Comfort to the Enemy (2010) (3 page)

You went to see her?

Drove past the house is all. Her name's Shemane... I think Morrison.

Shemane Morrissey, Carl said.

Larry said, You know her?

She was in all the papers ten years ago. A friend of mine wrote a feature story about her in True Detective, Carl said. 'Tulsa Society Girl Abducted by White Slavers.'

Larry said, You're kidding me.

They took her to Kansas City and put her to work in a whorehouse.

Larry said, Shemane?

Sixteen years old, all she was. But after a while, when she could've walked out? She didn't want to come home.

She got to like being a whore?

She liked Kansas City, the action, and got to like a guy who was high up in the machine that ran the city -the girl you didn't think would be much fun.

Larry squinted at Carl. What's she done you're after her for?

She drive a green Lincoln?

Larry nodded. With whitewalls.

The third time Jurgen escaped, Carl said, a witness swears she saw Jurgen get out of a green car and duck into the OK
Cafe .

You think Shemane's the one he's been seeing?

I'm gonna to find out, Carl said.

Chapter
Three

Is Carl Still the Hot Kid?

C
arl spent the night at his dad's. The
next morning while they were having their bacon and eggs, Wesley Sellers called from the camp to say there was a deputy marshal by the name of Gary Marion in his office. Standing against my desk, Wesley said. He wants to question Jurgen Schrenk and says he has the authority. You know this boy?

Carl could hear Wesley's irritation. He asked him to put Gary on the phone. He waited and now Gary came on to say, Yes sir . . .?

What Carl knew about Gary Marion, from some little town near Waco, Texas, he'd been a marshal less than two years, was 25 but tried to appear seasoned in his cowboy boots and Stetson, an old hat with a narro w b rim he never took off. He wore this look on the short, stocky frame of a former rodeo bullrider, Gary's career before he joined the marshals. He said to Carl when they first met in the Tulsa office, You know what attracted me to law enforcement? I read your book, the one about you being the hot kid of the marshals service. Carl said it wasn't his book, as he didn't write it. Gary said no matter, it had inspired him, given him the chills and thrills reading how Carl had faced fugitive outlaws and shot them down where they stood. He said to Carl, Are you still the hot kid? Or is it time somebody took your place? Gary grinning but serious about what he was saying.

Talking to him on the phone in the kitchen, his dad and Narcissa watching, Carl said, What are you doing there?

I believe I can talk man to man with this Kraut, Gary said, get him to spill where he's been. Me and him are the same age, Carl. He'll understand where I'm coming from and tell me what I want to know.

Carl said, Put Colonel Sellers on.

Don't I have the authority as a federal agent, Gary said, to talk to the Kraut if I suspect he's up to something?

No, you don't, Carl said, Put Sellers on.

It took a minute or so for Wesley to pick up the phone. I sent him outside to wait. Is this boy any good?

Put him in with Jurgen, Carl said, and we'll find out.

*

His dad watched him hang up the wall phone and return to the table in the back part of the kitchen, a view of pecan trees outside the windows. You been on the telephone since you got here, Virgil said, talking long distance to that True Detective writer when I went to bed.

The one wrote the book, Narcissa said, warming his coffee as Carl sat down. He hasn't been here in a while.

Carl said, You remember a piece Tony Antonelli wrote some time ago, 'Society Girl Abducted by White Slavers'?

Shemane Morrissey, Virgil said. Nothing to it, the guard on the work detail gives you the name of the girl and you recall she was snatched from her home and taken to Kansas City, Virgil nodding, remembering. It had something to do with her dad.

A Tulsa lawyer, Carl said, who got rich representing oil money. They're in society, lived in Maple Ridge---

Alvin Morrissey, Virgil said, using his memory of newspaper headlines, got involved with a honky-tonk girl from Kansas City. Gave her a pile of money to move to Tulsa and become his mistress. They're in a suite at the Mayo, in bed having a smoke after doing it, a guy comes in and shoots them. I remember reading the bed caught fire from their cigarettes. The maid threw a pitcher of ice water on it.

Alvin met her at Teddy's club, Carl said, where Louly worked for a while. Remember? Going by the name Kitty and serving drinks in her underwear.

