Chapter 2
"No shack job tonight, huh Sarge?" the PFC at the guard gate to Grunewalk Kasern put his greeting to Joe crudely as he walked up from the taxi.
"Has Sergeant Thompson come in yet?" Joe asked, ignoring the remark.
"Somethin' like fifteen minutes. Boy, was he soused!"
Joe walked quickly across the dark drill field to the old stuccoed former Luftwaffe barracks where he shared a room with Larry. This was clearly the wrong time to approach his buddy with a problem like this. But it had to be now. Joe had to talk about it now. They had kidnapped Erika, and Larry was the only person Joe could tell.
"Wha's matter? Lil woman kick y out awreddy?" Larry Thompson laughed tipsily, lumbering all over the room as he tried to get out of his pants, "Godawmighty, pal. Hoi' a room still fer me, willya?"
"You'll be sober quick enough, Larry," Joe put it to him as strongly a she could, his usual cheerfulness soured by a serious frown, "Erika's been kidnapped by the goddam Commies!"
"Sleep it off, pal," Larry hiccoughed, grabbing at the bunk beds to keep from falling when his trouser leg suddenly pulled off, "She's probably got herself all 'cited "bout somep'n an' jus' took off fer...."
"Shut up, Larry! She's been kidnapped, goddammit!" Joe boiled, grabbing the short Sergeant roughly by his shoulders, "This is no laughing matter, buddy. Sober up! The Reds got her and they know I can't do a damn thing about it! They got me mouse-trapped and over a barrel ... and you're in on the deal, too, good buddy. You've been helping me foot the bill at that flea trap pension. If I'm nabbed for hiding an unregistered refugee from the East ... you're in it too!"
"You ... you ain't kiddin', huh?" Larry started to sober, plopping on the bottom bunk in his underwear, "But ... well, what the hell? I ain't tryin' to let a buddy down or nothin' ... you wan' me t'help an' I'll cut off my damn tallywacker fer ya, pal. But I jus' loan't you some dough ... tha's all."
"But you knew what it was for," Joe reasoned, pacing the floor after he lit a cigarette and tossed the pack toward Larry. "They had to pull this on a guy who had goofed up and let himself be vulnerable. That's me, good buddy ... the honor soldier, the indomitable Sergeant. Hell! I sure fouled up this time."
"I'm not readin' ya, pal."
"Don't you see, Larry...." Joe stopped pacing long enough to give his roommate a light, "there are only two of us on that night trick in the CSS Decoding Room-Sergeant Dickson and myself. Dick's a respectable home and family type with his brood right here with him. And when I was playing it straight with Martha ... I was just a normal boy, too, dating a hospital nurse and doing what any single guy would do. But now I'm vulnerable as hell-a Security NCO keeping house for an unregistered gal from the Commie side. And they've got me pegged too ... they knew I was really in love with Erika. I never went out with another German gal the whole two years I've been here ... much less risked my neck by eating the forbidden fruit from the East."
Gosh, pal!" Larry exclaimed, shaking the wobbly cobwebs from his head as the whole thing hit him. "You botched it up real good. But ... wait! Mebbe they jus' want dough ... ransom."
"From me?" Joe queried with a ludicrous sneer, then pounded his fist on the dresser. "Me-a poor Buck Sergeant who has to borrow dough from another poor Sergeant to keep her up? And Erika? She hasn't got any dough. Her folks are just regular working people over in East Berlin. No, good buddy, there's only one reason that fat gorilla with an accent like the Volga Boatman would take Erika."
"Whatcha gonna do?" Larry asked glumly, rubbing his eyes and getting up from the bed. "I know Erika wasn't no ... well you wasn't just shackin' with 'er. But this is serious, man...."
"I don't know what to do," Joe threw up his hands despairingly and sat down. "I'll be responsible for letting them kill Erika if I tell Captain Marsh ... and I'm a traitor if I don't."
"And I'm on a piece of that boat," Larry admitted his involvement now, pulling a fifth of Cognac from his foot locker, "Nipe on this, pal, an' let's plan how we're gonna spen' the rest of our lives in Leavenworth. Hell ... even if we do report it now, we're still cooked."
"There's got to be another alternative," Joe vowed angrily, smashing a fist into his palm and getting up to pace the floor again. "We both work in Security, Larry. We've seen the cloak-and-dagger boys operate. Let's think, buddy! Let's think!"
"Get off it, Joe," Larry pessimized, reaching into his roommate's pocket for another cigarette as he mashed out a half-butt from the other one. "We can't go traipsin' 'round the East Sector huntin' fer spies. We're the boys in the backroom on this intelligence stuff."
"You think of a better way then," Joe dared, " ... traitors or Leavenworth. Which shall we take?"
"Chee-rist!" Larry exclaimed helplessly, stuffing the package back in Joe's pocket. "I lent money to a hundred guys to help out with the girl frien' ... an' look what I get this time-Instant Benedict Arnold. Hey! What's this?"
"Huh? Oh, that," Joe replied, looking at the capsule Larry pulled from his shirt pocket. "It's one of Erika's pills ... the only thing of hers I could find. They'd cleaned out the room."
