The Shadowboxer (36 page)
Authors: Noel; Behn
62
Propeller idling, the plane stood in the darkness of a pasture.
“You're a fool,” Tolan shouted down from the cabin door.
“My own fool,” Spangler agreed, standing on the ground, his Luger trained on Tolan.
“Get in here,” the German commanded. “You're wasting time.”
“You'll be meeting a man named Julian,” Spangler told him. “Relay a message. Tell Julian the books are closed. Tell him I am out of it once and for all. Tell him that you and he will understand each other perfectly. And one last thing: Tell him I'm sending you across for only one reasonâto let him know exactly what I think of him and all the others like him. Now get inside and close that door, or I'll put a bullet where it really belongs.”
Spangler watched the plane bounce down the field, lift off and soar into the low-hanging overcast. He returned to the car and started driving northânowhere in particular, just north.
By morning the headache was unendurable, the shoulder throbbing convulsively, the hand trembling so that he could hardly hold the wheel. He stopped at the nearest town.
Spangler sat at the restaurant table sipping ersatz coffee and munching a hard roll. He stared numbly out the window at the bomb-torn buildings. Laughter was heard. A group of smocked, laughing children skipped along the rubbled street on their way to school. He followed them with his eyes, paid his check and returned to the car.
He drove northwest through the night. Dawn was breaking as he descended the stone steps. He followed the narrow cobblestoned street to the bakery. The lead-paned windows had been boarded over. There was no smell of fresh bread from behind. He continued on to the square and waited beside the copper statue of Goethe in its center. He watched the uniformed woman pass in front of the single-spired medieval church and enter Forst's columned post office.
“No receipt?” the cherubic postmistress questioned in good spirit.
“I lost it in the east,” Spangler replied from the other side of the counter. “At Stalingrad.”
“You were at Stalingrad? You were at Stalingrad and you returned?”
“Not many of us did. And those lucky few are not good for too much,” Spangler said, slapping a drooped shoulder with a weak hand.
“What did you say the name was on the package?” the woman asked reverently.
“Henri. Ludwig Henri. He was with us at Stalingrad. He was not as lucky as I. I promised to pick up the package and take it to his mother. She used to live near Dobern. Now she has moved to Bitter-feld. She doesn't know about Ludwig yet.”
“Of course,” the woman said sadly and moved quickly through a side door.
She returned with a dusty suitcase and handed it across without registration.
Spangler's route shifted east. The pain and trembling were worse than ever. Familiar notices began appearing on walls of villages he passed through. He finally stopped to read one, shifted directions and drove faster.
Spangler sat on the bluffside watching the SS marshal civilians toward the railway depot in the evening rain. A new column was converging on the sixteen windowless boxcars from the west. He opened the suitcase and put on the worn suit with the yellow star sewn to its front.
Another line of men, women and children appeared at the bend and began passing directly below him. Spangler wrapped a prayer shawl around his shoulders. With a sigh of deliverance he started down to join them.
EPILOGUE
Germany, 1949
A thunder of cheers interrupted the speech. Flags and placards waved frantically over the sea of heads jamming the square. Banners hoisted higher as the chant again reverberated.
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Towlahn!”
Short brassy flourishes blasted from the four bands to call them to order.
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!” the crowd screamed.
Special envoy Julian watched through the balcony doors of his hotel suite as Friedrich Tolan stood smiling on the bandstand and finally raised his hands in a bid for quiet.
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!”
Julian turned back into the room. “What was it you were saying, Mr. Ambassador?” he asked the American ambassador who stood beside him, watching.
“I wasn't saying, Julian, I was asking,” the ambassador replied firmly. “I was asking you for the truth.”
“The truth about what, Mr. Ambassador?”
“Dammit, Julian, I didn't fly over here to play word games. I want Tolan out of this election. He must withdraw. That can happen only if the truth about him is finally revealed.”
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!”