You went up and got her, Virgil said.

And now she's telling marines how to fire Browning machine guns mounted in dive bombers. The guy that owns the club, Carl said, Teddy Ritz is the one told me if he ever saw me there again, I'd spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Teddy Ritz, the one had Shemane working in a whorehouse when she was sixteen. He was saying to her dad, you take one of my girls, I'll trade her for your daughter.

I don't recall what happened after, Virgil said.

Alvin used his influence on people he knew in Washington. They got some marshals to walk in the house with shotguns and set Shemane free.

Virgil started to smile. And she didn't want to go home.

She liked that fast life in Kansas City. Teddy took a look at Shemane for the first time, this 16-yearold cutie, and kept her for himself. He sends a guy to Tulsa to take out Alvin. Just Alvin, but the guy empties his gun at the bed and gets both of them. This is after I went up to get Louly. I never met Shemane or heard anything about her.

You talk about Teddy Ritz, Virgil said, you always sorta smile you mention his name.

Carl started to smile now, sitting at the breakfast table with his coffee. I get a kick out of Teddy acting like a bigshot gangster.

Isn't that what he is?

Yeah, but he wants to make sure you know it. Carl said, You know Tony Antonelli lives in Tulsa now? Loves it. I asked him if he knew Shemane had moved to Okmulgee. He said yeah, because he was thinking of doing a follow-up story on how she found the house for her mother since Gladys couldn't stay in Tulsa, not after her little girl became a prostitute and her husband's in bed with another one when he's shot and killed. Tony said you can't carry that kind of baggage around and still make it in Tulsa society. Then last year Shemane moved in with her mom, she said to sit back and take it easy after ten years of that life. She said being loaned to millionaires for out of town trips and popping out of cardboard birthday cakes naked. Tony said he ran into her at Deering's drugstore picking up a prescription. She said for something had been hanging on since Kansas City. I asked Tony if she meant a venereal disease. He said that's what it sounded like. He said Shemane and her mom dress for tea in the early evening, only they drink martinis and smoke reefer. I asked where she got the weed and he said Teddy Ritz, he's still taking care of her. Gives her gas stamps when she needs them. Tony says Shemane sips her martini and tells him in a soft voice what a relief it is to not have to go to bed with some guy because he was somebody. And then she'd say, 'But I learned a lot from those guys. They were smart, they ran things.' Tony said he changed his mind about doing a follow-up. What would it be about? Shemane and her mother putting on the dog and getting fried every night? He said it could be a funny piece but didn't want to make Shemane look pitiful. I said, 'Didn't you see right away you'd be making fun of her?' Tony said he kept going back out of curiosity. He had the feeling Shemane was up to something she didn't want anybody to know about. He said he suspected what it was but wouldn't tell me. 'If it gets out, Shemane would be in serious trouble.' I said, 'Oh , it must be about that German POW she's been seeing.'

Carl and his dad were both grinning at eac
h o
ther.

Virgil said, You're a dirty dog.

Carl said, You know how serious he takes himself?

That's what I'm talking about. What's he do now? Did you tell him you just took a wild guess?

What's wild about it? I know she's the one he's seeing. Tony said he stopped by, no one answered the bell, so he went around back and saw them in the kitchen. They were caught so she had to open the door. She called Jurgen Jim. She said Jim was a relative from out of town, stopped by on his way to the coast, but didn't say which one.

Stopped by in his short pants, Virgil said.

But never turned around so Tony didn't see PW on him anywhere. But it was the shorts in October and his haircut gave him away, Tony said he believed the guy was German, but could not say it as an absolute fact or he'd have to report it, and turn Shemane in. I said, 'For what? She didn't help him escape, did she?

What's she doing she'd be arrested for? Virgil said, Giving comfort to the enemy.

That's what bothers Tony. I said, 'Giving him comfort and maybe a dose at the same time.' I told him not to worry about it, I'd talk to Shemane and find out what's going on.

*

Shemane saw Carl coming up the walk and changed her mind about wearing a sweater with the slacks. She turned from the window to her closet, put on her favorite Chanel jacket, no bra, the nubby black wool, and left it unbuttoned.

