Comfort to the Enemy 
Chapter 1 


The Hanging of Willi Martz 

A
A
German prisoner of war at the camp called 
Deep Fork had taken his own life, hanged 
himself two nights ago in the compound’s 
washroom. Carl Webster was getting ready to look 
into it. Carl’s boss Bob McMahon, 17 years the 
United States marshal at Tulsa, said there was a 
question of whether the man did it on his own or 
was helped. McMahon shook his head over it. 

“I doubt you’ll learn what happened. He’s a 
grenadier, the dead guy, Willi Martz. You ask 
about it, they look down their nose at you, deciding 
if they want to tell you anything.” 

“I know what you mean,” Carl said. “Some 
of ‘em ever talk to you, it’s like they’re doing you a 


favor. But then they march off to work like the 
Seven Dwarfs singing the panzer song, Heiß uber 
Afrikas boden. Or the one about Horst Wessel, 
that pimp they call a Nazi saint. I never saw a 
bunch of guys liked to sing so much. And they’re 
serious about it. You imagine GIs singing like 
that?” 

The POW camps in Oklahoma were full of 
Afrika Korps tank crewmen and grenadiers, most 
of them young and arrogant, hard-shell Nazis by 
the time they came out of Hitler Youth. A 
German soldier who wasn’t a serious Nazi reported 
the Allied invasion of Normandy four months ago, 
read it to the Afrika Korps Nazis in the messhall 
from the front page of the Okmulgee Daily Times, 
and the Nazis called him a traitor and threw food 
at him and knocked him around for spreading 
enemy propaganda. The Africa veterans refused to 
believe they were losing the war; any reports of 
enemy victories had to be lies. 

This could be what happened to Willi 
Martz: he was critical of the Führer or called 
Goring a fat drug addict, and was lynched in the 
washroom. 

Carl Webster stood before a map of 
America that covered an entire wall in Bob 
McMahon’s office in the federal court building, 
Tulsa. Across nearly all of the 48 states were 
pushpins that showed the locations of the more 
than 500 POW camps in the country; 35 in Texas, 
15 in Oklahoma, 17 across the line in Arkansas, 
most of the camps in southern states, where 


enlisted men among the prisoners were put to work 
in farm labor, as allowed by the Geneva 
Convention. 

Carl would be going to the camp near 
Okmulgee, his hometown, the one called Deep 
Fork after the river that ran through that part of 
the county and separated the camp from Carl’s 
dad’s property, a thousand acres of pecan trees and 
a dozen oil wells pumping for the war effort. Carl’s 
dad Virgil Webster had been wealthy since the oil 
boom 40 years ago, but didn’t act like it. Texas Oil 
worked the half section they’d leased, paid Virgil in 
royalties while he tended his pecan trees and Carl, 
growing up, raised cows for beef, fed them a year 
and took them to market in a stocktrailer. He was 
15 when he shot a man trying to make off with his 
cows. There were stories in magazines about Carl 
and a book called “Carl Webster: the Hot Kid of 
the Marshals Service,” that told of his facing down 
fugitive offenders with the warning, “If I have to 
pull my weapon I will shoot to kill.” 

What Carl couldn’t understand about the 
Afrika Korps guys-—250,000 of them walked over 
to the British lines in Tunisia and surrendered—they 
still believed they were winning the war. Carl 
would say to them, “You quit fighting, didn’t you? 
Climbed out of your tanks with your hands in the 
air?” 

Yes, of course, but they seemed surprised by 
the question. They surrendered because they had 
no fuel for their tanks, no shells for the flak guns, 
the 88s they used on British armor. “Once the 


RAF cut off our supply lines crossing the 
Mediterranean, what could we do?” 

“When you give up,” Carl said, “That’s how 
you tell you’re getting beat. And it’s gonna get 
worse. There’s no way in the world you guys are 
gonna win this war. You know how many 
Germans are here as prisoners? A good three-
hundred and fifty thousand. You know how many 
Japanese we have in camps compared to you guys? 
Hardly any. You know why? Japs aren’t allowed to 
surrender. It comes to that, they get out a hand 
grenade and pull the pin.” 

Carl turned from the map of America to 
Bob McMahon at his desk, the lawman Carl first 
met when he shot the cow thief trying to make off 
with his stock. McMahon came by to investigate 
and heard how Carl had shot the trespasser out of 
his saddle at 200 yards. McMahon gave Carl his 
card with the gold marshal’s star on it Carl could 
feel under his thumb. Bob was 56 now, ready to 
retire and plant a victory garden, sit and watch his 
tomatoes grow. 

Carl was married to Louly Brown, seven 
years now but no children; they were ready to start 
a family, the war came along to hold up their plans. 
At the time they met people believed Louly was 
Pretty Boy Floyd’s girlfriend, not just a cousin of 
his wife’s, and Louly let them believe it till she got 
tired of the act she was putting on. 

In 1942 Carl was 36 when he tried to enlist 
in the First Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, 
and was turned down because of his age and his 


irregular heartbeat. He tried using his influence as 
a famous lawman—-news stories and the book 
written about him—-a U.S. marshal who had shot 
and killed a dozen armed offenders in the line of 
duty. He was told the First Cavalry did not have a 
regiment for inexperienced middle-aged men. Next 
he tried the Marine Corps, Virgil’s choice when he 
ran away from home at 16, serving with the marine 
detachment aboard the battleship Maine when the 
dons blew her up in Havana harbor in February of 
’98; and was with Huntington’s marines at 
Guantanamo when a Spanish sniper sent him 
home aboard the hospital ship Solace. Virgil wrote 
a letter to the Marines but it didn’t do Carl any 
good. He was turned down. But now the sailor in 
the Tulsa recruiting office had an idea. “You have a 
trade, you can join a navy construction battalion, 
the Seabees. They don’t care how old you are.” 

Carl went for it: joined the Navy, made it 
through boot camp and came out of advanced 
Seabee training at Port Hueneme, California, a 
Bosun’s Mate First Class, assigned to Construction 
Battalion Maintenance Unit 585. In a letter home 
he told Louly most of these guys had no idea how 
to wear a sailor hat; he told her he’d gotten a tattoo, 
Carlos on his left shoulder in blue script with red 
highlights for a buck. 

When they closed the apartment in Tulsa 
Louly had moved in with Virgil and his common-
law wife Narcissa Raincrow near Okmulgee. But 
now Louly wrote to say she felt she had to get out 
of their house, she didn’t fit in with their ways. 


Louly said in her letter, “You know how old your 
dad is? He’s seventy. He sits all day with 
newspapers and gives you his opinion of world 
events, and I’m tired of nodding my head.” 

To escape, Louly joined the Women 
Marines, which Virgil called the BAMs, the Big Ass 
Marines. By the time Carl was in New Guinea 
ready to make the 200-mile jump to Los Negros in 
the Admiralty Islands, where CBMU 585 would 
maintain an air strip, Louly was a gunnery 
instructor at the Marine Air Base, Chapel Hill, 

N.C. 
Carl wrote to Louly from New Guinea 
saying, “Believe 
it or not, the First Cavalry is the outfit that took 
Los Negros from the Japs, the first action in their 
history they didn’t ride in on horses. The island is 
secure, the cavalry’s waiting on us to come and get 
the air strip in shape. General MacArthur referred 
to taking Los Negros as ‘putting the cork in the 
bottle,’ but I don’t know what he meant by it.” 

Barely two months later on Los Negros, Carl 
became CBMU 585’s first and only medals winner 
when he was shot by Japanese soldiers who weren’t 
supposed to be there: a Purple Heart for his 
gunshot wounds and a Navy Cross for killing the 
last two Japs on the island. Carl said it was the only 
shootout he was in he didn’t see coming. His 
wounds left him with a limp until his honorary 
discharge, back to wearing his marshal’s star, by the 
end of June, 1944. 


He told Louly in a letter he was amazed at 
the number of camps they’d built and all the 
P.O.W.’s they brought over in the two years he was 
away. 

“The troop ships take our boys to Europe 
and come back loaded with Germans. They’re full-
up in England, no room for any more–in case you 
were wondering who’s winning the war. Are you 
still showing jarheads how to get the most out of a 
Browning machine gun?” 

* 

Carl said to his boss he’d talk to Jurgen 
before investigating the suicide. Jurgen Schrenk, a 
young captain who’d been a member of Rommel’s 
reconnaissance team: he was one of the interpreters 
for the 2200 prisoners at Deep Fork, a camp for 
officers, noncoms and enlisted men, nearly all of 
them Afrika Korps. 

“You’ll have to find him first,” McMahon 
said. “Jurgen’s busted out again, the fourth time 
this year.” 

“Four times that we know of,” Carl said. “I 
think he slips out whenever he feels like it and gets 
back before he turns up missing. He has to be 
seeing some girl.” 

“If he is,” McMahon said, “and she knows 
he’s a POW, she can be brought up on a charge of 
treason.” 

“It’s why he won’t tell where he goes,” Carl 
said. “I’ve talked to him enough. He sounds like 


some guy lives up the road, talks with hardly a 
speck of accent, but you can hear it if you listen. 
Like the way he says Ah-frica. You know he lived 
in Detroit a couple of years, in the Thirties when 
his dad brought the family over. The dad was an 
engineer with Ford Motor in Germany, some kind 
or production expert. Jurgen was in his teens when 
they went home. Three years later he’s driving a 
tank into Poland. Forty-one he went to North 
Africa with Rommel and he’s been here since forty-
three. He acts stuck-up if other POWs are around, 
but not to the point you want to hit him. He 
thinks he’s smarter than I am.” 

McMahon said, “Is he?” 

“He remembers what he reads and plays it 
back like it’s something he thought of. I talk to 
Wesley about him. Wesley says if he’s up to 
something besides seeing a girl, he doesn’t know 
what it could be.” 

Wesley was the former Adair County 
Sheriff, now Colonel Wesley Sellers, commander of 
the Deep Fork POW camp. 

“That’s right,” McMahon said, “you and 
Wesley go back a ways.” 

“He was with the posse the time we 
cornered Peyton Bragg and Peyton tried to run off 
on us. Wesley told the newspapers I shot Peyton 
with a Winchester driving away at four hundred 
yards, in the dark.” 

“I remember,” McMahon said, “and it was 
only what, three hundred? You always managed to 
have reliable witnesses.” 


“People can’t help but exaggerate wanting to 
tell a 
good story. What the Krauts do,” Carl said, “is lie 
with a straight face thinking they’re funny. You 
notice other Krauts standing around trying not to 
grin. Jurgen does it, but doesn’t seem to care if you 
catch on. The thing about Jurgen, he’s a likeable 
guy. He says he got along great with Rommel. 
Why wouldn’t he? He gets along with everybody. 
Wesley says he could have Jurgen transferred to 
another camp, but what’s the harm of his slipping 
out for a few days? He always comes back, doesn’t 
he? There’re camps where they even let the POW 
officers go out, as long as they stay within fifty 
miles.” 

McMahon said, “I’m not going to worry 
about it till I have to.” 

Carl said, “Not when you have a bigger 
percentage of inmates trying to bust out of federal 
prisons than these guys wandering off. They’ve 
never had it so good.” 

Carl Webster had been dealing with POWs 
pretty much as a full-time job since coming home 
with his medals. The Provost Marshal’s office in 
Washington had asked Carl to keep an eye on the 
POWs in Oklahoma. He talked to young officers 
like Jurgen and read what he could find on Adolf 
Hitler and the Wehrmacht, learning about the SS 
and the Gestapo, and got to see Nazi Party films on 
Hitler taking over Germany in 1934. Carl said 
they were fairly boring movies, hundreds of 


thousands of Krauts goose-stepping past Hitler and 
giving him the old Sieg Heil. 

