Voices of the Dead (26 page)

His dad used to get in arguments with the other Nazi Party higher-ups, and they even tried to kick him out. His dad had said, “I am a member of the American Nazi Party in perpetuity until voluntarily, or by natural or unnatural means I am so relieved.” Whatever that meant.

In truth, Buddy thought his dad looked like a clown walking around, saying
Seig Heil!
And
Heil Hitler!
But Buddy liked the Nazis. Had read everything he could get his hands on about them. He loved the swastika and their uniforms and their cool black boots. He agreed with their ideology too about Aryan purity.

The next morning Hess drove by the scrap yard, a mountain of metal behind a warehouse and a small cinderblock building. He stopped on the side of the road and watched a crane with a grapple hook load metal scrap into the back of huge semi-trailers.

Hess turned around and drove through Hamtramck, a predominantly Polish town. He didn’t have much respect for Poles. Germany had invaded Poland in 1939, taking over the country in a couple weeks. He remembered seeing newsprint photographs of German troops goose-stepping through Warsaw. He stopped at a pay phone, dialing the number for S&H Recycling Metals, getting ready to use a Southern accent and a name he had seen in the
Detroit News
.

A woman’s voice said, “S&H, how may I direct your call?”

Hess said, “Is Harry there?”

“Who’s calling please?”

“This is Ray Meade.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Levin’s out of town. Sir, what did you say your name was?”

“Ray Meade, darlin’. When do you expect him?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. He’s driving back from Pittsburgh.”

Hess hung up the phone.

Fifteen minutes later he was parked on Lothrop near 14th Street in front of a brown two-storey brick house, the address Rausch had received from their contact at police headquarters in Munich. Hess was looking at a black-and-white photograph of Cordell Sims taken the night he was arrested. A big American sedan passed by him, moving slowly, three Negros in the front seat all turning, studying him.

He opened the door, stepped out of the Malibu, walked to the house and knocked on the door. Hess waited several seconds and knocked again. He peered in one of the front windows on the left, saw the decrepit condition of the interior and wondered if anyone was living there. He knocked on the door again and this time it opened. A hostile black woman, whose age he would have guessed at fifty, stared at him before she said anything.

“What do you want, get me out of bed I’m trying to sleep?”

“I’m looking for Cor-dell,” Hess said. The Southern accent to his ear sounding effortless, authentic.

“Ain’t here. You the dude he met over to Germany?”

“I am,” Hess said, using the information to his advantage. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“No, but he gonna come back later get his things and go.”

“Tell him Harry Levin stopped by, will you?”

“Yeah, you the dude he was talking about. Jewish fella, huh?”

“That’s me,” Hess said, smiling.

“Where you from with that accent?”

“Chattanooga, Tennessee originally.”

“Dint think they had no Jews livin’ down there.”

“There are a few of us.”

“Man name Harry Levin come by lookin’ for you,” Cordell’s momma said, wearin’ her stained light-blue robe, curlers in her hair.

“Harry Levin, you sure?” Harry didn’t know where he lived.

“That’s what the man said. You think I’m making this up?”

“What’d he want?”

“Asking for you. Did I know where you was at?”

It was strange. They’d only been back a few days, why would Harry be lookin’ for him? Cordell opened his wallet, took out Harry’s card, went in the kitchen, called the number and got the answering machine. A lady’s voice said, ‘You have reached S&H Recycling Metals. Our office hours are Monday through Friday seven a.m. to four p.m.’ He left a message.

Cordell went upstairs, got his things, put the shoebox in his duffel, told his momma he was leavin’. He’d picked up a Dodge Dart at a used car lot on Gratiot earlier that afternoon. Paid cash. $1,500. Ran like a top.

She said, “Leavin’ for where?”

“Don’t know that yet.” But in the morning he was going to head toward Chicago. Start over.

