could take a swig so long as I didn’t have to drink after the poster boy for dental hygiene. I passed the brandy back to him and he took an amazingly long pull. Then he smiled at me.
“I knowed you’d win once you let go of the tiger you rode in on. Now spill it to old Jupe. Maybe I got a way out fer ya. ”
I told him the whole sad and sordid story. He sat back and let out a whistle.
“Lucy Lipps. I used to listen to her out in the desert. I saw her posters a few times. She’s so hot you could light a cigarette on her. ”
A thought hit me. “So, GC, what you are doing by the sea? I’d think a desert rat like you would stay away from the east coast. ”
“Well,” he began, “I came back here to see the Marshall chess club. Old Frank and I go back some. I heard he passed so I came to see Carrie and Frank junior. I stayed some, then met a gal at a bar here. Her name is Brandy, and what a good wife she would be. Her eyes stole this old man from the desert, and many a sailor from the sea. ”
“So you got hitched to her?”
He looked down his glasses at me. “No, son, I didn’t. Old age brings wisdom, you know. She’s in love with someone else, or so the song goes. Listen,” he whispered as he leaned over, “I can get you out. Maybe you can still catch up with the Latin Queen. ”
He had my attention. “How?”
“Every time those Atomic Energy boys come down, it’s a different pair. They don’t know me by sight. The guard who checked you in is different from the guy coming on duty. He’s new and don’t know me, either. The new guard comes on about an hour before the g-men get me out. When they come for me, you tell them you’re me and you’ll walk. Trust me, they never look anywhere but the clipboard. ”
“What about you?”
“I’ll just lie here like I’m passed out. They’ll blame the new guard. ”
I had to take the chance. An hour later the door clanged open. The guard came in and barked “Jupiter!”
“Right here,” I said.
“Go with these men. ”
Two clean-cut young men fresh from the Iowa farm took me down the hallway. I could hear GC chuckling behind me. This gambit looked like it would work.
I,
The Patzer
I hit the streets and made tracks for the docks. I had to catch the Latin Queen before she sailed, but my stomach sank like a torpedoed freighter. I was later than last month's rent and I knew it. I was sure that ship sailed with last night's tide. It was my only play to block the check and I had to take it.
I was right. I checked the sailing times in yesterday's Evening Mercury. She'd sailed with the night tide. I needed to know more, and I had some hours. Nothing would sail now until the afternoon tide. I went to the one place where someone would know, the Merchant Marine Union Hall.
I patted myself down. I found my "stash wallet"--Coy had only found my "drop wallet". When you are being stopped by cops or robbers you hand over your drop wallet--a few bucks and an I.D. that you can afford to lose. You keep your stash wallet in a spot that's easy to miss on a search. You don't want to know where I keep my stash wallet.
I fished out my Merchant Marine seaman's papers, in the name of Meredith Carl Allen, Seaman's number 7411675. With this I could get a job on any tramp steamer or cargo ship--anything swankier and they'd check and discover that I wasn't Meredith Allen. On the bilgers no one cared. I once met Howard Hughes swabbing the deck of a banana boat. I don't mean someone using his name, I mean the real article. Turned out that he'd lost his wallet in a part of town he shouldn't have been in, and no one believed that he was Howard Hughes. He shrugged his shoulders and got a job as an Able Bodied Seaman and worked his way home. I told him about the drop wallet trick, so maybe he'll remember me in his will.
I got to the hall just as they finished filling the jobs for a tanker hauling oil to Dakar. I sidled up to my old pal Tommy Flannagin. Tommy's a terrible liar, especially about his girlfriend, some Morgana Fairbody or something like that. He lied about his chess game, his family background, just about anything--except ships. When it came to ships Tommy's eyes turned mistier than a London fog. He knew all there was to know from the published records and plenty more from the swabs who came through the hall. Tommy never shipped himself, he couldn't tear himself away from his fabulous Morgana Fairbody. But he loved to talk about the sea and her ships. I never found out why he loved the sea, but he did.
"Tommy," I called out. He swiveled around like a barstool and his face lit up like Roman candle. He jostled over to me and we took a table near the coffee and donuts. He pulled out a pocket set and arranged the men, giving himself the White pieces.
"I just learned a new opening, one I know you will want to learn. It's called the Morra Gambit, and I learned it from Pierre Morra himself, lately of Paris, France. I was introduced to him by Morgana Fairbody, the famous model--who is my girlfriend, by the way--and he showed me this gambit while regaling me with tales of his years with the French Resistance."
Tommy's lies always amused. I put up with them because I needed info--besides, he never repeated the same story twice, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense. If you make up everything you don't need to repeat yourself.
"Okay, Tommy. You show me. I'll play Black. In the meantime, can you give me some info on some ships?"
Tommy lit up even brighter. "Okay Charley--or should I say, 'Carl.' But first let me show you this new gambit. Play the Sicilian." He moved, I played the Sicilian, and he sprang his surprise: 1. P-K4 P-QB4, 2. P-Q4. I'd seen this in a game in Horowitz's Chess Review. It aimed at cutting across all the Sicilian theory with a single pawn sacrifice. I took it just to play along. 2...PxP. He offered a second pawn and I took that one too: 3. P-B3 PxP.
"I know what you are thinking. You are thinking of that game in Horowitz's
excellent magazine. But I have an innovation not dreamed of by Pierre Morra
himself! Here it is: 4. B-QB4! It is a Sicilian Danish, if you will." He
smiled a toothsome grin. I took his hopeful offering.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Tommy Flannagin; Merchant Marine Union Hall; Morra Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-QB4 2. P-Q4 PxP 3. P-QB3 PxP 4. B-QB4 PxP 5. BxNP P-Q3 6. N-K2 B-N5 7. Q-N3 BxN 8. BxBP ch K-Q2 9. Q-K6ch K-B2 10. N-B3 B-R3 11. N-Q5ch K-B3 12. R-QB1ch K-N4 13. N-B7ch K-R4 14. B-B3ch K-N3 15. Q-N3ch, and Black Resigns.
I need to work on my defensive play. Every gambit just seems to blow through me like a cold wind through a cheap suit. As we set up the men, Tommy dropped his conversational gambit. "What ship do you need to know about, Charley Carl?" He beamed at me over the board.
I casually looked up at Tommy and took his gift of gab gambit. "What can you tell me about the S.S. Latin Queen?"
His face fell faster than a stockbroker on Black Thursday. I'd never seen Tommy so serious. I'd hit a nerve. I guess he could read in my face what I'd read in his face. He sat back, then leaned forward again with a very serious face. "Why do you want to know?"
I figured Tommy for a guy who wouldn't squeal so I quietly spilled my guts about Lucy Lipps. I reckoned that I had nothing to lose, as the afternoon papers would be full of the news--that is, if the morning papers weren't already blaring it.
Tommy surprised me. He didn't turn a hair. He squared up and looked into my eyes like a divorce judge. "The Latin Queen is no ship to be on, Charley. It is supposed to be owned by the Metaxas line, but it is isn't. Those papers are forgeries. It is really owned by an Argentine 'businessman,' one Raymundo Serenas. His real name Klaus Adolf Axmann, the younger son of one of Hitler's worst goons. Serenas/Axmann is in tight with Peron. Rumor has it that the Latin Queen used to sail under her German name, the Jutland. According to the rumor, in late April 1945 Axmann stole a good chunk of the Third Reich's gold, stuck it on the Jutland, forged the papers and raised the Argentine flag, and sailed through the Allied blockade carry 'Swedish automobiles.' With the gold he bought into Peron's good graces when Peron came to power."
I sat back and whistled. Lucy Lipps, the voice that protected U.S. ships from Nazi subs, working the other side of the street. Life is full of irony, if you can shovel irony up from a farmyard full of bulls. "What has the Latin Queen been doing since the war?"
Tommy looked left, then right. "Most men won't ship on the Latin Queen. Stories go about that the Latin Queen is haunted, but I think Serenas started those stories himself, to keep people away from the ship. He knows sailors are superstitious. I only know one swab who shipped on the Latin Queen, and he went as a machinist's mate. The ship never varies her route: Miami, Havana, Rio, and Buenos Aires on her southbound trip, reversing and stopping here northbound. She carries a lot of ordinary goods, beef tallow and cooking oil and wheat, stuff like that. But this guy--I'll call him Bud--told me that at every port the crew would take off the ship for shore leave, except for the captain, the first and second mate, and three crew members--the chief machinist, the carpenter, and the chief rigger. They would wait until nightfall, then they would take six suitcases down the gangplank, returning right before dawn with six new suitcases. He saw this 'cause he's got emphysema and can't go ashore to drink like most sailors.
"One night at Rio they went ashore after dark like usual. They came back a couple of hours later, no suitcases, and the second mate had to be carried. He spent the rest of the trip in sick bay. A day or two later a bad smell came out of sick bay and that night Bud heard a loud splash off starboard. He never saw the second mate again."
"What did Bud think they were up to?"
"The captain's an intelligent man, speaks Spanish and Portuguese as well as English and German--educated speaking, not the pidgin that sailors pick up. The first mate has a horridly scarred face, like he'd been in a fire. The others were not noticeable in any way. Bud figured they must have been smuggling something, but what he didn't know and didn't want to find out."
"Is Bud coming in? Can I talk to him?"
Tommy shook his head. "The cigs took
him last year. It was bad. He struggled to breathe at the end. His face looked
like a snowman's ass."
This couldn't be a dead end for me. Tommy moved. Good. I'll play a game and
think out my next move against Lucy.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Tommy Flannagin; Merchant Marine Union Hall; Morra Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-QB4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP P-K3, 6. N-QB3 B-N5, 7. N-B3 N-QB3, 8. 0–0 N-B3, 9. Q-B2 P-QR3, 10. QR-Q1 P-QN4, 11. B-N3 B-N2, 12. P-K5 BxN, 13. QxB N-K5, 14. Q-K3 N-K2, 15. N-Q2 N-KB4, 16. NxN NxQ, 17. N-Q6 ch K-B1, 18. PxN Q-N3, 19. B-Q4 Q-B3, 20. P-K4 K-N1, 21. R-B1 QxR, 22. RxQ B-B3, 23. R-B1 R-KB1, 24. P-N4 P-KR4, 25. P-N5 P-N3, 26. P-KR4 R-R2, 27. B-N6 R-N1, 28. B-R5 R-KB1, 29. K-B2 R-N1, 30. K-K3 R-KN2, 31. K-Q4 R-R1, 32. K-B5 R-N1 33. K-N4 K-R2, 34. B-B7 R-QR1, 35. K-R5 K-N1, 36. K-N6 K-R2, 37. R-B4 K-N1, 38. K-B5 R-KB1, 39. B-N6 R-N1, 40. R-B2 R-R2, 41. B-R7 R-QN2, 42. NxR BxN, 43. K-Q6 BxP, 44. R-B6 B-B4, 45. KxP P-R4, 46. B-B5 K-N2, 47. K-K7 K-N1, 48. P-R4 , and Black Resigns.
"Tommy," I asked, "what does the scuttlebutt say about the Latin Queen?" Sailors couldn't keep their mouths shut any more than they could turn down a free drink. Someone must have heard something, and that something must have got back to Tommy.
"Mostly typical sailor gob-slop: ghosts, rum-running, midnight murder, the lot. Half of it is warmed-over accounts of Bud's story. I do know that no one ships on her; the crew is all Argentine, if of course speaking German makes you 'Argentine.' They must be moving something light, 'cause Bud said the suitcases didn't seem heavy. They must be moving paper or something, or maybe counterfeiting plates. Could be anything. I do that where Nazis are hiding bad things are not far behind."
"What does your gut tell you, Tommy?"
He paused. "Government secrets."
Tommy got up and lugged his gut to the doughnut buffet. "You look like you could use a cuppa joe. Want a cruller to go with that?"
"Sure," I shrugged. I looked at the clock. The morning papers were out. I looked around at the headlines in the papers the men read. Nothing about me. I figured that would hit that evening. The afternoon tide went out two hours before the evening papers hit the streets. I needed to ship out on that tide. I also needed a ship that would overtake the Latin Queen.
Tommy plopped
down the doughnut and the coffee. I remembered why I quit eating here; the flies
got the best of everything. I munched the doughnut and sipped the black java
like a just-rescued Robinson Crusoe. I looked a Tommy stuffing a custard-filled
in his maw. He knew what I wanted. In spite of that he reached out and pushed a
pawn.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Tommy Flannagin; Merchant Marine Union Hall; Morra Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-QB4 2. P-Q4 PxP 3. P-QB3 PxP 4. B-QB4 PxP 5. BxNP P-Q3 6. N-KB3 P-K4 7. NxP PxN 8. BxBPch K-K2 9. B-R3ch, and Black Resigns.
Tommy
beamed. I needed to make a better effort. Obviously getting my skull cracked,
spending the night with a wino, and slurping down coffee brewed by Noah on the
Ark didn't help my game.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Tommy Flannagin; Merchant Marine Union Hall; Morra Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-QB4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP P-K3, 6. N-QB3 B-N5, 7. N-B3 N-QB3, 8. 0–0 N-B3, 9. Q-B2 P-QR3, 10. QR-Q1 P-QN4, 11. B-N3 B-N2, 12. P-K5 BxN, 13. QxB N-K5, 14. Q-K3 N-K2, 15. N-Q2 N-KB4, 16. NxN NxQ, 17. N-Q6 ch K-B1, 18. PxN Q-N3, 19. B-Q4 Q-B3, 20. P-K4 K-N1, 21. R-B1 QxR, 22. RxQ B-B3, 23. R-B1 R-KB1, 24. P-N4 P-KR4, 25. P-N5 P-N3, 26. P-KR4 R-R2, 27. B-N6 R-N1, 28. B-R5 R-KB1, 29. K-B2 R-N1, 30. K-K3 R-KN2, 31. K-Q4 R-R1, 32. K-B5 R-N1, 33. K-N4 K-R2, 34. B-B7 R-QR1, 35. K-R5 K-N1, 36. K-N6 K-R2, 37. R-B4 K-N1, 38. K-B5 R-KB1, 39. B-N6 R-N1, 40. R-B2 R-R2, 41. B-R7 R-QN2, 42. NxR BxN, 43. K-Q6 BxP, 44. R-B6 B-B4, 45. KxP P-R4, 46. B-B5 K-N2, 47. K-K7 K-N1, 48. P-R4, and Black Resigns.
Better. Not good enough. "Last game, Tommy. After that, I got a boat to catch."
Tommy smiled. "I
think I know the ship you need. One more."
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Tommy Flannagin; Merchant Marine Union Hall; Morra Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-QB4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP N-QB3, 6. Q-B3 P-K3, 7. Q-KN3 P-B3, 8. N-QR3 Q-R4 ch, 9. Q-B3 B-N5, 10. N-K2 BxQ ch, 11. NxB N-K4 12. B-K2 N-K2, 13. 0–0 N(2)-B3, 14. KR-Q1 Q-N3, 15. N(R)-N5 0–0, 16. B-R3 R-Q1, 17. QR-N1 Q-R4, 18. R-N3 P-QR3, 19. N-Q4 NxN, 20. RxN P-QN4, 21. B-QN4 Q-N3, 22. R-Q1 B-N2, 23. R-R3 P-QR4, 24. B-K7 R-K1, 25. NxP RxB, 26. R-QB3 B-R3, 27. N-B7 R-QB1, 28. BxB RxN, 29. RxR QxR, 30. P-KR3 R-K1, 31. P-B4 Q-N3 ch, 32. K-R2 QxB, 33. PxN PxP, 34. RxP R-KB1, 35. P-N4 Q-K7 ch, 36.K-N3 Q-KB7 mate.
After I slid my queen over to deliver the mate, Tommy looked at me. Then he rose silently and walked over to another board. He sat down with a guy with red hat and a redder nose who was defending a wild-looking Budapest. The talked for several minutes, and Tommy slipped something under the table. Red-nose slipped some papers back under the table to Tommy, who came back to our table. He held the papers under the table to me. He gazed into my eyes like a warden about to throw the switch.
"You are sailing on a Cuban boat. You show these papers and no questions will be asked. You are shipping washing machines to Latin America. You are an Able Bodied Seaman on this tub, so don't let on that you're a handy man with tools. Just swab the decks and keep your eyes open. This is a coaster, and will make port one day after the Latin Queen. Each time she docks you'll dock one day later. You'll also like the name."
"What is it?" I asked.
"The Jose Raul Capablanca."
I shook Tommy's hand and hustled out. I needed to kit out before I sailed.
I, The Patzer
I scrambled on board the S.S. Jose Raul Capablanca. She was a broken-down old tub that stank of diesel oil and bananas. One good thing about this rustbucket: no questions about the crew. Captains on ships like this were boozers or dopers or men with bad, bad marriages; they had enough problems, so they didn’t want to know about any troubles with the crew. Of course, there was a danger; troublemakers didn’t get arrested--they mysteriously fell overboard. Without any witnesses.
I’d filled out my kit at the Army-Navy Surplus store and hustled down to the dock. If you are late you bunk closer to the either the head or the engine room. First come, first served. I got lucky twice. I beat most of the rest of the crew so I got a bunk amidships. Second, I got a greenhorn for a bunkmate.
“Hey man,” he said, sticking out his paw, “My name is Lenny Bruce.”
“Hi Lenny. My name’s Meredith, though you can call me Carl. Down south they call me Carlos.”
“Ship out often?”
“Not for a while, not since the war. Served on Liberty ships. You?”
“I was in the Navy. We shelled the beach at Anzio. I hated the sea but a man’s got to make a living.”
“True.”
“I get the bottom bunk?”
“Navy or Merchant Marine, it’s always the same. The young guy gets the bottom bunk.”
“Why?”
“Because the old hands don’t want you pukin’ your guts up when you get seasick or hungover.”
Lenny laughed at that. I could see we would get along. He didn’t ask questions. Maybe he wouldn’t fall overboard.
Then a voice boomed behind me, a voice deeper than Davy Jones’ Locker. I knew that voice and didn’t even turn around at first.
“MEREDITH!” the voice cried. I stood a moment and then whirled around.
“Aminifu Kaboru!” I knew it. That spindly body that hid the strength of an elephant. That black-as-night face that lit up a like a month-old Christmas tree in a fireplace. Aminifu the French West African, A.K. to his friends (who were legion); A.K, the Prince of the Merchant Marine.
He threw his arms around me and crushed me like a grape. “I thought you got an a honest job among the landlubbers. What brings you back to sea?” His thousand-watt smile beamed at me from an inch away from my face. Thankfully he never had bad breath.
“Just got an urge to head to sea again, A.K. I tell you about it later. This is my bunkmate, Lenny Bruce.”
“PLEASED TO MEET YOU LENNY!” boomed A.K. In that tiny berth it sounded like a depth charge. He swept up Lenny and gave him a bear hug that would crush a beer can. A full beer can. A.K. never hid his emotions very well.
“Why are you on this coaster, A.K.? I thought you were a blue water man.”
“I got a me a woman in Jamaica, Kingston to be sure. Four little mouths to feed and a mother-in-law who’s always glad to see me ship. This way I get to hop over for a day or two when we hit Havana. It is better that way. When we see each other we are glad to see each other. When we get on each other’s nerves it is time for me to go back to sea.”
“What’s her name?” asked Lenny.
“Sweetheart,” said A. K.
“No, I mean, what’s her real name.”
A.K. laughed like a Bofors gun rattling off a mag of ack-ack.
“That’s her name. She has a brother named Sourpuss. Believe it or not, he’s a candy maker in New Orleans.”
“Do you go over every time we hit Havana?” I needed to know how long we would be in Havana. I needed time to find Lucy, and the longer the better.
“We usually spend a night in Miami, but a week in Havana. The cigars we ship to Rio are never ready on time, and sometimes the sugar needs milling. Plenty of time to catch a fishing boat to Jamaica.”
Perfect. A week in Havana but only a day in Miami. If she jumped off in Miami I’d probably never find her.
“I’ve got to get some supplies onshore. I’ll see you tonight at mess.” With a hearty handshake that popped all the sinews in my hand A.K. headed out topside. Lenny turned to me.
“Who is that guy?”
Another question. This Bruce guy needed some straightening out before his kinks got him in trouble.
“Some questions
you ask, kid. Some you don’t. But I’ll tell you. That guy ships on just about
anything that floats. I met him on a Liberty, the S.S. Patrick Henry. We
shipped on another of those tincans when we hit a storm. The welds cracked and
the ship went down, taking with her twenty-four Grant tanks headed for North
Africa. He and I washed up on the beach near Casablanca. I thought we would wind
up in a Vichy jail, but he knew people and got us on a coaster to London. It
wasn’t a legal coaster either; it carried…items. Anyway, I owe the guy my life.
He’s good in a pinch.”
“How good?
I shot him a tough look and he swallowed his face. He’d learn about asking too many questions.
“We went to a bar in Savannah, Georgia, back in ‘44. The races mixed in this bar, ‘cause it lay on the blind side of the law. One night we’re drinking and these two guys come in with white hoods on, pretending to be Klansmen. They yell out ‘We want every nigra in the joint!’ A.K. stands up and says, ‘Just one will do.’ He gave them a bareknuckle symphony that laid them both out cold. We pulled off the hoods and the sheriff--he owned the joint--identified them as a couple of college boys from up north, down on spring break. He took them to jail and locked them in the colored-only cell. When they came to they beefed. The sheriff said ‘Well, ah guess you boys got all the nigras you kin handle.’”
Bruce doubled over with guffaws. He’d do all right.
We shipped with evening tide. I pulled the first watch and turned in. The next day I pulled second watch. At mess that night A.K. got up and made an announcement.
“Aye me hearties!” everyone cracked up at his accent. He grinned that million dollar grin and went on. “We’ll be holding a speed chess tournament the night we hit Miami. All watches are cancelled for the duration of the games. First prize is a box of Havana cigars.”
We all started clapping and talking. Then Bruce had to open his trap.
“But I don’t play chess.”
We all fell silent. An old hand, a Cuban, leaned over. “We all must play chess on the Capablanca,” he whispered in mock menace. “We don’t care for card players or backgammon boys.”
Then we all laughed again. A.K. piped up. “Seriously you need to learn to play. It is a long trip to Buenos Aires.”
“What if I don’t learn by then?” Bruce asked.
“The sea is deep and cold, my young American friend,” menaced the Cuban once again. Again the mess hall roared with laughter.
At the bells rang for change of watch. Lenny and I turned in for the night.
At dawn I met A.K. “We find ourselves with a small problem, Meredith,” he intoned.
“What is that?”
“The second mate wants us to splice the cable ends.”
I groaned. Cable splicing is a wicked job. You can’t handle it properly at all with gloves on, and if you do it barehanded the cable cuts your hands up something fierce. That left only one thing to do.
“We do it after noon. The water will be warmer.”
“He is your bunkmate. It is your job to take care of it.” A.K. intoned, this time seriously.
“I’ll do it.” I didn’t like it, but Bruce needed to learn this sooner or later.
After noon Bruce came on deck. He’d had third watch so he slept in. I rounded up A. K. and three stout men from the crew. Any one of these guys could throw a sea lion a mile; three of them should handle a scrawny runt like Bruce. Two were Swedes, Lars Bo Hansen and Ingemar Ingemarsson. The third was a Sikh, some guy named Singh.
We went up to Bruce and took him over by the pile of cable. It was a huge pile. I started the conversation.
“Lenny,” I said in the familiar tone of salesmen pitching a used car that an old lady from Pasadena drove on Sundays to church, “we need your help. We got to splice a ton of cable.”
“Okay, let me get my gloves.”
I stopped him. “We ain’t splicing it, Lenny. We’re gonna deep six it when the second mate is looking elsewhere.”
Lenny looked puzzled. “Ain’t that against the rules?”
Lars exploded. “Yah, you betcha, it’s against the rules. We ain’t a-goona splice no cable not for no second mate, that’s fer sure. Davy Jones’ll get a nice present from the Capablanca, you betcha.”
I made a mental note to teach Lars some new swear words in English. “Look Lenny, here’s how it works. One of us goes over the side. The rest of us shout ‘man overboard!’ and then we save the guy who goes over. When the mates and the captain rush over, one of us chucks that cursed cable into the sea. Everybody’s happy, and owners won’t find out about the missing cable for months.”
“Who goes over the side?” asked Lenny. Our stoic faces convinced him. “Oh no,” he began, “I ain’t goin’ over the side.”
A.K. grinned widely. “Oh yes you are.” Then Lars and Ingemar grabbed his arms while Singh grabbed his legs. A.K. nodded to me.
“Wait for the signal,” he said. I nodded.
I counted to thirty. Then I heard the signal.
