Back from the Dead (9 page)

“I’ll do that,” Hess said, marveling at the situation. Max Hoffman,
Sonderkommando,
had cheated death once, and now fate had brought Hess back to reclaim him.

Cordell had met the Colombians through a black dude name High-Step, on account of one leg was shorter than the other and he had to wear a special shoe. High was tall, six four on one side and skinny. He had receding hair that reminded Cordell of Cazzie Russell.

They met at a bar in Hialeah, High making the introductions. The Colombians were Alejo, short, maybe five eight, with dark oily hair, and either he needed a shave or was growing a beard. Alejo wore a wrinkled white suit and did the talking for the Colombians. His partner was Jhonny, who Alejo called El Pibe, a name High said later meant kid in Spanish. It made sense ’cause Jhonny had nice olive skin and like six hairs on his face and looked about sixteen. The Colombians sold this sappy, fuck-you-up weed Alejo called woo woo for $100 a pound, the wholesale price. Cordell had heard it called a lot of things, bammy and boom and woolah, but never woo woo.

“How much you want to buy?” Alejo said when the four of them were sitting at a table in the dark bar, the Colombians drinking Cuba Libres, Cordell and High-Step Courvoisier and Coke.

“Let’s start with twenty, see how it goes,” Cordell said, thinking, okay, invest two grand, bring home six, calculating its street value. Maybe make a little more depending how he cut it up. High’d get ten per cent, $200, for introducing them.

“My man buy twenty, going to give him a quantity discount?” High-Step said to Alejo, sounding like a professional marijuana broker.

“I’m sure we can work something out.” Alejo glanced at Cordell and grinned. “Man, you got a lot of ambition, uh?”

“My man get to check it out first,” High said. “Make sure it quality shit.”

“Of course,” Alejo said. “Satisfaction guaranteed or you money back.”

They met at a farm off Military Trail the next day. There was a white two-storey house and a crooked barn looked like it was about to fall over. There were fields but it didn’t look like nothing was growing on them, and there was no one around. Just their two cars parked on the dusty yard in front of the barn. Alejo popped the trunk on his black Road Runner that had a layer of dust on it and handed High-Step a black plastic garbage bag knotted at one end.

“Twenty pounds of Colombia’s finest woo woo,” Alejo said.

High-Step, earning his commission, handed the bag to Cordell. It was heavy, felt like twenty pounds. Cordell untied the knot in the trunk of his Z28, pulled the plastic back, looked in and picked up a handful of sappy weed, smelled like it could send you to a far-off galaxy.

“What you think?” Alejo said. “You like?”

Yeah, he liked. Took twenty $100 bills out of his back pocket and handed the wad to Alejo. Alejo speed-counted it and gave Cordell back $200.

“You discount, man.”

That’s how Cordell’s new enterprise had started. He took the weed back to his apartment in West Palm, filled plastic bags and weighed them on his new scale, got twenty lids per pound, four hundred total. At $15 each that was $6,000. It went fast too, Cordell making the rounds in Fort Lauderdale, the Elbow Room, the Student Prince and Penrods, selling to longhaired, pea-eyed hippies who looked like they were already in orbit, and vacationing students who wanted to get there. Everybody interested in a lid of Grade A, no-bullshit Colombian, smoke it, you’d be under the influence of a higher power.

A second market that looked promising was the crowd at the Windjammer, tap into the young rich professionals. Cordell sat at the bar next to a dude in a starched white dress shirt, unbuttoned to his navel, drinking a Salty Dog. Cordell said, “How you doing? Like to get high?”

“You taking a poll, or selling?” dude wearing a gold Rolex said.

“It’s Colombian,” Cordell said. “Sends you up like NASA.”

“When I smoke grass it’s Acapulco Gold,” the dude said, getting all haughty.

“I’m impressed,” Cordell said. “Shit I got makes Acapulco Gold smoke like oregano, man.”

“How much?”

“Thirty dollars an ounce, limit four ounces per customer,” Cordell said and grinned.

“Why is there a limit?”

“Shit’s so good I can’t be responsible what happens to you.”

“Got it with you?”

Cordell sold the whole batch, four hundred lids in a couple days, and was on the phone to Alejo. “I’m out, man. Got more? I’ll take fifty pounds this time.”

“That’s a lot of woo woo,” Alejo said.

“Got a lot of people want to get high.”

They agreed to meet at the farm again. No High-Step this time, just Cordell and the nickel-plate semiautomatic under the seat, in case he needed back-up. He looked in the rearview, tires on the dirt road kicking up a trail of dust, getting the blue Z28 with white stripes all dirty, just had it washed.

Alejo and Jhonny were waiting in Alejo’s black Road Runner when he pulled up next to the barn. The Colombians got out, Jhonny popped the trunk, reached in and pulled out two garbage bags, brought them over to Cordell. He opened them and checked the shit, smelled just like the last batch. Cordell gave Alejo fifty $100 bills, and that was that.