“Out of three-hundred and sixty thousand 
German POWs in this country,” Carl said to 
McMahon, “we get about a hundred escape 
attempts a month. That’s three a day from the 
more than five hundred camps across the country. 
Jurgen says the easiest way is to walk off a work 
crew out on some farm. You know officers and 
noncoms don’t have to work if they don’t feel like 
it, but it’s a way to get out of the camp. I met 
Jurgen for the first time, he was working for my 
dad, swatting pecans off the trees with a bamboo 
pole. Jurgen gets twenty a month for being an 
officer. Generals get forty bucks. I doubt any of 
them work. Von Arnim, who ran the show in 
North Africa? He’s at Camp Clinton in 
Mississippi. It’s one of the biggest camp we have 
with ten generals there, each one with his own 
house and his orderlies. But the enlisted men, 
they’re all out on farms working morning to night. 
Muskogee County, POWs work a month to bring 
in the spinach at harvest time.” 

“They were farmers back home, McMahon 
said. “They miss it.” 

“Jurgen showed me pictures he has from 
Tunisia. He’s 
in his Afrika Korps shorts, the kind he wears all the 
time, no shirt on. He’s grinning, wants you to see 
his perfect teeth. In one he’s brushing his hair out 
of his eyes, bleached from the African sun, smiling, 
always smiling. I told him he could be a poster boy 


for the Happy Nazi Party. He says he was a Hitler 
Youth poster in 1936.” 

“Tell him,” McMahon said, “if he has a 
girlfriend it’s okay, we won’t bother her.” 

“You mean till the war’s over.” 

“Some lonely farm girl,” McMahon said, 
“doesn’t care he’s the enemy. Or he gets by playing 
he’s American.” 

“I think he could.” 

“She picks him up on the highway and takes 
him home. She’s alone, her husband could be off 
fighting Germans.” 

Carl said, “Two or three days with her, the 
MPs find him sitting in the OK Café, at the 
counter with PW stenciled on the back of his 
shorts. He gets solitary and bread and water for a 
week. Jurgen told me escaping was a joke–nothing 
to it. He’s still tan—-I think he works at it. It gets 
cold, he puts on an overcoat with the shorts. In 
some of the Africa pictures that’s what he’s 
wearing, the overcoat over bare legs. Smiling. He’s 
twenty-six, he’s been a soldier going on six years.” 

McMahon said, “Well, you know him better 
than anyone else. How do you see him?” 

Carl said, you hear of prisoners around 
Sallisaw picking cotton, doing that stoop work all 
day for eighty cents? That’s what the government 
pays them. You can’t tell me there aren’t girls out 
in the cottonfield.” 

“You think that’s the case with Jurgen?” 

“Seeing some girl could be all he’s after,” 
Carl said. “Still, I imagine him looking at ideas, 


dreaming up ways to use his energy. I see him as 
the kind of guy can’t sit still. What I’ll have to do is 
find out where he goes and see what that tells us.” 

They talked about Willi Martz, the suicide, 
28, unmarried. “He might be a homosexual.” 
McMahon said. “We know the Nazis like to pick 
on those fellas.” 

“What we have to do,” Carl said, “is separate 
the hard-nosed Nazis from the ones who don’t take 
seriously but go along. We weed out the bullies 
and send them to Alva, that camp in the western 
part of the state reserved for hard-core Nazis. See, 
the way we find out if a Kraut’s a bona fide Nazi, 
we tell him a joke. The one, Adolf Hitler wants to 
know when he’s gonna die, so he asks his astrologer. 
The astrologer tells him he’s gonna die on a Jewish 
holiday. Hitler gets excited. He says, ‘Tell me, 
which one.’ The astrologer says, ‘Mein Führer , any 
day you die becomes a Jewish holiday.’ And if the 
guy we tell it to doesn’t laugh, we send him to 
Alva.” 

A young deputy by the name of Gary 
Marion, wearing an old-timer narrow-brim 
Stetson, stepped into the doorway to McMahon’s 
office. 

“They’re picking up the Kraut, the one 
escaped name of Jurgen?” Gary saying the name 
with a J sound, like Jergens Lotion. “He’s waiting 
in that café in his PW shorts.” 


Comfort to the Enemy
Chapter 2 


Shemane ’s Lincoln Zephyr 

N
N
orma, the waitress who’d spoken toJurgen this time, waited for Carl 
Webster to drive down from Tulsa. 
They sat in a booth to talk about Jurgen alwayscoming to the OK Café in Okmulgee, fourtimes now, to give himself up.
Carl said, “Why you suppose he comes 
here?” 

“He likes the coffee? I don’t know,”
Norma said, smoking a cigarette. “I waited on 
him ‘cause I didn’t get to talk to him the othertime and I had something I wanted to say. The 
manager called the camp right away and that’sall there was to it, the MPs came and pickedhim up. I been thinking, he must come here 


‘cause he knows he’ll be safe. Nobody’s going to 

come in and shoot him.” 

“What’d you talk about?”

“As soon as he sat down I went to the 
counter to wait on him, I was anxious to tellhim something. Here he is, Carl, the enemy,
but doesn’t look anymore like a foreigner thanyou do. His hair seems different, but that’s 
about all. I planned to tell him, if we got totalk, my husband was with Patton’s FourthArmored racing through France, but I didn’t. I 
was polite and asked him how he liked 
Oklahoma. He said fine, but had expected tosee mountains, Oklahoma being out west. The 
MPs came in pointing guns at him, but all theydid was kid around, like they’re sure he’s seeinga girl. But you know what he told me? I have 
pretty eyes.”

“Yeah...?” Carl smiling now.

He and Norma had graduated fromOkmulgee High the same year, Carl a Bulldogin three sports while Norma hung around withguys behind the stands smoking cigarettes.

“Before the MPs came in he said, ‘Comehere, closer,’ motioning to me. I leaned myarms on the counter right in front of him, andhe reached over and pretended to pull a coin outof my ear, a dime, and gave it to me, with a nicesmile you could see in his eyes.”

“Wanting you to trust him.”

“He said, ‘Thank you, Norma, for thecoffee.’ He said my name.”

“It’s on your uniform.” 


“I know, but he took the trouble to say it,
‘Thank you, Norma,’ making it sound natural,
like we’d known each other a while, or maybewere even pretty close at one time.”

Carl said, “You got all that out of ‘Thankyou, Norma?’ He was giving you his ten cent 
magic trick.

“With the smile,” Norma said.

“I’ve seen the smile. He’s sure of himself, 
isn’t he? But without sounding cocky. He 
doesn’t put on any airs. He tell you anything 
about himself?” 

“He wanted to know about me, if I lived 
alone. He didn’t ask if I was married, only do Ilive alone.” 

“Wants to know if you’re available.”

“I told him my husband was with GeneralPatton’s armor right this minute heading forGermany. You know what he said? ‘Patton,
yes, with the discipline.’ He said when Patton 
came to Africa to command the Second Corpshe made all his tank crewmen and infantrymenwear neckties.” He said, ‘You know of courseGeorge Patton is German.’ I said, ‘That’sfunny, I read he’s Scottish and his people goback to the time of George Washington.’ Youknow what Jurgen said? ‘Yes, one or the other.’”

“You catch him making something up,
Carl said, “it doesn’t bother him. Like it isn’t 
important anyway.”

“I didn’t know they had to wear ties,”
Norma said. “Bobby wasn’t with Patton tillafter Normandy and never mentioned wearing a 


tie. If he did he wouldn’t of told me anyway,

knowing what I think of George Patton.”

“How do you see him?”

“Carl, the man’s a showoff, he wears apair of six-shooters with ivory handles. But he 
can get guys like Bobby willing to die for him.”
She kept tapping her cigarette in the ashtray.
“How come you weren’t interested in Jurgenbefore?” 

“We’re starting to wonder if he’s up tosomething?”

“Like what?” 

“Some kind of sabotage. Set fire to 
storage tanks.”

Born on an oil lease she knew what he 
was talking about. Norma said, “On his own? 
He’d need help. I told you the guards think hehas a girlfriend and the only reason he escapes,
it’s to get his ashes hauled. They’re sure of it.”

“How come?” 

“‘Cause whatever he’s up to must be thekind of thing nobody ever sees you doing 
anyway. If you know what I mean.”

Carl said, “You know the girl would haveto live around here.” 

“Course she would.” 

Carl said, “You might even know her.”

Norma said, “Or you might if I don’t.” 

* 

During the first World War youngWesley Sellers showed he was alert and liked 


being in the U.S. Army and made it up tocaptain without leaving Camp Polk, Louisiana.
For this war he was brought back as a colonel inthe Provost Marshal’s office and appointedcommander of the Deep Fork camp. He had 
told Carl sitting in his office he had 500German officers in one compound of 30barracks and 1700 non-commissioned officers 
and enlisted men in the other three compounds.
All Carl could see, looking out the window andthrough the wire fences, were rows of tarpaperbarracks down the left side of the road and guntowers around the perimeter. Wesley said hewanted the noncoms, not just the enlisted menout working during the day, even though it wasup to them if they worked or not. So he made a 
deal with the staff officers: send all your boysout to work and the officers could have a soccer 
league and put on plays and musicals, havethree-two beer served in the canteen and 
officer’s club and their own chefs in the 
messhalls. 

“Oh, they can look down their nose atyou,” Wesley said, “and make demands, chewyou out they think you aren’t living up to theGeneva Convention. “I run this place likethey’re guests of my hotel, the Fritz Ritz, aslong as they don’t break any of the house rules,
like hanging around near the fences. I tell myboys in the gun towers, you see a prisonerapproaching the fence, yell at him twice to halt.
He doesn’t back off, shoot him. I tell the 
officers this is the way it’s gonna be, and they 


understand, nod their Kraut heads, ‘cause thesepeople operate on unconditional discipline.
They give an order, it’s obeyed. I said to an 
officer I can speak freely to, ‘The war’s over foryou people, why do you keep playing soldier?
Why do you let a few hardcore Nazis push youaround?’ This Kraut I can trust says, ‘becausethey could be taking names, making a list of theones aren’t arrogant enough.”

“Your guards shot any of ‘em?”

“One. Held on to the fence and dared 
the tower guard to shoot him, so he did. Other 
camps they’ve had to shoot prisoners. Up inKansas a Kraut ran out of bounds after a soccer 
ball and was shot. He was told to halt, but kept 
going. Colorado, a guard back from combatshot three Krauts he said were coming for him.”

Wesley Sellers said he didn’t worry aboutprisoners escaping. He had reports that listedeleven hundred sneaking out of camps or fromwork details during the past two years and ninehundred of them were picked up in a couple ofdays. “Some of them, soon as they’re hungry,
they head back to camp.”

Carl said, “What about Willi Martz?”

“I asked several of the highest rankingofficers here why they thought the man killedhimself. They all said they didn’t know, or‘How would I know?’ Showing me they didn’tcare. I asked some lieutenants and they said hewas ashamed of himself, a moral pervert whocould not stand living with men who refused tospeak to him. I asked if Martz was anti-Nazi. 


They said of course he was. I asked if he’d had 
any help hanging himself, since there wasn’tanything he could’ve been standing on he 
kicked out from under him. I said it looked like 
some of you held him up while you put the ropearound his neck and then let go of him. One of 
them said that would be a way to do it. They allsaid yah, nodding their heads, grinning.”

“Be hard,” Carl said, “to keep yourcomposure.”