“NOOOOOOOOOooooo” followed by a splash and “Man Overboard!” in three different accents. I heard the pounding of feet from the bridge. I counted to ten then heaved the cable overboard.
First watch came to an end so I went below to the sick bay to see how Lenny was getting on. He was dried off by now and sipping the black oil the cook called coffee. I pulled a cup for myself and sat opposite him, he on the bunk and me on a chair. A.K. dropped in with a fine Havana cigar. He gave it to Lenny.
“The first time a man goes overboard he gets one of these,” chuckled A.K.
“I coulda drowned,” Lenny groused.
“Not likely, Lenny. We had that Cuban guy astern. If you missed the life preserver he would have dived for you. He was a champion diver in Cuba. You were as safe as if you were home in bed.” When A.K. explained things it was hard not be amused.
“Why me?” asked Lenny.
“Because you’re new to Merchant Marine. The new guy always get the dunkings.” Lenny looked askance at me, but he knew that seniority always rules.
“Besides, you don’t play chess,” chortled A.K. At that he pulled out a set. “Let me teach you.” He set up the men for Lenny’s first lesson.
I took off. I had things of my own to consider. We were now two days behind the Latin Queen. I needed info. I went down to the mess to see if the papers had any. They were two days old by now but they might have something.
I checked the Mercury Intelligencer. I expected a big splash on page one about me, at least below the fold. I got a shock from the headlines.
“Lucy Lipps Wanted for Contempt of Congress.”
Famous Redheaded Wartime Beauty refuses subpoena for House Un-American Committee.
I couldn’t believe it. Lucy a Commie? If so, why was she so cozy with the ex-Nazis? I could believe Lucy lacked morals, but still. I read the article.
“Roy Cohn, attorney for the House Un-American Committee, told the Mercury News today that ‘Lucy Lipps is wanted for questioning by the committee. She made certain contacts during the war, and we want to know what the contacts were and with whom she consorts today. She did not appear as required by law, so an arrest warrant for her, on the charge of contempt of Congress, has been issued. All federal officers, FBI and port authorities, are required to detain Miss Lipps and turn her over to U.S. federal marshals.
“’We do not have her current whereabouts, but we are certain that she has left her last known residence. Her flight is unrelated to her husband’s murder, police tell us. She is believed to be in the company of man who goes by the name of Ivan.’ ”
Cohn laid it on thick. But this was good news for me. It meant that Lucy couldn’t come off the boat in Miami. If a port authority spotted her--and no one could miss her--she’d be cuffed. So she needed to keep going south, at least as far as Havana.
I flipped through the papers. A note on the police blotter recorded the death of Lucy’s husband, but not a word about me or my escape. I guess the cops wanted to cover up how GC fooled them. I found a problem in the leisure section of the Observer-Dispatch. It recognized it right away. I figured that A.K. and Lenny would like it, so I bustled down to the sick bay. We all needed a joke.
I dropped the paper. A.K. face lit up. “The Sea Cadet! This was performed in an opera in Barmen in 1905, for the master’s tournament!” Lost in the problem he started to set up the men.
Lenny whispered to me. “How does he know that?”
I whispered back, “He knows everything. Just get used to it.”
“Can you solve it, Lenny?” gibed A.K.
“I just learned how to move the pieces!” protested Lenny. “Give me some time.”
“It is White to move, Lenny. We will give you until Miami.”
Lenny took the paper and headed back to his bunk.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I, The Patzer
Dawn broke over the choppy Atlantic as we pulled into Miami. The rising sun burned the waters a blood red, like the stain left by Lucy’s late husband on the floor of their dump. The Capablanca shuddered to a stop at a salt-grimed pier. The crew lined up to go on leave--except for five poor slobs the second mate picked out for fumigation detail. Everybody else got to kill time. They got to kill rats.
As we offshipped cargo A.K. clapped his hand my shoulder. “Meredith,” he boomed, “come a-shore and hit the cafes with me. We can wipe out the patzers in this podunk berg. We‘ll take all their loose change in blitz.” I knew I couldn’t go ashore. It was possible that Detective Coy wired news to all ports of the U.S., warning them to be on the lookout for me. I figured my Merchant Marine papers might keep me out of the hoosegow, but this wasn’t wartime any more. In the old days you could count on the cops looking the other way because of the manpower shortage, or, because goods were short, some cash or some meat would take off a pair of handcuffs. But this was a murder beef, and even during the war cops everywhere took a dim view of murder. I needed to play it safe; I didn’t come all this way to be pinched by some yokel in some dump like Miami.
“Naw,” I said, “ too many mosquitoes in Miami. That, and the coffee’s bad. I’ll stay on ship, but buy me all the local papers and some Royal Crown cola. Pick up some prizes for the speed tournament.” I gave A.K. a fiver to cover the papers and the soda.
He looked at the fiver. He knew I could get the papers in a short walk down the long pier. He looked at me and then he smiled. He knew not to ask questions. He took the fiver and went ashore with Singh the Sikh.
Lenny came up to me. “Hey, have you ever been to Miami?”
“Yeah. Mosquitoes are thick at twilight. The coffee’s bad. Plus there are no real sights to see. But you’re going ashore anyway, aren’t you?”
Lenny smiled. “When they told me ‘Join the Navy and see the world’ they didn’t tell me the world is three-quarters water. I’ll see you tonight at the speed tournament.”
Lenny went ashore. I went back to the stern of the ship to watch the longshoremen offload. Tonight would be the speed tournament. A.K. would pick the prizes. I had nothing to do but sit in my bunk and wait for tonight. Below decks the rats began to squeal.
When I climbed up into my bunk I fished out an old copy of Horowitz’ Chess Review. Old Al founded that mag during the Great Depression. He made money off chess while businesses closed and banks put the ‘bank’ in bankrupt. He drove the same highways as Bonnie and Clyde--they robbed and shot up towns, he’d come by and give simuls. Talk about incongruity.
I flipped to the games section. Al had connections all over Europe and got games no one else in America could. If you wanted some obscure game by some little-known master you’d find it in Chess Review. If it wasn’t there it wasn’t played.
I opened my pocket set and went over some games. One humdinger by Olaf Ulvestad. Then a grind-him-down endgame by Botvinnik. I just finished a charming minature where Tartakower took down some other master (he uncorked yet another one of his cute little opening novelties) when I got drowsy. I dozed off for a while, with a lullaby of squealing rats as the fumigation squad went through the ship. I awoke to hear A.K. chortling in the gangway. Lenny came in with him.
“Oh Meredith!” he boomed, “you missed all the fun! Remember the ‘Sea Cadet’ problem we gave Lenny? We must show you Lenny’s games from that new chess club, Seaside or Seasick or something like that. Ah, you’ve got your pocket set out already. You’ll crack up at this Meredith, I promise.” A.K. swung a package onto my bunk. “There’s your Royal Crown. They’re putting it in aluminum cans now.”
I bounced off my rack with the pocket set. We sat on Lenny’s lower bunk and put up the men.
“Okay,” start Lenny in his thick Brooklyn accent, “We go into this here joint and Meredith goes over to the master’s section, leaving me to pick a peck of pickled herring in the patzer section. Nobody wanted to play blitz or rapids, which was fine by me. I wound up playing in something called ‘the Saturday thiry-minute round robin,’ me and six other jamokes. I paid in $10 with a first prize of $50. The director consults a book called ‘Harkness’ and then comes back with the pairings. We get these beat up sets made of something like wood, at least it was once upon a time. So I get to sit down and…”
A.K. interrupted. “Lenny, you couldn’t tell a story or a joke to save your life! It’s a good thing you are a merchant seaman. First show Meredith your solution to the ‘Sea Cadet.’ Then tell your story.”
Lenny blushed. “I’m sorry, gotta set up the joke before the punch line.”
Lenny set up the ‘Sea Cadet.’
“It took me a long time,” he began, “getting the salt water out of my ears took a while. When A.K. explain to me the tactics of ‘pin’ and ‘discovered attack’ I saw: 1. NxN BxQ, 2. BxP ch K-K2, 3. N-Q5 mate. A.K. told me that was right--it is, ain’t it?”
A.K. guffawed like an eight inch cruiser shelling the Nazis at Anzio. “That’s the beauty of the beginner, eh Meredith? He isn’t afraid of losing his queen!”
I looked at Lenny. “It’s alright Lenny. You did good. Now show me the punch line.” He looked like a kid who found a shiny new penny on the sidewalk and bought a gumball with it.
“I get paired
with this older guy in the first round. I get White.”
White: Lenny Bruce; Black: Colonel Orson Beauregard; Miami; Philidor Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 P-Q3, 3. B-B4 B-N5, 4. N-B3 P-KN3, 5. NxP BxQ, 6. BxPch K-K2, 7. N-Q5 mate.
A.K. watched my face like a new wife offering up her first home-cooked meal. When the mate sprang on the board my jaw dropped like a depth charge on a U-boat. A.K. burst out laughing the explosion of the depth charge. Lenny just grinned.
“Okay,
kid, you got one. It’s like they say in golf--’it ain’t how, it’s how many.’
What happened in your next game?”
White: Lenny Bruce; Black: Joseph Brozo; Miami; Scotch Game.
“Wait a minute,” I thrust in like a torpedo, “how did you get White again?”
Lenny looked sheepish. “I misread the pairing cards.” A.K. just laughed, spraying his glee around like a fifty caliber cutting through the brush in the South Pacific. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. P-Q4 PxP, 4. B-QB4 P-Q3, 5. P-B3 PxP, 6. NxP B-N5, 7. 0–0 N-K4, 8. NxN BxQ, 9. BxP ch K-K2, 10. N-Q5 mate.
A. K. chortled and I just shook my head. “You’re a lucky kid, Lenny.”
Lenny smiled.
“My Yiddish grandmother used to say ‘Lenny, is better to be lucky than to have
license to steal.’ I guess she’s right. Here’s my next one--I got the pairing
cards right this time.”
White: Al Bacorre; Black: Lenny Bruce; Miami; Giuoco Piano.
1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-B4 B-B4, 4. P-B3 B-N3, 5.
P-Q4 Q-K2, 6. P-Q5 N-Q1, 7. B-K2 P-Q3, 8. P-KR3 P-KB4, 9. B-KN5
N-KB3, 10. QN–Q2 0–0, 11. N-R4 PxP, 12. NxP NxN, 13. BxQ BxBP ch, 14.
K-B1 N-N6 mate.
“Nice
combination, kid.” Three in a row. Lenny sure knew how to get a lot of mileage
from one simple trick. “Let’s see the rest.” It wasn’t so funny now, but
A.K. was still smiling.
White: Lenny Bruce; Black: Sam Softwick; Miami; Vienna
Game. 1. P-K4
P-K4, 2. N-QB3 N-QB3, 3.P-B4 P-Q3, 4. N-B3 P-QR3, 5. B-B4 B-N5, 6. PxP NxP, 7.
NxN BxQ, 8. BxBPch K-K2, 9. N-Q5 mate.
White: Lenny Bruce; Black Jerry A. Trick; Miami; Philidor
Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3
P-Q3, 3. B-B4 N-QB3, 4. P-Q3 B-N5, 5. P-KR3 B-R4, 6.
N-B3 N-Q5, 7. NxP BxQ, 8. BxPch K-K2, 9. N-Q5 mate
White: Sol Silverstein; Black: Lenny Bruce; Miami; Budapest Defense. 1. P-Q4 N-KB3, 2. P-QB4 P-K4, 3. P-Q5 B-B4, 4. B-N5 N-K5, 5. BxQ BxP mate.
By now I knew something was up. A.K. seemed much too smug. Lenny got up. “We got a little while before the speed tournament right?” he asked as he glanced at his watch. “I’m gonna go wire the fifty bucks to my ma back in Brooklyn. She needs some new shoes.” Lenny bustled out. I turned to A.K., who looked like a kid who just made off with a huge old cookie jar.
“Alright, wise guy, spill.” A.K. sat back with air of a man who just beat the devil at his own game.
“The club didn’t want to let me in because of my black skin, or Lenny ‘cause he was a Jew,” he began, “but some of the older members--plantation types, I guess--argued to let us in. ‘Ain’t nobody from the sheriff or the police or the Klan gonna stop by an’ trouble us none, we’re a private club.’ One of the members let me in on the secret. Back in the days of Prohibition the club used to run rum from Cuba, so the cops got paid off to look the other way. During the war they smuggled in Cuban beef to beat rationing--so the cops got paid off again. Today they bring in Cuban rum, cigars, all sorts of legal stuff. But old habits die hard--they pay off the customs guys to look the other way today.
“Anyway, when I was teaching Lenny his first tricks the other day I showed him all the tricks he just played. He’s got a good memory for these types of tactics, though he’s still hopeless at endings. I took him aside when we got in and told him to enter the thirty minute round robin. He didn’t want to put up the cash so I spotted him. Then I casually went over to the manager who was glaring at us the whole time. I struck up a conversation with him.
“ ‘Why are you
so unhappy bwana? You got our entry fees and your customers seem happy.
We just put down $10 for Lenny to enter your little tournament. Don’t you like
the color of money?’ ”
“ ‘What I don’t like,’ ” he hissed through his missing teeth, “ ‘is the color o’ yore skin, boy. Your kind can’t play no chess. And that ‘New York’ feller is gonna be out his precious money, that oughta make his kind real unhappy.’
“ ‘Why don’t we make a little wager on my friend Lenny?’
“ ‘You wanna throw away good money after bad bettin’ on a Jew, I’ll take your bet.’
“ ‘I doubt you’ve got the manhood to take my action.’
“ ‘I’ll see your action and double it!’
“So I take out a wad of hundreds and spread them on the table. Five ‘C’ notes. He about wet his pants. But he opened the cash drawer and counted out a thousand. He called over some fellow named Jackson--an old white-haired man in a white suit and carrying cane--and he explained the stakes to him. Jackson nodded and took the stakes put them in his pocket. If Lenny won, I got the thousand--if Lenny lost, I lost the five hundred.”
My head swam at this. “You got two to one against Lenny?”
A.K. beamed. “There’s one born every minute! While the manager was busy with the pairings I took Lenny’s opponents aside one at a time and explained to them how Lenny was going to try the old Legal’s mate every time. If they fell into, I said, I’d give each of them a twenty. So I paid out $120 to Lenny’s opponents, he won the fifty bucks, and I cleared an easy thousand!” A.K. slapped his knee and laughed the laugh of an honest man who couldn’t be cheated--but could cheat a dishonest man.
When he calmed down he sobered a bit. “It isn’t all good news Meredith,” he began gravely. “I bought you the paper--there is only one daily down here.” He handed me the Miami Southern Star-Intelligencer. “Look on page 2.”
There on page 2, just below the fold. There it was. My name and photograph, along with Lucy, Ivan and a mugshot of her husband--large as life and looking a lot better without a bullet hole in him. He was wearing a uniform in the picture, obviously from World War II. I recognized the uniform and the badges. He was a U-boat captain. A German U-boat captain.
I looked up at A.K. He calmly popped the top of a Royal Crown and sipped. I knew he’d read the article. I started in on it myself.
Shocking Developments!
Lucy Lipps linked to U-boat captain!
Exclusive to the Southern Star-Intelligencer: Lucy Lipps, the famous flame-haired siren of the recent war who warned us not to sink ships by loose lips, is herself linked to a U-boat captain found murdered in her New York apartment.Recently this paper provided you with the details of her subpoena by the House Un-American Committee. At that time we reported, as did every paper in the Americas, that her flight was unconnected to the murder of her husband, according to New York police Detective Coy. We must now correct that.
It turns out that the man in her apartment, though living with her as her husband, was in fact not her husband. Further sleuthing by the indefatigable Detective Coy unearthed the man’s true identity. Our New York correspondent, Neal Duren, relays the truth to us by telegraph.
The murdered man--shot through the forehead at close range--is none other than Herr Kapitan Gunther Prien. During the war Herr Prien penetrated the Royal Navy defenses at Scapa Flow and sank the mighty warship H.M.S. Royal Oak, the pride of the Home Fleet. The German Navy later reported that Herr Prien lost at sea along with his crew.
Detective Coy has since learned that this was a cover story. Herr Prien went instead into the Intelligence branch of the German Navy, tasked with carrying out special missions to Argentina. Detective Coy believes that Herr Prien, charged with smuggling stolen gold and art to Argentina at the end of the war, went into business for himself when news reached him of Hitler’s suicide. On reaching Buenos Aires he sold the artwork and split the profits among his crew mates. He stashed the gold, in the form of British gold coins, in a Buenos Aires bank vault. Not only that, he sold his U-boat to the Argentine Navy, which rechristened it the Rio Plata.
Herr Prien then came north. Detective Coy was unable to discover the connection to Lucy Lipps and the hulking gangster from central casting who is her current paramour, Ivan.
We can now report, thanks to the intrepid work of our reporter, Neal Duren, what that connection is. Using confidential underworld contacts known only to himself, Duren unearthed secret facts about Herr Prien. Long before he sold the art and stashed the gold and sold the sub, he played all sides against the middle. Herr Prien sold German naval intelligence to the American and the Royal Navies, insuring that his wolfpack comrades were sunk by these tireless greyhounds of the Atlantic. He sold information simultaneously to the Argentine government, allowing them to profit by swindling the Nazis. He gave money and intelligence to Communist agents working in the United States--in return, he took intelligence from them and reported it to his superiors. This intelligence led to the liquidation of the famous Rote Kapelle Communist spy ring in Nazi Germany. In short, Herr Prien made himself into a quadruple agent.
Our reporter’s theory is that somehow Lucy Lipps aided Herr Prien in these actions. Miss Lipps, he theorizes, is a Soviet double-agent. She may or may not have murdered Herr Prien for his Argentine stash.
Her male companion, known by the street name ‘Ivan,’ is in fact Llewellyn Quentin Thistlewhite, a former enforcer for the Purple Gang. While not known as a political agent, Mr. Thistlewhit[Back To Top]e is known to be completely amoral, and will do anything for money.
The fourth player in this sordid drama is Charley Applegate, a writer of chess columns and other subversive literature. Detective Coy thinks that Mr. Applegate, a habitue of chess clubs and other dives, got wind of Herr Prien’s enormous yet ill-gotten gains. He tried to blackmail Herr Prien, and in a struggle Mr. Applegate shot Herr Prien through the forehead. Herr Prien did not go quietly into that permanent night, however, as with his dying lunge he threw Mr. Applegate backward onto a coffee table, knocking him cold.
“There’s no way Applegate offed Prien,” Coy told our reporter, “he ain’t got it in him. Applegate’s a pansy. He won’t step on cracks ‘cause he loves his mother. If he got Prien it was lucky shot in a struggle.”
A warrant for murder is out on Mr. Applegate. A warrant is out for Miss Lipps for contempt of Congress, but a grand jury may change that at any moment. There is an outstanding warrant for murder on Mr. Thistlewhite from before the war.
Police and FBI agents are pouring over documents found in the apartment, half-burned in a firegrate. Most shocking off all--and exclusive to this paper from our New York reporter--Naval Intelligence is scrutinizing the transcripts of Miss Lipps’ wartime broadcasts. It is thought that she may have been tipping off her confederate and lover, Herr Prien, to the location of American and British convoys.
I finished and looked up at A.K. He just smiled the sad smile of man who saw human suffering in every form. He clearly took pity on me.
“I know you didn’t off that dude in New York, Meredith,” he said, continuing to use my secret name.
“How do you know that, A.K.?”
He shifted in his seat, pouring the balance of his Royal Crown into a cup. He topped it off with some brandy, then poured a bit of brandy in another cup for me, while handing me a can of Royal Crown for myself.
“Do you remember that time we did that ‘off the books’ job for DeGaulle?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“We left Spainish Morocco taking guns to the Free French in North Africa, in Algiers, back in ‘42. Do you remember the jokes we made about Franco screwing with Hitler? ‘You just can’t trust little dictators,’ you said. Here Franco sent a division of his best men to the Russian front to fight for Hitler, and then screwed him over by selling surplus weapons from the Spanish Civil War to the Free French. You must admire a man who is such a pure bastard.
“Anyway, you remember how it was on those trips. The fishing boats go out across the evening waters, smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border. Fun times for brave men. I remember the gale of October ‘42, when little Louis Lefrebvre fell overboard. You jumped in without a lifejacket or a preserver. You pulled him up and I circled round in that damned fishing boat to pick you up. You have guts, Meredith, that is for sure.
“But Coy is right about one thing. You are a pansy.”
I got red in the face. “What do you mean by that?”
“On one trip to Algiers you got into a beef with some guy in a brothel. As usual with you it was an argument over some stupid chess variation, not a dame. He pulled a blackjack on you. You had a pistol but you didn’t shoot him like a sensible man would. You cracked him over the head with the butt and left him there out cold.”
“He had his back turned. You’d shoot a man in the back?”
A.K. got philosophical for a moment. “It is the safest way.”
Then he clapped me on the knee. “You could have killed him. You didn’t. Call that being a pansy or a righteous man, it adds up to the same thing. You ain’t got murder in you, Meredith.”
I thought. He was right. I ain’t got it in me. Life’s ain’t much but it’s all we got, and I can’t take that from another man cheaply. “So what do we do?” I was wondering about the crew.
“Don’t worry. I know everybody on the crew, and none of them read English newspapers. They won’t see the story. The officers stayed on board.” He opened a porthole and chucked the paper into the drink. “Come on up and play in the speed tournament.”
I shrugged. “Not this time, A.K. I think I’ll spend some time topside and get some air.”
He nodded,
slapped me on the knee again, drained his cup and left.
I went topside.
The fumigation crew dumped a wheelbarrow load of dead rats over the side.
Is there a rat on board?
Is Charley in any danger?
Who is betraying whom?
I, The Patzer
I stood on the starboard side and looked at the water churning as the old tub strained south. I stroked a match and struck up a Lucky Strike. Back in ‘31 Leo Szilard stood on a sidewalk in London waiting for a light. As he looked at the water in the gutter he underwent a sudden epiphany and understood how to split the atom. As I stood at the rusted railing I underwent my own epiphany.
“No time like the present.” You hear idiots say that all the time. Of course there’s no time like the present! There are only three times, when you think of it. There’s the future, with endless, beautiful possibilities cavorting like nymphs in the Garden of Jupiter. Then there is the past, where one of those beautiful nymphs is frozen forever, only transmogrified into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, with all her sisters blasted into total non-existence, except in your memory where they haunt you like ghosts. Then there’s the present. Nothing like the present. The present is a grotesque mass murderer of the future, killing all but one, and preserving that one, trapped forever in the hell of the present’s making, a never-ending gallery of gruesome events gaping back at us. The future, a treasury of golden coins tumbling through the air. The past, a penny crushed into the asphalt by the bald tires of a ‘48 Studebaker with rusty patches and a bad paint job. The present is the Studebaker.
As I stood there I realized that my past would follow me forever, like the chains on Marley in “A Christmas Carol.” Here I was, chasing a glamorous broad and her side of beef boyfriend--and for all I knew he was feeding the fish under the selfsame sea I was studying. If that was true there would be no more nymphs of Jupiter or gold coins for him; just a gallery of past acts that no one would visit any more.
I mulled over the absurdity of my predicament. How did I land here? What chain of events caused this? I never looked for trouble but I always found it. It was like that Studebaker was possessed by the spirit of some jealous woman, careening around corners and smacking into to me whenever something good was about to happen. What did I ever do to make that Studebaker love me so much?
I mulled it over as I pulled a drag on my fag. I stared into the dark, churning waters and remembered the river Styx and Charon, the ferryman of souls. Great, I thought, this is progress. Charon is replaced by a bilger with a load of substandard merchandise that is about to be palmed off on some sucker. But we’ve improved; instead of reaching Hades and the river of forgetfulness, the spring of Lethe that wipes out all memory of life, we trudge back and forth up the Atlantic seaboard, doing the same run over and over. The present doesn’t just stamp the future into varied horrid pictures, it stamps the future into the same horrid picture an infinite number of times.
I jerked back from these Classical musings into the present because my Lucky Strike burned down to my fingers and singed my world-weary flesh. I tossed the butt into the bottomless sea and lit another. I don’t know why I smoke. I light up only when I’m in a thoughtful mood, then I take one or two drags and forget about the cig until it burns me. The revenge of the tobacco plant, I guess. What was I thinking about? Oh yeah.
Two things got me here. Dames and chess. No point in talking about women or love or any of that. Love is like a roulette game, only if you bet on red it comes up white, and if you bet on black it comes up blue, and if you bet on green it comes up yellow, and if you bet on a number it comes up a letter, only not a Latin or Cyrillic letter, not even a Chinese character. It comes up in some weird cuneiform slug you’ve never seen before and never will again. No man has ever figured out how to read those symbols. Neither has any woman.