Drove back to his apartment in West Palm and went to work. He’d filled and weighed twenty-five bags when the phone rang. Cordell picked it up said, “Yo?”

“It’s Joyce.” Kinda quiet voice like she didn’t want no one to hear what she was sayin’. Cordell thinking, Joyce. Joyce who?

“I need your help. The Nazi’s back,” he thought she said, sounding upset, talking fast.

Okay, now he got it. “Yo, Joyce, slow down, tell me what’s going on.”

She was afraid, asked Cordell to come pick her up and she would explain everything. Man, this was bad timing, but then he thought, hold on, be cool. He could put her in the guest room, free room and board, she could help with the operation. Bagging and weighing weed you could teach a monkey to do, and Joyce, from what he remembered, was fairly intelligent. Not that he knew her all that well. But they had this connection.

Cordell left everything where it was, drove to Palm Beach and picked her up. She was waiting in the lobby. He walked her out, Joyce all nervous, looking around while Cordell put her suitcase in the trunk. On the way back to the apartment Joyce told him what had happened, and Cordell thought it was hard to believe. He’d seen the Nazi on the kitchen floor with a bullet hole in his chest, and if the motherfucker wasn’t dead, man was a vampire. But he didn’t say nothin’. Joyce helped him one time so he was going to help her back.

Cordell opened the apartment door and knew something was wrong. The green plaid drape on one side of the window had been pushed through the broken glass and was blowing in the wind. Joyce was looking at it too, and then at him, could read his expression, see something wasn’t right.

“What happened?”

“Look like somebody broke in.”

He stepped in the apartment behind Joyce, put her suitcase on the floor and closed the door.

“You don’t think they’re still here?”

Cordell didn’t answer, he was moving into the room, seeing the twenty-five lids he’d left on the table, gone, plastic garbage bags on the floor, gone too. All he could think of was the Colombians. Who else? Followed him from the farm. They had his money and now they had the woo woo. Sell it again to some other dumbass, steal it back. But it didn’t make sense. Okay, they took five grand off him. But could’ve made ten times that or more dealing with him straight up. They had the weed and he had the clientele. Cordell went into the kitchen, got on his knees on the yellow-and-white linoleum, pulled out the strip of wood under the cabinets, grabbed the money, twenty-five grand, and the nickel-plate semiautomatic, thinking, call High-Step, find out where the Colombians was at, settle up. But what about Joyce?

She came in, stood over him and said, “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Colombians stole my weed.”

With that Joyce started crying. “Tell me this isn’t happening.” Cordell got up, put his arms around her and said, “There, there now. Everything gonna be okay.”

Stark phoned early evening, gave Harry the flights Hess, alias Gerd Klaus, had taken.

“Flew Stuttgart-London on Lufthansa, September twenty-eighth. Had a two-hour layover. Flew London-Detroit on Pan Am, arriving on the twenty-ninth, checked into the Statler Hotel downtown.”

“Amazing,” Harry said, writing the information down on a lined yellow pad. “How do you do it?”

“I have friends in high places,” Stark said. Harry could hear him drawing on a cigarette and blowing out the smoke. “Tell me what’s going on. I thought this guy was dead.”

“Well, evidently there’s been an eyewitness account of his resurrection.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t see how it’s possible. I told you what happened.” Harry assumed Joyce was just being paranoid.

“I remember,” Stark said. “Who could survive that?” He paused. “What’s it have to do with this information I just got for you?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. “That’s something else.”

“But, I suspect, related.”

“Could be.”

Harry hung up, ripped the paper off the pad and handed it to Colette. “Find the locker and you might have your next story.”

“What do you think is in it?”

Joyce called again while they were having dinner.

“Harry, I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a problem.” She told him about the Colombians. “I can’t stay here, Harry.”

“Go to a friend’s,” Harry said. “Go to a hotel till I can get down there.” He paused. “Put Cordell on, will you?”

“He wants to talk to you,” Joyce’s voice sounding faint.

“Yo, Harry, my man. How’s everything in the Motor City?”

“You’re back at it, huh?”

“It’s the only trade I know.”

“I don’t want Joyce involved in this.”

“She ain’t involved. You involved?” Cordell said to Joyce. “No she ain’t involved.”

“Get her out of there, will you?”

“Harry, tell me you don’t believe the Nazi’s back. No offense,” he said to Joyce.

“I saw him,” Joyce said.

“Keep an eye on her,” Harry said to Cordell. “I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

Colette kissed Harry and put her arms around him, holding on tight. “Harry, I am going to miss you so much.”

They had talked about when they were going to see each other again. Harry had been kicked out of Germany for carrying a concealed weapon. If he returned he would be arrested, prosecuted and sent to prison.

Harry had said, “Let’s see how it goes. You might be happy to get away from me for a while. You might get home and not think about me.”

And Colette had said, “You might get lonely and call Galina.”

“Don’t worry. She’s mad, not talking to me.” Harry kissed her. “When are you coming back?”