“When I was sheriff,” Wesley said,
“questioning an offender, say a stickup guy, andhe grinned at me like that? I’d punch him in 
the mouth. Why I always had leather gloves onme I was investigating a crime. But I can’t 
punch any of these Kraut officers, can I? All 
dressed up in their uniforms with their medalsand gee-gaws, their Iron Crosses.”

“I don’t know if you can or not,” Carlsaid, “I know the SS always beat up people theyhave in to question. Or pull out their 
fingernails.”

“I don’t believe in torture,” Wesley said.
“All a punch in the mouth’s for is to get theirattention.” 

“You talk to Jurgen since he’s back?”

“I got him in what passes for solitaryhere, a room with a cot and a bucket, a narrowwindow that doesn’t give much light. I could 
leave Jurgen in there till he tells me where he’sbeen. Or, I could beat him up, I suppose if Icared enough, but I don’t.”

“I have to talk to him about the suicide.” 


“Come back tomorrow,” Wesley said.
“Meantime, since you’re close to home, go visityour old dad and sit on the porch with him.” 

* 

It’s what Carl did, drove around to thebig California bungalow in the pecan orchard,
his dad 70 years old now but had not changedmuch in Carl’s memory. They sat in wickerchairs on the porch, Carl and his dad Virgilwith bottles of Mexican beer, a pile of 
newspapers on Virgil’s lap. The beer and the 
newspapers were from the oil company thatleased a half section of Virgil’s property, Virgil’sshare of the royalties an eighth of whatever theoil company made.

They’d finish their beers and Virgil wouldraise his voice to say, “Honey, what’re youdoing?” and Narcissa, 54 now, would come outto the porch with two more of whatever theywere drinking. Narcissa Raincrow had been 
living here since she was 16, hired to wet-nurseCarl when his mother Graciaplena passed awaytwo days after giving birth to him. That was in 
1906. Virgil had married Grace and broughther here from Cuba after the war with Spain.
Narcissa wasn’t married but had delivered a 
child stillborn and needed to 
give her milk to a newborn infant, so it workedout. 

When Carl first brought his wife Loulyto the house he told her that by the time he had 


lost interest in Narcissa’s breasts, his dad hadacquired an appreciation, first keeping her on ashousekeeper, then as his common-law wife forthe past 38 years. Virgil thought she looked likeDolores Del Rio only was older, and heavier.

Virgil was telling Carl he wanted to hire a 
POW as a handyman for cleanup work,
painting, whatever was needed done around theplace. “But the guy at the camp in charge oflabor says I have to take three guys. He says theway it works, it’s one guard for every threeprisoners. He can’t send a guard to watch one 
man. I said you don’t have to send a guard, I’llwatch the Hun myself. I’ll give him a bottle ofbeer with lunch, he won’t think of running off.
The labor nitwit said it’s one to three and 
wouldn’t budge from it.”

Carl said, “You remember JurgenSchrenk? He worked here when you weregathering and shipping to wholesalers, the one Imentioned escaped every couple of months for afew days?”

“Yeah, and I spoke to him. I asked 
Jurgen if he wentout to find something of a military nature hecould sabotage. I told him I was aboard the 
USS Maine when the dons blew her up inHavana harbor, February 1898. I said I doubt 
he could cause an explosion as earthshaking asthe Maine going down with two-hundred andfifty-four hands. It got us hurrying to go to war 
with Spain. Jurgen said he just liked to getaway from the camp, walk down a road with no 


place to go. Oh, is that so? What do you bethe’s got some farm girl thinks he stepped out ofa dream in his short pants? The Huns look 
pretty much like us, except there’s somethingdifferent about them. People’d come by to 
watch them work. One time—-they’re swattingpecans along the county road—-I noticed a carstopped nearby. Pretty soon a guard comealong and told the woman in the car to keepmoving. The reason I know it was a woman,
Narcissa’s coming from town in our car andslowed up going past the car stopped there. She 
said it was a girl with blonde hair but didn’trecognize her from anyplace.”

Carl said, “What about the car?”

“I thought it was a green Hudson withwhitewalls. Nacissa says I don’t know cars, itwas a thirty-nine Lincoln-Zephyr. She reads 
the car ads and tells me what we should getafter the war. But listen, the guard that told thegirl to keep moving? I saw him a few times 
while he was around here. His name’s Larry 
Davidson. From West Memphis, Arkansas, the 
poor soul. Young guy, sees himself as a hotshotthe way he wears his overseas cap. Talk to 
Larry. See what he says.” 

* 

“Yeah, it was a green Lincoln,” Larry 
said. “I went over and told her she couldn’t stopthere.” 


Larry Davidson was telling this to Carloutside the camp administration building whereyou could smoke, a big tin can for butts fixed tothe rail along there. “I told her she had to keepmoving as these were enemy soldiers, Germanprisoners of war working here.” She said, ‘Oh 
my, are they really Germans?’ Sounding like 
she was surprised.”

“Was she?” 

“I thought she was putting it on.”

“She ask about any of the prisoners?”

“What she asked me,” Larry said, “if theytried to run would I shoot them? I told her it’s 
why I had the carbine. She said, but they werejust like us, they come from nice homes, theymiss their wives and sweethearts--” 

“She ask if you’re friends with any ofthem?” 

“She did. I said, ‘Are you nuts? Whywould I want a Nazi for a friend?” 

Carl liked this boy from West Memphis,
Arkansas. He asked him, “How old would you 
say she is?”

“She’s twenty-six,” Larry said, “accordingto her drivers license. Here’s a good-looking 
girl my age drives a Lincoln-Zephyr. I’m 
thinking, Hmmmm, what have we here? I 
asked to see her license to get her name andaddress, but then talking to her she didn’t seemlike a whole lot of fun. She takes care of her 
mom, says she keeps her from becoming 
depressed. They live on Seminole Avenue in 


this great big house must’ve cost her, so I’d say

she has money.”

“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 herin True Detective,” Carl said. “‘Tulsa SocietyGirl Abducted by White Slavers.’”

Larry said, “You’re kidding me.”

“They took her to Kansas City and puther 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, andgot to like a guy who was high up in themachine that ran the city—-the girl you didn’tthink would be much fun.” 

Larry squinted at Carl. “What’s she doneyou’re after her for?”

“She drive a green Lincoln?”

Larry nodded. “With whitewalls.” 

“The third time Jurgen escaped,” Carlsaid, “a witness swears she saw Jurgen get out ofa green car and duck into the OK Café.”

“You think Shemane’s the one he’s been 
seeing?”

“I’m gonna to find out,” Carl said. 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Three 

Is Carl Still the Hot Kid? 

C
C
arl spent the night at his dad’s. The 
next morning while they were havingtheir bacon and eggs, Wesley Sellerscalled from the camp to say there was

a deputy marshal by the name of

Gary Marion in his office. “Standingagainst my desk,” Wesley said. “He wants to questionJurgen 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 somelittle town near Waco, Texas, he’d been a marshal lessthan two years, was 25 but tried to appear seasoned inhis cowboy boots and Stetson, an old hat with a narrow 


brim he never took off. He wore this look on the short,
stocky frame of a former rodeo bullrider, Gary’s careerbefore he joined the marshals. He said to Carl when 
they first met in the Tulsa office, “You know whatattracted me to law enforcement? I read your book, theone about you being the hot kid of the marshalsservice.” Carl said it wasn’t his book, as he didn’t write 
it. Gary said no matter, it had inspired him, given himthe chills and thrills reading how Carl had facedfugitive 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, hisdad and Narcissa watching, Carl said, “What are youdoing 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 toknow.” 

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 tosomething?”

“No, you don’t,” Carl said, “Put Sellers on.”

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

“Put him in with Jurgen,” Carl said, “and we’llfind out.” 

* 



His dad watched him hang up the wall phoneand return to the table in the back part of the kitchen, aview of pecan trees outside the windows. “You been on 
the telephone since you got here,” Virgil said, “talkinglong distance to that True Detective writer when Iwent 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 TonyAntonelli wrote some time ago, ‘Society Girl Abductedby White Slavers’?”

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

“A Tulsa lawyer,” Carl said, “who got richrepresenting oil money. They’re in society, lived in 
Maple Ridge--”

“Alvin Morrissey,” Virgil said, using his memoryof newspaper headlines, “got involved with a honkytonk 
girl from Kansas City. Gave her a pile of moneyto move to Tulsa and become his mistress. They’re in asuite at the Mayo, in bed having a smoke after doing it,
a guy comes in and shoots them. I remember readingthe 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, “whereLouly worked for a while. Remember? Going by thename Kitty and serving drinks in her underwear.”

“You went up and got her,” Virgil said. 


“And now she’s telling marines how to fireBrowning machine guns mounted in dive bombers.
The guy that owns the club,” Carl said, “Teddy Ritz isthe one told me if he ever saw me there again, I’d spendthe rest of my life in a wheelchair. Teddy Ritz, the onehad Shemane working in a whorehouse when she wassixteen. He was saying to her dad, you take one of mygirls, I’ll trade her for your daughter.”

“I don’t recall what happened after,” Virgil said.

“Alvin used his influence on people he knew inWashington. They got some marshals to walk in thehouse 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. Teddytook 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 guyempties 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, “youalways sorta smile you mention his name.”

Carl started to smile now, sitting at the breakfasttable with his coffee. “I get a kick out of Teddy actinglike 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 Tulsanow? Loves it. I asked him if he knew Shemane had 
moved to Okmulgee. He said yeah, because he wasthinking of doing a follow-up story on how she foundthe house for her mother since Gladys couldn’t stay in 


Tulsa, not after her little girl became a prostitute andher husband’s in bed with another one when he’s shot 
and killed. Tony said you can’t carry that kind ofbaggage around and still make it in Tulsa society.
Then last year Shemane moved in with her mom, shesaid to sit back and take it easy after ten years of thatlife. She said being loaned to millionaires for out oftown trips and popping out of cardboard birthday cakesnaked. Tony said he ran into her at Deering’sdrugstore 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 drinkmartinis and smoke reefer. I asked where she got theweed and he said Teddy Ritz, he’s still taking care ofher. Gives her gas stamps when she needs them. Tonysays Shemane sips her martini and tells him in a softvoice what a relief it is to not have to go to bed withsome 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 mindabout doing a follow-up. What would it be about? 
Shemane and her mother putting on the dog andgetting fried every night? He said it could be a funnypiece but didn’t want to make Shemane look pitiful. I 
said, ‘Didn’t you see right away you’d be making fun ofher?’ Tony said he kept going back out of curiosity.
He had the feeling Shemane was up to something shedidn’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 each 
other. 

Virgil said, “You’re a dirty dog.”

Carl said, “You know how serious he takeshimself?” 

“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 thebell, so he went around back and saw them in thekitchen. 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 thecoast, but didn’t say which one.”

“Stopped by in his short pants,” Virgil said.

“But never turned around so Tony didn’t see PWon him anywhere. But it was the shorts in October and 
his haircut gave him away, Tony said he believed theguy was German, but could not say it as an absolutefact 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 himcomfort and maybe a dose at the same time.’ I told 
him not to worry about it, I’d talk to Shemane and findout what’s going on.” 

* 


Shemane saw Carl coming up the walk andchanged her mind about wearing a sweater with theslacks. She turned from the window to her closet, puton her favorite Chanel jacket, no bra, the nubby blackwool, and left it unbuttoned.

The doorbell rang as she looked in on her momacross the hall, Gladys sitting in her corset at the vanitysmoking 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 thefingers of both hands through her blonde hair, messingup her pageboy. The guy in the dark suit and tie, notopcoat, had got out of the Chevrolet standing in front.
She didn’t recognize him, but liked the way his hat saton his head. If he wasn’t from Kansas City, one ofTeddy’s guys, he was a local hotshot who’d heard thestories about her and had to have a look. 