Chess is different. There are rules and patterns. It is symbolic logic in its purest form. Every patzer tells a different story when it comes to chess, but they all tell the same story in the end: I don’t know why I got hooked, there’s just something about it.
I still remember how I got hooked. I was eight years old and my dad, a shirt salesman to college professors, left me in the park, telling me not to talk to strange men. But if you don’t talk to strange men in the park you talk to nobody, because all the men in the park are strange. That’s where I met Professor Einstein.
He looks just like his pictures. You get the idea that he’s some frail old man, but he isn’t, he’s a big strong guy. I was playing alone in the park when he came down to eat his lunch. We got to talking about playing Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians, or something. You’d think he’d been some sort of big-headed brain, but he wasn’t. He was like all men, a boy with a bigger, older body.
One day in June we saw two old guys playing chess. I asked Uncle Albert (he told me to call him that) what they were doing.
“Ach,” he began, “that is Colonel Louis and old Chuck. Colonel Louis is the serious man playing Black; Chuck is the bald fellow with the cigarette ash about to drop; he is playing White. The game they are playing is chess. I can see the appeal of the game but I have never been able to appreciate the intense competitiveness of the game.”
“Can you play chess?” I asked.
“Sure. One of my friends is Emanuel Lasker, the former world champion.”
I was stunned. The father of the atom bomb was pals with the world champ! World champ of what I had no idea.
“Willya teach me to play?” I asked earnestly.
“Yah, sure. Come and we will ask Louis and Chuck if they will let us use their extra set.”
We ambled over to the table, a concrete monstrosity designed to withstand the effects of summer, winter and mindless hooligans. Chuck was about to light up another Winston when he realized that he still had one in his hand. And another in the ash tray.
“Gentlemen, how are you?”
“Hiya Al,” began the Colonel. “Wanna play a game?”
Uncle Al smiled. “I hoped you would let us play on your other set?”
Chuck looked over his glasses with no small degree of doubt. “He ain’t got grubby fingers, does he, Al? You know my White men are made of ivory.”
“No, his fingers are quite clean. Show him, Charley.” I turned my hands over twice to show Chuck. He smiled at me.
“Anything to get new players, Al.” He handed me his set and board, a wood board with a lot of knicks and knacks in it. Uncle Al took it from me and set us up next to Chuck and Louis. Uncle Al proved to be a great chess teacher. He showed me how to move the men one at a time. He taught me the knight’s tour. Then we played some simple endgames. He would sometimes say “you can’t move there, Charley, that is check.” He was such a nice man.
While we were playing Chuck and Louis would go at. They should have been on their own radio show.
Chuck would usually start in. “I’m going to win your queen, Louis.”
Louis would then get huffy. “You’re not going to win it, I’m going to sacrifice it, just to show you I don’t need it.”
“What you need Louis is a real job, instead of being a flyboy in the chair force--or is it the air farce? I can’t remember.”
“Hey, I got a Ph.D. in chemistry, you remember that!”
“What I remember is that I own my own business. I’ve laid half the concrete in this city, you know.”
“Yeah, the half with the cracks in it.”
They would go on and on, every afternoon when the sun was shining and the air was warm. On those days my dad would take me to the park. His sales of shirts went up. Uncle Al must have put in a good word with the other profs.
I quickly graduated to simple endgames with forced mates. Uncle Al would show me the mate, then he would let me try to checkmate him. With practice I could do any mate after he showed it to me once. Then I could do it even if I hadn’t done it in weeks. One day I pointed out a mate in one of Chuck and Louis’ games.
“Hey kid,” began Chuck, “who do you think you are, Capablanca?”
“Hey baldy, it’s not like you’re Frank Marshall yourself!”
“Louis, I wouldn’t talk if I was you, ‘cause you’re the one getting mated.”
“If the kid hadn’t helped you, I’d have gotten stalemate.”
“The only thing
stale is your play.”
“The only thing really stale is your
cigarettes.”
After that I kept quiet about their games.
One Sunday in July I was playing with the two knights against the lone pawn of Uncle Al. Suddenly Chuck cut in.
“Hey, stop making that kid go through that esoterica. Let him play his own games from the beginning.”
“Like it does you any good,” retorted Louis.
Uncle Al puffed on his pipe a moment. “Would you like to play a game from the beginning, Charley?”
“Yeah!” I shouted in my boyish glee.
“Okay,” said Uncle Al. He set up the men, giving me Black.
“Why do I get Black?” I asked.
“It’s traditional,” said Chuck. “Everybody gets Black in the first game they play.” Then he chuckled his raspy old laugh.
White: Albert Einstein; Black: Charley Applegate; The Park on a Sunny Afternoon; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2.Q-R5 N-QB3, 3.B-B4 N-KB3, 4. QxBP mate.
I sat up in surprise. “That’s the Scholar’s Mate,” said Uncle Al. “That’s also tradition. Everybody loses that way the first time.” Chuck tousled my towhead tenderly.
“Everybody but Capablanca,” said Louis. “But then again, so what?”
“Do it again!” I wanted to see it. Uncle Al played it through for me again.
“That’s what we used to call the Bouw attack out in Arizona. There was a kid who used to play that all the time. Even when it didn’t work the kid still stuck to it. He was a good player, even if he always went for the Scholar‘s Mate.” Chuck then flicked the ash off his cig and lit another one.
“Let’s play another one!” I said.
“Hey!” interjected Louis with delight, “the kid’s tough! You’ll go far, kid. Maybe one day you’ll be like Marshall or Lasker.”
I was determined that Uncle Al wouldn’t mate me in four moves this time.
White: Albert Einstein; Black: Charley Applegate; The Park on a Sunny Afternoon; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2.Q-R5 N-QB3, 3.B-B4 P-KN3, 4. Q-B3 N-Q5, 5. QxP mate.
I did it! I didn’t get mated in four moves. “Now you try,” said Uncle Al. He turned the board around so I played with the White men.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Albert Einstein; The Park on a Sunny Afternoon; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. Q-R5 N-QB3, 3. P-QB3
“Why didn’t you play out your bishop, Charley?” asked Uncle Al.
I looked sheepish for a minute. “I forgot,” I admitted.
“It’s alright, you’ll remember next time.” He smiled at me.
3...P-Q3, 4. B-B4 N-R3, 5. QxBPch NxQ,
I lost my queen! I slumped on my bench. Louis reached over and tipped over my king very gently. “That’s what you do when you give up,” he said.
“Yeah, he’s got lots of practice at that,” laughed Chuck.
“So do we all,” shot Louis back at Chuck. They both laughed.
“Don’t feel bad, kid. I saw this in a master’s tournament once. Let me show you.” Louis started moving the pieces.
White: Adov; Black: Borisov; St. Petersburg, 1889; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. Q-R5 N-QB3, 3. B-B4 P-KN3, 4. Q-B3 N-B3, 5. Q-QN3 N-Q5, 6. Q-QB3 P-Q4, 7. BxP NxB, 8. PxN B-KB4, 9. P-Q3 B-QN5,
“And right here White turned his king over. Can you believe it? Two masters playing like this!”
“Why did he give up?” I asked.
“Because if White plays 10. QxB, Black plays 10...NxBP ch winning the queen for a bishop. That’s always decisive in the hands of a master, or even a patzer like Chuck.” Even Chuck laughed.
I looked up at Uncle Al. “Can I try again? I’ll try really hard this time.” I really would. I really wanted to play my own games. Uncle Al smiled and set up the men, taking White again.
White: Albert Einstein; Black: Charley Applegate; The Park on a Sunny Afternoon; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. Q-R5 N-QB3, 3. B-B4 N-R3, 4. P-Q3 P-KN3, 5. Q-B3 N-Q5, 6.Q-Q1 P-QN4, 7.B-Q5 P-QB3, 8.B-N3 NxB, 9. RPxN P-Q3, 10. BxN BxB, 11. N-QB3 P-B3, 12. N-B3 P-R4, 13. 0–0 0–0, 14. P-QN4 B-K3, 15. PxP RxP, 16. P-Q4 PxP, 17. NxQP B-Q2, 18. Q-B3 RxR, 19. RxR P-N5, 20. N-R4 Q-R4, 21. N-N3 Q-R4, 22. Q-Q3 B-B5, 23. P-N3 Q-KN4, 24. N-N6 B-K3, 25. N-Q4 B-B2, 26. NxP and Black Resigns.
I wanted to cry. I tried hard! Maybe I could do better the next game.
“C’mon Al,” nudged Louis in a whisper, “let the kid play White this time.” Chuck nodded. I’d never seen them agree on anything. Al winked.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll let him play White this time.”
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Albert Einstein; The Park on a Sunny Afternoon; Bouw Attack. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. Q-R5 N-QB3, 3. Q-Q1 N-B3, 4. N-QB3 B-N5, 5. N-B3 BxN, 6. QPxB NxP, 7. B-QN5 Q-B3, 8. BxN QPxB, 9. 0–0 0–0, 10. R-K1 B-N5, 11. RxN BxN, 12. QxB QxQ, 13. PxQ QR-K1, 14. P-KB4 PxP, 15. RxR RxR, 16. BxP R-K5, 17. BxP R-KN5 ch, 18. B-N3 P-KR4, 19. P-KR4 P-KB4, 20. K-R2 P-B5, 21. BxP RxB, 22. R-Q1 RxBP ch, 23. K-N3 RxP, 24. R-Q8 ch K-B2, 25. R-Q7 ch K-K3, 26. RxQNP P-R4, 27. P-R4 R-Q7, 28. K-B4 R-KB7 ch, 29. K-N5 R-B4 ch, 30. K-N6 R-B5, 31. KxRP RxQRP, 32. RxP K-B3, 33. R-N7 R-KB5, 34. R-N6 R-B4 ch, 35. K-N4 K-K4, 36. RxP R-B5ch, 37. K-N3 R-B2, 38. R-B5ch K-K5, 39. RxP R-B6ch, 40. K-N4 R-B5 ch, 41. K-N3 R-B6 ch, 42. K-N4 R-B5 ch, 43. K-N5 K-B6, 44. P-R5 K-N6, 45. P-N4 R-N5 ch, 46. K-B5 K-R5, 47. P-N5 R-N4ch, 48. K-K4 RxRP, 49. P-B4 K-N6, 50. K-Q3 K-B5, 51. K-B3 K-K5, 52. K-N4 K-Q5, 53. P-N6 R-R2, 54. R-Q5 ch K-K5, 55. K-B5 R-QN2, 56. R-Q8,
Uncle Al turned over his king. I felt like the king of the world! All the next week at school I showed other kids the game where I beat “the smartest man in the world.”
So that’s how it all began. I got hooked. My dad bought me a copy of Horowitz’s The Golden Treasury of Chess and some books by a guy named Fred Reinfeld. I started playing Chuck and Louis. I got better and they took me to some clubs where I met even better players. I even beat some masters.
Chess and dames. If I’d stuck to chess I’d still be in that park playing on sunny afternoons. Chuck died several years later. Then Louis went. Uncle Al told me that Louis died of a broken heart. By that time I understood what he meant.
The sun started to rise in the east. I looked at the water, ugly green with froth of red from the dawn. The morning watch would come on and then I would turn in for a nice kip before the afternoon watch. Tonight would be Havana. My cig burned my fingers.
RRRRRRRRR
I, The Patzer
Havana’s only ninety miles or so from Miami, but you would never know that on the Capablanca. That tub just churned along at about six knots, so it took us all day to reach Cuba. I was glad to be out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement. I also knew that my search for Lucy and Ivan would begin in earnest in this town. I suppose I could just sail the seas forever as Meredith Allen, but somehow spending my life on slow boats to anywhere didn’t appeal to me. Maybe it’s because three-quarters of the world is water.
As we docked the captain called us all on deck for a ship’s parade. He was a tired grey-haired guy who looked like I would if I spent my life at sea. I could see a gold wedding band on his ring finger; I guessed he was married. I turned to A.K. “Is he married?”
A.K. nodded. “Yeah, thirty years married, twenty-nine at sea. Every man should get married. If he marries well he’ll be happy. If he marries poorly he’ll become a sailor,” he shot me a smile, “and I did both!” His laughter boomed just as loud on deck as in the cabins.
“Shut up over there!” squawked the second mate. A younger guy of about thirty, he didn’t sport a wedding ring. Some guys just get lucky.
The captain spoke up. “All right, pipe down. You regular guys know that we generally need a week to get the sugar loaded. This time is just a little different: five days to load. So you guys get five days shore leave. Today’s Tuesday. We ship anchor on Sunday morning, so be on board Saturday midnight. I know that’ll be hard on some of you, so just to motivate you, the first watch on Sunday morning will be made up of the last five guys to get back Saturday night. So stay out if you want--but be sober on Sunday morning or it’ll be your turn to suffer.”
The captain took a few steps back and forth. “Now you regulars know that Cuba lives up to its nickname of ‘the brothel surrounded by the sea.’ I expect you older men to keep the younger men out of trouble. Remember, it’s a long haul down to Rio. Dismissed.”
Lenny came up to us. “What does he mean by a long haul to Rio?”
A.K. grabbed him by the shoulder. “He means that if you get something from someone you shouldn’t be seeing while doing something you shouldn’t be doing in a part of town you shouldn’t be in, you’ll have to live with it until we reach Rio. So don’t do anything that you might regret.”
Lenny looked puzzled. “Huh?” A.K. laughed his Bofors laugh.
I pulled Lenny away. “Don’t worry about him, kid. I know just the place for you. I’ll take you there tonight. What about you, A.K.? You going to see the missus?”
“Maybe. I’ll see if I can catch a quick ride in the harbor. Five days is a little short, but I think I can make it. You and Lenny have a good time.”
Lenny and I went below to clean up--at least he did. I’d grown some whiskers and I thought they might make for a good disguise. I didn’t like the amount of grey that showed up, but that worked for me. It made me look older than my years, so with a little luck any eager-beaver cop wouldn’t look twice. I showered and put on an old shirt--where we were going, it didn’t pay to wear your Sunday best. Lenny came in with a similar outfit. I’d warned him not to dress up.
We went down the gangplank to Havana harbor. We immediately passed a paper kiosk. I glanced at the titles. All Spanish locals. No news about me. With any luck I could get by here without any one reading about me in the paper. We caught a cab and set out across town to the Club de Ajedrez en Aldea Viejo--The Old Village Chess Club.
Not many players know of this club, except for Cubans who like their gambits hot, their coffee hotter, and their women hottest of all. Although just about anything goes in Havana, there are some things that are better left unsaid, even in the company of this club’s customers. You could get anything you wanted here, for a price, of course. At the Old Village there weren’t no free lunch, and for damn sure no free funeral.
We went in the entrance of this tumbledown Spanish villa. It must have been something back in colonial times; I once counted fifty bedrooms and four kitchens. Behind the club sprawled the worn-out soil from a tobacco plantation; this used to be the big house of that operation. In the distance was the slave’s cemetery, only it didn’t hold just slaves--not anymore.
Lenny gaped at all the girls. “I ain’t seen so many hot tamales in one place in my entire life! This place is a like a greenhouse for tomatoes!”
I smiled. I knew this would be Lenny’s reaction. “Alejandro imports the girls from orphanages all over the Americas. Blondes from Boston, black girls from Trinidad, Spanish girls from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico, Italian and German girls from Argentina, Indian girls from Brazil, French girls from Quebec. They do everything here. They tend bar, they brew beer, they waitress, they run the distillery, they keep the books, they run the restaurant. The only thing they don’t do is keep the peace. He does that himself, him and his boys.”
I knew the owner, a big bluff guy known only as Alejandro. He stood about six-two and weighed three hundred pounds, mostly muscle and all of it quick. His chess nickname was “Fat Lightning,“ and the girls who waited on his table all wore a sky blue jumper, worked with a gold lightning bolt. I worked for him once for several months, yet even still I didn’t know his last name, and in this place you never asked for last names and you never gave any. Lenny and I drifted over to watch him demolish the locals in some five minute games.
White: Jose Jimenez; Black: “Fat Lightning”; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; Greco-Latvian Counter Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 P-KB4, 3. B-B4 PxP, 4. NxP Q-N4, 5. N-B7 QxNP, 6. R-B1 P-Q4, 7. BxP N-KB3, 8. NxR B-KR6, 9.B-B4 N-B3, 10.P-QB3 N-K4, 11.P-Q4 0–0–0, 12. B-K2 N-B6ch, 13. BxN QxRch, 14. K-Q2 QxPch, 15. B-K2 P-K6 ch, 16. K-B2 B-KB4 ch, 17. K-N3 B-K3 ch, 18. P-B4 B-QB4, 19. P-Q5 NxP, 20. B-N4 N-B5, 21. BxB ch NxB, 22. Q-N4 Q-B3, 23. N-B3 K-N1, 24. N-K4 Q-Q5, 25. P-QR3 Q-Q6 ch, 26. K-R2 QxBP ch, 27. P-N3 R-Q7 ch, 28. B-N2 RxB ch, 29. KxR B-Q5 ch, 30. K-N1 QxPch, 31. K-B1 B-N7ch, 32. K-N1 BxP mate.
White: “Fat Lightning”; Black: Jose Jimenez; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; King’s Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 B-K2, 4. B-B4 B-R5 ch, 5. P-N3 PxP, 6. 0–0 PxP ch, 7. K-R1 B-B3, 8. N-K5 BxN, 9. Q-R5 Q-K2, 10. RxP Q-B4, 11. R-B8 ch K-K2, 12. P-Q4 QxP, 13. B-KN5ch N-B3, 14. BxNch PxB, 15. Q-B7ch K-Q3, 16. N-B3 RxR, 17. QxR ch K-B3, 18. Q-N4 P-Q4, 19. B-N5ch K-N3, 20. N-R4 mate.
White: Jose Jimenez; Black: “Fat Lightning”; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; Greco-Latvian Counter Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. B-B4 P-KB4, 3. N-KB3 PxP, 4. NxP Q-N4, 5. P-Q4 QxP, 6. Q-R5 ch P-N3, 7. B-B7 ch K-Q1, 8. BxP QxR ch, 9. K-K2 QxB, 10. N-B7 ch K-K1, 11. NxRch PxB, 12. QxPch K-Q1, 13. QxN Q-B5, 14. N-N6 Q-B6ch, 15. K-K1 K-K1, 16. N-K5 Q-B4, 17. N-QB3 P-B3, 18. NxKP QxN(5)ch, 19. K-B1 Q-R8 ch, 20. K-K2 Q-Q4 21. Q-N6 ch K-Q1, 22. N-B7ch K-B2, 23. Q-N3ch B-Q3, 24. NxB QxN, 25. P-KR4 QxQ, 26. PxQ P-Q4, 27. R-KB1 B-N5ch, 28. K-K3 N-Q2, 29.R-B7, and White Resigns.
White: “Fat Lightning”; Black: Jose Jimenez; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; King’s Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 B-K2, 4. B-B4 B-R5 ch, 5. P-N3 PxP, 6. 0–0 PxP ch, 7. K-R1 N-KR3, 8. P-Q4 P-Q4, 9. BxP B-R6, 10. BxN BxR, 11. QxB P-QB3, 12. BxKBP ch K-K2, 13.BxP B-B3, 14. BxBch KxB(3), 15. N-K5ch K-K2 16. Q-B2 K-Q3, 17. Q-B4 K-B2, 18. N-B4ch K-B1, 19.B-K6ch N-Q2, 20.N-Q6ch K-B2, 21.N-B7ch, and Black Resigns.
White: Jose Jimenez; Black: “Fat Lightning”; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; Greco-Latvian Counter Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 P-KB4, 3. B-B4 P-QN4, 4. B-N3 PxP, 5. NxP Q-N4, 6. N-B7 QxNP, 7. R-B1 P-Q4, 8. Q-R5 N-KB3, 9. Q-K5 ch KxN, 10. BxP ch NxB, 11. QxNch B-K3, 12. QxR B-QB4, 13. N-B3 P-B3, 14. N-K2 B-KR6, 15. N-N3 B-Q3, 16. QxRPch N-Q2, 17. P-Q3 BxN, 18. RPxB QxRch, 19. K-Q2 PxP, 20. PxP R-K1, 21. P-R4 P-N5, 22. K-B2 B-B4, 23. Q-Q4 N-K4, and White Resigns.
White: “Fat Lightning”; Black: Jose Jimenez; Five Minute Match; Havana, Cuba; King’s Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 B-K2, 4. B-B4 B-R5 ch, 5. P-N3 PxP, 6. 0–0 PxP ch, 7. K-R1 P-Q4, 8. BxP N-KB3, 9. N-B3 NxB, 10. NxN B-R6, 11. NxB BxR, 12. Q-N4 0–0, 13.N-B5 P-KN3, 14.N(B)-K7ch K-R1, 15.P-N3 N-Q2, 16.B-N2ch P-B3, 17. RxB P-B3, 18. QxN QxQ, 19. RxP P-KR4, 20.R-B7 mate.
To be on the safe side I took Lenny aside for a short discussion of the difference between a wise man and a wiseacre. I ordered two steins of El Jefe beer, the club’s brand. I leaned over to Lenny and spoke to him in a voice that was quieter than the grave.
“Lenny,” I began, “this is one of the toughest joints in the Americas. You gotta handle yourself smart in here. Don’t ask any questions and don’t start any arguments. If you hear a raised voice, head for the door.”
Lenny smiled. “I been in tough joints before, Meredith. I know you think I’m a greenhorn and a sugarfoot, but I can handle myself.” Then, quick as lightning, he reached up behind his head and whipped out a knife from behind his head. It made a sharp zing as it sang through the air. He buried the point in the table between my finger and thumb. No one in the place even looked up.
“And what,” I asked, “is that?”
“I bought it in Tijuana. It’s made from railroad iron a hundred years old. It’s called a ‘Tijuana Stiletto,’ and its sharp on both edges and its got a very sharp point. But it’s brittle. If you stick a guy you can either pull it out real slick or break it off inside. Either way is unpleasant.”
“How do you know this, Lenny?”
“This is my third one. I got two broke-off handles at home.”
Lenny stowed his knife back behind his head. I knew that old trick; you could get at the knife with either hand. I waited until he settled down then I grabbed him by the collar real quick.
“Listen!” I hissed. “This ain’t some sailor bar where you can carve up a rummy and nobody cares. In this joint people can hold grudges. Mess with these people and you might find yourself out in that slave cemetery with some other unwise guys who thought this was a dive like any other. You keep that blade in the sheath.”
Lenny glared at me, then he calmed down as I did. He looked closely at me with a bit of sneer. I could tell he was angry.
“How come you know so much about this joint?”
I shifted in my seat. “I worked here back in ‘41, before Pearl Harbor. But the story goes back to ‘21. Alejandro was a young man, a student at the University of Santiago. His favorite professor was Pedro Alcantar. Everybody just called him ‘Don Pedro,’ as he was so cultured. He taught Spanish Literature, and Alejandro worked on a thesis comparing Don Quixote and El Cid. Alejandro had to quit before he received his degree, as his father died. Alejandro came here to manage the family tobacco plantation, which you can see went to ruin long before.
“Alejandro saw how things were with the bootleggers, so he set up a distillery here on the plantation, a brewery too. He shipped out to the U.S. and made a fortune. He also came to work with men you don’t want to know, and his plantation became the citadel of sin that you see today.
“In ‘28 Don Pedro died suddenly from a stroke. It turned out he was heavily in debt to loansharks. The money went to pay for his wife’s treatment. She’s crazy as a bedbug in a mattress that’s on fire, so Don Pedro quietly committed her to a private sanitarium. He also left behind two orphan girls, seven year old twins, named Alma and Blanca.
“Don Pedro had no other relatives, so Alejandro paid his debts, though he had to ‘negotiate’ with a few of the sharks. He took the girls as his wards, and hired two elderly women to raise them in a cottage on the back forty, away from here, of course.
“Then he sent the girls to a first class finishing school for proper young ladies. The headmistress knew Don Pedro and was glad to help out. The girls learned formal Spanish and French, plus poetry and music and the ‘art of conversation.’ It was the last that caused all the trouble.
“When the girls came home they were firm with Alejandro. ‘We will not accept your charity any longer. We insist you find us proper work.’ Prohibition ended in ‘33, so that money train sank beneath the Caribbean. He turned the thought over in his head for several days until he hit on it.