"What's it for?"
"Hell, I don't know." Joe threw up his hands, digging out another cigarette for himself. "She had them in her purse that first night I met her. I never asked."
"Get it analyzed!" Larry snapped, excited over his idea, "maybe you can use it to find out where she is ... like if ... ' '
"What do I do?" Joe cut in, not taking to the idea, " ... go to some little German Apotlicke and say, 'here, analyze this.' That would go over great, wouldn't it? They'd want to know where I got the East Zone medicine, why I wanted to find out...."
"Get Martha to do it," Larry suggested, swilling deeply from the cognac and passing the bottle to Joe. "She can have one of the pill boxes at the Army pharmacy check it. They'd do it for Martha without askin' no questions."
"Martha?" Joe barked the question at Larry, tossing down a mouthful of the liquor. "I haven't seen the girl since I met Erika last month. Hell's bells, she's the last person who'd want to do me any favors. I dated her for damn near a year ... got her last summer when we took that leave together in Paris ... then ditched her like a hot potato when I met Erika."
"Yer past is catchin' up with ya, pal."
"All right! All right! So I was a bastard," Joe confessed, remembering unpleasantly how he'd treated the lovable and lovely redheaded nurse. "But a gal like Erika only happens once in a guy's life. Martha was all right ... a real doll of a red ... Hey! You know what?"
"Don't tell me," Larry shuddered, covering his face. "You prob'ly shot somebody with my gun, too."
"The redhead!"
"Hit me again, pal?"
"There was some redhead sexpot in Erika's bed," he filled in, perching on the edge of a rickety QM night table. "I thought she looked familiar. She had a body on her like Martha, and that same hair . .
"Coincidence, kid," Larry sloughed it off, sipping from the bottle again and eyeing his Sergeant's stripes on the shirt in the open wardrobe. "But look, Joe ... why not make a clean breast of it with Martha? Tell 'er the truth an' tell 'er you're in a jam. She's the only one can help you on this capsule thing ... an' that's the only trace you've got left of Erika."
"But what the hell good...."
"You wanted to play 'Spy versus Spy', kiddo," Larry was getting enthusiastic now as he ran a comb through his coal black crew-cut and patted his administratively enlarged belly. "What if it's diabetes or somethin'? You can use it as a wedge nex' time you contact those boys. Tell 'em she ain't gettin' 'er pills an' you wanna be sure she's still all right. Use it to force that guy Dorfstadt into comin' across fer ya. That's the only piece of proof you got she was there."
"It's not much ... but you're right, buddy," Joe had to agree, snuffing out his cigarette under a leaking stream of lavatory water. "This'll be a helluva thing to pitch at Martha this time of night ... but, well maybe I won't have to tell her the whole truth."
"What about her roommate?"
"Phyllis? She's got the graveyard shift," Joe told him, tightening his tie and looking in the mirror. "No problem there. And being officers and gentlewomen, they've got their own apartment that opens right into the street in that neighborhood over by the hospital."
"Good luck, pal," Larry offered, tossing him the keys to his car. "Take the jalop. It's parked right outside the gate. And ... I'll think on this some more while you're gone. Hell, I can't go to sleep now."
"Rattle the brain plenty, Larry," Joe got real serious as he pocketed the keys. "I'd do anything for Erika ... or my country. And thanks for the buggy."
Three sets of footsteps rushed past Joe and jumped into an MP scout car just as he reached the guard gate. The uncouth PFC, who had been chatting with a Lieutenant in the MP sedan, jumped back into his guard shanty when Joe came up.
"Security in on the big murder, too?" the soldier asked, nodding him through.
"Uh ... no. I just had a row with the gal friend ... Martha ... the nurse I go with ... thought I'd go back and make up," Joe stammered out some logic for his 3 A.M. departure. "Why? What's up with the MP's?"
"Aww ... some German got strangled to death down in the Schoeneberg area," he related desultorily, picking up his copy of the OVERSEAS WEEKLY. "Got some witnesses claim they seen a GI come in this here little pension down there and threaten the guy what owns it. Half an hour later ... the kraut gets croaked."
"What?" Joe's jaw dropped incredulously before he could regain his composure. "Where ... where did you say this happened?"
"Down in Schoeneberg," the PFC mispronounced it terribly again, turning the paper over to a rape-murder story from Munich. "Some joint called the Pension Dorfstadt. Say ... you come in pretty late tonight. You wasn't...."
"Me?" Joe protested too much, then calmed quickly. "Hell, I was over at the girl friend's ... over in the Hospital Housing Area. I can prove it."
"Jumpin' jackrabbits, Sarge," the PFC broke into an apologetic laugh, throwing down the paper, "I was only kiddin'. It was prob'ly some drunked up GI with a shack job. Gosh Sarge ... I known you a long time ... you wouldn' do nothin' like that."
The guard's words taunted Joe as he walked outside to find Larry's car. "A drunked up GI with a shack job." That's what they would think. That's what everyone would think. And now there was a murder rap they would try to hang on him too.