Shemane opened the door and watched himtouch his hat 
before 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 MarshalCarlos 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 dofor you?”

He took her hand in both of his, feeling herfingers 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 theway he could state his business and still show fun in his 


eyes. Shemane said, “Come in, Carlos, and tell mewhat you’d like to drink.” 

* 

“Whatever you’re having,” Carl said, followingher through the dim living room, the dining room andinto the kitchen, Shemane asking him if he likedmartinis. Carl said he did, but had never longed for 
one. 

Two stem glasses and a jar of olives waited onthe kitchen table, a long table with a porcelain surface.
It reminded him of his dad saying he had beencircumsized on their porcelain kitchen table, and if hegot any more famous the table might be worth 
something. Shemane brought a pitcher of martinisfrom the refrigerator and filled the glasses, saying, “Ilove 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 seewhere he jacket opened while she fished olives out ofthe jar.

“I like four,” Shemane said, raised her eyes to hisand then her glass in a move that held the jacket open afew seconds. Carl waited until they’d both had a drinkand Shemane offered him a cigarette; he struck akitchen 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 ofwar.” 

“Who told you?” 


“Tony Antonelli. He says you drive aroundlooking for prisoners working.”

“Once I saw a bunch of ‘em marching out of afield to where the trucks are waiting, all of ‘em singingaway. I can’t get over how much they look likeAmericans 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 insteadof helping them fight the Russians, the Bolshevikhordes. They’re the bad guys.”

“Is that what Jurgen says?”

She sipped her drink and used her fingers to getone of the olives. “You talked to him?” 

“Not yet.”

“What’re you gonna do, put him on bread andwater for a week? What do you want me for, cookinghis dinner once in a while? I don’t even know how to 
cook. He stays a few days—-nobody has any idea he’sin my house—-and always gives himself up.”

“The thing the Army doesn’t like,” Carl said, “itmakes 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 theMarshals Service’? “Tony gave me a copy. Jurgen readit one time when he was here and asked me about you. 


I said he knew more than I did. He’s smart, he’seducated... I went to high school two years and weargue about things. He gets what he knows from all he 
reads. I got mine listening to guys who know how tomake money. Or, what I say sometimes, having livedas 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 ofTeddy?”

“The day we met,” Carl said, “he had a guy hitme 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 sweet 
guy.” 

“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 aboutwhite 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 ownedthe town. Teddy keeps asking me to come up for avisit, like I’ve never been to Kansas City. I tell him I’m 
busy.” 

“Doing what?”

“Taking care of mom.”

“You tell Teddy about Jurgen?”

There was a silence. She stared at him and said 
after a moment, “Why would I?”

“Brag about a guy, a German officer, escapingfrom a prison camp so he can be with you? Risk 


getting shot? What’d Teddy say, he’d like to meet 
him?” 

“I haven’t told him,” Shemane said. 

* 

Wesley Sellers was in his office waiting for Carl.

“Well, I put your boy Gary Marion in with theKraut. I told him to leave his sidearm here and get iton the way out, and I’m glad I did. He wasn’t in the 
cell two minutes he takes a swing at Jurgen. Jurgengrabs the folding chair Gary brought in and bangs himover the head with it. We had to run him to the 
hospital to get his scalp sewed up. Something like 
seventeen stitches.” 

Carl said, “And now Gary wants to shoot him.”

Wesley said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. Say he 
caught him trying to escape.” 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Four 

Jurgen Schrenk, Escape Artist 

O
O
tto Penzler’s rank was SS-
Sturmbannführer, or Storm 
Command Leader; but for the

past few months, since the July 20th attempt onHitler’s life had failed, he was signing campdirectives and memoranda Major Otto Penzler.

Jurgen could talk to Otto. Both were 
from Cologne, Otto five years older and withfive more years in the army, the Abwehr branchof military intelligence his first few years. Both 
were schooled in National Socialism and could 
talk the Nazi talk. Otto had joined the SS, hetold Jurgen with a straight face, to be seen as anactive guardian of racial purity. Jurgen said,
“Not because it’s elite and you like the blackuniform.” In the African desert Otto had 


commanded Panzers and was known among hismen as the Scharfrichter, the Executioner ofBritish tanks. At the Deep Fork camp he was amember of the Escape Committee.

This day in October Otto came into thesolitary confinement room with the metal 
folding chair the guard had given him. Jurgen,
sitting on his cot, squinted in the overhead lightthat came on. 

“I have news you won’t like,” Otto said,
unfolding hischair and seating himself to face Jurgen. “But 
first, I have to ask why you don’t come to theCommittee with your escape plans. It upsets 
them.” 

“I’ve told you,” Jurgen said, “I don’t make 
plans. I have a place where I go under the 
fence.” 

“There’s a guard you take care of?”

“I came back the first time, he asked mehow I escaped. I told him I go out for a fewdays, that’s all, I’m not actually escaping. I gave 
him a service medal. I give him swastika pinsand arm bands, spoons, utensils from mess kits.”

Otto Penzler, also liked to wear shortsand the soft desert cap with the long peak,
brought out a pack of Camels, gave one toJurgen and lighted them. Jurgen got up fromthe cot to stretch and lean against the wall.

“What is the news I won’t like?” 

“Rommel’s dead,” Otto said.

He waited for Jurgen who began to nodhis head. 


“They killed him,” Jurgen said.

“They made him take poison.”

“But he wasn’t at Wolf’s Lair?” 

“Not anywhere near it. Stauffenbergarrived with the explosive device in his briefcase.
He’s already lost an arm and an eye for theFührer so they don’t make him open the case.
Huesinger was there with maps of the easternfront. Stauffenberg placed his case under themap table and excused himself, he has to makea phone call. He’s outside, walking away fromthe conference room and the device explodes.
Stauffenberg assumes the Führer is dead.”

“Why wasn’t he?”

“He must have moved away from the 
table. Rommel was named with the ones in the 
plot, not as an active participant but in favor ofdoing away with the Führer. Rommel wasGermany’s favorite general—-the reason he wasoffered poison and not hanged by the neck. If 
he accepted it he’d be given a state funeral andhis family would be treated with honor andsupported for life.”

“If he’d insisted on a trial--” 

“He knew better. He’d be found guiltyand his family would be on their own. We don’thave to worry about it,” Otto said, “do we? The 
Committee wants to know why you go out.”

“They know why.”

“They would like the woman to be 
German.” 


“What is Morrissey, English, Irish? 
know she isn’t a Jew or a gypsy, or a Latin fromManhattan.” 

“The only thing you do with her is go to 
bed?” 

“The only thing being everything,” Jurgen 
said. “But I’m also thinking of something, anevent I’d like to see happen.”

Otto said, “Do you know that south ofMcAlester, not far, is an army ammunitionplant where they store bombs? The Committee 
wants you to blow it up. Do something for the 
fatherland for a change.” 

I can tell who strung up Willi Martz.
You want me to?” 

"Be serious for a change."

“All right, how do I get inside the 
place?”

“You’ll find a way.”

“Do I have to activate the bombs?” 

“I said, see if blowing the place up ispossible.”

“Do you remember,” Jurgen said, “thetrain ride from Norfolk, Virginia to Oklahoma?
How long it took, and we’re still only halfwayacross the country? Let’s say I find a way to do 
it. There is a tremendous explosion at thisbarren expanse of land in the middle of 
America. My only thought about it would be, 
‘So what.’” 

“I’ll tell them you don’t think it’s 
feasible.” 


“No, tell them I’ve been thinking about a 
mass escape," Jurgen said, “on the Führer’sbirthday next April. Three-hundred and sixtythousand German prisoners of war, in all thecamps in America, all walk out at the sametime.” 

Otto waited, looking at Jurgen. “And do 
what?” 

“Nothing,” Jurgen said and moved hisshoulders, rubbing 
his back against the wall. “Or they steal 
cars and drive around wherever they are,
honking the horns.”

“To what purpose?”

“You need a purpose? All right, first toshow that we can do it,” Jurgen said. “And 
second, to let them know we have a sense ofhumor. Americans don’t think we do.” 

“How do you let all the camps knowabout the mass escape?”

“Announce a special celebration plannedfor the Führer’s birthday.”

“All the mail is censored,” Otto said, “andgoes through our post office at Camp Hearne inTexas. How do you tell about the escape?”

“We bring our people at the post officeinto the plan,” Jurgen said. “They know how toslip notes into letters already passed by thecensor.” 

They smoked their cigarettes and werequiet until Jurgen said, “Why don’t you comeout with me sometime? I remember yourgirlfriend in Benghazi, the very pretty blonde 


Italian? I’m thinking Shemane could fix you 
up.” 

“The time they finally get tired of lookingstupid and shoot you,” Otto said, “is the time Ihappen to be with you.” 

* 

Last night after seeing Shemane, Carlwent back to his dad’s house. He told Virgilabout Gary Marion, the one who wanted to bethe new hot kid, how he took a swing at Jurgenand Jurgen laid him out with a chair.

“Gary wants to be like you,” Virgil said,
“but didn’t have your upbringing, learning thefiner points of being a man.”

They were in the kitchen so Carl used thephone there to give the operator the number.

Virgil said to Narcissa at the stove, thewoman stirring tomato sauce in an iron pot,
“He’s calling Kansas City.”

“Ask him he wants to stay. We having 
his favorite.” 

“I think he’s moved back,” Virgil said, “sohe can call long distance and it won’t cost himnothing.”

“Who is he calling this time?”

Carl said, “I want to speak to Teddy.
Tell him Deputy U.S. Marshal Carlos Websteris waiting but won’t wait too long.
Understand?” 

Virgil said to Narcissa, “He wants to talkto that gangster, Teddy Ritz. Louly said the 


waitresses at his club had to wear teddies, that’sall, and high heels.”

Carl said into the phone, “Teddy?...
Yeah, it’s been a while. I hear you got thrown 
out of your job. It’s what happens the guyyou’re working for goes to prison.”

Virgil said to Narcissa, “You rememberPendergast? Ran Kansas City wide open till theserious people got down on him.”

Saying this while Teddy was telling Carlnot to worry about him, his club was the hottestspot in town, wall to wall GIs.

Carl said, “I hear you’re still being nice toShemane,” and waited while Teddy decidedwhat to tell him. 

“Shemane,” Teddy said, “I can talk toShemane and know she’s listening and getswhat I’m telling her ... besides being the bestten minutes in bed I’ve ever had in my life. You 
been talking to her?”

“I had to question her about a GermanPOW she’s seeing.”

“She visits this guy?”

“He busts out and visits her. Spends acouple of days at her house and gives himselfup. Jurgen Schrenk. She must’ve told you 
about him.” 

“He gives himself up,” Teddy said. 
“Then what?” 

“They put him in solitary for a week, butit doesn’t stop him from busting out. Four 
times this year.”

“What’s Shemane do for him?” 


“What do you think? She comforts him.” 

“Couldn’t she get locked up for that?”

“I’m not after Shemane, I want to findout what this Nazi’s up to,” Carl said, makingJurgen a Nazi to get Teddy’s reaction.

“One of the bad guys, uh?”

“He’s Afrika Korps, those guys grew up 
Nazis. They want you to know they’re tough asnails and the only reason they surrendered, theirtanks ran out of gas. This Jurgen can’t sit still.
I keep expecting him to start blowing up oilwells or setting fire to storage tanks. I mean for 
the hell of it, something to do.”

“Impress Shemane,” Teddy said, “get herexcited.” 