“Every night several barflies come in here from the cultured part of town. These guys are newspaper editors, art critics, music teachers, that sort. They come down here to slum. They had the will to work hard to become great artists, but they lacked talent. So they married the dimwitted daughters of wealthy men who wanted to add ‘class’ to the family. These guys came in complaining ‘my wife just doesn’t understand me.’ That’s when Alejandro hit on his plan.
“He installed Alma and Blanca upstairs in one of the spacious rooms, which he covered in fine red damask and furnished with some Chippendale chairs and tables. The girls would entertain these men, playing the piano, reciting poetry, trading witty banter. Blanca played music very well, but it was Alma who held up the conversations. She liked to say that she could ’get to a man’s innermost thoughts.’ The men were happy and paid plenty for the girls’ company. He told the men that there was to be no hanky-panky with the girls, and when Alejandro tells you to do something, well, you do it.
“It all went okay until ‘41: the girls entertained, the men paid, and Alejandro put their money aside as a dowry. Alejandro hired me to do…inventory. There was this one goon who starting coming in. He was one of Franco’s thugs, sent over as ‘cultural attache’ to the Spanish Embassy in Havana. Supposedly he was to spy on American sailors, get information, and send it back to Spain, where Franco would pass it on to the Nazis. In fact he was sent to spy on the Ambassador, an older man who had served Alphonso XIII, the last king of Spain. He served as Ambassador to the United States, and Franco didn’t trust him, and for good reason, ‘cause he hated Franco. He and the other monarchists thought Franco would restore the dynasty, but he didn’t. So Franco sent this bullyboy to watch the Ambassador.
“It was a bad move. The bullyboy was a sadist and very good at pulling out fingernails and things like that, but spying was as beyond him as calculus is beyond a cow. He liked violence and inflicting pain, and he would come down here for a good bar fight. Alejandro tolerated him because he could bill the Spanish embassy for any damage. I mean, double-bill.
“One night he snuck upstairs to see Alma and Blanca. When the girls told him what they offered he got real mad and tore several pages from one of Alma’s books of poetry. That book belonged to Alma’s mother, and the girls loved their mother intensely, because she missed most of their lives in the sanitarium. So Alma lost it and slapped the thug. He hauled off and smacked her a good one across the face, along with a few more to spice up his jollies. Blanca screamed, and he whirled around and started toward her to beat her too. But when he turned his back Alma found her way to ‘his innermost thoughts,’ using a fireplace poker.
“I’m in the next room and I hear a ruckus, then a scream, then three thuds, then silence. I picked up a rod and then burst in on the girls. Alejandro came up the stairs like a bolt of lightning and ran right to the room. We saw the scene all splayed out: Alma in one corner with a giant welt on her face, Blanca in another, terrified. On the floor was the mug, five foot five if he was an inch, two hundred fifty pounds if he was an ounce, with a fireplace poker sticking out of the back of his skull. Alejandro quickly closed the door.
“He said something in Spanish to the girls and they hustled out. He turned to me and pointed to my heater and said ‘put that away.’ Then he plucked out the poker and rolled up the hood in the Moroccan carpet he fell on. It wasn’t quite long enough for him, so his feet stuck out. That’s one thing I’ll never forget. That guy had the ugliest shoes.
“Alejandro motioned to his feet and I picked him up by one end and Alejandro by the other. We lugged him down the back stairs. Just then Blanca appeared with two bottles of whisky. Alma then drove up in the torpedo’s car, a ‘39 Benz with the Spanish flags on it, showing it was a diplomatic car. Suddenly a police captain walked out of the back door. ‘What is going on here?’ he asked us.
“Alejandro didn’t turn a hair. ‘He overindulged. He has a splitting headache. We are taking him back to the embassy.’
“The captain harrumphed and went back inside. We hustled the stiff into the trunk and took off. We got to a long, steep hill overlooking a public park. At the bottom of the hill, in the middle of the park, stood several large granite blocks, a sort of rock garden. Alejandro stripped him of everything of value and handed it to me. He then poured the whisky all over the guy, really dousing him. Alejandro propped up him behind the wheel, then we pushed the car downhill. It picked up speed and made a nice smash against the rocks.
“Alejandro paid off the coroner to rule the death ‘due to automobile accident.’ He later told us the story of the Ambassador and the First Secretary. They came down to examine the body. The first secretary was an ardent Fascist, and he exploded when he saw the body. ‘Clearly the coroner is an idiot!’ he shouted. ‘The fatal wound is in the back of the head! How can that be caused by an accident!’ The Ambassador coolly responded ‘He must have been driving backward when he crashed.’ He fixed the First Secretary with a cold patrician glare, and the Fascist glared back with savage hate. They both knew the plug-ugly had been killed, maybe murdered. The First Secretary was a True Believer and wanted to make a stink, but he knew the Ambassador could have him shipped off to some place where they didn’t like Fascists, some place like the Spanish Sahara. So he kept his mouth shut and the whole thing blew over.”
Lenny sat back, his face pale as Klansman’s sheet. He thought for a moment. “What became of the girls?”
“Alejandro is a peculiar chess player. He either plays correspondence or speed chess, nothing in between. He plays guys all over the world by mail, including some guys in Spain. He arranged for the girls to marry two young Navarrese noblemen, which wasn’t hard with their dowries.”
Lenny looked at my sideways. “What became of the heavy’s stuff? You said Alejandro gave it to you.”
I shifted again. “He told me to make it disappear, and if it turned up it was my neck. So I got rid of it but good.”
Lenny nodded. I leaned forward.
“Lenny, I got to do some things here in Havana. I want you to stay here until about midnight, then catch a cab back to the ship. You’ll find plenty here to keep you entertained. One thing: do not drink anything but beer. If anyone wants you to try a drink with some kind of astronomical name, like a ‘Venus and Mars’ or a ‘Zenith and Zodiac,’ just say no.”
“Why?” asked Lenny.
“Because those drinks are compounded with belladonna and other hallucinogens. They give them to new customers to try and get them to do stupid things for public entertainment. I was here once when they got an Ivy League student to chug something called a ‘Jupiter Rising.’ They got him up on the stage about a half-hour later doing things you’d rather not see. So just stick to the beer.”
Lenny nodded. I pushed up from the table and went to the desk. In addition to providing all sorts of services, the front desk kept a safe-deposit box vault for employees, valued customers, and ‘business acquaintances.’ I stepped up to the girl, a short buxom blonde from Quebec. I pulled out my key ring and took off a key embossed with the number ‘64.’ I slid it across the desk. With a “Oui, Monsieur,” the blonde disappeared into the back and came out a moment later with my box. I took it into the privacy closet and locked the door behind me.
I opened my box. Nothing in it had changed since ‘41. Perfect. I took out the contents: a bag with several gold and silver coins; a thick wad of Cuban currency; a set of Cuban identity papers; a knuckle-duster; a French Foreign Legion combat dagger; a derringer, caliber .45; and the prize of the lot, a Colt 1911 .45 automatic, the serial numbers etched off with acid. That Spanish goon was a meathead, but he knew his weapons, and his masters knew their business when it came to fake papers and untraceable weapons. I put on the shoulder holster and fitted in the Colt, then slipped my jacket over it. I put the currency in my front pocket, putting some aside for a new drop wallet, along with the fake papers. I put the dagger and the derringer back in the box along with the gold and the knuckle-duster. I might need them later, but for now they stay here; I didn’t want to be weighed down with too many weapons. What I needed I could buy. In the village they want information, and by hook or by crook they get it. If anyone in Havana knew he dirt on Lucy and Ivan, I’d find them here, in the village.
I came out and saw that Lenny had drifted over to the chess tables and was playing some guy for money. They had the clocks set for a long game, so Lenny had settled in. I was sure to see the game later. But now I had to hop off on my own errands about the village.
I, The Patzer
I tried to stroll out of the Old Village club without attracting much notice. With all of Fat Lightning’s girls around it wasn’t difficult. I got onto the street and turned off toward the big city. The Old Village catered to all sorts. There were several other cafes, but only Fat Lightning brought in the chess players. Other cafes had poets, live music, and entertainments not found in even the seediest quarters of American cities. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing between the chess players and the nonplayers in the Old Village. The players were called ‘squares’, who in turn called the nonplayers ‘rounds.’ Five doors down from Fat Lightning’s a young chess player was trying to pick up a waitress from a ‘round’ café. A crowd of café workers were waiting for their pay, as this was payday at this café. I could just overhear the lug’s line; he needed a new variation if this was his main line.
The girl tried to turn him away diplomatically. “Why are you chess players so special?”
“Well,” the patzer began, “A round’s love isn’t like a square’s love…”
Just then a loud vicious blast tore through the street and I lost everything in a blinding flash of light. It hit so quick I didn’t even have time for my life to pass before my eyes before I lost consciousness. When I came to the street had more raw meat strewn about than a Kansas City slaughterhouse. The air stank of burnt metal. I knew at once that a bomb had torn apart the Old Village. Screams began to rend the air. Sirens wailed in a distance. I tried to get up but my whole body ached. I checked and saw that I wasn’t bleeding and nothing was broken though I felt like a giant bruise. Just as I got to my feet two huge boys from the Guardo Civil hauled me off my feet and then threw me none too gently into a giant paddy wagon. My head reeled as I was about to pass out again; I looked back at the café; neither the patzer nor the waitress would ever again worry about comparing the love of squares and rounds.
When I woke again I found myself slumped against a wall in a cell in the Havana carcel. A tiny window with bars admitted enough light to tease a man’s sense of freedom like a pair of shapely gams in fishnet stockings tease something else. The room was packed with Cuban men. I could tell at a glance that none of these jamokes planted the bomb. Waiters, cooks, delivery boys, piano players, piano tuners, piano movers, and every type of working class slob filled that cell, fifty men in a room designed for twenty-four. You could tell because there were only eight bunks; Cuban prisons expected the prisoners to sleep in three shifts. This kind of hot-racking didn’t keep down the crime rate, though it did provide a feast for bedbugs. The toilet in the cell wasn’t broke because there wasn’t one. A stench emanated from a too-full object mercifully hidden from my eyes.
My Spanish is lousy, and I didn’t want to give away that I was an American. With any luck they might take me for a wandering tourist and let me go. I put my aching head back and prayed for unconsciousness. My prayers weren’t answered.
I had five days to search for Lucy and Ivan. I spent one day getting down to the village and wising up Lenny about the ways of Havana, then fishing out my needful things from the safe deposit box. It took only ten minutes to blow several innocent souls into eternity and land my sorry soul in this jug. For three more days I sat in that cell as the sad sacks got sacked. The screws came and took them out, each ’suspect’ looking more scared than the last. They never came back. As I didn’t hear any shots from a firing squad I guessed the bosses figured out what I could tell from the first; these guys didn’t know a bomb from the Hope Diamond.
The cell dwindled down to just me and four other guys. We each had a bunk and the stench got weaker. We found that by bribing the guards to keep the west door open in the morning a strong breeze pulled through the cell from the small window. The cell smelled almost merely nauseating.
Early on the fourth day the turnkey turned me out of my bunk. “Eh Jefe,” he grunted in accented English, “there’s a lawyer waiting to talk to you.”
A lawyer? Who would get me a lawyer? I hadn’t contacted the embassy--I didn’t want anyone there to know I was in Cuban custody, as they might want to ship back to the states to find justice in the electric chair. No one on the ship knew I was here; Lenny maybe. Maybe he pieced it together. If so I owed that rube.
The guard took me to a room with a window with a view of the bay. An electric fan moved the air around briskly; it was nice in there. The room boasted the presence of a big fat bald man who looked like Sidney Greenstreet, only without any of the charm, athletic build, limited hair, charisma or sex appeal. He mopped his giant globe of a skull with an handkerchief that once upon a time was white. He looked up at me with the leering grin of a junkyard dog eyeing a raw beefsteak.
“My name is Sean D. Andrew. You can call me Sean.” He put out a giant paw that dripped all sorts of drops that left stains on the wood table. That’s when I noticed that the table hosted a cheap wood set of men and a board. My attorney was a chess player. That’s when it hit me: Fat Lightning. He hired the lawyer.
Sean withdrew his paw after a moment; I got the idea that holding out his hand for a handshake pushed the limits of his exercise regimen. I sat down opposite him with the door to my back. This gave me the Black pieces. “So what’s an American shyster doing in Havana?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I came for the dry climate.”
I knitted my brows. “Havana is on the sea. This is one of the wettest climates in the world.”
He shrugged again. “I found out on my arrival that I was misinformed.” He shifted in his chair, which protested under his elephantine weight. He gazed at me through his pince-nez glasses and studied me. “Where you from, son?” he asked.
“I’m not from Havana. Where are you from?”
“New Orleans. What are you charged with, son?”
“I have no idea. Aren’t you here to represent me?”
He shrugged
again. “I can play either side of the board. What are you doing in
Havana?”
“What are you doing here if you are not my lawyer?”
“Do you answer
every question with a question?”
“What do you think I am, a philosopher?”
He shifted again. Again the chair groaned with despair, as though it foreknew its end as a pile of firewood in a few moments. He leaned forward and picked up a pawn.
“I like to play chess when working on a case. It helps me to think in circles, don’t you know?” He pushed his move out and looked up again through his pince-nez. “Your move.” I reached out for a Black chess man.
White: Sean Andrew; Black: Charley Applegate; Havana Carcel; Caro-Kann Defense. 1.P-K4 P-QB3, 2. N-QB3 P-Q4, 3. N-B3 B-N5, 4. P-KR3 BxN, 5. QxB N-B3, 6. P-Q3 P-K3, 7. B-Q2 QN–Q2, 8. P-KN4 P-KN3, 9. B-N2 B-Q3, 10. PxP BPxP, 11. Q-K2 Q-N3, 12. P-N5 P-Q5, 13. PxN PxN, 14. BxBP B-N5, 15. BxB QxBch, 16. P-B3 Q-N3, 17. 0–0–0 NxP, 18.Q-K5 K-K2, 19.P-Q4 KR–Q1, 20.P-Q5 R-Q3, 21.PxP RxP, 22.Q-Q4 QxQ, 23. RxQ R-QN1, 24. R(1)–Q1 P-N3, 25. B-B1 R-QB1, 26. B-Q3 R-B4, 27. K-B2 R(3)-K4, 28. R-KB4 R-B2, 29. R-Q4 N-R4, 30. P-KR4 N-N2, 31. R-KN1 N-K3, 32. R-K4 RxR, 33. BxR R-B4, 34. B-Q3 N-B5, 35. B-K4 R-K4, 36. B-B3 N-R6, 37. R-N4 NxP, 38. R-QB4 R-KB4, 39. B-N7 K-Q3, and White Resigns.
Sean grunted. “You beat me like a carpet, you cleaned me like a crockpot, you drained me like a swamp. Let’s turn around and see how you do on the White side. You game?”
“Sure,” I replied. The room beat the cell like, well, a carpet. I picked up the king’s pawn and pushed it.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Sean Andrew; Havana Carcel; Caro-Kann Defense. 1. P-K4 P-QB3, 2. N-QB3 P-Q4, 3. N-B3 PxP, 4. NxP N-B3, 5. NxNch KPxN, 6. P-Q4 B-Q3, 7. B-Q3 0–0, 8. B-K3 R-K1, 9. Q-Q2 B-K3, 10. P-B3 N-Q2, 11. 0–0 Q-B2, 12. P-KR3 QR-Q1, 13. Q-B2 P-KN3, 14. P-B4 N-B1, 15. B-Q2 Q-B1, 16. N-K1 B-N1, 17. B-B3 P-KN4, 18. Q-Q1 N-N3, 19. Q-R5 B-B4, 20. BxB QxB, 21. P-KN3 B-B2, 22. N-N2 R-K5, 23. N-K3 Q-Q2, 24. N-N4 RxN, 25. QxR Q-Q3, 26. QR-Q1 P-KR3, 27. P-R3 P-QR4, 28. KR-K1 K-N2, 29. Q-B5 R-KR1, 30. P-Q5 B-N3, 31. K-N2 P-R4, 32. R-K6 PxR, 33. QxBPch K-R3, 34. Q-N7 mate.
I set up the pieces and Andrew leaned forward. “How long you been in Havana…..Charley?”
I played it calm. I sat up and looked at him with a straight face. “What makes you think my name‘s Charley?”
He pulled out a wanted flyer with my photo on it. “I guess you’re just a dead ringer for this Charley fellow then, aren’t you?” He looked at me with his dead eyes through the lenses of his pince-nez. I kept calm. “What’s your real name, son?”
“My real name is….” suddenly my mind went blank. I hadn’t seen the phony papers for nearly a week. I couldn’t remember my new fake name.
“Is it Raul Girlajva?” I smiled. I wasn’t going to fall for that old trap.
He sighed. “Let’s play another game while we think this over. I’ll take White.”
White: Sean Andrew; Black: Charley Applegate; Havana Carcel; Caro-Kann Defense. 1. P-K4 P-QB3, 2. N-QB3 P-Q4, 3. N-B3 P-Q5, 4. N-K2 P-QB4, 5. N-N3 N-QB3, 6. B-B4 P-K4, 7. P-Q3 B-K2, 8. 0–0 N-B3, 9. N-N5 0–0, 10. P-B4 P-KR3, 11. N-B3 PxP, 12. B(1)xP N-QR4, 13. Q-Q2 NxB, 14. PxN B-K3, 15. P-N3 N-R2, 16. QR-K1 P-KN4, 17. P-KR4 PxB, 18. QxBP K-R1, 19. N-R5 R-KN1, 20. QxRP BxRP, 21. Q-B4 BxR, 22. Q-K5ch P-B3, 23. QxB B-N6, 24. P-K5 Q-QB1, 25. Q-Q5 Q-N5, 26. NxB QxN(N), 27. R-B2 N-N4, 28. NxN RxN, 29. RxP Q-K8ch, 30. R-B1 Q-K6ch, and White Resigns.
“Why that’s another fine one for you, Charley,” he oozed.
Again I didn’t fall for it. “What makes you think my name’s Charley?” I repeated.
At this point he pulled out my fake papers and slapped them energetically on the table. The chair wailed aloud from the torque of his tidal bottom. “These were taken from you. Do you recognize them?”
I made no move but waited instead. I turned the chessboard around and set up the men, taking Black again. I now knew this guy was a paid stooge of the Cuban government or the Havana police; Lenny and Fat Lightning no more knew I was here then they knew the back side of the moon. I had to be cagey. Havana and Cuba were both corrupt to the core; I could always bribe my way out. The more I gave away the higher the bribe, I reckoned. Of course, maybe they wanted me to pay with something other than cash.
“Should I?”
Andrew had lost his train of thought. “Should you what?” Getting out of this seemed a lot easier than I imagined.
“Should I take Black again?”
“Will you play
the Two Knights variation of the Caro-Kann as you did last time?”
“Shall we find out?” He smiled an oleaginous smile and pushed his king’s pawn forward two squares.
White: Sean Andrews; Black: Charley Applegate; Havana Carcel; Caro-Kann Defense. 1. P-K4 P-QB3, 2. N-QB3 P-Q4, 3. N-B3 B-N5, 4.P-KR3 BxN, 5. QxB N-B3, 6. P-Q3 P-K3, 7. B-K2 QN–Q2, 8. Q-N3 P-KN3, 9. 0–0 B-N2, 10. B-B4 Q-N3, 11. QR-N1 0–0, 12. B-B7 Q-Q5, 13. B-B3 P-K4, 14. B-Q6 KR-K1, 15. B-R3 PxP, 16. PxP P-QN4, 17. KR-Q1 Q-N3, 18. P-N3 N-B4, 19. B-B1 Q-B2, 20. B-K3 N-K3, 21. P-QR4 P-QR3, 22. P-N4 QR-Q1, 23. B-K2 Q-K2, 24. PxP RPxP, 25. RxR RxR, 26. B-N6 R-R1, 27. P-B3 R-R6, 28. Q-K1 B-R3, 29. B-B1 N-Q5, 30. B-B5 Q-K3, 31. B-Q3 N-Q2, 32. BxN PxB, 33. N-K2 B-K6 ch, 34. K-R1 N-K4, 35. Q-KB1 Q-Q3, 36. P-KB4 NxB, 37. PxN RxP, 38. Q-B3 R-Q7, 39. R-KB1 QxNP, 40. P-K5 Q-B5, 41. N-N3 R-QB7, 42. P-B5 R-B8, 43. P-K6 PxKP, 44. PxNP RxR ch, 45. NxR PxP, 46. Q-B6 P-N5, 47. K-R2 P-N4, 48. NxB PxN, 49. QxNP ch K-B2, 50. QxP P-N6, 51. Q-K5 P-B4, 52. Q-B7 ch K-N3, 53. Q-N8 K-B4, 54. Q-KB8ch K-K5, 55. Q-B6 Q-Q4, 56. Q-KB3ch K-Q5, 57. Q-Q1ch K-K4, 58. Q-K2 ch K-Q3, 59. Q-R6 ch K-K2, 60. Q-R7 ch K-B3, 61. Q-R7 Q-K4ch, 62. K-R1 P-N7, and White Resigns.
Andrew let out a sigh. “Boy, you done whipped me like cream, rooted me like beer, squeezed me like a tomato. I guess I just can’t get anything out of you.” At that he picked up his men, his board, and my fake documents. He heaved his massive bulk upward, like whale beaching himself. He sauntered--believe it or not--toward the door and rapped. The guard let him out.
“What about my case?” I asked.
“That’s one question you’ll have to answer yourself, won’t you?” He smiled as he left.
The guard returned me to my stinking cell.
I, The Patzer
I sat in my cell for an eternity. In Cuban jails that runs about an hour. The cell door slammed open and the chief jailer called me out. I noticed all week that when this happened the ‘suspect’ didn’t return. I resigned myself to being shipped to another hole worse than this one.
The guard guided me down a long dark hallway that smelled fragrant, even sweet. As my eyes adjusted to the fading light of sunset I realized that on my right a lattice of filigree iron, dating back to the days of Spanish rule, shielded an elaborate flower garden. Inmates of the jail tended the flowers. I envied them their daily escape from the cells.
A very heavy oaken door, engraved with Classical images of crime and punishment, barred our path. The guard picked up a knocker that incorporated the boulder of the Myth of Sisyphus and banged loudly. A muffled cry came from within. The guard swung the door open and I stepped into a palatial office that would have made Croesus cry with envy.
I stood on a rich Persian rug worked deeply and richly with the gorgeous imaging of the ancient Shahs of that legendary land--two rampant peacocks stood as guardians of a great empty throne surmounted by the glittering outline of a golden crown. A teak desk from the South Seas stretched a full nine feet long and four deep, accented with the erotic images of those exotic islands set intaglio into the front; the corners glittered with the gold and silver inlays intertwined about rubies and emeralds. Damask curtains hung behind the open window while an electric fan coursed above, moving the fresh sea air from the window in a comforting breeze. Chairs matching the ornate desk flanked the desk, with an even larger, throne-like chair with a carved rampant falcon poised above it. I strongly suspected that these rich furnishings were left behind by the Spanish when they split in ‘98.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a hand wave; the guard disappeared, closing the door behind him. I turned and my blood ran cold. There, at a chess set of Moorish design, sat two men I knew, one barely, the other all too well.
The man I barely knew was Andrew. Fat Sean overflowed from a chair that had clearly been reinforced to support his gargantuan bulk. He didn’t concern me. It was the other man who scared me.
I recognized him right away. We served together during the war--if ‘served’ is the right word. He was Egil Egilsson, the Icelandic wonder. Six foot six in his bare feet, he could swim in ice-cold water that would kill an ordinary man. He got a bachelor’s degree from Edinburgh in foreign languages, a master’s degree from the University of Louvain in history and a doctorate in law from the Sorbonne. He was a classmate of Alekhine, and he not only shared Alekhine’s height and gift for languages, he could play chess quite strongly--he could draw about three games in five with Alekhine in speed chess. He also shared Alekhine’s complete amorality. He would do anything for money, but unlike Alekhine he lusted after power and younger women.
Egilsson sat, smoking a Chesterfield cigarette with the aloof coolness of a Frenchman; all the while he read my fake documents. A light blue cloud of cigarette smoke drifted hazily upward until the draft of the punkha fan stirred into a very thin circular cloud near the ceiling. I noticed through the cloud the elaborate woodwork of the ceiling, cut into the form of pineapples and other strange fruit. More work left from the Spanish; it was too delicate to wrench loose from the ceiling.
Andrew sweated like plow horse pulling through a Georgia rice field. The psychological atmosphere made the room positively cool, so I guessed that Andrew had failed to elicit from me the information Egilsson sought. Andrew sweated from fear of what Egilsson might do. I knew from first-hand experience that he might do anything. Once, in a Dakar speakeasy, I saw him take on several Vichyite Foreign Legionaries, leaving three of them with broken bones. He was sober and they were drunk, and he could have easily left those drunk slobs by simply walking away. He clobbered them and crippled the trio just to feel the power rush.