“Mr. Ambassador, the truth has been revealed. Congress has heard the findings of every denazification organization our country possesses. They have heard my testimony and those of others. Mr. Ambassador, the government has already
passed
him.”
“The denazification committee's main source of information was
you!
You were everyone's main source of information!”
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!”
“I have told you all I know, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Listen, Julian, you realize the implications perfectly well if our government tacitly endorses a man who was part of a conspiracy.”
“What conspiracy, Mr. Ambassador?”
“
G. P. G.
”
“
G. P. G.
was a propaganda operation.”
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!”
The ambassador slammed shut the balcony doors. “Do not antagonize me, Julian. I am not a man to be antagonized or trifled with. You and your untouchable organization may intimidate or fool others, but not me. I know the truth. It was you and I who formulated
G. P. G.
, who steered its early courseâor have you conveniently forgotten our phone conversationsâ
Oop?”
“That was quite some time ago, Mr. Ambassador. Each of us has gone his own way since. Each of us has been busy with his own endeavors. As best I can recall,
G. P. G.
was simply a propaganda operation.”
“It was an illicit government, dammit. And you know better than anyone that Friedrich Tolan never escaped from a campâyou sent for him.”
“Where is your proof, Mr. Ambassador?”
“Hidden behind the steel doors of National Security. Under the lids of sealed coffins you filled. In the ashes of burned files ⦠but primarily in your own memory.”
“My memory, and all the documentation
available
, can only provide what our government already knows: Friedrich Tolan is an extraordinary patriot; he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis; he endured incalculable suffering at many concentration camps; he made a spectacular escape from Birkenau onâ”
“With the aid of one Erik Spangler,” the ambassador said firmly. “Erik Spanglerâone of your agents.”
“Spangler did once operate for me, but he was killed almost two months before Tolan made his heroic escape from Birkenau. I have his death certificate and inquest findings.”
“And whatever became of Colonel Lamar B. Kittermaster?”
“Lost in action. On a pre-invasion raid near Calais, I believe. Look it up in the Army records.”
“Lies. All bold-faced lies and you know it.”
“Then produce one shred of evidence to disprove anything I have said.” Julian rounded the couch and turned on the television. “You know something, Mr. Ambassador? You sound very much in tune with propaganda campaigns of certain of Germany's more unfriendly neighbors.”
The ambassador pointed toward the window. “That monster out there may damn well win this electionâand mainly because of you!”
“I should hope so, sir. I have worked exceedingly hard on his campaign. But if he does lose, there's always next time, isn't there?”
Tolan's face dominated the television screen. “⦠but, alas,” he was saying sanctimoniously, “those most responsible for my being here before you today are no longer among us. In memory of their selfless devotion, in the name of their mortal suffering and sacrifice, I shall march forward and bring liberty and justice for all ⦔
The door slammed.
Julian stood for a moment in the empty room, then stepped to the balcony doors and threw them open.
“Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn! Tow-lahn!”
About the Author
Noel Behn (1928â1998) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and theatrical producer. Born in Chicago and educated in California and Paris, he served in the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps before settling in New York City. As the producing director of the Cherry Lane Theatre, he played a lead role in the off-Broadway movement of the 1950s and presented the world premiere of Samuel Beckett's
Endgame
. Behn's debut novel,
The Kremlin Letter
(1966), was a
New York Times
bestseller and the inspiration for a John Huston film starring Orson Welles and Max von Sydow.
Big StickâUp at Brink's!
(1977), the true story of the 1950 Brink's robbery in Boston, was based on nearly one thousand hours of conversations with the criminals and became an Academy Awardânominated film directed by William Friedkin. Behn also wrote for television and served as a creative consultant on the acclaimed series
Homicide: Life on the Street
. His other books include the thrillers
The Shadowboxer
(1969) and
Seven Silent Men
(1984), and
Lindbergh: The Crime
(1995), a nonfiction account of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1969 by Noel Behn
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3662-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
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