“She thinks he’s a nice guy. She says weought to be helping the Germans fight theBolsheviks.” 

“Jurgen fed her that?”

“She needs somebody to tell her what’sgoing on over there, the Nazis trying to get ridof the Jews, sending them to slave-labor camps.
I imagine you have people over there seeing itfirsthand.” 

Virgil said to Narcissa, “You know 
Teddy’s Jewish.”

He looked over to see Carl nodding hishead, listening to Teddy for several minutesbefore saying, “Come on-—you believe that?
How do you know it’s true?” He listened againand said, “What’s the guy’s name, Zigmund? I 
wish you’d let Shemane know about it—-you 


say she pays attention to what you tell her.
Give her a call and set her 
straight. She could help me find out what
Jurgen’s up to.”


He hung up and looked over to see Virgiland Narcissa watching him.

“Teddy says last year a million and a halfJews in Poland disappeared.” 

* 

The light came on as Carl entered thesolitary confinement room. He unfolded the 
chair saying, “This is the one you hit him with?”
and sat down. 

Jurgen pushed up from the cot. “The 
same kind.” 

“What did you say made him take a 
swing at you?”

“Nothing. He wanted to fight,” Jurgen 
said. “He walked in saying, ‘You don’t tell mewhere you go, I’m gonna beat the snot out ofyou.’ Is that a popular American expressionnow, to beat the snot out of someone?”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him where I go is none of hisbusiness. He kept referring to us as Krauts.
‘You Krauts act like you’re on vacation here.
You Krauts act like you’re better than us. I said 
‘Maybe we are.” He said, ‘You think you cantake me?’ and came toward me with the chair in 
front of him, folded, holding it in both hands.
He pushed the chair at me, let go of it to swing 


at my face, but now I had the chair. I raised it 
as he threw his punch and his fist hit the metalseat. I raised it higher and brought it down onhis head. I hit him with it again as he fell to the 
floor.” 

“Gary said you were waiting for him andtook him by surprise,” Carl said. “You grabbedthe chair out of his hands and hit him with it.” 

“You believe what this fellow tells you,”
Jurgen said, “or you believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Carl said. “Gary’s the 
good guy and you’re the enemy. He asked youto tell him where you go when you slip out--”

“Or he’ll beat the snot out of me. Is that 
a serious threat, Carl? He’ll hit me until der 
Schleim comes out of my nose?” “We’re all 
curious about where you go,” Carl said, “so Ilooked into it. I find out you spend your timewith Miss Shemane Morrissey, former KansasCity call girl they say charged two hundreddollars to spend the night with her. Tell me 
how you first got together.”

“You’ve talked to her?” 

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, I was walking along the road, shestopped her car. What difference does it make? 
I’m seeing her,” Jurgen said, “and you know Iam, so there is no mystery. You want to shock 
me, say she was a prostitute—-I know that.
She told me everything, how a white slaver bythe name of Teddy Ritz put her to work beforehe even saw her. Then when he did-—she’s 
sixteen, very attractive-—she became his 


mistress.” Jurgen seemed to smile saying,
“Teddy Ritz, the white slaver who must be aJew. It’s good, isn’t it, the story of her life? She 
told me she could make a thousand dollars a 
week without breathing hard.”

Carl saw her making fifty thousand a yearwith two weeks off. If she took a month off 
she’d still make forty-eight thousand.

“What I want to know,” Jurgen said, “iswhy you call me a Kraut?”

“We call all of you Krauts. It caught on 
and it’s how you’re known. Short for 
sauerkraut.” 

“Yes...?” 

“Isn’t it your national dish?”

“I’m not sure,” Jurgen said, and askedCarl, “Do you like sauerkraut?”

“I’ll eat it if it’s what we’re having?”

“I eat it, I’m a Kraut,” Jurgen said. “You 
eat it, you remain who you are.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Carl said.
“The Tulsa World and my dad call you Hunsmost of the time. You mind ‘Huns’?” 

“No, it’s Kraut I don’t care for.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carl said. “What 
I want you to tell me is how the hard-nosedNazis have come to run the camps. Because 
they’re mean buggers but disciplined, they dowhat they’re told? That’s why the guards prefer 
Nazis. Tell me why they intimidate the lessNazified ones, beat them up, go so far as tolynch them, the ones you call suicides? I want 
to hear what you have to say about Nazis, and 


tell me what they did with a million and a halfJews in Poland.” 

“A million and a half,” Jurgen said. “Ithought it was more like three million havegone missing. The Russians have accounted for 
half of them.” 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Five 

Carl and Louly in Love 

“Y
“Y
ou see us,” Jurgen said to Carl 
Webster in the solitary confinementroom, “we are either Nazis or we’re 
against them. You don’t see degrees of belief betweenthe two extremes?” 

“You know how to sound like a Nazi,” Carl said,
“to get by in the camp, you and your friend OttoPenzler, going back to when you were Hitler Jugendand learned the spiel. Otto makes sure you know he’sSS, an elite group of thugs as Nazified as you can get.
But I can’t see either of you guys wanting to live in apolice state. People telling on each other. Kids telling 
on their mom and dad. People hearing the truckcoming and know it’s the SS on a roundup. And youthink, Oh, my God, in the beerhall last night you said 


if that fat slob Göring and that gimp Goebbels andthat humorless twit Himmler, if those guys representthe master race... You don’t remember what else yousaid but that would be enough. How many people aretried and hanged for making remarks like that? Theytorture you, pull out your fingernails... You go alongwith that? You look up to Hitler as an inspiring 
leader?” 

“As leaders go,” Jurgen said, smoking one ofCarl’s Chesterfields, “he hasn’t done too badly. He 
made himself Führer in Thirty-four. He restored the 
German Reich. By 1942 he owned Norway, Denmark,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia-—I forgetHolland—-also Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland and abig chunk of Russia and the Ukraine.” Jurgen paused 
to draw on his cigarette. “Still, Erwin Rommel, afterNorth Africa when he was appointed to the Führer’sstaff, and personally witnessed the Führer’s outburstsand irrational behavior, he told people close to him theFührer was over the edge, far from normal. I was with 
Rommel most of two years,” Jurgen said, “and believeevery word he ever said to me and continued to believehim, his predictions, his assessments of the war, evenwhen they failed to happen. He is the only man I haveever known I would step in front of to take a bulletmeant for him.” 

“For Rommel,” Carl said, “but not your Führer?”
“I would be happy to see someone kill him,”
Jurgen said, “if he doesn’t do it himself.” 

* 


“The YMCA gives you radios,” Carl said, “andyou modify them to receive shortwave broadcasts fromGermany. You need parts, you order them from aSears and Roebuck catalog. The camp commander saysthey find shortwave radios that were meant to befound, but you have other transmitters and receivershidden away.”

“You want me to tell you,” Jurgen said, “if I knowwhere they are?”

“I want to know,” Carl said, “if you believe whatthe broadcasts from home tell you. We listen to them. 
They get finished playing a big military number, theyreport that your guys are bravely holding the line ‘withheroic efforts.’ You believe that’s true?” 

“I believe we’re resisting bravely, yes. What else 
can we do?” 

“Shemane said you’ve stopped talking aboutwinning the war. What about most of your guys? Are 
they still optimistic?”

“Many of them, yes. Or they would have tobelieve in Anglo-American victories, what they read in 
your newspapers. I’ll tell you something,” Jurgen said,
“coming here, crossing this country that can take days,
seeing all the lights in the cities we pass, seeing noevidence of destruction from bombing raids, it gives usdoubts about what we were told, that industrial citieswere bombed, and of course New York City. But our 
comrades who came through New York saw little or nodamage from bombs.”

“They didn’t see any,” Carl said. “You have 
bombers that can fly across the Atlantic Ocean, droptheir loads, turn around and fly back to Europe?” 


“They would have to refuel.”

“Where? Where do you stop for gas over here?”

Jurgen didn’t answer. He took his time to say,
“You want to know about the Jewish Question.” 

* 

“The first thing he did when he took power,”
Jurgen said, “was dismiss all Jews working in civilservice. He also began to reduce their numbers in thevarious professions. The Führer saw no Jews as 
workers in factories or the trades like carpenters. He 
saw them as a race of merchants and money lenders,
and called them our deadliest enemy.”

“German people,” Carl said, “who happened tobe Jews.” 

“Blaming them for whatever was wrong withGermany,” Jurgen said. “The Führer passed theNuremburg Laws, the idea, to unite all Germans andexclude the Jews as citizens. For a German to marry a 
Jew was forbidden. Jews were no longer permitted topractice law or medicine except among themselves, butIF you were part Jewish you could be a pharmacist.
Are you following this? Jews were prohibited fromattending German theaters, concerts, film houses.
They could no longer attend German schools. Theywere forbidden to own firearms. In fact, the day beforeKristallnacht in November, 1938, the SS went intoJewish homes and removed anything that could be used 
as a weapon. You know about Kristallnacht, the nightof broken glass?” 


“When they started wrecking Jewish stores,
places of business,” Carl said. “I remember seeing it on 
the newsreel. The cops watching the brown shirtssmashing shop windows.”

“They burned synagogues,” Jurgen said, “all overGermany. They destroyed thousands of shops, 
businesses. Some of the Jews were killed and as manyas thirty thousand arrested and sent to labor camps.
This was the beginning of violence against the Jews,
1938. I asked my father if he believed this kind ofpersecution made was going on. I said, ‘Can youbelieve our government is systematically killing peopleit doesn’t like?’ I asked him this while we were in 
Detroit and were reading about it in the paper. Myfather said, ‘Give the impression you accept NationalSocialism, since you have no other choice, and never ina public place criticize our Führer or any of the lunaticsworking for him.’ My father was a production engineerwith Ford of Germany, or Ford Werke, as it was called.
A year after we left Detroit and came home, the Führerawarded Henry Ford on his seventy-fifth birthday, theGrand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest honorwe give someone who isn’t German.”

“I did read that Hitler had a portrait of Ford onhis office wall in Munich. Your dad said to give theimpression that you accept National Socialism?”

“He didn’t mean act like a Nazi. Act like youbelieve in the future of the Third Reich ands you don’tmind being a member of the master race. He said it 
isn’t something we have to deal with directly.”

Don’t think about it,” Carl said, “it might goaway.” 


“You have the same kind of problem,” Jurgensaid, “in the way you treat Negroes, American citizens,
but black. I’m in the café waiting to be picked up. Let’ssay two Negro GIs come in pointing carbines at me,
playing, pretending I’m a desperate character.”

Carl listened, knowing what Jurgen was going to 
say. 

“I sit at the counter, the enemy, the kraut, havingmy coffee, having whatever I want. But the two guys inuniform can’t sit at the counter with me. They aren’t 
allowed to because of their race.” 

“I think they could sit at that counter if theywanted,” Carl said.

“But not at every counter in America, or use thedrinking fountain and toilets reserved for whites.”
Jurgen said. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Nazis and redneck racists were not the same in 
Carl’s mind and he could argue the difference withJurgen. But not today.

“I have to leave you,” Carl said, “get back toTulsa to pick up my wife.”

“I don’t think you ever said you were married.
You have children?” 

“Not yet,” Carl said. “We’re waiting till she gets 
out of the Marines.” 

Jurgen gave him a funny look.

Carl said, “Yeah, what?” 

* 

He was so glad to see Louly coming along thestation platform in her uniform he ran up, got his arms 


around her and they started kissing, both of themholding on to each other until Carl’s hat came off andhe let it go. When they parted for a breath, Louly said,
“you remember the time in Kansas City, we were in thecar kissing away and I knocked your hat off? Not all 
the way off but cockeyed, and right away you had totake it off, knowing you didn’t look like a cool customerthe way it sat on your head? You remember that?” 