A smile worked across Egilsson’s face. This usually meant something bad. Andrew became to quake, like a ludicrous out-of-season Santa Claus. He clearly lived in fear of Egilsson; he must have learned of Egilsson’s character in the same way I did, from some frightening eyewitness events.
Egilsson looked up at me and then at Andrew. “Sean,” he began, “first you told me this man was a Brazilian negro midget with red hair and false teeth. Then you told me he was a Puerto Rican basketball star seven feet tall. I see a middle-aged man American man with a receding hairline and expanding waistline. How do you explain your misexplanations?”
Andrew shrugged, which is akin to watching sea lion lurching up a beach. “I don’t play Boy Scout and measure them.”
“What was the result of your chess interrogation?”
Andrew shrugged again. “I got nothing. He was stewin’ me like an oyster, he was pluckin’ me like a chicken, he was shuckin’ me like corn; I was trying to see if this cat was kosher, you know?”
Egilsson smiled again. Andrew visibly relaxed. I gathered he crossed some kind of threshold; he stood on safe ground again with Egilsson. Andrew sighed and mopped his totally bald head. He picked up a glass that I saw contained lemonade and took a long pull. Then I remembered why Egilsson was always sober: a complete teetotaler he shunned alcohol for he hated its disinhibiting effects. A true controller he always sought total control.
Egilsson flicked off his ash and put another question to Andrew. “Did you win any games?”
Andrew sighed. “Not a one. I could have beat him with a chain but not a chessboard full of men.”
Egilsson stood up, his tall spare frame clothed in sharp white dress shirt and perfectly pressed pair of pants, light tan in color. The matching tan jacket hung across the back of a chair. His black leather shoes shone brightly. He stubbed out his cigarette, took out a silver case from his jacket and drew another. He despised packages of cigarettes; they were too low-class for him; nevertheless he favored Chesterfields. As he tapped the unlit butt to compact the loose tobacco he turned to Andrew.
“You may leave, Sean.”
Andrew threw his fantastic proportions onto his feet and almost cantered from the room. For a man who closely resembled a beached whale he sure was light on his feet. I later learned the he regularly won the Havana Social Club’s Ballroom Dance Competition.
Egilsson motioned me towards the chess table. With some hesitation I strolled over and sat down in Andrew’s chair. I found myself with the White pieces. Evidently Egilsson had some special expectation for my play. I imagined he wanted to try my Two Knights’ line against the Caro-Kann. He probably waited with some counterline that would bust me over and over again. I didn’t put psychological torture past Egilsson.
Egilsson smoked as he sat down. He eyed me from his lofty height. “When I saw you in the cell I knew at once that you were the owner of these false papers. I am rather glad that you unearthed them. It solves a minor mystery concerning the death of a representative of Franco’s regime. He was found without his papers, though it was known that he kept several sets of false identities. Most were recovered from his so-called safe house; what an amateur. Who in his right mind sets up a safe house in a convent?” Egilsson smiled with contempt. “It seems that he died performing acrobatics while driving.”
I sat there and said nothing. I knew that with Egilsson it paid dividends to say as little as possible. “Who was the Franco mook who failed his driving test?”
Egilsson chuckled. “Still with the New York argot and patois, eh?” He drew a long pull on his Chesterfield. “His name was Ramon Moreno. He was a thug and a waste of a valuable appointment. Nothing shows Franco’s disinterest in Fascist victory in the war than the fact that he sent Moreno to spy on the Americans. That’s like sending a dog to the slaughterhouse to spy on the butchers.” Egilsson stubbed out his butt and languorously lit up another. “So now we have the last of Moreno’s false papers. Another curio for the archives.”
I couldn’t resist the temptation. “How did you wind up here, Egilsson? A man of your talents could go anywhere. Why Havana?”
Egilsson smiled. “I know you think me completely amoral, Charley--that is your real name, as I recall. Yet I am not. I am a man of very complex values, and Havana is the place to gratify them. You see, there is no real law and order here--anything can be purchased, anything can be done. It takes a man of considerable ability to keep the devil in a bottle around here. For example, that fellow Moreno. When his case came up, there was some agitation on the part of the true-blue -- or, should I say, true-black -- Fascists to reopen the case. A certain individual paid a small fee to insure that both Moreno’s body and the autopsy records disappeared. When the Fascists poked around they found nothing.”
Again I couldn’t
resist. “Who was the individual?”
Egilsson smiled. “I suppose I
shouldn’t tell you, but I can always deny it. The individual was the Duke of
Cadiz, using as an intermediary a man of your acquaintance.”
My puzzled look gave away my inner state. That, and the flowers were making me lightheaded.
“The Duke of Cadiz is a member of the Spanish nobility, yet he remains abroad. When Franco double-crossed the royalists by not restoring the monarchy, the good Duke approached some Spanish businessmen with …questionable connections. They agreed to finance the royal family in exile; in exchange the royal family would protect their interests abroad should they ever return to power. When I came to Cuba after the war one of my colleagues told me the story of Moreno. They pieced together what truly happened to him. The Duke of Cadiz did not want this to get back to Spain.”
“Why?”
“That is his affair, but I think the reason lay in the desire of the royalists to keep the Fascists in doubt as to the loyalty of the ’lower orders.’ Franco of course despises these people, but like any head of state he must employ…expendable assets. By spreading the story that Moreno died while driving, even though the wound was in the back of his head, the Fascists knew right away that a phony story was being foisted on them. Yet without facts they could not make a ruckus. The coroner ’lost’ his report and Moreno’s body disappeared. So now the Fascists aren’t sure who killed Moreno; maybe it was some Republicans who found a way to burrow into the Fascist bureaucracy to strike from within. Maybe it was the Americans. Maybe somebody else. As long as the Fascists are unsure of themselves their regime is unstable. This serves the interests of the royalists--the last thing they want is a permanent Fascist regime.”
“What became of Moreno’s body?”
Egilsson smiled again. “Did you know that some miles east of here there is a promontory? All of the slaughterhouses around Havana ship their waste there to be dumped into the sea. All of that blood and dead animal flesh--all of it dumped, dumped into the sea. The city authorities do that so the sharks swarm there instead of on the beaches of Havana, threatening the tourists. It is a convenient place to dispose of a body.”
Egilsson smiled again. “Not that I would know such things.”
I wriggled slightly in the chair. I knew the course of events leading to Moreno’s death, and I couldn’t be sure if Egilsson was conning me or whether Fat Lightning really knew the Duke of Cadiz. For all I knew Egilsson was trying to get me to squeal. I knew I better keep my trap shut.
He pulled up the set, then from a box beside the table produce a Garde clock, hand made in the Netherlands. Egilsson was a complex man and wicked to the core, but he knew quality and liked it.
“Perhaps some games of five minute would smooth things over for us. Let’s play a six game match. You may play the White pieces; I have something special in mind for you.”
So long as that ‘something special’ referred to the chess board I would be okay. I played the mouse to Egilsson’s cat and I had to take it and like it. He set the clocks and I pushed my king’s pawn. Something told me not to play it safe over the board with this guy.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-QB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 PxP 4. NxP P-QB4 5. P-Q4 PxP 6. QxP Q-B2 7. B-QN5ch B-Q2 8. BxBch NxB 9. B-Q2 N/1–B3 10. NxNch PxN 11. B-B3 R-KN1 12. P-KN3 B-B4 13. Q-QR4 0–0–0 14. N-Q2 P-B4 15. P-B3 N-N3 16. QxP RxN 17. BxR Q-K4ch 18. K-B1 Q-Q5 19. B-K1 Q-QB5ch 20. K-N2 Q-K7ch 21. K-R3 R-N3 22. P-KN4 QxP/6ch 23. B-N3 R-R3 mate.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-QB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 N-KB3 4. P-K5 N/3-Q2 5. P-Q4 P-QB4 6. PxP N-QB3 7. B-KB4 P-B3 8. PxP QxP 9. Q-Q2 BxP 10. B-Q3 0–0 11. B-N3 N/2-K4 12. NxN NxN 13. 0–0 B-Q2 14. B-N5 BxB 15. BxN QxB 16. NxB QxNP 17. Q-K2 RxP 18. QxPch K-R1 and White Resigns.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-QB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 N-KB3 4. P-K5 N/3-Q2 5. P-Q4 P-QB4 6. PxP BxP 7. B-Q3 N-QB3 8. B-KB4 P-B3 9. PxP QxP 10. B-KN5 Q-B2 11. 0–0 P-KR3 12. B-Q2 0–0 13. Q-K2 P-R3 14. R/R-K1 N-B3 15. N-K5 NxN 16. QxN N-N5 17. Q-K2 Q-R4 18. P-KR3 RxP, and White Resigns.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-KB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 PxP 4. NxP B-K2 5. P-Q4 N-KB3 6. NxNch BxN 7. B-QB4 N-Q2 8. 0–0 0–0 9. Q-K2 P-B4 10. PxP Q-B2 11. R-K1 P-QR3 12. N-N5 NxP 13. N-K4 NxN 14. QxN B-Q2 15. B-B4 Q-N3 16. B-Q3 P-N3 17. B-K5 B-B3 18. Q-KB4 BxB 19. QxB R/R-Q1 20. R/R-Q1 R-Q4 21. Q-B6 R/1–Q1 22. P-KR4 Q-B2 23. P-R5 RxP, and White Resigns.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-QB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 P-QB4 4. B-N5ch N-B3 5. 0–0 N-B3 6. P-K5 N-Q2 7. P-Q3 B-K2 8. B-KB4 Q-N3 9. BxN QxB 10. P-QR4 0–0 11. R-K1 P-QN3 12. N-K2 P-B4 13. P-B3 P-KR3 14. P-R4 B-N2 15. Q-Q2 R-B2 16. P-QN4 P-Q5 17. P-N5 Q-B2 18. PxP BxN 19. PxB Q-N2 20. Q-R2 N-B1 21. P-Q5 PxP 22. N-B3 R-Q1, and White Resigns.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Egil Egilsson; Havana Jail; French Defense. 1. P-K4 P-K3 2. N-KB3 P-Q4 3. N-B3 N-KB3 4. P-K5 N/3-Q2 5. P-Q4 P-QB4 6. PxP N-QB3 7. B-KB4 BxP 8. B-Q3 P-KR3 9. Q-K2 P-R3 10. P-QR3 P-QN4 11. P-KR4 B-N2 12. R-R3 N-Q5 13. NxN BxN 14. K-KB1 Q-B2 15. BxNP PxB 16. NxNP Q-N3 17. N-Q6ch K-K2 18. NxB QxN 19. P-QB3 B-N3 20. R-N3 Q-R3 21. RxP QxQch 22. KxQ B-B2 23. P-R4 BxP 24. BxB NxB 25. R-N3 R/KR1–KN1 26. RxR RxR 27. P-KN3 K-Q3 28. P-QN4 K-B3 29. P-QR5 K-N4, and White Resigns.
Egilsson relaxed and smiled. “Your play has lost none of its insouciant yet primitive charm, Charley. ” He pressed a buzzer and a hot young gal walked in. She was a Cuban beauty from a high-born family, but obviously down at the heels to be working as a secretary. Her black hair lay in luxuriant curls down her back, all the way to her waist. Her red lipstick cost a pretty penny; I pegged it as a Parisian brand. I bet she didn’t pay for it herself; I knew Egilsson liked to spend dough on dames. Her red dress didn’t look like office wear; the same went for her four inch stiletto heels. Her hose didn’t sport the fashionable hem line in the back; instead, they were a sheer black nylon. Another pretty penny went for those. She shot me a glance with eyelashes darker and longer than Elizabeth Taylor’s, and just as thick, her eyes black as jet. Her look told me she knew better than to ask about me, that she was a confidential secretary chosen for her ability to keep her mouth shut (at least at the right times) and that her place was on the front side of the desk--for now.
Egilsson rose and went behind his desk, and began dictating. “First, I want you to send telegrams to the U. S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the New York City police. Inform them that Charley Applegate, a man wanted for murder and for involvement with a spy ring, passed through Havana on the way to Mexico, as per some airplane tickets that he purchased. Also inform them that Lucy Lipps and her party have left the island, destination unknown, but apparently headed to Rio. Inform them that our contacts in the Havana underworld have secured the following facts: Lipps and her confederates are not in league with Applegate, that Applegate’s movements are unconnected with Lipps and company. Lipps, Ivan and perhaps a third man are on their way to Buenos Aires as their ultimate destination. There, certain anti-American elements are waiting for their arrival, reason for meeting unknown to us. We do know that the anti-American elements are capable of violence and are not be taken lightly.
“Second, these identity papers are out of date. They belong to this man, Tomas Oconner. He is a businessman recently returned from overseas after many years. His journeys and his transactions are to the benefit of the Cuban state and to Cuban interests. See to it that new papers are issued to him before he is discharged from custody, which I order to occur by ten o’clock. He will be traveling this evening and I want his papers in order before he leaves. Return his property, including his firearms. He is to be taken and placed aboard the S.S. Capablanca before she sails. There are to be no records of his internment here; all records are to be expunged, all photographs turned into me. His presence is not to be discussed. These are matters of state security. ”
With that the secretary made a well-practiced turn on her heel and left quietly. I couldn’t help but notice her gams stretching that nylon tighter than a full sail in a hurricane. Egilsson rose, lit another cigarette, and smiled. I had to ask.
“Why are you letting me go? Why are you helping me?”
Egilsson paced the floor. Then he looked out the window at the bay, as seagulls wheeled and dove. “You recall the incident of the Duke of Cadiz? Well, there are always wheels turning within wheels. Let me say that the interests of Cuba will be served if Lucy and her confederates receive a certain amount of justice in Rio. ”
“Do you care about justice?” I asked.
He smiled over his shoulder. “Of course,” he replied.
I nodded. “What if they get to Buenos Aires?”
Egilsson spoke without looking back. He pressed a buzzer for the guard. “Time for you to return to your cell. As for Buenos Aires, let us say Justice is not only blind in that city, she is in bondage as well. ” He turned and looked at me, unsmiling, yet with some emotion. “Be careful.”
I left with the guard. I returned to my ship and sailed that night, with the evening tide. A. K. didn’t ask any questions; his wife wore him out with conversation anyway. Lenny did and got no answers. The S. S. Capablanca labored south toward Rio, and long and tiresome trip it is.
And I never learned who planted the bomb in the Old Village.
I, The Patzer
One thing you learn coursing the Seven Seas: you see the world, and three-quarters of the world is covered in water. If you want scenery, be a park ranger with Smokey the Bear. If you want monotony, go to sea.
As the S.S. Capablanca coursed southward, the hours stretched into days. Thanks to Egilsson I knew that Lucy and her lug continued on to Rio, but by now I was guessing that wasn’t the end of this line. If they had wanted to disappear with whatever loot they snagged from snuffing Prien, they could have done that in Havana, though with a tomato like Lucy it’s hard to hide, even in a convent. They had a head start and were gaining every hour, as the Capablanca was slower than a big favorite in a rigged horse race. But they couldn’t run forever. After Rio was Buenos Aires; that had to be their destination. But why? Why bump off Prien? Why try to pin the murder on me? What was Egilsson’s end--he knew something and he was involved, or he wouldn’t have tipped off the FBI about Lucy and sent the Feds down to Mexico looking for me. I was a pawn in his game just as I was pawn in her game and I didn’t even know what color I was; I just got pushed down the Atlantic seaboard, with Buenos Aires being the eighth rank. I’d find out there if I got promoted, or just sacrificed for the ‘greater good’.
Time just hung on our hands. Lenny advanced beyond the basic mates like the Legal’s Mate and the Scholar’s Mate. A.K. kept to himself, which was usual after a visit to his wife. The woman could talk the ears off a brass monkey and not even notice. A.K. once said that it was good she had such a beautiful voice or something bad would have happened a long time ago.
I stood the afternoon watch with the Sikh, he was port side, I was starboard. Watching the sun set from a cloudless sky on a placid sea is something that everyone should do at least once, though some find it dull. I never cease to marvel at it. It’s like seeing a watch disappear into a vest pocket, taking all the world’s light with it, leaving behind a dark sky spangled with stars, like a great waistcoat of the heavens. As the sun sank that spotless day the Sikh stood and smoked his favorite tobacco, a pipe blend from Turkey. As it wafted over the ship its pungent odor shot me back across the days to a memory green with life but red with danger, to a distant trip to Rio during the war.
In late 1943 I found myself summoned to the captain’s quarters aboard the Liberty ship Patrick Henry, then in Porto Alegre during Mardi Gras season. The captain, a young man with more smarts than wisdom, told me that I was being seconded to do special duty and to get my kit and go topside. I ran like a rat on a sinking ship and when I turned topside an American man with an indescribable face took my tow. I found myself on shore. We went to a hotel so cheap that if you were broke when you went in you left a millionaire--or at least you felt like one. I was greeted by a greying Navy Lieutenant Commander with an obviously low threshold for grief. My new boss threw a change of clothes and told me to get dressed and fast. I changed my togs; my new outfit was a grease covered stain. I reckoned I was going to do some diesel repair or some such.
“Here’s your new assignment, Applegate. We just captured one of the new U-boats. Its range is twice that of the early models, and the diesel engine is fitted with a snorkel, so it can run underwater on diesel in calm seas. You are going aboard her as the chief of the diesel crew.”
My heart sank. I hate submarines. They stink something awful, and when you shower you have to use seawater, which leaves a slick coat of salt on your skin. Submariners don’t shower much. Then there’s the head. There’s only one for a crew of about forty men on a submarine, so it gets lots of usage and there’s nowhere for the smell to go. The best I could hope for was a quick run home on the surface, so the hatch could be open to let the foul stench of war out. Pacifists think that they can take the glamour out of war by showing off pictures of dead bodies. That’s pointless. Nobody can imagine being dead. Peacelovers ought to give the general public a guided tour of an unwashed submarine; nobody forgets the smell of overworked submarine latrine.
“Why me?” I asked, desperate to spare my nose from a fate worse than death.
“Because you’re the best diesel man we have nearby. Before the war you used to do long haul trucking, right? In your jacket it says you broke down in Utah driving an International Harvester truck, and you fixed it using a coffee can, a tree stump, and a stretch of barbed wire you took from along the road. That’s the kind of cleverness we need here, Applegate. So pick up your kit and move like you got a purpose in life--which I doubt.”
At least I had the foresight to include my chess set in the kit, along with a couple of copies of Al Horowitz’ Chess Review. There ain’t much room in a sub, but there’s enough for a pocket set and a magazine.
I got to the quayside and found enough Navy security to protect the Army. The sun was low in the west, and brilliantly lit up two U.S. Navy destroyers out to sea. Our new captain, another ninety day wonder, called together the crew for the usual sunshine-and-hot-air speech before we shipped. Another reason I hated submarines; the speeches were always longer, I don’t know why.
“Boys,” started the young lieutenant, “I’m Lieutenant Livingstone, and we’re taking this sub north to U.S. waters, to Connecticut. There the smart boys are going to take her apart to find her weak spots. Our job is get there in one piece. All of you have served on subs before, and I know some of you didn’t exactly volunteer. I’ll do my best to get all of you there safely. Report to your duty stations.”
Jeez, thirty seconds. I liked this captain right off, even if he was a tad young. I made a mental note to ask him if he played chess.
I reported to the Chief of the Boat, a fat jolly guy named Stafford. He was seventy if he was a day. He probably joined the Navy with John Paul Jones. He favored the same tobacco as the Sikh, and though he never smoked below deck, he had so much of the stuff the whole boat smelled of his brand. It was a pleasant change.
After that I got below and found my bunk. As a crew chief I got a top bunk, so no kid would puke on me in the rough seas. The Germans certainly didn’t stint on the discomfort. My respect for them went up considerably. If they volunteered for this--and all German U-boaters were volunteers--they were tougher men than me, that’s for sure.
Right above my pillow, in about eight inches of head room, I found a photograph of a young woman with a newborn in her arms. It must have been left by a German crewman. That piqued my curiosity so I made my way forward, carrying the photo. I found the captain on the bridge.
“Say captain,” I asked, “what happened to the German crew aboard this tub?”
“Come to attention when you address a superior office, crewman!” I snapped to attention. “What makes you ask that question?”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“I’m not in the Navy, sir, I’m a merchant marine man who got seconded on this duty. I wasn’t given much choice.”
The captain softened a bit. “What’s your name, sailor?”
“Charley Applegate, sir.”
“Applegate….oh yeah, you’re the new diesel chief. I’ve heard a lot about you Applegate. So you’re a merchant marine man, eh? Well, we still need Navy discipline on this boat to get her home--you’ve had a lot of that on the Patrick Henry, I’m sure. So just remember things are a lot more formal over here. Ever serve in the Navy?”
“Yes sir, before the war.”
“What section were you?”
“Naval Intelligence, sir. I did a lot of classified work on diesel engines as a mechanic. After my four year hitch I worked around, different places. I joined the merchant marine before the war and figured I would stay there--just as good a place to make a contribution as any.”
The captain
frowned a bit, then smiled. “All right, Applegate. It’s good to have some grown
men around, makes youngsters like me feel secure. Ever do sub duty?”
“Just a bit, sir, back in ’32. Maybe
six months.”
He nodded. “To answer your question, the German crew was interned by the Brazilians. The Brazilians are at war with Germany, and when some British convoy ships depth-charged this sub, some men were killed and the drive train failed. She drifted into Brazilian waters, where the Brazilian navy captured her and towed her in. Brazilian Naval Intelligence turned her over to us because we have better technical people in the states. She’s seaworthy, but our experts need to look her over. Why do you ask?”
“Well sir, I found this photograph over my bunk. I thought maybe we could send it onshore before we left.” I handed him the mug shot.
“What number is your bunk?”
“17, sir.”
He looked over a manifest, then looked over a roster. “Bunk 17, Hans-Jurgen Klostermann. Diesel engine mechanic.” Then he looked me, level and hard.
“He was killed.”
I left the snapshot with the captain. This was no way to start a voyage.
We weighed anchor at moonset and put out to sea, the destroyers providing escort. The hatch was open, thank God. The Brazilian Navy boys did us a good turn by swabbing out the boat, so it was fairly fresh. Nothing happened for two days, and I got to play some games with a couple of the boys from the radio room, Jeff Jones and Gary Smith.
White: Jeff Jones; Black: Charley Applegate; German U-Boat; Palmiotto Opening. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. P-QN3
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The Palmiotto Opening. Some guy on the beach showed it to me.”
Hmmm….I knew I had to try it next game.
3...N-B3, 4.N-B3 B-N5, 5.B-N2 P-Q3, 6. B-B4 BxN, 7. BxB NxP, 8. 0–0 B-N5, 9.R-K1 NxB, 10.PxN 0–0, 11.R-K4 BxN, 12.QxB P-Q4, 13.R-Q1 PxR, 14. RxQ PxQ, 15. BxPch KxB, 16. R-Q7ch K-N1, and White Resigns.
White: Charley Applegate; Black: Gary Smith; German U-Boat; Palmiotto Opening. 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2.N-KB3 N-QB3, 3.P-QN3 N-B3, 4.P-Q3 B-B4, 5. B-N2 N-KN5, 6. P-Q4 B-N3, 7. P-B4 P-Q3, 8. P-KR3 N-B3, 9. PxP KNxKP, 10. Q-B2 NxBP, 11. R-R2 0–0, 12. QN–Q2 N-QN5, 13. Q-B3 B-QB4, 14. P-R3 N-B3, 15. P-QN4 PxP, 16. PxB P-K5, 17. NxP NxN, 18. QxP mate.
White: Charley Applegate: Black: Jeff Jones; German U-Boat; Palmiotto Opening. 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2.N-KB3 N-QB3, 3.P-QN3 B-K2, 4.B-N2 P-Q3, 5. N-B3 B-N5, 6. B-K2 N-B3, 7. P-KR3 B-R4, 8. P-KN4 B-N3, 9. P-Q3 Q-Q2, 10. N-KR4 0–0–0, 11. NxB RPxN, 12. P-N5 RxP, 13. RxR QxR, 14. PxN Q-R8 ch, 15. B-B1 BxP, 16. Q-N4ch K-N1, 17. 0–0–0 R-R1, 18. Q-Q7 N-Q5, 19. N-Q5 B-N4 ch, 20. K-N1 N-B6, 21. QxQBP ch K-R1, 22.QxQP R-Q1, 23.N-B7ch K-N1, 24.N-R6ch K-R1, 25.Q-N8ch, and Black Resigns.