The Negro, Cordell Sims, got out of a dark-blue automobile at 6:30 that evening. He entered the house on Lothrop and came out ten minutes later carrying a green military duffel. Hess followed him on Woodward Avenue to the Pontchartrain Hotel. Sims went in with the bag and appeared thirty minutes later. It was 7:20 p.m.

The next stop was Sportree’s Bar. After that, a nightclub called the Parizian on Linwood. Hess parked across the street, watching the blacks, reminding him of an African tribe with their bright-colored clothing, high Afros, neck chains and jewelry. He watched them strut around like peacocks. Groups of them standing outside, men and women, smoking and talking, shaking hands in some ritual motion. A parade of automobiles stopping, two or three at a time, Negros getting out, moving toward the door, and when it opened he could hear the high-pitched scream of a trumpet or the thumping of drums.

Cordell Sims entered the club at 9:30 and came out at 11:15, escorting a woman with an Afro, short dress accentuating her long legs. Hess opened the door and got out of the Malibu, waited for traffic to clear, crossed the street and followed them, the sidewalk deserted. He saw them get into Cordell’s dark-blue Dodge. Hess drew the weapon, holding it at arm’s length down his leg, approaching the car from behind, crouching along the driver’s side, looking through the window. Cordell and the woman were kissing. He brought the Walther up and fired five times through the windscreen, shattering the glass.

Headlights were approaching. He slid the gun in his pocket and crossed the street.

Harry got back from a meeting with his US steel client in Pittsburgh at 3:30 in the afternoon, stopped at the yard on his way home. He walked in the office and Phyllis told him there was a message for him on the answering machine.

“Here, want to listen to it?” She pressed the button.

“Harry, Cordell. What’s going on? I hear you came by. Miss me already? I’ll get back to you.”

It was Cordell’s voice but Harry had no idea what he was talking about, had expected him to call back but he didn’t.

“And some guy named Ray Meade,” Phyllis said. “Southern accent.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He sounded like you were friends.”

“That’s what salesmen do.”

That evening, Harry was going through the main section of the
Detroit News
and saw a one-column article with a headline that said:

Gunman Sought in Shooting Outside Detroit Nightclub

The article went on to explain how the victims, Cordell Sims, twenty-one, and Rochelle Campbell, twenty, both from Detroit, had walked out of the Parizian nightclub on Linwood Avenue, entered Mr. Sims’ 1970 Dodge, and, according to witnesses, were shot by a lone gunman. Ms. Campbell was dead on arrival at Henry Ford Hospital. Mr. Sims remained in critical condition. Police were investigating.

Harry figured the shooting might be payback for something in Cordell’s past, his days selling heroin. Still, it made him uneasy. Made him think of Hess. He took the Colt out of his coat. Walked around the house checking the windows and doors, making sure they were locked. Looked out at the front yard from his bedroom. There was a Chevy he’d never seen before parked on the street. It wasn’t one of the neighbors’. Was he being paranoid?

He checked the back of the house, glancing down at the patio, and the back yard that had a five-foot-high wooden fence around the perimeter. It was too dark to see anything. He went downstairs, moved through the dining room to the French doors and saw someone on the patio, looking in the kitchen windows.

He drew the Colt, went out the side door on the driveway, came around the back of the house and saw Galina in a trench coat, warm September night. He lowered the gun, she hadn’t seen it, slipped it in his pants pocket. “Galina, what’re you doing?”

“I want to surprise you, Harry.”

“You did.”

She stepped toward him, wrapped her arms around him. He stood rigid.

“What’s the matter? I think you would be happy to see me.”

“I thought you were a burglar.”

“Harry, you don’t even lock your door.” She frowned. “And you are not glad to see me. I can see it in your face.”

He wasn’t in the mood. “I have something I have to do tonight. Can I call you tomorrow?”

She opened her trench coat and flashed him. “What you are missing.”