Carl said, “I wasn’t gonna take it off this timetill we got out of bed.”

“You know how long from now that’ll be ifwe’re going to your dad’s house? He’ll ask me about 
the Woman Marines, but I don’t get to answer. It 
reminds him of women insurrectionists who foughtalong side the Mambis in Cuba, and there were somehe knew and had camped with, while I’m trying to lookinterested.” 

“We’re staying here,” Carl said. “I used myinfluence and got us a suite at the Mayo for as long aswe want.” 

* 

She said, “You really love me, don’t you?” The 
two of them lying around the hotel suite in theirunderwear, drinking bourbon highballs, ordering clubsandwiches and potato chips from room service,
smoking cigarettes, taking baths together worn outfrom making love, Louly lying back between his legs inthe bubblebath, her head resting on his chest, tellingCarl about teaching flexible gunnery to Marine 
radiomen who would sit behind the pilot in an SBD 


Dauntless dive bomber, ready to shoot down Zekesthat got after them without shooting off their own tail.

Carl said, “If I was in your class, I’d see you asthat redheaded big-ass Marine who looks lonely.”

“Anybody tries to get close I tell him I’ve shottwo men with two different revolvers. One, to save the 
life of the man I knew I would marry. For the other I 
was given five hundred dollars by a bankers associationfor shooting a bank robber in a tourist court where hewas holding me against my will. Deputy MarshalCarlos Webster said stay with that and you won’t go tojail. Remember?” 

“I remember your big brown eyes looking up at 
me.” 

“But it wasn’t till you came to Kansas City Iknew for sure you loved me. When I was going by 
Kitty.”

“Working for Teddy,” Carl said. “I spoke to himon the phone yesterday about Shemane. You don’t 
remember her?” 

I told you,” Louly said, “I’d only heard about her. 
How Teddy had her kidnapped and put in a 
whorehouse ‘cause her dad got one of Teddy’s girls tomove to Tulsa.” Louly stopped and said, “This couldbe the same suite they were in, when Teddy’s guy shotthem.” 

“They were up on nine,” Carl said. “Teddy liked 
Shemane a lot, didn’t he?”

“He liked girls,” Louly said. “I wouldn’t mind 
seeing him again.”

“What for?” 


“In my uniform. Ask him what he’s doing forthe war effort these days, besides getting GIs drunk.”

Carl said, “I thought he knew about Shemaneentertaining her German POW, but she hadn’t toldhim. I said to Teddy he ought to let her know whatthey’re doing to the Jews. She thinks they’re all nice 
guys from good homes.”

Louly said, “That’s right, Teddy’s Jewish.”

“And he’s got relatives over in Poland who’vedisappeared. He hears from a cousin named Zigmundhe calls Ziggy. Ziggy used to smuggle food into the 
Warsaw ghetto. All the Jews were kept inside the wallsten to twenty feet high. Ziggy said the Germans’d goinside the ghetto and do what ever they want. One 
time they brought out sixty prominent Jews everyoneknew and respected and shot them in the street. Prettysoon, they’re bringing out five or six thousand at a timeand sending them to a concentration camp only fortymiles away, called Treblinka. They arrive, some are putto work and the rest are sent to a gas chamber. In a few 
minutes they’re dead and the bodies are burned in acrematorium.” 

Louly said, “a crematorium?” She got aroundsideways between Carl’s legs in the bubblebath to stareat his face. “You believe that?” 

“Ziggy told Teddy it’s been going on for a few 
years. Some are put to work digging pits, long oneslike ditches, only much deeper. Men, women andchildren are brought out and machine-gunned. Theyfall in the pit and the bodies are covered with lime.”

Louly was facing Carl now, sitting back on herhands holding on to the sides of the tub. 


“Thousands of people are murdered and we don’thear anything about it?”

“Ziggy told Teddy almost all the Jews who wereliving in Poland have disappeared.”

“They’re dead?”

“Shot or gassed, those that haven’t starved todeath.” 

“Ziggy saw it happen?”

“Or heard about it from people who did.”

Louly was shaking her head. “I don’t believe it.” 

“Jurgen admits it. He says the POWs that hearabout it don’t want to believe it either. They can’t seesoldiers like themselves killing woman and children.
Jurgen said it’s the SS doing it, not soldiers. The boss, 
Bob McMahon said they know about it in 
Washington, the Nazis bent on exterminating an entirepeople. That’s the word Washington uses, exterminate.
You can read about Nazi atrocities in the paper, butthey aren’t played up because they’re too hard tobelieve. So the papers focus on how we’re beating upon of the Japanese.”

“How about the one that shot you,” Louly said,
“who wasn’t supposed to be there?”

“I told you, I was hit right here,” Carl said,
turning in the bubblebath to pinch the slight bulgeabove his left hip, “and in the leg. Broke the bone.” 

“What happened to the guy?”

“The Nip? There were two of them. Listen, I’mgoing to make us highballs, order up some mixed nuts.
You want anything?”

“You won’t talk about it,” Louly said. “Why?” 


“Are you kidding? I tell everybody,” Carl said.
“Come on, let’s have a drink.”

“You don’t want to admit some guy got the dropon you.”

“Honey, this is different, it’s a war story. Get dry 
and I’ll tell you what happened.” 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Six 

Gary Marion, Ex-Bull Rider 

C
C
arl and Jurgen were discussing what the Nazishave been doing to Jews. Then Carl goes to pickup Louly, who is home for a war-bond rally, andthey spend a night in a hotel room, with Carl recountingwhat he's heard from Jurgen.
Carl was shaving in his white undershorts in thebathroom, the door open, his highball on the counter;
he'd come out to the bedroom to stand over Louly at thevanity in a peach teddy brushing snags out of her redhair, Carl stooping to shave in the vanity mirror whilehe told Louly his war story:
How they lived in Quonset huts on MomotePlantation among rows of coconut palms, the 5,000foot 
airstrip cutting a wide swath of packed coralthrough the trees. He told her fighter planes took offevery day -- Australians in Hurricanes and Spitfires, theNavy sending F4U's and Hellcats -- to drop bombs on 


bypassed Japanese bases like Rabaul, keeping a good

100,000 Nips out of the war.

''Did you eat much coconut?''

''Hardly any.''

''Why not?''

''Too much trouble, and the milk gives you theruns. We hung mosquito netting over our bunks andtook Atabrine tablets every day. It could turn your skinyellow.''

''So you didn't take any.''
''Once in a while I did.'' 
''How was the chow?'' The marine soundinginterested. 

''Poor to not too bad, but I ate it. Most of thetime, we wore greens, the shirts and pants,'' Carl said,
stepping into the bathroom to hold his razor under thefaucet and drink some of his highball, ''and greenbaseball caps, or you could wear your white cover. Youcould wear dungarees or just about anything youwanted, Seabees weren't that military. We'd cut thepants down to shorts and the sleeves off the shirts, cutour combat boots into sandals.'' 

''It must've been hot,'' Louly said, making aface, her brush caught in a snag.

Carl took the brush, worked it free and put itback in her hand saying: ''Two degrees from theEquator, that's hot. Nobody cared -- we always had abreeze off the Bismarck Sea. I can't tell you where thesea ends and it becomes the Pacific Ocean again. Iasked Jurgen --he's the one told me why it's theBismarck Sea, Germany taking over the Admiralties in1884 and owned them up to the end of World War I. Isaid to Jurgen I was surprised you didn't put up anystatues, Bismarck or any of your Kraut heroes like theKaiser. I think Australia owns the islands now. Manus, 


the big one, has a huge harbor, so they made it SeventhFleet headquarters. Los Negros is only 10 miles long,
but curves around close to Manus and forms one side of 
the harbor. We were issued a carbine and three 
magazines of ammo, 45 rounds. And I had my .38along.''

 ''You brought it with you?'' Louly surprised.

''I wore it every day for 15 years. It felt good thetime I packed it.''

Louly paused, holding the hairbrush in the air.

''You never told me what your job was.''

''The lieutenant would tell me to get in the jeepand go check on something. We had a lot of heavyequipment working, bulldozers and graders.'' Carlsmiled at himself in the vanity mirror, half-turned andmade a muscle for Louly. ''You like my tattoo?''

''I love it.'' She said, ''It's Palmer Method, huh?''
looking at ''Carlos'' on his shoulder in perfect 
penmanship.

''Only cost me a buck.''

He reached around Louly to get a towel off thevanity. He wiped his face and said, ''Look up here.''
Louly looked straight up at him bending her head backand he kissed her till she reached up and took his facein her hands. 

After that tender moment he said: ''They gaveus the carbine and a steel helmet. Once in a while 
they'd announce general quarters over the P.A. andwe'd go down to the beach and wait for something tohappen. The thing the helmet was good for, it held twocans of beer in chipped ice we'd each take to the showat night. We're Seabees, so we made seats with armsand a back that would hook on to the plank nailed to alog -- rows of hard boards going back from the screen.
It rained it didn't matter, we'd go to the show. One night 


I was with this young Seabee, George Klein fromChicago, in the rain watching Lauren Bacall in her firstmovie, 'To Have and Have Not,' where she tellsHumphrey Bogart if he wants anything just whistle?
Lauren Bacall says to him: 'You know how to whistle,
don't you, Steve? You put your lips together and blow.'
And George Klein went crazy. At that moment he fellin love with Lauren Bacall and kept saying: 'We're the 
same age. You know it? Look at her. Lauren Bacall andI are the exact same age.'''

''How'd he know that?'' 

''I don't know, but you could see she was a kid.
Listen, the guy working the projector -- I made him putthe same reel back on as he was changing reels so wecould watch her say it again. Sitting in the rain.''

Louly said: ''Are you coming to where you gotshot? I think you said in the letter you were in a boat?''

''A duck,'' Carl said, ''it was green and looks likea 30-foot open boat but has wheels. You drive out ofthe water and keep going. We'd take it across a streamseparating us from Manus, Los Negros was that close,
and go to the supply depot for stores and 60 cases ofbeer. All the cans olive drab, it didn't matter what kind.
On our base we kept them in a walk-in cooler andhanded out two or three cans per man every other day.
Naval Air Transport pilots always had whiskey andthey'd sell it for 35 to 50 bucks a fifth if they neededmoney. Or sometimes they'd trade a bottle for a case ofbeer.'' 

''You were in the duck,'' Louly said, ''when yougot shot. . .''

Carl was in the bathroom rinsing, now dryinghis face. He said: ''We were coming back from Manuswith our stores. Crossed the stream to Los Negros, upthe bank and into some growth, and the Nip hit me with 


a rifle shot.'' Carl stepped into the bedroom pinchingthe love handle above his left hip. ''George Klein waswith me and a big boy from Arkansas named ElmerWhaley. I remember he and I sucking on Beech-Nutscrap that trip. There were more shots as I dove forcover in the stern and saw George and Elmer Whaleygo down. Not shot, taking cover. I listened to that riflefire again in my head and held up two fingers to mymates. I said: 'We don't know where they are. We haveto wait till they come to us.' I said, 'You're dead, sodon't move.' George said they didn't have theircarbines. I didn't have mine either.'' 

Louly said, ''You go armed, 'cause somethinglike this could happen?''

''No,'' Carl said, ''the island was secured. TheFirst Cavalry swore, no live Japs left. Over 3,000killed. The First Cavalry lost something like 300 killedand 1,100 wounded. The war on Los Negros was over.
No, we brought the carbines for fun, fire off a fewrounds.''

 ''Where were they, the guns?''

''Up front, at the bow. George was crawlingtoward them.'' 