On the third day we were off Rio, another clear pitch black night. Several of us were on deck; me, the captain, Jones, and a few other boys. One destroyer, Hightail, went before us; the other, Bobtail, ran astern. The salt breeze felt good as we made about seven knots. I could have coaxed more out of her, but I wanted to get home, not get stranded in some neutral port for the rest of the war.
Just then a tremendous explosion rent the starboard side of Hightail, a geyser shot out of her side and she lurched to a stop. The captain reacted instantly, shouting “ALL HANDS BELOW DECK!” In two shakes of a cat-o’-nine tails we scampered below and Jones closed the hatch and bellowed “CLOSED!”
“Dive Twenty! Hard to starboard ninety degrees!” shouted the captain, and the boat lurched slightly downward and hard to the right, diving to twenty feet.
“Applegate!” He yelled at me, “Get that damn snorkel aloft and give me twelve knots!”
I ran like a greyhound to the aft cabin where the engines lay. My crew were already cranking the snorkel up. “We need more feet, chief,” said one of the men, “the snorkel is only ten feet long.” I ran back to the captain and reported.
“Up eleven,” he ordered. We shuddered again as we rose. I ran back. The snorkel was up and the men opened her up. A shot of seawater soaked the deck--then stopped. I held my hand over the snorkel; I could feel air moving through it.
“Hitch her up and see if she works.” The engines, shut off when we dove, stuttered and protested, then started up. I gave her the gas and she picked up. The speedometer read in kilometers, not knots. I didn’t know for sure how fast we were going, but it wasn’t much and it wasn’t twelve knots. I went forward to report.
“Captain,” I said, “the snorkel can’t draw enough air to give us more than about four knots. It isn’t big enough.”
The captain nodded, just then another explosion, muffled by the sea, came to us…then another…then another…then another, some closer, some farther away.
“Up periscope,” ordered the captain.
He scanned about and reported to us. “Down periscope. Hightail is dead in the water just astern of us; we must have passed just to port of her. It looks bad; she’s on fire. Bobtail is out to sea laying depth charges. A U-boat must have hit Hightail.”
A voice piped up. “Should we surface captain? We could help Hightail fight the fire.” Several men assented. The captain turned to us. He aged about forty years right before my eyes.
“No. If we surface Hightail might mistake us for the U-boat that attacked her and try to sink us. We must leave those men to the mercy of the sea. Bring us about five degrees to port. I want to clear Bobtail’s pattern.”
Silently we each turned to our tasks. The U-boat was probably shooting at us and hit Hightail instead. By turning starboard the captain probably dodged the torpedoes meant for us, sailing right between them. He may be a kid but he’s not a feather merchant. Our hearts were in our throats as we sailed away. We’d lost our escort, the Germans knew where we were, and the boys on Hightail were fighting for their lives. Then again, that’s war.
Two more days passed and we picked up a new escort, three British destroyers, Hijinks, Hotspur, and Hereward. While two sailed fore and aft, one zigzagged seaward, looking for U-boats with sonar. Several times we heard depth charges, which we didn’t like. The British were finding U-boats and bombing them, which could only mean that the U-boats were close and looking for us. Sinking us before we reached the states must be a major priority for them.
When we passed the Leeward Islands a wolfpack hit us just as the sun set. Hijinks hove to with a hole in her bow; Hotspur and Hereward tore to the east like greyhounds after rabbits. They dumped their charges and we twice heard loud rumbling explosions right after the charges blew; two German subs burst, their atmospheres blowing out. Some of the younger men cheered at the first one, but all of the older men just looked away. No submariner wants to go like that.
We turned away to port and ran full speed ahead when a tremendous shock hit the ship. We all jolted backward like linebackers hit by Bronko Nagurski. The ship came to a dead stop, then a compressed air tank blew, and we took on water to port.
“Counter-flood the starboard tanks!” ordered the captain. He knew his stuff: counter-flooding would level us out so we wouldn’t capsize. We sank even faster and came to the sea floor with a sickening thud.
“Report!” called the captain. I came forward to report that the engines had be knocked out by the jolt, but repairs would take fifteen minutes at most. The Chief of the Boat made a more worrisome report.
“The tanks on the port side are ruptured. We can’t empty them out here; we need to make port. We might empty the starboard tanks, but we’ll be sailing at a mighty awkward angle.”
“Can you get us off the bottom?” he asked me.
“I reckon so, skipper. We can’t use the snorkel at this depth; we’ll need to use our battery power.”
“There’s something else, captain,” said the Chief of the Boat.
“What is it?”
“We’ve got a gigantic dent in the
bow. We didn’t catch a depth charge or a torpedo, that would have sunk us for
sure. I think we ran blind into a coral reef or something like that.”
We all looked at the deck. If we lay inside a coral reef there might be no way out. We could be wedged inside a labyrinth of coral. Any way we went we could hit another reef, and that would be the end of us. The advantage of a submarine is that it can’t be seen. It’s disadvantage lay in its crew’s inability to see anything.
“The depth gauge says we are ninety feet down. We have power and lights. Suggestions?” I always hate it when the captain asks for suggestions.
The Second Mate piped up. “We know that the reef or whatever it was is in front of us. Let’s pull ourselves backward, then blow as much from the starboard tank as we can. Then we can decide what to do next.”
The captain sighed. “Applegate. Can we pull off using battery drive?”
I shrugged. “Do we have any choice but to try?”
The captain suddenly laughed. “No, we don’t. All hands turn to.”
I got the battery drive in gear. The motors strained, as they were hauling not only the weight of the U-boat, but the weight of the water in the ballast tanks as well. Gradually we started to move, then we picked up speed. I got us up to about three knots going backward. We were free of the bottom.
I reported to the skipper. “How much battery power left?”
“At three knots about fifteen hours of power.”
“So our cruising range is about 45 nautical miles?”
“Probably less, given the strain.”
He turned to his maps. It didn’t look good. Barbados lay more than a hundred miles to the west. Other islands lay even farther north. We couldn’t surface, we couldn’t run the diesels and the batteries would be dead in less than a day.
Chief Stafford cleared his throat. “There’s another option, captain.”
“Speak up, man.”
“Back during Prohibition I used to run booze up from South America. There’s an uncharted island, St. Reginald’s Key, right about here,” he plunked his hoary hand on the map. “It has a long, low sandbar to the south. It’s almost a half-mile wide, so we have some margin for error. We’ll need to blast the tanks and run sideways, but if we can get there we can beach the boat and go ashore. There’s cabins and fresh water. We take the food from the boat and radio for rescue.”
“How far away?” I asked.
Stafford looked at me. “About ten hours at three knots. We need a bit of luck, of course.”
Lieutenant Livingstone gave the orders. We came about to a course north by northwest, and trudged along at three knots. After ten hours we blew our starboard tanks as slowly as we could. We tipped towards port, but not as badly as we feared, only about four degrees. Skipper upped the scope and looked about. The island lay almost in front of us.
“Stafford, you old sea dog, you earned your salt this trip,” sighed the captain. “Sail us in slow and easy, one knot. I don’t want to risk the bow.”
We slowly came to the sandbar and eased back to almost a dead stop. As we crept forward the bow grazed the sandbar; a little more power the bow rose as we crawled up the beach. Then we came to a stop. We were beached.
“Nothing to do now but open the hatch and see if we are under water,” said the skipper. “Stafford, this was your idea. You open the hatch.”
Stafford, with the resignation of an old mariner, climbed the conning tower ladder and turned the hatch. He pushed it up and sunlight poured in.
After a collective sigh of relief we hauled all the gear we could on shore, food supplies first. Then the captain took me, Stafford and a handful of picked men to his cabin. He unlocked a cabinet and issued us Luger pistols with ammo clips.
“We know the British, the Americans, all the Allies are looking for us. But they aren’t the only ones.”
We then debarked to our new island home.
I, The Patzer
Life on a desert island is a fantasy for a lot of men, none of whom were ever stranded on a desert island. Most guys dream of being stranded with some tomato like Lucy Lipps. I found myself stranded with over two dozen greasy guys with nothing but c-rations to eat and water to drink. The Key was okay; there were quite a few palm trees, but no coconuts, and a bunch of low level bushes. The Key was fairly large, maybe a mile long and a half-mile wide. We beached the U-boat on the southwest beach, so we lucked out; it could only be seen from the west, not the east, which is the nearest shipping lane. A few bootlegger shacks still stood, and a depression sported a fresh water spring. On the one hand our diet was dull and now meager, as the captain put us on half-rations until we might be rescued. But on the other water was reasonably plentiful, so we could bathe without a salt residue on our hides. The first thing we did we shaved off our beards. Stafford, the chief of the boat, broke out his pipe tobacco and puffed away with great passion.
That sub was going nowhere without major work, and we lacked the tools. The captain radioed for pickup or delivery, but the Navy isn’t a deli. The command told us to wait. We didn’t know why. So we sat on the beach and played chess to while away the long tropical days. Some of the men set lines to catch fish, but all they caught was sunburn.
After we had been on the Key for four days, as the sun set to the west, Jones, our lookout, hailed the captain. “Hey Lieutenant,” he crowed, “there’s a boat to the east-south-east.”
We all squinted out to sea. A small lifeboat rowed toward us. The captain eyeballed them with a pair of binocs. After a minute he turned about, barking orders but in a quiet voice.
“They are Germans, one officer and three seamen. They’re still a couple of miles out, so I doubt they’ve seen us in the setting sun. I want this beach clear of any sign of us, but do it quick and quiet. I don’t want any sound to carry. All men with pistols get behind the rocks and bushes and hide. I want to take them by surprise and I want them alive. Now move like you got a purpose!”
In ten minutes we cleared the beach of all our junk. I hunkered down behind a rock the size of mailbox; I could see the captain, Stafford, and several sailors squatting behind some bushes. We waited and watched, fingering our Lugers, while those poor bastards fought the swells to make the Key by nightfall. They’d be more beat than a cheap rug by the time they made the beach.
The sun set, and the stars came out, and those rowing Jerries made the beach. They hauled the rowboat up the beach, wiped the sweat from their brows, and then they sat on the beach. We watched, tense, waiting for the order to take them prisoners. All at once the officer stood up and called out!
“Stafford! Stafford, you old sea dog! Come out here and help us! We’ve been without water for two days! In the name of humanity, I beg you help us!”
All our eyes turned on Stafford, who shrugged in confusion. After a moment, the German officer, slumping on the boat, called out again.
“Stafford! It is me, your old friend, Karl Mueller! Help us with some water!”
The captain turned on Stafford, whose face lit up like a neon sign over a bar in the bad part of town. “Mueller, of course! He’s from an old Argentine-German family. We used to run rum together from the Indies. No wonder he came here, he was the one who found this key.”
“Wonderful,” hissed the captain, “but how does he know you are here?”
“I don’t know captain.”
“Well, he knows you are here. Sing out to him, but don’t let on that you’ve got friends, and armed friends at that.”
Stafford stood up and waved. “Karl! Over here! How did you know I was here?”
Karl stood, wavered, then sat again. “I could smell your tobacco.”
Stafford’s face went red. “What do you need?”
“Water. Our supply went down with our ship. Our food also.”
“What ship were you on?”
“The Rio Plata, a support ship for the U-boats. A British cruiser shot us up pretty bad. Only we four survived. Our captain went down with the ship. None of us are wounded, but we are in dire need of water.”
The captain nodded. “I heard that the Royal Navy sank a U-boat and tender a few days ago. Ask them if they are armed.”
Stafford shouted, “Are you armed?”
“We have a flare gun, but no firearms. If you are with a military force, we are prepared to surrender.”
The captain gestured to us. “All right. The men with the pistols, keep them covered and stay out of sight. Stafford, you take eight men down there with and bring the Jerries up here.”
Stafford went down with eight men, frisked them like there were gunsels on the run, and checked the boat. No weapons. Karl could walk, but the other three men needed to be supported as they staggered up the beach. They flopped down on the sand while we shared our water with them. Karl then drew himself to attention and saluted the captain.
“I am Karl Mueller, engine chief of the Rio Plata. We surrender to you, and we acknowledge that we are your prisoners.”
The captain answered the salute. “We’re glad you ain’t feeding the fish, chief, but you arrive at a bad time.”
Mueller laughed. “It is never a good time to shipwreck, captain. What happened to you?”
The captain stiffened. “Never mind, chief. You and your men are confined to this side of the island. If you cross over the high ground, you will be shot.”
Mueller snapped to attention. “Jawohl, mein herr. May I inquire into the food situation?”
The captain relaxed a bit. “We have a fair amount of c-rations, but we don’t know when we will be picked up, so we are on half-rations. We’ve put out fishing lines, but we haven’t caught anything. We have water to drink, but only water.”
Chief Mueller picked up. “Yes, but we have boat now.”
“How does a boat help us? We can’t seem to catch any fish offshore, we don’t seem to have the right lures.”
Mueller looked at Stafford. “St. Margaret’s Key.”
Stafford turned to the captain. “St. Margaret’s Key is just over the horizon, to the north. We could make it there in about a half-day’s worth of rowing. Mueller and I planted some fruit trees there back in the days of Prohibition.”
The captain grew exasperated. “Why did you two do that?”
Mueller shrugged. “We spent a lot of time there and we were bored.” Stafford nodded. “We had a lot of time on our hands.”
The captain relented. “What’s there?”
Stafford stroked his chin. “Some coconut palms, some date palms, an orange tree, a few lemon and lime trees, some grape plants near the pond. They may not have made it. Captain, give me three men and we can be back by nightfall tomorrow.”
“Sooner, even,” chimed in Mueller. “We have a mast, but not a sail. If we can rig a sail and the wind is favorable, you will be back in two shakes of a cat-o-nine-tails, as you say.”
We chuckled at his mistake, but the captain gave his okay. Stafford cut up and re-sewed some duffel bags to make a crude sail, and he and his crew of four pushed off at daybreak. I settled down to pass the time playing chess with Mueller. It turns that in his youth he hung around the cafes of Europe, playing legendary names like Nimzowitsch and Reti. His favorite was player was Jacques Mieses, because he played the Danish Gambit. So I agreed to play Black against his Danish Gambit.
White: Karl Mueller; Black: Charley Applegate; St. Reginald’s Key; Danish Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP N-KB3, 6. P-K5 B-N5ch, 7. K-B1 P-Q4, 8. B-N5ch KN-Q2, 9. P-K6 PxP, 10. BxP R-N1, 11. Q-R5ch K-K2, 12. QxRP N-KB3, 13. BxNch KxB, 14. Q-R4ch K-B2, 15. QxB Q-N4, 16. N-KB3 QxPch, 17. K-K2 QxR, 18. N-K5ch K-N2, and Black Resigns.
“Play another, Herr Applegate?”
“Sure. Call me Charley. Tell me how you wound up sunk and shipwrecked in the south Caribbean.”
“The Rio Plata was replenishing two U-boats, the U-171 and the U-244. We supplied them with food, some diesel fuel, and some acid for their batteries. While we serving the first boat, we came under fire from a British cruiser. I didn’t get the name, I was below decks. The first shell hit our diesel tanks and a hot fire broke out. Before we could even start to fight it another shell holed our bow and we started to go down. The captain gave the order to abandon ship. We made it over the side, but the captain went below decks for some reason. We didn’t see him make it out. She went down fast.”
“Did the British save your men?”
“No, they couldn’t. A sharp fight broke. The U-boats pulled out, circled around, and one put a torpedo in the cruiser but didn’t do her fatal damage. She made a large circle and started dropping depth charges. Then some Swordfish biplanes came over head and the U-boats dived and ran for the open sea. We--my man Horst and I--found a rowboat and climbed aboard. We could find only two more of our men in the water. We then started to row. I knew of the Key, and figured it was closer than anything else. Let’s play.”
White: Karl Mueller; Black: Charley Applegate; St. Reginald’s Key; Danish Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP Q-N4, 6. N-KB3 QxP, 7. R-N1 B-N5ch, 8. K-K2 Q-R6, 9. BxBPch K-Q1, 10. BxP N-K2, 11. N-N5 Q-R5, 12. N-K6 mate.
Curiosity overtook me. “How do you know Stafford?”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mueller. “I was a fisherman when World War I broke out. I was drafted into the navy and volunteered for diesel work on U-boats. I was trained and put aboard one of the first boats to go hunting. Our very first hunt we surfaced to shell a French freighter--we were still using deck guns instead of torpedoes. We surface, we hail the freighter, and bang! A shell from a French destroyer struck us. We all bailed out before our boat sank, and the French dropped us off in Britain to be interned. The war was one month old and we spent the rest of it in a prisoner of war camp.
“I met Stafford in 1917. He made an enemy of an officer in the U.S. Navy, and got himself assigned to guard detail at the camp. He and I both played chess, so we spent a lot of time together.
“After the war I went back to Germany, but things were bad there. I wrote to Stafford and he said to come over to America, he would find me work. I worked for a while as a steamfitter, then a diesel mechanic. Then came Prohibition, and Stafford and I started up a crew to import South American booze--high quality stuff. We sold it to the Brahmins and bluebloods up in Boston. Those were the days! The money was good, the girls were pretty, and we sailed the seven seas. But then the gangsters got involved, it got violent, and Stafford and I were getting too old for that adventure stuff. We sold our boat, I took my profits and went back to Germany. Stafford got married and settled dwon, and I married a widow in Bremen. Then came the depression, the rise of Hitler, and the next thing I know I’m called back to the Navy. They only take volunteers for the submarines, so I got on a submarine tender. Now I’m here. Story told. Your move.”
White: Karl Mueller; Black: Charley Applegate; St. Reginald’s Key; Danish Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP P-Q3, 6. N-K2 N-QB3, 7. 0–0 B-K3, 8. B-Q5 N-B3, 9. Q-N3 Q-B1, 10. N-B4 N-Q1, 11. BxN PxB, 12. N-R5 P-B3, 13. R-K1 B-K2, 14. Q-KB3 R-KN1, 15. NxPch BxN, 16. QxB PxB, 17. PxP R-N3, 18. Q-R8ch K-Q2, 19. N-B3 BxP, 20. Q-K8ch K-B2, 21. NxBch K-N1, 22. QR-B1 N-B3, 23. RxN PxR, 24. R-N1mate.
Mueller looked out the west. The sun was lowering, but not setting. The wind remained northerly all morning, pushing Stafford’s boat toward St. Margaret’s Key. The wind had died away about noon, and a slight breeze came from the east. Mueller mused a bit, then said:
“If Stafford left around noon, he’ll be home about sunset. Want to play again?” He pushed his king’s pawn.
White: Karl Mueller; Black: Charley Applegate; St. Reginald’s Key; Danish Gambit. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-Q4 PxP, 3. P-QB3 PxP, 4. B-QB4 PxP, 5. BxNP Q-K2, 6. N-QB3 P-QB3, 7. KN–K2 P-QN4, 8. B-N3 P-QR4, 9. R-QB1 N-QR3, 10. 0–0 N-B4, 11. N-Q4 NxB, 12. N-B5 Q-K3, 13. PxN N-B3, 14. N-K2 N-R4, 15. P-B4 Q-N3, 16. N(2)-Q4 N-B3, 17. Q-B2 B-N2, 18. NxQNP PxN, 19. Q-B7 B-N5, 20. QxB 0–0, 21. R-KB3 QR-QN1, 22. Q-R7 NxP, 23. N-N3 N-Q7, 24. R-K3 QR-QB1, 25. RxR RxR, 26. QxQP Q-N8ch, 27. K-B2 Q-B7, 28. N-K2 R-B1, 29. Q-Q4 P-B3, 30. P-N4 K-R1, 31. K-N2 NxP, 32. Q-Q3 QxB, 33. QxN QxQ, 34. RxQ R-B1, 35. N-Q4 R-B5, 36. R-Q3 K-N1, 37. P-B5 K-B2, 38. P-R3 R-B4, 39. N-K6 R-B7ch, 40. K-B1 K-K2, 41. R-Q5 P-N3, 42. RxP PxP, 43. PxP K-Q3, 44. N-Q4 R-B5, 45. N-N3 K-B3, 46. R-N8 P-R5, 47. R-QB8ch K-Q4, 48. R-Q8ch K-K4, 49. N-Q2 BxN, 50. RxB KxP, 51. R-Q5ch K-K5, 52. R-QR5 K-Q6, 53. R-R7 K-B6, 54. RxKRP P-R6, and White Resigns.
I let out a sigh of satisfaction. “I finally win one,” I said.
“You got that one. The sun is setting. Do we have any lights?”
“No, I guess we gotta turn in and hit the sack, tomorrow”
“Ship ahoy to the north!” cried the lookout.
The thought of fresh coconuts and oranges got every man, American, British, and German scrambled to his feet and scampered like wharf rats to the north. A grinning Stafford greeted us at the beach.
“I got coconuts, oranges, lemons, limes!” he called out. “But no grapes, the vines withered.”
I then turned to see Mueller grinning from ear to ear. “Did you look under the heart-shaped rock, Stafford?”
“I sure did!” He cried back, smiling like a hobo who just found a kindhearted farm wife. “I looked and got the whole cache!”
“Cache?” asked Lieutenant Livingstone. “What cache?”
“This one!” cried Stafford. He hoisted a sand-crusted case of twelve bottles of a strange-looking liquid.
Mueller let out a whoop like a con on parole. “It’s the piscu!” Stafford howled agreement. When they settled down, they told us the cause of their joy.
“It’s piscu,” said Mueller, “it is a Chilean brandy made from muscat grapes. But not just any piscu! These were bottles of fifty year old brandy when we left them here, so now they are over sixty years old. Five cases! Sixty bottles!”
“Why did you bury them?” I asked.
“The boat we were using was leaking, and we couldn’t take our whole haul,” said Stafford. “So we stopped off here and left the piscu. We took the rest north, but after that we sold the boat and quit bootlegging. We wrote this stuff off as a loss.”
It was a cheerful night for once. Much singing accompanied the drinking, though Lieutenant Livingstone and the officers kept sober enough to guard the Germans. When morning came we found our little island peopled with visitors from the U.S. Navy destroyer Elbridge Gerry.
They took the Germans into custody, and towed the derelict U-boat out into the deeper waters. There they opened the seacocks and that hunk of pain sank beneath the waves. We got on board and sailed away. And that was the end of my Rio adventure. Six weeks later I was back on board the Patrick Henry, fixing diesel engines.
There is one postscript to my little tale. As we were lining up to board the Elbridge Gerry, I overheard Stafford and Mueller whispering.
“How is the rest of the cache?”
“Okay. I reckon the other thirty cases are still intact. We’ll go back after the war.”
As I watched waves I heard the Sikh call out to me. Our watch was over. Tomorrow we made landfall in Rio.
I, The Patzer
When we reached Rio I lay asleep in bunk, taking my rest like one of the Greek gods. I hove to and found myself at liberty to go ashore right there, which I promptly did. Lucy and her side of beef made for this city, so if I could catch them here I wouldn’t have to go all the way to Buenos Aires. Not that Argentina is bad, but I got a bad feeling about how things were in Argentina since the war. Very bad.
Rio--Cidade maravilhosa, the marvelous city. The inhabitants call themselves cariocas, and they revel with great intensity. The whole world knows about the Mardi Gras in Rio; yet the New Year’s Eve party, the Revellian, is just as gaudy, bawdy, and licentious. Everyone’s heard of Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, but few tourists went down to Saude, Santa Cristo or Gamboa--the three neighborhoods where Samba was born.
The one good thing about Rio is that the police couldn’t care less about fugitives from other countries. So long as you obeyed Brazil’s laws you could come and go as you pleased, and Rio was very generous in what the word ‘obeyed’ meant. If you didn’t murder one of the society people, or rob them, you could do just about anything you wanted. Of course, if you murdered someone in the wrong part of town you wouldn’t be worrying about the cops, the local sort of justice you can find across the tracks anywhere in the world.
But Lucy and Ivan wouldn’t hobnob with the swells, especially with Ivan’s charming personality and stunning good looks. They would be down on the other side of the tracks, but not in the slums. In the favelas, Rio’s shantytowns, the bars never closed and tough guys met their matches. Ivan might cut it there but not Lucy. In the favelas muscle and beauty did not mix very well. Somewhere in Brazil’s demimonde I would find clues. I headed for the nexus of Saude, Santo Cristo, and Gamboa.
I climbed aboard a bus that burned more oil than a diesel. The engine has all the horsepower of a New Mexico mule farm. The road’s pavement was as thick as a lawyer’s promises to a guy on death row. The city is always hot--it never snows in Rio. Sweating like a plowhorse I got off the bus and headed for the street of chess clubs. Every city worth a fat man’s French fries has a street of chess clubs.