He knew what he was missing. He watched her walk across the backyard. She went through the gate in the fence and disappeared. He walked back around the house to the front, scanned the street. The Chevy was gone.

Harry decided it was time to call Joyce, tell her what was going on. He dialed the number Stark had given him.

Heard a soft, quiet voice say, “Hello.”

“Joyce, it’s Harry Levin.”

Silence for a beat. “Harry, my God, what is going on, where are you?” She sounded upset.

“Detroit.”

“I’ve tried calling Lisa Martz like thirty times. It just rings. I’ve been going crazy. I contacted the Munich police, they wouldn’t tell me anything. Harry, I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

He decided to give it to her straight. “The Nazi you saw on Leopoldstrasse, his name is Ernst Hess. He was in charge of the killing squad that day in the woods outside Dachau. And he’s now a politician in Bavaria.” Harry paused. “Hess killed your ex-husband and his fiancée, thinking she was you.”

“My God.” She paused. “It never occurred to me.”

“Why would it?” He took a breath. “Hess killed Lisa, her father and her partners.”

“Do you think he’s coming for us?”

“I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“We’ll go to the police.”

“And tell them what? Have you seen Hess? Has he threatened you?”

“This is crazy. No one can help us? What are we going to do?”

“Do you have a friend you can stay with? Somewhere you can go till I can get down there?”

“I’m a realtor. I have listings and appointments.”

“Have someone cover for you. You’ve got to get out of there. Pack a bag and leave as soon as you can. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Don’t go near your office.”

Harry slept with the Colt on the table next to his bed. Thought it was preferable to putting it under his pillow, squeeze the trigger in the middle of the night, blow his head off. He took it in the bathroom the next morning when he showered, needed to get used to having it with him.

He got to the yard early. Talked to Jerry Dubuque. Jerry ran the operation, made sure they had enough scrap to keep up with demand, made sure the trucks were loaded and the deliveries were on time. Harry ran the business, handled the clients, took care of the payables and receivables, made sure they had enough cash to buy what they needed.

Jerry came in the office, sat across the desk from him. He had started dressing like Harry, wearing khakis and blue button-down-collar shirts, black loafers and Wayfarer sunglasses. Phyllis had noticed too and mentioned it.

“Hey, I haven’t had a chance to ask, how was your vacation? Went to Germany, right? What’d you do?”

Harry said, “Visited my old neighborhood.”

“I was toying with the idea of going to the Olympics next year. What do you think?”

“Better get your tickets.” Harry sipped his coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. “Let me ask you something. See anything suspicious the past couple days?”

Jerry frowned. “Like what?”

“Like seeing the same car keep driving by.” It sounded lame. He should’ve thought this through a little better.

“Where’re you going with this?”

“Like somebody stopping out front, looking around.” That didn’t sound much better.

“Harry, what the hell’re you talking about?”

Phyllis opened the door, came in, closed it and whispered, “Harry, there’s a detective out here wants to talk to you.”

“Send him in.”

Jerry got up with his coffee, gave him a puzzled look. “You in some kind of trouble, Harry?”

Good question.

Jerry and Phyllis walked out of the room and a short dark-haired guy walked in, tan wash-and-wear suit looking out of season in October, striped tie, scuffed brown shoes. He had a lot of hair parted low on the side, combed across his forehead, and wide, heavy sideburns to the bottom of his ears.

“Detective Frank Mazza, Mr. Levin.” He took out his badge, flashed it in diminished formality. Didn’t offer to shake hands. Suit coat coming open as he came toward the desk, a revolver in a holster on his right hip.

“Have a seat,” Harry said. Arm outstretched, indicating the chair.

Without expression Mazza said, “You know why I’m here?”

“You found my business card in Cordell Sims’ wallet. You talked to his mother, she said I stopped by the house the other day, but it wasn’t me.”

“No, who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know Mr. Sims?”

“I read in the paper he’s in critical condition,” Harry said. “What’s the story, is he going to make it?”