''By then you must've had your .38 in yourhand,'' Louly said. ''The one with the front sight filedoff?''

 ''I believe it was,'' Carl said, starting to grin.

''The same one I used to save my husband's 
life?''

 Carl was grinning in the vanity mirror.

''You have the hammer eared back?''

 ''I believe I did.''

 ''You hear them coming through the growth?''

''Taking forever. They're both off to the left, so Iheld the .38 on the port-side gunnel where I thought 


they'd appear, judging from the noise they're makingcoming through the growth. I see an Oriental face in adirty cap appear above the gunnel -- he's bringing uphis rifle as I shot him. Now the other one, taller than thefirst guy, appears and I see him aiming at me as I'mlooking right at him, his face pressed against the stockof his rifle. I shot him a half-second before he fired and 
it threw him off. I got hit in the leg instead of betweenthe eyes.''

''My hero,'' Louly said, head lowered to brushher hair, her eyes raised to Carl in the mirror. ''Iremember you got your medals and your honorabledischarge and quit limping.''

''I'd served my country,'' Carl said.

''And I'm just starting.'' Louly quit brushing.
''Tomorrow I'm the lady marine at a war-bond rally.''

''What do you do?''

''Smile, act cute in a military kind of way. RoyEldridge and Anita O'Day'll be there, and some others.''

'''Let Me Off Uptown,''' Carl said. ''Roy andAnita don't need any others. I'll try to make it, but first Ihave to supervise a new guy, Gary Marion. You wantto picture him, he's one of those tough little bull ridersfrom the rodeo.''

 ''What's wrong with him?''
''I have to settle him down before he starts 
shooting Germans.''

There was a coal miner named Joe Tanzi from 
Krebs, who started digging coal when he was a kid, 13years old but big for his age. On his 44th birthday, stillgoing down in the mines, he told his wife he wasn'tgoing to work anymore. He was going to hitch a ride toMcAlester and rob the first bank he came to on 
Choctaw Avenue. Two weeks before this at Osage No.
5 an explosion sealed off Joe Tanzi for four days with 


four dead miners and five lunch pails. Joe didn't eatmuch, the smell of the dead miners made him sick. Hedecided he was through with mines.

His kids were grown by then. The boys had leftKrebs for Tulsa and the oil fields, and the girls weremarried and keeping house. His wife locked the frontdoor and went to her mother's. 

That morning of his birthday Joe Tanzi had puton a clean shirt and pants with his worn-out suit coat,
his cap, hitched the ride to McAlester and walked in thebank. He took out a pistol he'd bought for $6 off an oldguy who was supposed to have been a Black Handassassin in his time, and robbed the bank of $7,700 ofminers' payroll.

What he did then, he got on the interurbanstreetcar and rode it 20 miles to Hartshorne, the end ofthe line, where he was arrested the next morning at thehome of his oldest sister, Loretta, who was known asGrandma Tanzi and made a living brewing and sellingChoc beer to coal miners. They asked Joe Tanzi, allright, where was the money? Joe Tanzi, one of thosebig guys who didn't talk much, said, ''What money?''

They had bank people identify him and 
hundred witnesses who saw him riding the streetcarwith bank sacks. They asked him where he'd hid it. Hewouldn't answer. They asked him using blackjacks onhis kidneys till he was peeing blood and he stillwouldn't tell them. For several days they searched hissister's house, her car, her property and adjoining lots.
They brought dogs to the sister's house to sniff out inall directions. Once they gave up, knowing he'd neverspeak a word to them, they brought Joe Tanzi to federalcourt, charged him with bank robbery, found him guiltyin five minutes and, mad as hell, sentenced him to 25years of hard labor. This was in 1928. 


In 1933 Joe Tanzi was one of six convicts in a 
work crew repaving Stonewall Avenue from 
McAlester's business district to the prison. He heard thesignal as they were coming to the Barnett MemorialChurch, a wolf whistle, and the six convicts took off inall directions. Joe Tanzi ran for the church hearinggunfire from the guards, but none of it coming at him.
He got around back of the church and inside, the doorunlocked, a man in there playing the organ, boomingthrough part of a hymn when he heard the gunfire, wentto a window to see what was going on. It allowed JoeTanzi to get behind the organ in time to hear the guardscoming, shouting, and heard the organist tell themnobody came in here, he'd have seen them. That nightJoe Tanzi got pants and a shirt still damp off aclothesline, burned his prison stripes and walked twofull nights to Hartshorne and dug up his bank moneyburied six feet deep in the middle of Grandma Tanzi'scornfield. The two thought they ought to move toArkansas and that's what they did: paid $900 for adinky farm near Mulberry, on the road east of FortSmith. 

''I guess they missed living in Oklahoma,'' Carlsaid to Gary Marion, '''cause now they have a farm nearIdabel, close to the Red River. Cross it you're inTexas.'' 

They were riding in the '41 Chevrolet sedanwith 180,000 miles on it but good tires, Gary driving,
Carl watching the ex-bull rider staring straight ahead atthe highway. ''You start to see a lot more dogwoodsyou know you're coming to Idabel.''

Gary said, ''This convict'll be armed?''

''I don't know. He might be.''

''He robbed the bank he was armed.'' 


''Sixteen years ago,'' Carl said. ''You want himstill holding a gun, don't you?''

Earlier in this trip talking about Jurgen Schrenk,
Gary maintained P.O.W.'s were no better than fugitiveoffenders. He said he walked in that cell and Jurgenwas set on killing him. ''Why would he care aboutyou?'' Carl said. ''Jurgen's a combat veteran, a captainin the Afrika Korps. He doesn't even have to talk to youhe doesn't want to. What we'll do is forget the wholething.'' 

Approaching Idabel, Carl said: ''There arefugitive felons we can't wait to find, and there are guyslike Joe Tanzi who dug coal till he couldn't diganymore. Some parolee around here recognized himfrom prison and went to the county sheriff. Who knowswhy. Joe Tanzi's a federal fugitive, so the sheriff calledTulsa. Joe's 60 years old now, his sister's about 80.
They say he bought a full section off a Choctaw wastrying to grow cotton. Joe's letting a colored familyshare-crop it with him.''

''But he still owes us 20 years,'' Gary said.
''Commit the crime, you do the time.''

Carl could hear himself saying that when hewas 25. But even back then he wasn't anything likeGary Marion, Jesus, from some dinky town in EastTexas.

 ''We'll visit Joe and have a talk.''

 ''What about?'' 

''See what he's calling himself.'' Carl stoppedand said: ''When you were competing for rodeo moneyyou had to stay on the bull eight seconds, right? Youdon't get any points for staying on longer, you're judgedon your ride. You hear the buzzer you try to slide offwithout getting thrown. Then you want to walk to the 


gate without looking back, see what the bull's doing.
Am I right?''

''There's girls in the stands watching,'' Garysaid. ''You take your hat off to them and keep turning towave it at the entire arena.''

 ''While you're checking on the bull.''

''Some you better.''

''It doesn't mean you're afraid of the bull.''

''No -- you're showing him respect is all.''

''It's the same kind of thing,'' Carl said. ''You'rea peace officer. You try to handle the bull and make itlook easy.''

Gary turned his head to point his old-timerStetson at Carl. ''What I think you're saying to me,
leave the wop convict to grow his cotton and nobodygets hurt.''

Carl said: ''Gary, you wear me out. I'm not surewhy, but you and I don't seem to communicate. What Iget from the way you see this, you hope Joe Tanzi pullsa gun so you can shoot him.''

''He pulls,'' Gary said, ''isn't that what you'resupposed to do?'' 

Next week: The gangster Teddy Ritz comes to 
town. 


Comfort to the Enemy
Chapter Seven 


Joe Tanzi, Fugitive 

S
S
outh of Idabel they came to thecrossroads Carl was looking for, asheriff’s car waiting by a patch of 

dogwoods. It was late in the day but still lightfor another hour or so. 

Two McCurtain County deputies cameto Carl’s side of the car and he got out to meetthem and show his star. Gary Marion watched,
still in the car, his hands hanging on the 
steering wheel. He noticed that the deputiesseemed to defer to Carl, waiting for him tospeak, ask them questions. One of the deputiessaid the man identified as Joe Tanzi hadn’t left 
his property, down that way toward the river.
He asked if Carl wanted them along for backup. 


Carl said he didn’t want to alarm the man, puthim on his guard, anymore than he had to; hethought he and Gary—Carl turning to glance athim in the car--should be able to handle this 
one. He said, “You check the name on the 
deed?” 

“Joseph Shikoba,” the deputy said. 
“According to his story, related to the Choctawsold him the farm.” 

But this convict on parole,” Carl said,
says he’s Joe Tanzi. Why you suppose the conwants to send Joe back to prison? If we find out 
it is Joe Tanzi?” 

The deputy said, “It don’t sound like theywere friends inside, does it?”

“How big a boy is Joseph?”

“Big. Has a good hundred pounds on 
you.” 

Gary Marion listened and wasn’t going tosay another word to Carl getting in the car, Carltelling him to go left down the road, it was onlya couple miles now. But Gary couldn’t keep 
quiet. 

“You don’t believe this guy is Joe Tanzi?”

“I’ll talk to him and find out who he is,”
Carl said. “to my satisfaction.”

“The con swore he’s Joe Tanzi. He knew 
him five years inside the Walls.

Carl said, “Why does my wanting to givethis man some slack upset you?” 

* 


Was he kidding?

Because Gary had read the book aboutthe hot kid of the marshals service, joined upand couldn’t wait to shake hands with Carlos 
Huntington Webster, who packed a Colt .38 on

a .45 frame, the front sight filed off. Only thisCarl Webster, back from the war in the Pacific,
wasn’t anything like the Carl Webster in thebook. 
Gary said, “You shot and killed one 
armed offender after another, starting with thecow thief you blew out of his saddle when youwere fifteen years old. You joined the marshalsand went after Emmett Long the deadliest bankrobber of the Twenties, faced him in a 
farmhouse near Checotah, warned him if youpulled you’d shoot to kill, and you did. There 
was the time you faced David Lee Swickcoming out of the bank in Turley, firing at youwhile holding a woman in front of him. You 
pulled and shot what you saw of him fromtwenty feet.”

Carl said, “You know the woman fainted?
For a minute I was afraid I’d shot her.” He 
looked at the gravel road and said, “Pull up herefor a minute.” 

Gary eased to a stop, not yet finishedwith what he was saying. “According to yourbook you shot Peyton Bragg at four-hundredyards with a Winchester. At night, Peyton 
running from your posse.” 


Carl said, “You remember reading about 
the woman Peyton was seeing, Venicia 
Munson?” 

Gary didn’t answer, he had another oneto tell. 

“‘You shot the four guys who drove theircar into the roadhouse that time, all of themcoming out armed and standing fairly close.
One of ‘em Nester Lott, the ex-federal agentgone bad, packed two .45s cinched to his legs.
Nestor pulled on you and you shot him andturned and shot the other three.” Gary paused.

Carl said, “This friend of Peyton’s, 
Venicia Munson, was an old-maid school 
teacher who drank Peyton’s wildcat whiskey anddidn’t care who knew it. We’re sitting in herkitchen waiting for Peyton to show, she told meshe was scared to death. I said, 'Well, that’llteach you to get mixed up with a bank robber.'
She said, 'You're the one scares me, not Peyton.
I can tell you'd rather shoot him than bring himin.’ She said it was why I became a marshal, toget to carry a gun and shoot people.”

For a few moments there it was quiet in 
the car, Gary frowning, anxious to saysomething, Carl waiting for him to think of thewords, Gary looking out the window now as hesaid, "You listen to a woman doesn't know whatshe's talking about?”