The first few clubs were obviously social clubs for the locals. You could tell from all the laughing and joking going on. In one some old guy with a bad back was trying to samba, only to fall on the floor every five seconds with a cry of pain. Then he would get up and do try again. I guess the rhythm of the music always gets ya.
In the fifth club, Grand Xadrez do Rio, I found what I wanted. In 1939 the Chess Olympiad was held in Buenos Aires. In the middle of the tournament the war broke out; politicians never think of anyone but themselves. Buenos Aires got a huge boost, with Najdorf and the Polish team settling there for the war, and staying after. Brazil’s boost came from Erich Eliskases, who one of three men to thought a worthy challenger to Alekhine. He settled in Brazil, and when Brazil declared war on Germany he almost got deported. That’s irony for you: defect from Germany and flee to Brazil, then get deported back to Germany. Brazilian chess players lobbied the politicians, who let Eliskases stay. I heard he was living in Argentina now. Rio’s best native players were Oswaldo Cruz Filho and Octavio Trompowsky.
Trompowsky’s the Brazilian devil. He invented his own opening and it is right jolly pain in the anatomy to confront. If you do nothing, you suddenly find yourself bound up like guy with cement galoshes on his last boat ride. If you try to do something violent, it’s like trying to nail jello squares to the wall. Worse, if the Brazilians spotted you as a foreigner they would all play Trompowsky’s torture against you. I couldn’t disguise my American-ness, especially as I spoke no Portuguese. So I sat down in the Grand Xadrez and resigned myself to a long night of defending against the specialty of Brazil.
I dropped anchor in a remote corner and ordered up a bottle of Brazilian rum. All the sugar cane they grew in Brazil had at least one benefit. Not too long afterward a greying geezer with a goatee sat down opposite me, attracted to the rum like flies to the garbage on a New York City scow.
“Eh, Americano! I can always tell. The English always get gin, the Canadians get beer, the Australians, Irish and Scots get whiskey. Americans always get rum.”
“What do New Zealanders get?” I had to ask.
“I don’t know, I never drank with one.”
Honest, at least. I poured him a drink which disappeared faster than a sandwich in a soup kitchen. He wiped his whiskers with the satisfaction of man who knew what he liked. He smiled at me. “Want to play?”
“Sure. What‘s your name?”
“ Silvio Santos. What’s yours, American? I will take White?”
“Sure. My name‘s Meredith.” Better use a fake name, I thought.
He chuckled. “You know what you are in for?”
I nodded, and he pushed his queen’s pawn.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janerio; Trompowsky Attack. 1. P-Q4 N-KB3, 2. B-N5 P-K3, 3. P-K4 P-KR3, 4. BxN QxB, 5. N-QB3 B-N5, 6. N-B3 P-Q4, 7. B-Q3 P-B4, 8. 0–0 PxQP, 9. N-QN5 N-R3, 10. P-QR3 B-B4, 11. P-QN4 PxP, 12.BxP B-K2, 13. Q-K2 0–0, 14. QR-Q1 R-Q1, 15. N-K5 B-Q3, 16. P-KB4 N-B2, 17. RxP NxN, 18. QxN B-B2, 19. R(1)–Q1 Q-K2, 20. RxR ch BxR, 21. P-B4 P-QR4, 22. P-QB5 PxP, 23. P-B6 R-R2, 24. RPxP P-B3, 25. N-N6 Q-QB2, 26. PxP Q-N3ch, 27. K-R1, and Black Resigns.
Silvio grinned. “Another?” I started to set up the pieces when he expostulated. “A drink first! Then the game!”
I laughed and poured him a shot of rum. He downed and looked at me. He seemed to be sizing me up. I couldn’t blame him. Americans didn’t walk in every day. I figured I’d give him an opening. “What’s on your mind, old timer?”
“Well,” he began, “it’s obvious you are a sailor, a merchant marine. You used to be a navy man, but that was years ago. You are looking for someone. So tell me--is it love or crime that brings you to Rio?”
The old coot impressed me. “Okay, Sherlock, how did you peg me?”
He beamed at the chance to show off. “You have the bearing of a military man, but you’ve been out for a while because you are a bit out of shape, which is fitting in a man of your age. You aren’t rich, so you’re not a tourist. Your shoes give you away. A merchant ship brought you here. As you are younger than me, you still have more than an eye for the girls. This is a long way to chase a girl, so you are here out of love or crime. So what is it?”
I couldn’t fault his logic but I couldn’t trust him either. He could be a regular denizen of the underworld, or he could be a stoolie for the Rio police. For all I knew Egilsson’s red herring had been sussed out, so the cops and the FBI might be on my trail again. Rio’s coppers would love to put me in the hands of the G-men, if I was a big enough fish.
“Let’s just say I’m looking for this woman and her traveling companion.” I handed him a newspaper photo of Lucy. His face lit up like a match to a Pall Mall.
“Oh, she is very beautiful!” He leaned forward and whispered. “This is black and white. What color is her hair?”
“Her hair is
redder than a man’s face when his wife catches him with another woman.”
“Ah! I’ve seen such a face. It was
mine!”
We both laughed. He pushed his queen’s pawn again.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janerio; Trompowsky Attack. 1. P-Q4 N-KB3, 2. B-N5 P-QN3, 3. N-Q2 B-N2, 4. KN–B3 P-K3, 5. P-K4 P-KR3, 6. BxN QxB, 7. B-Q3 P-B4, 8. P-K5 Q-Q1, 9. B-K4 Q-B2, 10. 0–0 B-K2, 11. R-K1 0–0, 12. PxP PxP, 13. BxB QxB, 14. N-B4 N-B3, 15. Q-Q3 P-B3, 16. QR-Q1 QR-Q1, 17. Q-K4 Q-B2, 18. Q-N4 PxP, 19.QNxP NxN, 20.NxN R-B4, 21. Q-K4 P-Q4, 22. Q-K2 B-Q3, 23. N-N4 R-K1, 24. P-KR3 P-Q5, 25. P-KB3 B-B5, 26. Q-B4 Q-B2, 27. R-K4 P-KR4, 28. N-R2 R-Q4, 29. N-B1 B-N1, 30. R(1)–K1 Q-Q2, 31. Q-K2 K-B2, 32. P-KB4 P-N3, 33. N-Q2 R-B4, 34. N-B3 RxP, 35. N-N5ch K-N1, 36. RxR BxR, 37. Q-K4 BxN, 38. QxNP ch K-R1, 39. QxRP ch B-R3, 40. R-K4 K-N2, 41. R-N4 ch K-B3, 42. R-N6ch K-K2, 43. QxPch Q-Q3, 44. QxRPch K-Q1, 45. RxB Q-B5, 46. Q-R8 ch K-Q2, 47. R-R7 ch K-Q3, 48. Q-R6 ch K-Q4, 49. Q-N7ch K-K4, 50. Q-N7ch K-K5, 51. Q-N6ch K-Q4, 52. R-Q7ch K-B3, 53. R-KB7 Q-K6 ch, 54. K-R2 Q-K4 ch, 55. Q-N3 K-Q4, 56. R-Q7 ch K-K5, 57. QxQ ch KxQ, 58. P-B3 PxP, 59. PxP K-K5, 60. P-KR4 R-QB1, 61. P-R5 R-B4, 62. R-Q4ch K-B4, 63. P-R6 K-N3, 64. R-KR4 K-R2, 65. P-B4 R-QR4, 66. P-N4 RxPch, 67. K-N3 R-R6ch, 68. K-B2 R-R4, 69. K-K3 R-R6 ch, 70. K-Q4 R-R4, 71. R-R5 R-R1, 72. R-K5 R-Q1ch, 73. K-B5 R-QB1ch, 74. K-N5 R-QN1ch, 75. K-R6 R-QB1, 76. P-B5 KxP, 77. K-N7, and Black Resigns.
Silvio smiled at me. I poured another drink and we bottomed up. “So you want to find this beauty and her boyfriend. A woman like that will stand out anywhere. There is one man here who would know. His name is Mutik. He’ll be here in a while.”
“What kind of name is Mutik?” I asked.
“His father was from the Middle East, somewhere in the British Protectorates. He came here on a cargo ship of a company that went bankrupt. The Brazilian authorities seized the ship and cargo, so the men never got paid for that trip. Mutik’s father married a local girl and became a fisherman. Mutik tired of fishing pretty quickly, and as a teenager he shipped out with some merchant company. He lived in America for years before the war, so you two will get on famously, as you say in the States.”
“Where did you learn English, Silvio?”
“An American rabbi lived next door to us when I was a boy. I learned it from him. Never developed a taste for gefilte fish, though. Another?”
I poured two more drinks and waited for his queen’s pawn.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janerio; Trompowsky Attack. 1. P-Q4 N-KB3, 2. B-N5 P-Q4, 3. P-K3 B-B4, 4. N-KB3 QN–Q2, 5. QN–Q2 P-K3, 6. B-Q3 BxB, 7. PxB B-K2, 8. 0–0 0–0, 9. R-B1 P-B3, 10. P-KR3 P-KR3, 11. B-B4 Q-N3, 12. Q-R4 KR-B1, 13. R-B2 P-R3, 14. KR–B1 Q-N4, 15. Q-N3 N-N3, 16. P-R3 N-K1, 17. P-K4 N-B3, 18. P-K5 KN-Q2, 19. K-R1 P-QR4, 20. R-B3 P-R5, 21. Q-B2 K-R2, 22. N-KN1 K-R1, 23. B-R2 P-QB4, 24. N-K2 Q-R4, 25. PxP RxP, 26. P-Q4 RxR, 27. NxR R-QB1, 28. P-B4 P-N3, 29. P-KN4 N-B5, 30. QxRP QxQ, 31. NxQ P-QN4, 32. P-N3 BxP, 33. R-B2 PxN, 34. PxN PxP, 35. NxP B-N5, 36. P-B5 N-N3, 37. N-K3 R-B6, 38. B-N1 P-R6, 39. PxKP PxP, 40. R-QR2 R-Q6, 41. N-B2 B-K2, 42. B-K3 N-B5, 43. B-B2 RxRPch, 44. K-N2 R-QN6, 45. R-R1 R-N7, 46. NxP BxN, 47. K-B3 K-N2, and White Resigns.
Silvio giggled uncontrollably, with a big smile. The rum was taking its toll. “You played pretty well, Meredith. At least you aren’t throwing your games. Another!” I poured him a shot of liquid fire. Just thing Mutik came in. The first thing I noticed was the huge jagged scar across his face.
“Mutik!” cried Silvio. “Come on over here! We want to pick your mind for your knowledge of high society!”
Mutik sat down
with us and poured himself and drink, glowering at me the whole while. “You see
my scar, American? You want to know how I got it? I was making time with a
beautiful woman in a bar in New Orleans. Her husband came in and he cut my face.
I cut his throat and left his wife crying in a river of his blood!” He put away
another shot and glowered at me. “Don’t you believe me, American?”
Something came over me. “Actually,
no.”
Mutik roared. “You are right American! Would you like to know the story?” He poured back a third drink.
I needed info from Mutik, so I agreed.
“I was in Chicago, working the iron ore ships on the Great Lakes. I was so drunk I couldn’t drive, and it was about two in the morning. So I decide to take the El train. I’m standing on the platform and I think, ‘Hey, I wonder where the train is?’ and I turn my head to look up the tracks. Bam! I get hit by the train right in the face. You gotta be pretty drunk to get hit by a train, no?” He roared again and put away a fourth shot. I ordered another bottle of rum.
“Mutik,” Silvio interjected, “do you know this woman?” He pushed across the picture of Lucy. Mutik ate up her image like a steak with mushrooms. He glowed like a uranium prospector.
“Yes, she’s in Rio. She’s been invited to the old Imperial Palace by the monarchists. They are having a fancy dress ball. But her hair--what color is it?”
“Her hair is redder than Atlantic sunrise,” Silvio interjected.
“Not any more. She dyed her hair. It is jet black now.”
Black as her soul, I thought. “Why was she invited?”
Mutik winked broadly. “The old pretender is a discreet man, but his cousin, who wants to revive the old empire, is a total showboat He always invites beautiful women to his parties. He figures, rightly I guess, that beautiful women draw the photographers, and the photographers get to the newspapers, and that gives him free publicity. He saw her come off the boat and his jaw hit the pier. He had some scary moments when the hunk of burning love she calls her bodyguard tangled with his police escort. When things got smoothed out your beautiful girl and her scowling escort were invited to the Imperial Ball, as they call it. She will be there with a stunning dress, I am sure.”
“How do you know all this, Mutik?” I asked.
“Ha! Wrestling oilers and tankers and cargo containers--that is work for fools. I learned photography and now I hawk pictures to newspapers. I always prowl the piers where the luxury ships come in. That is where I get the snaps of the beauties that want to be seen. I‘d rather look at girls than waves!” He put away yet another shot. I didn’t know whether to pity or admire his liver.
“Can you get me in?” I asked.
“Not dressed like that!” laughed Silvio. I had forgotten my seaman’s togs. “You will need a tuxedo, and I know just the place!” He slid a business card across the table. It read “Formal wear by Silvio.”
“You have business cards in English?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Men come down here all the time to meet the samba girls, and some of them like
to dress up, and some of them are
Americans or British.”
Mutik coughed. “You get him a monkey suit and I’ll find him a ticket to the dance. And shake a leg, American! The music starts in two hours!”
I followed Silvio back to his shop. I felt like I was walking the last mile to the hot squat.
Silvio’s shop looked shabby from outside, but it was a prince’s paradise within. Outside the paint peeled, the sign hung by one screw, and the windows bore the dirt of centuries. Inside the proprietor spared no expense on electric light, mirrors, or swank men’s clothes. Every possible style of monkey suit hung about on hangers; some of this stuff no doubt dated from the era of Philidor.
“Here,” said Silvio, “try this black tux-and-tails. It’s about the right size, but it’s not so upscale you’ll draw attention. Try it on and I’ll fit it.”
I stepped into the dressing room and put it on. I have to admit I looked sharp--minus the engine grease on my fingers and my need of a haircut and a shave, a real shave with a straight razor sharp enough to cut a throat. I stepped out into a forest of mirrors.
“Good. You’re a little thin in the waist, most of my customers are well-fed men. Take off the pants and I’ll take them in. By the way, you never answered my question.” Silvio had too long a memory for my taste.
I sat, pantless, on a wooden throne of a chair. “What question was that, Silvio?”
“Whether it was love or crime that brought you to Rio?”
I swallowed. One thing I’ve learned: agents of intelligence services hide everywhere, in every conceivable disguise. I don’t know what Egilsson knew. I didn’t know what the Feds knew. I certainly didn’t know what the Brazilian secret service knew. And a tailor with enough dosh to front a first-class tux shop in a slum? Not likely he’s on the level. I’m betting he’s a front man, either for the internal political police or the Brazilian foreign intelligence, working inside the country. Maybe I’m paranoid, but how many paranoids get nabbed by the bulls? Not many, they’re too careful. I had to be careful with Silvio and Mutik.
“A little of both, Silvio. Lucy and I had a thing back in the states, then she split with this side of beef your pal Mutik spotted. A man my age could get over a mere heartbreak, but she took my deed to a mine in Argentina. I have to catch her before she gets the deed transferred to her name. Besides, she’s a not a fan of big hunks or big lunks, and this guy’s definitely a lunk. I expect she’s sick of him by now, and wants a man with more than muscle between his ears.”
Silvio laughed as he stitched my pants. For a man who put away rum like a banker put away mortgages, he seemed pretty stable with the needle. A hollow leg is a big asset as an agent, so I had another good reason to not trust him, at least not too far.
Silvio put down his stitching for a moment. “It will be a while before Mutik gets back. This sewing will take about five minutes. Would you like to play a few games while we wait?”
“In my shorts?” I asked.
“Is it cold in here?” asked Silvio.
I shrugged and he laughed. He ordered some beef chow mein from a local Chinese-Brazilian delivery stand and we ate lunch before we set up the men. I had a little surprise for my Brazilian opponent.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; The Tux Shop, Rio; Dutch Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-KB4,
“What!” exclaimed Silvio, “have you lost your taste for ‘the Brazilian Torture?’”
“As Tchigorin said, “Games do not repeat themselves from opening to mate.” Silvio laughed. Let him…my turn would come.
2. P-KN4
“Mutik picked up this gambit in Brooklyn. I’ve always wanted to try it on an American.”
“I guess it’s lucky for you I needed a tux.” The best way to defeat a gambit is to accept it, so I went for it.
2...PxP, 3. P-KR3 PxP, 4. NxP P-Q4, 5. Q-Q3 N-KB3, 6. N-N5 Q-Q3, 7. N-QB3 P-KN3, 8.N-N5 Q-B3, 9.P-K4 PxP, 10.Q-QN3 P-QR3, 11.B-KB4, and Black Resigns.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; The Tux Shop, Rio; Dutch Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-KB4, 2. P-KN4 PxP, 3. P-KR3 PxP, 4. BxP P-Q3, 5. P-K4 BxB, 6. NxB P-KN3, 7. N-N5 N-KB3, 8. Q-B3 P-K4, 9. Q-QN3 P-Q4, 10. QxNP QN–Q2, 11. N-K6 Q-B1, 12. QxR QxQ, 13. NxPch K-Q1, 14. NxQ K-B1, 15. PxKP QNxP, 16. B-B4 N(3)-Q2, 17.PxP K-N2, 18.N-Q2 KxN, 19.0–0–0 N-N5, 20.N-K4 B-N2, 21.P-KB3 N(5)-B3, 22. B-R6, and Black Resigns.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; The Tux Shop, Rio; Dutch Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-KB4, 2. P-KN4 PxP, 3. P-KR3 PxP, 4. P-K4 N-KB3, 5. N-QB3 P-K3, 6. B-KN5 B-K2, 7. BxN BxB, 8. P-K5 B-R5, 9. Q-N4 0–0, 10. N-B3 B-K2, 11. RxP P-KN3, 12. B-Q3 Q-K1, 13.N-K4 P-Q3, 14. N(4)-N5 P-KR4, 15. Q-N3 N-B3, 16. RxP PxR, 17. NxP ch K-B2, 18. Q-N6 mate.
“Check and mate to your king, sir!” said Silvio in a mock British accent.
“Maybe I’ll do better next game,” I smiled--to myself.
White: Silvio Santos; Black: Charley Applegate; The Tux Shop, Rio; Dutch Defense. 1. P-Q4 P-KB4, 2. P-KN4 PxP, 3. P-KR3 PxP, 4. NxP P-KN3, 5. Q-Q3 P-Q4, 6. N-N5 B-B4, 7. Q-N5ch Q-Q2, 8. QxNP Q-B3, 9. QxQ ch NxQ, 10. P-QB3 P-KR3, 11. P-K4 PxP, 12. B-N5 B-Q2, 13. NxP R-N1, 14. P-R4 P-K4, 15. P-Q5 QN-K2, 16. P-Q6 N-Q4, 17.B-QB4 P-B3, 18. P-N4 N(1)–B3, 19. NxNch NxN, 20. B-K3 R-R1, 21. N-Q2 N-Q4, 22. BxN PxB, 23. B-B5 K-B2, 24. P-QB4 B-B3, 25. R-KR3 K-K3, 26. PxPch BxP, 27. 0–0–0 P-QR4, 28. R-Q3 PxP, 29. P-R5 R-B1, 30. RxB KxR, 31. N-N3 ch K-B3, 32. P-R6 R-R2, 33. K-N2 R-Q2, 34. R-QB1 K-N4, 35. P-R7 R-R1, 36. R-Q1 K-B3, 37. R-QR1 BxP, 38. R-R6ch K-Q4, 39. B-K3 P-R4, 40. R-R5ch K-K3, 41. N-Q2 P-R5, 42. N-B4 P-R6, 43. R-R1 B-B2, 44.K-N3 P-R7, 45. KxP P-K5, 46. K-N5 R-R2, 47. R-R1 K-B4, 48. K-R6 B-B5, 49. B-B5 K-N5, 50. N-R5 K-R6, 51. N-B6 K-N7, 52. R-QN1 P-R8=Q, 53. RxQ KxR, 54. N-K7 RxN, 55. BxR P-K6, and White Resigns.
At this moment the door swung open with a bang. I reached for my old clothes where I’d hidden my Colt. I relaxed when I saw it was Mutik.
“AMERICAN!” He shouted, “I had to propose marriage to an eighty year old spinster aunt of the Old Pretender to get these tickets! This time next week I will be a member of the Serene House of Braganza, but I will not longer be a free man! I hope this is worth it to you!” With that he slapped the tickets down on the chair beside me. I could see Silvio slyly chuckling out of the corner of my eye.
“How did you really get them, Mutik?” I asked.
Mutik laughed hard. “I paid for them, you idiot. I got a press pass for me and you got a dance card. The annual Imperial Ball is a charity event, so anyone with the cash can hobnob with royalty. A couple of years back the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made it down here. Ticket prices went up that year, I can tell you. ”
“How much did these cost you?” I asked.
“About 4,000 pesos. Not much. ”
4,000 pesos! My jaw went slack. Then Silvio and Mutik started laughing. At me, of course.
“Don’t worry, 4,000 pesos isn’t much,” Mutik began. “The press card was 1,000, which my main paper will cover, provided I bring them some pics of real beauty. I’ll get a lot more if there’s some scandal that I catch on film. At the ball with the Duke and Duchess I snapped the Duke eyeballing a young brunette, and I got a neat 15,000 peso bonus. Too bad it turned out that he was nearsighted and had lost his glasses, so he had no idea who he was ogling. ”
“So you got me the 3,000 peso ticket. Wasn’t there any cheaper?”
“You want this Lucy girl, don’t you? Women never buy tickets, they get invited. All the swells with fat wallets get to dance with the girls, hoping to find Miss Right or even Miss Mistress of the Year. Some of the young country girls get sponsored by their towns in the backwoods to this dance. There’s been famous marriages, some scandalous ones, and a lot of you-know-what-you-know-where, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t, but I let it pass. “What does this have to do with the price of the ticket?”
“Well,” he said, warming to the topic of the economics of tickets to the Imperial Ball, “the very rich men buy the 3,000 peso ticket, which gives them unlimited dances with all the girls, including the ones wearing red roses. Some of the younger lions with less cash buy the 2,000 peso ticket, but they can only dance with the girls with yellow, pink, or white roses, and I guarantee you that Lucy will be wearing a red rose, for only the greatest beauties get the red roses. No one goes around saying this of course, for the red roses are supposed to be the personal invitations of the Old Pretender, and the yellow are for the personal invitations of the Young Pretender. In reality they scan the society pages for months, scrutinizing the girls for looks. The tomatoes get the red roses, the ‘just’ pretty get the yellows, and then the other girls get the pink and the white. Tightwads who only spring for the 1,000 peso tickets can only dance ten dances, five with a pink rose girl and five with a white rose girl. ”
Intrigued, I had to ask. “What’s the deal with white and pink?”
“These are poor girls put up by the orphanages and the towns, and not a few favelas. They aren’t bad looking, but they aren’t beautiful and they bring no money to any marriage, and everyone knows it. There is even a secret code: if a pink or white girl wears her flower over her left ear, she is seeking a husband only; if over her right ear, she is open to being a mistress as well as a wife. Believe it or not, there’s a special police unit that regulates which girls get to wear their roses over the right ear. ”
I couldn’t believe it. This sounded like the happy hunting ground for skirt-chasers. Why would the police in this half-lawless land care about who’s a mistress and who’s a wife? “Who is on this special unit?”
Mutik smiled. “A group of widows who are friends of the Old Pretender’s mother. She’ll be ninety soon, believe it or not. Anyway, her ‘ladies in waiting’ watch the girls as they come out to be presented, and they only allow girls with younger siblings at home to wear a right ear rose. Orphan girls and only children must wear it over the left ear. ”
I chortled at the thought of these old biddies trying to control the lively desires of young girls on the hunt for the fattest wallet in the room. “I suppose the girls switch the rose at the first convenient opportunity?”
Mutik laughed hard. “You really disgust me, American--I like that about you. Some girls try that late in the evening, when the ‘police’ have retired to bed, but if they try it early and they get caught, they get tossed out of the dance, so they usually don’t try. ”
“Your pants are ready, try them on. ” Silvio flapped them like a matador before a bull.
“In a moment, Silvio. How much is all this going to cost me, anyway? 3,000 pesos for the ticket…how much for the tux rental?”
“10,000 pesos. ”
I about fainted. By what choice did I have? 13,000 pesos to get Lucy, or go back home to face the frying chair. As I hate the smell of roast flesh, especially when it’s mine, I decided to pay.