The doorbell rang as she looked in on her mom across the hall, Gladys sitting in her corset at the vanity smoking a cigarette. Her mom said to the mirror, Somebody's at the door. Shemane said she was getting it and went down the stairway running the fingers of both hands through her blonde hair, messing up her pageboy. The guy in the dark suit and tie, no topcoat, had got out of the Chevrolet standing in front. She didn't recognize him, but liked the way his hat sat on his head. If he wasn't from Kansas City, one of Teddy's guys, he was a local hotshot who'd heard the stories about her and had to have a look.

Shemane opened the door and watched him touch his ha
t b
efore showing his marshal's star. Now he offered his card, looking her in the eye with a pleasant expression, and told her he was Carl Webster. She looked at the card that said he was Deputy United States Marshal Carlos Huntington Webster. He didn't look like a Carlos, but she liked it better than Carl. She offered her hand saying, I'm Shemane, Carlos. What can I do for you?

He took her hand in both of his, feeling her fingers and rings in what she felt was an intimate way. He said, I hope you have time for me. I need to talk to you about something I've been wondering about.

She knew he meant her German, but liked the way he could state his business and still show fun in hi
s e
yes. Shemane said, Come in, Carlos, and tell me what you'd like to drink.

*

Whatever you're having, Carl said, following her through the dim living room, the dining room and into the kitchen, Shemane asking him if he liked martinis. Carl said he did, but had never longed for one.

Two stem glasses and a jar of olives waited on the kitchen table, a long table with a porcelain surface. It reminded him of his dad saying he had been circumsized on their porcelain kitchen table, and if he got any more famous the table might be worth something. Shemane brought a pitcher of martinis from the refrigerator and filled the glasses, saying, I love martinis. You know why?

They make you drunk?

They do, don't they? You get tipsy before you know it. How many olives?

Two, Carl said, seeing what he could see where he jacket opened while she fished olives out of the jar.

I like four, Shemane said, raised her eyes to his and then her glass in a move that held the jacket open a few seconds. Carl waited until they'd both had a drink and Shemane offered him a cigarette; he struck a kitchen match with his thumbnail and she touched his hand holding the match while she got a light. He said, I understand you're interested in German prisoners of war.

Who told you?

Tony Antonelli. He says you drive around looking for prisoners working.

Once I saw a bunch of 'em marching out of a field to where the trucks are waiting, all of 'em singing away. I can't get over how much they look like Americans but are so different.

You can't see Americans singing like that, can you? Serious about it?

They're way behind the times, Germans. What I can't understand, why we're at war with them instead of helping them fight the Russians, the Bolshevik hordes. They're the bad guys.

Is that what Jurgen says?

She sipped her drink and used her fingers to get one of the olives. You talked to him?

Not yet.

What're you gonna do, put him on bread and water for a week? What do you want me for, cooking his dinner once in a while? I don't even know how to cook. He stays a few days -nobody has any idea he's in my house -and always gives himself up.

The thing the Army doesn't like, Carl said, it makes them look dumb.

They are, if they can't keep him inside.

What's he talk about?

The war.

He believes they're winning?

When we first met he did. Not anymore. He reads everything he can get his hands on, the paper, magazines... She smiled for the first time, a real smile. He read that book about you, 'The Hot Kid of the Marshals Service'? Tony gave me a copy. Jurgen read it one time when he was here and asked me about you.

I said he knew more than I did. He's smart, he's educated... I went to high school two years and we argue about things. He gets what he knows from all he reads. I got mine listening to guys who know how to make money. Or, what I say sometimes, having lived as a child in a whorehouse and came out in one piece.

Carl said, What do you hear from Teddy?

She paused, You know Teddy or you know of Teddy?

The day we met, Carl said, he had a guy hit me in the gut with a baseball bat. The next day he wanted to hire me. I know Teddy. What surprises me, he's been nice to you all this time.

Shemane sort of shrugged. He can be a swee
t g
uy.

He's like a father to you?

You're kidding, right?

When did Tony give you the book?

When it came out--Tony was writing about white slavers abducting me. Teddy loved being called a white slaver. He's read the book, says it's pretty good, very factual about Kansas City when Pendergast owned the town. Teddy keeps asking me to come up for a visit, like I've never been to Kansas City. I tell him I'm busy.