“Oh, now you want me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Harry said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

She saw the last of the passengers moving through the gate into the jet way. She heard last call for her Pan Am flight to London on the intercom.

“Harry, I have to go.” She kissed him one more time, showed her ticket to the gate agent and walked toward the plane.

Colette was in London seven hours later. Going through customs took forever. She didn’t have a lot of time. Her flight to Stuttgart was scheduled to take off in thirty minutes. Colette went down to baggage claim where the lockers were, tried to insert Hess’ key in locker number 48 but it didn’t fit. Now she had to get to the Lufthansa gate that was on the other side of the terminal. She ran most of the way and made it with only a couple minutes to spare.

In Stuttgart Colette went to baggage claim, retrieved her suitcase and went through customs. She found the lockers, but again the key didn’t fit. So now she was concerned. How did Hess travel from Munich to Stuttgart? He could have gone by train, but she doubted he would take that chance. Hess was well known and recognizable in Bavaria. And if he had booked a flight, Hess’ name or his alias, Gerd Klaus, would have been on an airline manifest. Based on that supposition, Colette believed Hess had driven to Stuttgart. And since he was flying to London the locker had to be in this terminal. Colette talked to a Lufthansa ticket agent and learned that the Lufthansa lounge on the third floor had lockers.

She checked it out, found locker 48, and tried the key. It didn’t fit. So, if not Stuttgart, where? Munich was the final possibility and she was going there anyway. First the airport and then the train station.

Franz Stigler was returning from the men’s toilet when he saw the blonde enter the locker area. Eyes glued to her perfect butt in tight jeans, the denim fabric straining to hold it in, as he walked back to the bench where he had been sitting, grabbed the folded sections of a newspaper, opened one, using it as a prop, glancing over the fold, studying the blonde. He was sure he had seen her before but who was she?

Franz had been waiting in the train station for the better part of three days. Ever since Ernst Hess had phoned and said he needed Franz’s assistance with an extremely delicate but important mission. Franz was stunned to hear his voice and afraid to get involved. Ernst Hess was a fugitive. Anyone who helped him in any way would be prosecuted. But Ernst Hess had also been instrumental, both financially and philosophically, in the rise of the neo-Nazis. He replayed the conversation in his head.

“Franz.”

“Yes, who is this please?”

“Ernst Hess.”

He had paused, not sure what to say, at first thinking one of his friends was playing a joke. “Herr Hess, is this really you?” A dumb thing to say, but it slipped out.

“No, it is the Führer. I’ve come back from the dead. Of course it is me, you idiot.” The belligerent tone confirming it. “I need your help.”

“Of course, anything.”

“I want you to go to the train station first thing in the morning.”

Franz was an electrician. He had jobs lined up the next day and all week. “For how long?”

“As long as it takes,” Hess said, voice firm. “It could be several days.”

“Several days? Herr Hess, I have responsibilities.”

“You have responsibilities to me,” Hess said, raising his voice.

Hess explained what he wanted Franz to do, but made no offer to pay him for the work he was going to lose. Franz was married with two teenage children. How was he going to explain this to his wife? Franz had been the master of ceremonies at a few Blackshirt rallies. He enjoyed the notoriety. But going out for an evening was one thing. Devoting work hours to the Cause was something else. But there was no way he could refuse Ernst Hess. Refuse, and Hess might have him killed.

The blonde was opening locker 48, removing a parcel wrapped in brown paper. She turned, their eyes met. She looked away, walked out of the room. He got up and followed her and then it hit him. This was Colette Rizik, the journalist.

He followed her out to the taxi queue, stood behind her in line, and had his taxi follow hers to Schwabing. Colette got out at Wagnerstrasse 12. The driver opened the trunk, handed her the parcel that was in the locker, put her suitcase on the sidewalk and drove off. Franz watched Colette enter the apartment building.

Colette opened her apartment door, stepped in with the suitcase, put it on the floor and locked the door. She moved through the salon to the window, glanced through a crack in the drapes, scanned the sidewalk and street, looking for the man at the train station. She saw him follow her from the lockers out to the taxi queue, then saw him behind her in line.

Could it all have been coincidence? Possibly. After all that had happened Colette was understandably jittery. A young couple walked by her building and she saw a car pass, but she didn’t see a thin dark-haired man wearing glasses with round metal frames.

Colette went in the kitchen, turned on the light over the table, and placed the package under it. She went into her darkroom and came back to the table with a razor blade and made an incision across one of the hard narrow sides of the package and pulled the paper off. It was a painting, bright colors, a man standing between two trees. It was signed ‘Vincent’. She phoned Gunter, her editor at
Der Spiegel,
and described the painting.

“It sounds like
The Painter on the Road to Tarascon
by Van Gogh. It was supposedly lost in a museum that was bombed by the Allies during the war. Where did you get it?”

“Ernst Hess left it in a locker at the train station in Munich.”