“How much in American dollars?”
Silvio plucked out the Courier do Rio to check the daily exchange rate. He did some scratching. “$64.87, about. Make it $65 even.”
I couldn’t believe it. “What’s the exchange rate?”
“About 200 to the dollar, more or less. ”
Hmmm. Maybe he isn’t working for the spooks. I reached into my wallet and plucked out a bill from the Cuban stash at Fat Lightning’s. I spotted a $50 bill and realized I was dead as a haddock.
It was a silver certificate. All of them had been recalled before the war. Passing this was almost as bad as passing a phony bill. I pawed through the wallet. They were all gold or silver certificates. Damned fascists--their secret services always screwed up something simple.
I decided to brave it out. “I’ll make you a deal. I give you two $20 gold certificates. ”
“Gold! I’LL TAKE IT!” shouted Silvio. Mutik jumped up.
“One of them is mine!”
“I’ll make change--then you’ll get your cut!” shot back Silvio, his hand suspiciously reaching under the counter. I quietly pushed back out of the line of fire in case of shooting. If these guys were spies, they sure were putting on a show for a mark.
Mutik glowered. This time he is really mad. Maybe that story about cutting a man’s throat wasn’t a total invention.
After a moment they calmed down. “Okay, you get one," said Silvio. "But I get ten percent of all the action he brings you tonight!”
Mutik relaxed back into his normal self. “Deal!” I stood up and paid Silvio. He took one gold certificate and gave the other to Mutik.
I tried on the trousers and stepped into the mirrors. Not bad, but not perfect--of course I still needed a good barber.
“Do I look good?” I asked.
“Yes, but you don’t want to look too good. They all come running,” said Silvio. Mutik grinned.
“What?”
“The girls!” said Mutik.
“They all come running for a sharp dressed man,” concluded Silvio. They both cackled.
“It isn’t even four, and the ball doesn’t get going until nine. Come here at seven and we will set out. It takes some time for the tramcar to get us to the Imperial Palace from here. ” Mutik sure knew his details.
I picked up my sailor togs and set out for a barber. I quietly slipped my Colt from my togs to my suit pocket. Curiously, there was a pocket in the left breast--just the right size for a .45 ….
Next issue: Lucy in Rio!
I ducked into a money-changing house and swapped out my silver certificates for a bunch of Brazilian money. The proprietor obviously hoped he could still get silver for the bill. I wasn’t about to disabuse him of his illusion; I’d let life do that for me. Next I went into a bathhouse and barber shop. A quick hot bath and a shave with a straight razor made me feel like a new man. The barber sure knew his way around with a straight; not a nick or a cut and my face felt smoother than a baby’s behind, my disguise beard lying in the sink. Dressed, pressed, and sharper than lawyer’s finagle, I went back to Silvio’s. Mutik was already there, dressed for the occasion, complete with his shutterbug stuff.
“Eh, American! You look good!' Mutik chortled. "But you’d better leave your pistol here. The Old Pretender’s bodyguards are not kind to gunsels. ”
I looked back and forth at Silvio and Mutik. Silvio shrugged. “I made the pocket for a gangster who used to hang around down here. One day, wearing another suit, he met his Maker, as you Americans say, in a hail of bullets. I could never get the cut just right to conceal the .45, so we can see your rod. ”
I drew it out. I hated to lose this; it could prove very valuable with Ivan around. But if I couldn’t get it past the bodyguards it was as useless as a car salesman’s conscience. I passed it to Silvio. “I’ll get it back, I suppose?” I asked without hope.
“Of course! I don’t deal in pistols,” he shrugged, looking at the pistol. “Certainly not pistols with the serial number etched off with acid.” He put the pistol under the counter by his cash register, where I guessed it had company.
"It's almost six, American. We better get going. It will take an hour to get to the Imperial Hotel on the Copacabana." We climbed into a prewar Peugeot that Mutik had to start with a hand-crank. We sputtered off in a cloud of blue smoke that didn’t look so good. Mutik caught me looking at the cloud and laughed.
“Yes, I have oil in the gas--and water in the oil! The engine block is cracked. Maybe if I get a picture of Lucy and the Old Pretender I can sell it and buy a new engine. ”
I shrugged. The old Peugeot made better time than I could on foot, the buses were a hazard to everyone, and Mutik knew the way. I settled back and watched the sun set on Rio.
Sunsets tell you a lot about a city. Rio is on the ocean but backed by mountains, most notably Sugarloaf. As the sun sets the city gets black as a public defender's win-loss record, but to the west the sky is still a brilliant yellow, then gold, then a rainbow of colors that fade to black. Then the stars come out. Rio is just like its sunsets: brilliant light during the day, then a mysterious darkness lit by thousands of small twinkling lights. By day, all was open and honest. In the dark, all was hidden and mysterious.
I must have fallen asleep during the drive. Rio's heat is murder on Yankees, though southerners don't mind it much. Mutik shook me awake when the Peugeot shuddered to a coughing stop.
"Wake up, American! Beauty sleep is for Lucy and her look-alikes!" Mutik sure had a way with the American idiom.
I straightened up enough so that it didn't look like I slept in the tux and we walked up the hill to the Imperial Hotel. In the old days it was the Imperial Place, where Pedro II had outlawed slavery, the last American country to do so. After the Republic came in the old Palace was converted to a hotel, though the old royal family still held events there and kept a residence as well. I wondered if they paid rent.
There was a line of about twenty people outside. At the door was the Old Pretender's bodyguards, and Mutik wasn't kidding about them. I haven't seen so much muscle since, well, ever. There must have been ten young men in white suits patting everyone down. They were very polite and very firm. I took a couple of the older guards for Rio police or maybe Brazilian intelligence. They had a professional look about them the others lacked. I swallowed hard. Without my disguise beard these guys could easily make me. Mutik must have noticed how tense I was.
"Relax, American. Confidence is half the game. If they see you so rigid they will get suspicious. Remember, they aren't looking for hoods or criminals. After all, some of them buy tickets to get in. They are looking for political troublemakers or whack jobs obsessed about the girls. They sure as hell aren't looking for an American on the lam. By the way, what's your cover story for being here?"
My cover story! Damn it! I hadn't given it a thought. And I left the fake Cuban papers in my old clothes. I had to think fast.
"Mutik, I left my papers in the seaman's clothes. Will I need them?"
Mutik shook his head. "Everybody's somebody here. Nobody needs papers. But if you aren't cool they will spot it and turn you over to the police. Better come up with a good cover and fast. If you leave now they might get suspicious. "
As we advanced I turned it over in my head. Movie stars and singers were too well-known. I had to try the thing I knew best.
It was our turn. Mutik went right in; his press badge covered him. The guards came to me, checked out my red ticket with unlimited dances, then eyed me all over to see if they could see anything that justified a pat-down. One of the older guards watched me more closely than a robin on a spring worm. He stepped forward.
"What is your name and profession?" he asked in Portuguese. I barely understood him. I answered in English.
"I am Herman Steiner, the international grandmaster. I am returning to the United States after playing a tournament in Buenos Aires. I'm here for series of simultaneous exhibitions before continuing my journey. "
"How do you know Mutik?" This time in English.
I swallowed hard. "I met him in a bar. We played a few games. He suggested I come here tonight. Social contacts are important for a grandmaster, and dancing with pretty girls is always a pleasure, especially for a good cause. "
The guard stepped aside--long enough for the other older guard to step up. Clearly he was the boss. He gave me a look-over that would give serious envy to any dad who ever spooked his daughter's date. Right away he pegged me for an American and spoke to me in English. "If you are Herman Steiner, who is Carlos Guimard?"
I relaxed. I knew this. "Carlos Guimard is a friend of mine. He and Miguel Najdorf run an insurance agency in Buenos Aires. He has a variation of the French Defense named after him. "
"Did Grandmaster Guimard play in this tournament of yours?"
"No, he didn't. He is in Vienna. "
"What is the ninth move of the Herman Steiner variation of the Ruy Lopez?" asked the boss, spitting out words like a tommy gun.
I relaxed even more. I just read up on that in Chess Review. "Why, that's old news. I played it against Stoltz in the Olympiad in Hamburg in 1930. It is 9...P-K5".
"Do you have your passport with you, Mr. Steiner?"
"I didn't know I needed a passport to dance with pretty girls, so I didn't bring it. "
The boss smiled. It reminded me of the smile on Coy's face when he arrested me. I worried.
"Go on in, Mr. Steiner. "
I breathed a sigh and tried to stroll nonchalantly into the ballroom. I found Mutik and buttonholed him.
"What's with the third degree? I thought Brazil was a republic. Why so much security for a lousy ball?"
Mutik shrugged. "You know how it is. Empire or republic, the real power resides in family connections. The Serene House of Braganza may not reign here anymore, but it doesn't mean they don't rule. Besides, the Old Pretender is such a rascal he's good for the tourist trade. Who did you tell them you were?"
"Herman Steiner. "
Mutik gaped. "Idiot! You couldn't have said you were that Dake guy from Oregon? Ever since the war the intelligence agency here is on the look-out for Nazis. And you give them a German-sounding name!"
"What are you talking about, Mutik?"
Mutik scowled. "During the war Nazi intelligence, aided by the Japanese Black Dragon societies, penetrated the Japanese-Brazilian fishing communities here. They used the fishermen to spy on ships carrying Brazilian goods to Great Britain. Then U-boats sank the Brazilian ships, costing a lot of Brazilian money and many Brazilian lives. It got to the point that Brazil declared war on Germany. Two divisions of Brazilian troops fought in Italy. With the Nazis on the run the Brazilians are looking for a little payback. They caught a few of them and quietly gave them to the Israelis. One got another kind of justice down in the favela San Joao. A former U-boat sailor--just a working slob, a mechanic--got a job down there fixing cars. He let it slip one day that he had served on a U-boat. By the time the cops got there the mob hadn't left much for them to arrest. And, of course, there were no witnesses. Remember this: the Old Pretender has it in for Nazis. He really hates them."
I was in it again. I hoped Lucy would show up soon. "Should I leave now?"
Mutik shook his head. "They will notice. Take some time. There will be dancing, then a speed chess tournament. The men play the men, the girls play the girls, then at midnight there is a 'battle of the sexes,' where the two champions meet. If you haven't found Lucy by then they won't notice you leave. Everyone likes to bet on the match and watch the action. The girls have won the last seven years in a row! Then's the time to slip out. " Mutik slapped his forehead which turned redder than Lucy's hair.
"What is it?"
"You, you idiot. If they think you are Grandmaster Steiner, they will expect you to win the men's side and then beat the girl. There will be a lot of money on you. I guess you better win it all or they will know you aren't Herman Steiner. Then they will find out who you really are. "
My heart sank faster than that junk cable we ditched when we threw Lenny in the sea. How was I going to beat these guys and then the girls' champion? I couldn't handle that Brazilian torture over the board. I suspected I would get the real torture after I was found out.
Just then a gasp swept through the crowd. The girls started to promenade for the admiring men. The men applauded as the girls sashayed in. The white roses went first, then the pink, then the yellow, then the red rose girls last. The younger girls went first, the older girls later. They swept around the room in a vast circle, taking seven promenades before the dancing began. There, at the end of the red rose girls, looking like a goddess, was Lucy. Her red rose peeked out from over her right ear. She wore a black strapless gown that went all the way to the floor, with slits up the side so with every practiced step one glamorous leg shot out from the dress, flexed, then disappeared while its equally glamorous sister shot out for a second, only to disappear in turn. She wore elbow length black gloves and waved to the men. Her hair, black now, coruscated to her waist. If my heart was in the ocean before it was back in my throat again. I could be arrested at any moment, and if Lucy spotted me and turned me in I would be frying like an egg in Sing Sing in a month. Watching Lucy move about made me think, for some reason, of the male praying mantis. After mating they often get eaten by the female mantis. I knew at that precise moment exactly how those bugs felt.
When Lucy swept by the first time she didn't see me, but I got a very good look at her. In the brighter light I saw something I didn't notice in the bar. She was bit older, with a few small wrinkles and a bit of age to her face. Strangely I found her even more alluring. The flaws made her beauty stand out more. I began to daydream. Maybe a forty-something Lucy would be even more. . . Lucy. My vocabulary fails me.
On the fifth pass she spotted me. Her face froze for a moment, then she fixed me with an indescribable look, smiled, and blew me a kiss. Just then I felt like praying--like a mantis.
The promenades came to an end and the Old Pretender got up and made a speech in Portuguese, of which, mercifully, I didn't understand very well. Mutik scrambled about snapping pictures of the beauties and the famous men ogling them. I half-suspected there might be a blackmail angle to him. Maybe that's how he really got the scar.
Suddenly the music started up and the dancers paired off. I made a beeline for Lucy when the floor exploded in a wild samba. Lucy got swept off by a grey-haired man who danced like he had lightning in his feet. I turned just in time to be grabbed by a little blonde gal, and I mean little. She couldn't have been four foot ten. She wore a one-shoulder red dress that left little to the imagination and less for the dress. She was quite athletic and wound me around but good. Lumbering about with her I felt like one of those dancing bears you see at the circus.
The samba ended and then a tango began. Every girl switched partners. I later found out that this ball is almost a girls' dance, where the girls pick out the men. I got chosen by a tall girl with jet-black hair and glistening brown skin. Not only did she have perfect skin, great rhythm and quick feet, she was strong. Unfortunately the band struck up a fast tango, which gives the girl lots of opportunities to pull the man around. I went from feeling like a bear to looking like a rag doll.
The music changed to a fox trot and I was beginning to wonder if this dance was designed to find out which men had the strongest hearts. I danced with a petite redhead, then a waltz with a very heavy set gal with a brilliant smile who talked a lot. After I escaped from her I got a girl who looked one-quarter Japanese with a face graced by two sapphire-blue eyes. Then the bandleader called a pause and everyone trooped over to the punchbowls. I staggered outside to get some air.
"What are you doing here, Charley?"
I heard that voice. Suddenly I was twenty-three again and feeling all the joys and heartaches of true love. When you fall into true love you only do it once, and it's like falling off a cliff--somebody better catch you or you never stop falling. My true love, alas, married another man, but Lucy stirred a feeling, something mature, yet passionate in its own way.
"I came looking for you, gorgeous. You and Ivan. Where is he, anyway?"
Lucy smiled. With the ballroom backlighting her face she looked even older then before, but I just couldn't stop staring. If love is blind don't take off my spectacles.
"I left Ivan to hobnob with the valets and chauffeurs. He likes it better that way. Besides, he scares the bourgeoisie. Can’t have that, can we? So what do you think you can do?”
I tried to do my best Bogart imitation. “I was hoping you’d listen to the voice of reason and turn yourselves in so I wouldn’t pay for a crime I didn’t do. ”
Lucy laughed, like the pealing of bells on a Sunday morning or at a wedding. For some reason I stopped thinking about mantises.
“Well, Charley, let’s see how the night progresses. ”
The music started up again and I trailed after Lucy to try and catch her but she was too fast for me even in three inch heels. I went through another succession of young girls, but they gradually stopped trying to grab me. I think they figured out that I wasn’t there for them and that I didn’t have any money anyway. It was fine by me, it gave me a chance to get closer to Lucy.
It did me no good though. There were admirals and generals and hotshots of every kind all around her. No man got to dance with her twice. I’d always heard the expression ‘the belle of the ball’ but I never understood it before. The praying mantis thing made a comeback.
Suddenly the Cathedral of Spirito Sancto chimed, a huge tolling bell. Midnight. Time for the speed chess tournament. I saw the security boss sidle up to the Old Pretender and whisper in his ear. They held an animated conversation that I didn’t like, as the boss kept motioning to a magazine. He then stuck the magazine inside his jacket. The Old Pretender stepped to the mike.
He spoke in Portuguese for several sentences then suddenly motioned towards me and said in a loud voice, “Herman Steiner!” Everyone turned toward me, smiled, and applauded. He went on for several more sentences before he stepped aside. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.
It was the boss. “His Majesty told the crowd that this year we were honored by the presence of a grandmaster--you, Mr. Steiner. As such he waived the usual practice. The men’s speed tournament will be held as a formality, and you shall be forwarded, regardless of result, to the final with the ladies’ champion. I hope you do well....Mr. Steiner. ”
The game was up. He knew. I don’t know how but he knew. By putting me in the final I couldn’t get away. By singling me out he made sure everyone would watch me. I began to envy the mantis. He didn’t have an audience.
I played through the men’s section, which took a couple of hours. I didn’t see the winner of the women’s section. Surprisingly, I actually won the men’s section, though with a few scary moments; the waiver by the Old Pretender didn't matter. Maybe Samuel Johnson is right about imminent execution concentrating the mind.
The Old Pretender came up, shook my hand, and led me to a table surrounded by onlookers. It was the champion’s table, and the girl opposite me, was, of course, Lucy. Mutik snapped us together. I began to wonder what a male mantis would have for a last meal.
The Old Pretender made another speech. He sure liked speeches. Then he turned and whispered, in perfect English, a short statement to us. “Grandmaster Steiner,” he said, “I just told everyone that it looks like the men’s drought of victories would come to an end tonight. Such a match! The famous Grandmaster Steiner and the lovely beauty of the north, Lydia Lipps, the younger sister of the movie star Lucy Lipps!" I saw Lucy wink at me when he announced her phony name. Pretty clever to pretend to be your own sister. "But to make it extra rich, I have proposed a modest prize.” He reached into his pocket and produced a gold coin.
“This was minted by my grandfather Pedro II to celebrate the end of slavery. If either of you wins all four games, you will win this coin as a prize. There is one condition: all four games must feature the famous Herman Steiner variation of the Ruy Lopez! Mr. Steiner, you are Black in all four games.”
My heart leaped. I had studied that on the boat ride down from Havana. A sharp line with lots of chances. I might have a chance against Lucy. I looked over at her.
Without batting an eyelash she cooed to the Old Pretender, “I accept your terms Your Majesty--if Char--if Herman does. ”
I couldn’t refuse. “Of course. By the bye, how much is the coin worth? I would hate to see so much on one speed chess match. ”
The Old Pretender shrugged. “Not much. Maybe one million pesos. ”
One million pesos! I goggled. Lucy didn’t turn a hair. One million of anything is a lot. If I could get that coin maybe I could just skip going back to America altogether. I’d rather fry on the Copacabana beach than the electric chair.
The Old Pretender set the clocks for five minutes. I felt that hand again on my shoulder. The boss leaned over and whispered in my ear. “my money is on you...Mr. Steiner. ”
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janiero; Ruy Lopez. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-N5 P-QR3, 4. B-R4 N-B3, 5. 0–0 B-K2, 6. R-K1 P-QN4, 7. B-N3 0–0, 8. P-B3 P-Q4, 9. PxP P-K5, (Diagram) 10. PxN PxN, 11. QxP B-KN5, 12. Q-N3 B-Q3, 13. P-KB4 R-K1, 14. R-K5 BxR, 15. PxB N-R4, 16. QxB RxP, 17. N-R3 R-K8 ch, 18. K-B2 N-B3, 19. Q-KB4 Q-K2, 20. Q-B3 R-R8, 21. N-B2 N-K5 ch, 22. K-K2 NxBPch, 23. K-Q3 R-Q1ch, 24. N-Q4 N-K7, and White Resigns.
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janiero; Ruy Lopez. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-N5 P-QR3, 4. B-R4 N-B3, 5. 0–0 B-K2, 6. R-K1 P-QN4, 7. B-N3 0–0, 8. P-B3 P-Q4, 9. PxP P-K5, 10.PxN PxN, 11.QxP B-KN5, 12.Q-N3 B-Q3, 13.P-KB4 R-K1,14.P-Q4 N-R4, 15.RxRch QxR, 16.Q-B2 QxP, 17.P-KR3 B-KB4, 18.P-N4 R-K1, 19. PxB NxP, 20. BxN BxB, 21. QxB R-K8 ch, 22. Q-B1 RxQ ch, 23. KxR Q-R8ch, 24. K-K2 Q-N7ch, 25. K-Q1 QxNP, 26. P-Q5 QxR, 27. K-B2 P-N5, and White Resigns.
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janiero; Ruy Lopez. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-N5 P-QR3, 4. B-R4 N-B3, 5. 0–0 P-QN4, 6. B-N3 B-K2, 7. R-K1 0–0, 8. P-B3 P-Q4, 9. PxP P-K5, 10. PxN PxN, 11. P-Q4 PxP, 12. Q-B3 B-KN5, 13. QxP B-Q3, 14. B-N5 R-K1, 15. RxR ch QxR, 16. BxP ch KxB, 17. N-Q2 Q-K7, 18. P-KR3 B-R4, 19. BxN PxB, 20. Q-Q5ch K-K2, 21. Q-KB5 R-KN1ch, 22. K-R1 B-N3, 23. Q-Q7 ch K-B1, 24. Q-Q8 ch K-N2, 25. Q-Q7 ch K-R1, 26. R-KN1 B-K5ch, and White Resigns.
White: Lucy Lipps; Black: Charley Applegate; Rio de Janiero; Ruy Lopez. 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-N5 P-QR3, 4. B-R4 N-B3, 5. 0–0 B-K2, 6. R-K1 P-QN4, 7. B-N3 0–0, 8. P-B3 P-Q4, 9. PxP P-K5, 10. N-N5 B-KN5, 11. Q-B2 N-K4, 12. NxKP NxN, 13. QxN B-Q3, 14. P-Q4 P-KB4, 15. Q-B2 N-B6ch, 16. PxN BxBP, 17. N-Q2 Q-N4ch, (Diagram) and White Resigns.
Lucy smiled at me in her indescribable way. The Old Pretender held my hand up like a prize fighter. Mutik snapped a picture of him giving me the gold coin. I sat down at the board to sign a few autographs when the boss leaned over my shoulder. He slapped a copy of Chess Review down on the table. It lay open to a picture of Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and...Herman Steiner.
“You are looking quite well, Mr. Steiner,” he began.
Before he could get off another word a scream rent the air. “STAY AWAY FROM HIM YOU MAN-STEALING HUSSY!” A blonde bolt of lightning with a red dress shot over the table and toppled Lucy. It was the little blonde I'd danced with earlier. The high heels came off and an old-fashioned cat fight was on. At least at first.
The two gals scrambled apart and the blonde tore into Lucy. It was like watching the Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight all over again, only the fact that it was two beautiful tomatoes made it even more interesting. That, and they seemed to be just as interested in keeping their expensive dresses from tearing as landing haymakers. You've never seen the sweet science of boxing until you've watched two gals in evening gowns duking it out on the dance floor of a five star hotel--with royalty watching.
The blonde kept landing these sharp looking shots, mostly uppercuts to Lucy's ribs. Lucy's footwork was pretty good, so the blonde didn't try to plant one on Lucy's jaw. The blonde's shots kept Lucy off-balance but didn’t seem to hurt her, but they didn't make Lucy very happy either. They went back and forth in their bare feet. You never really pay attention to a woman’s feet until her high heels come off. A curious thought, but at least it pushed the praying mantis from my mind.
Finally Lucy got her right hand free and landed a sharp right cross on the blonde’s jaw and sent her tumbling backward. As she fell the blousy skirt of her dress flapped about like a sail in a hurricane. Lucy started over to finish the blonde lightweight when she stopped in mid-stride. She looked up and saw herself in the full-length mirrors that lined the walls. In all the commotion I didn’t notice it until them. Her black-haired wig had come off and her red hair was everywhere. An American in the crowd shouted, “It’s the real Lucy Lipps! She’s wanted by the American government!”
Lucy didn’t wait. “IVAN!” she shouted, and at the other end of the hall a black-suited bulldozer of a man pushed through the bodyguards like a snowplow through an Upstate New York snow drift. Lucy sprinted towards him and they fled into the night. Out in the darkness I heard a powerful engine kick to life, followed by the squealing of rubber and the fading roar of escape.
“Guardos!” shouted the boss, but as they grabbed me a woman screamed hysterically at the other end of the hall. Portuguese was shouted and the guards let me go. People scrambled in every direction. Something bad was happening and I didn't want it to happen to me. I scrambled for Mutik, who was making tracks for the back door.
“What is going on?” I asked him. I was breathless from something, either the catfight or the close call.
“It's the Old Pretender’s mother! She is shouting that the crown jewels have been stolen!”
We clambered into his Peugeot and roared off as best we could. We swung by the shop and I changed back into my old clothes and pocketed my pistol. Mutik then took me back to the Capablanca.
Lenny smiled at me as I climbed into the top bunk. “Have a good time in Rio?” he laughed.
“Yes,” I said, as I fingered my gold coin.
Next time: Charley in Buenos Aires!
End
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