“Except while I'm sitting there with her,"
Carl said, "I'm thinking I had a chance ofadding Peyton Bragg to my list. At that timehe'd be number four." 


"I can understand that," Gary said, 
nodding his head.

"When I was younger," Carl said, "I'd seemovies like 'Ace of Aces' and bite myfingernails watching Richard Dix flying a Spador a Camel and shooting down Germans. Youknew they were evil by the strange kind ofgoggles they wore and how they always lookedarrogant. Richard Dix would get on the tail of athree-winged Fokker, give it a burst and salutethe Kraut spiraling down trailing smoke. They'dadd another German cross to his plane, underthe cockpit. At one time, when I first became amarshal, I thought, They go up looking forenemy planes to shoot down and we go out totake wanted felons dead or alive." 

Gary was nodding again.

"But their dogfights and our gunfights,"
Carl said, "aren't near the same. Theirs areaerial shows, graceful, their planes loopingaround in the clouds, killing from a distance,
spinning down in slow circles with that trail ofsmoke. Ours, we get to see the ones we kill,
dead eyes staring at us, blood staining thepavement. People shot to death aren't pretty,
are they?" Carl took his time to say, "How manyfelons have you seen killed by law officers?"

"Well, not any,” Gary said, “just yet. ButI've seen people killed in car wrecks and they'rean awful sight."

They drove up to the farm house wornbare and rickety by sun and Oklahoma dust, anew washing machine on the porch. Now a man 


came out to stand with his hand resting on thewasher. He was a size, more than six feet to seehim there. Still in the car Carl said, "You seethe old woman?" Gary, staring at the house,
shook his head. Carl said, “Look at the window.
Those are the double ought holes of a shotgunparting the curtains. And I'm gonna guessthere's a gun in that washing machine. That'show much they want to stay here and growcotton. We get out, don't say a word. You gotthat?" 

Gary mumbled something.

"Have you got that?"

"I said yeah.”

They came out now to stand on each sideof the car's headlights. Carl identified himselfand Gary to the man on the porch, who hadn'tsaid a word or taken his hand from the washingmachine. 

"You're Joseph Shikoba?"

The man nodded and said, "What do youwant?" 

"You bought this property--"

"From a man related to one of my 
uncles." 

"You're Choctaw." 

"Part of me." 

"Where you from?"

"Here. All my life."

"You planted yet?"

The man shifted from one foot to the 
other. "Now is too late. Next year we gonna 


have cotton and the year after that, every yearwe gonna grow cotton."

"I'll tell the sheriff," Carl said" "you're not 
the man we're looking for. I’m sorry we 
bothered you."

In the car again, turned around headingnorth, Gary said, I don't get it. We could havehim in the back seat, cuffed.

"You'd have to kill his sister." 

“All right, what do you tell McMahon?

“We couldn’t find him.” 

"He'll believe you?"

"Bob will call the sheriff and the sheriff 
will threaten to jail the snitch for making a falseaccusation." 

"All right, let me ask you something,"
Gary looking from the road to Carl. You saidyou made up your mind to add Peyton to yourlist. You gave him a number, he’d be numberfour at that time. He's close to getting away,
pretty far down the road when you shot him."

"What's the question?"

"Why didn't you let him go? You'reletting Joe Tanzi off the hook when he ought tobe in prison. Why didn't you give Peyton abreak, let him get away?"

"Joe Tanzi was a criminal for a few daysand did five years. Peyton Bragg killed fourpeople the day he robbed the bank in Sallisawwith a Thompson sub-machine gun. Two ofthem were law officers. You don't allow a man 
like Peyton Bragg to go around with a 
Thompson sub-machine gun. That's the 


difference. You have to know," Carl said, "whenit's all right to use your gun."

All this to get the hard-headed bullriderto quit thinking every offender was a criminalyou ought to shoot...and every German POW aKraut you could beat up if you wanted. And ifyou could.

Carl said, "We'll stop at the Deep Forkcamp on the way. I want to introduce you toJurgen Schrenk.”

“I’ve met him.” 

“No you haven’t.” 

* 

In the bedroom of the Mayo suite, Carland Louly were sitting up in bed talking, drinkson the night tables, an ashtray between them onthe sheet that covered Carl to his waist while 
Louly was trying to keep it under her arms. Carlwould use his foot to kick the sheet loose and 
Louly would have gto hang on to it; she did acouple of times and after that let it go. Carlsaid, "Why're you acting like you're so modest?"
Louly said because she was, she was modest.
Carl said, "How can you be modest and work atTeddy's? Everywhere you turn you're looking atbare bazooms." Louly said she never showedhers, even though they were way better thanmost everyone else's. Or unsnapped her teddy.

Carl said, "You called yourself Kitty so itwouldn't be you working there, but you got tosee all the monkey business going on.” He 


leaned over and she turned to kiss him. Theyloved to kiss each other, never in a rush. Theirfaces close he said, "You’re my little monkey."
the two grinning at each other.

She told him the war bond rally thisafternoon went okay, on the steps of the federalcourthouse. They had the Andrew Sisters doing'Any Bonds Today' piped over the PA system.
"And then Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge did'Let Me Off Uptown' and 'Thanks for theBoogie Ride' with an entire 17 piece bandbehind them. Anita brought me up to the mikewith her and we sang that part, 'I like riding injalopies away from motorcycle coppies, I likeriding just like you do aboard the Chattanoogachoo-choo. So let me thanks you gates, thankyou for the boogie ride it really was great.'"

Carl said, "In your uniform.”

“Of course.” 

“You snapped your fingers?"

"I had the moves," Louly said, "don'tworry.“

Carl had to grin. He sure loved this 
marine. 

She asked earlier if he wanted to go tothe show, see "Lady in the Dark" with GingerRogers and Ray Milland, Louly reading fromthe ad in the paper, "The thrilling story of awoman's secret loves based on the 
internationally famed stage success." Carl said,
"What's it about?" Louly said the revealing of awoman's secret loves. He stared at her now. 
"Yeah ...?” ` She wasn't that crazy about seeing 


it. They'd skip the show and have something toeat. 

When he told her how he handled the 
Joe Tanzi business, Louly said, "The new guydidn't understand what you were doing? I don'tunderstand it either, how you can decide to letthe guy go. What're you, a parole board?"

"They got mad 'cause they couldn't findthe money and gave Joe twenty-five years.“

"'Cause he hid it." 

"You think he should do another 
twenty?"

"What I think--what's that got to dowith it? I don't have a say in it and you don'teither." 

"But I said something, didn't I, whether Ihad a say or not. I said this isn't the guy we'relooking for. I let him grow his cotton. Youknow what I wanted to ask him? What 
happened to his wife? The one left him when herobbed the bank. But I couldn't think of how to 
put it."

The first thing they talked about in thehotel suite while they were taking off theirclothes--then held up on that conversation for awhile, until they had their highballs and 
cigarettes--was Carl introducing Gary to 
Jurgen.

Carl said Gary eyed the Kraut officer inhis short pants sitting across his cot with hisback against the wall, Jurgen showing no 
interest in Gary until Carl introduced him as aformer rodeo bullrider from Kosse, Texas, not 


far from Waco. And Jurgen said, Kosse? Doyou know Bob Wills? He's from there. Garysaid no, but he's heard him enough on theradio. 

Gary said Bob was great but he preferredthe down home sound of his favorite, RoyAcuff. It got Jurgen sitting up, Jurgen sayingRoy Acuff, it was Acuff who tuned his ear tohillbilly music. He’d started listening when helived in Detroit. Saturday nights he’d tune inthe Grand Ole Opry broadcasts.

Carl said once they got into the music,
and started talking about, Uncle Dave Macon,
The Carter Family, Pee Wee King, the warbetween Gary and Jurgen was over. Jurgenhadn't yet heard of Eddie Arnold, a new singer,
so Gary said he’d bring over some records.
"That's how it went," Carl said. "Toward theend Jurgen was asking Gary, 'What's this aboutriding bulls?'" 

* 

"Guess who I saw in the lobby, when Igot back from selling war bonds.”

They were in the bathroom now gettingready to go out, Louly plucking her eyebrows,
Carl patting Aqua Velva on his face.

"Teddy Ritz. I forgot to tell you. He wastalking to a couple of gangsters.”

"Why do you think they're gangsters?"

"They look like gangsters, and they wereewith Teddy." 


"You talk to him?" 
"He looked over, but he wouldn’t ofrecognized me in my uniform.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t go up to him.”

"If he doesn’t remember me, what’s thepoint? But listen, Teddy wasn’t checking in,
the two hoods were checking out. With bigsuitcases they wouldn’t let the bellboys get theirhands on. But now I didn’t see Teddy. The 
two guys were leaving the hotel.”

Carl said, “You followed them.”

“To see if Teddy was outside. He was 
standing by a Packard, the high-priced one.
The two guys put their grips in the trunk…Thecar was delivered by a hotel valet, he’s standingthere waiting for a tip. Teddy and the two guysgot in, one of them driving, and took off. The 
valet still waiting for the tip they didn’t givehim. I went over and asked him, ‘You knowwhere they’re going?’”

“No beating around the bush,” Carl said.

“The valet said Okmulgee. I gave him aquarter.” 


Comfort to the Enemy
Chapter Eight 


Tutti and Frankie Bones 

S
S
hemane took a sip of her martini,
placed it on the cocktail table and

picked up the Tulsa paper, the 
World. 
NAZI CHIEF ESCAPES DEATH IN 
BOMB PLOT 

Shemane said, "Mom, the paper you’rereading is three months old." The edition aboutHitler escaping death and FDR accepting thenomination for a fourth term; she laid it on thestack of newspapers between them on the sofa.

Her mom was holding her martini andreading a Sundayedition's Society page. On her lap and on thesofa she had 


the World as far back as summer, even olderones in her room, Gladys keeping up with theTulsa money people, once her neighbors. Shedidn't know how the paper got to Okmulgee,
but there it was on the front stoop every 
morning. Shemane watched Gladys in hergreen velvet with the emerald necklace andrings, always her rings, her veined hand 
reaching for the cigarette in the silver holderresting in a silver ashtray.

"It's gone out. “

Shemane had on a nifty black jersey thisevening with a scoop neck, no jewelry. She said,
"Let me have it," flicked a silver lighter to getthe joint going again, took a deep draw throughthe holder and held her breath saying, “Mom?
Here, take it."

She had read about the attempt to 
assassinate Hitler, one of his guys, Goring--no,
it was the naval guy, Doenitz saying, "by aclique of mad generals.” Jurgen knew about it,
he said Hitler was crazy, not the generals, oneof them being Field Marshal Rommel, Jurgen'sall-time hero. She had read only a couple weeksago Rommel had died of injuries received lastJuly in France when his car was strafed by aSpitfire and went out of control. Jurgen said,
"He takes all that time to die of injuries? Hewas a war hero, loved by the German people.
It’s why they couldn't hang him." His voicequiet then saying,

"They made him take poison." 


He said it during his last visit, the two ofthem on the sofa. She put her arm around himand brushed his hair from his forehead and 
kissed his cheek telling him she was so sorry,
kissing and patting him and touching his hair.

Her mom thought Jurgen was a nice 
polite boy because he said yes ma’m and noma’m. Shemane and her mom hardly ever 
talked about the war. Her mom would see a 
photo of Franklin Roosevelt in the paper andsay Alvin called him a Communist Jew-lover.
Gladys had grown up in Tulsa society, wassnatched off a country club dance floor by AlvinMorrissey, who married her to get into MapleRidge and make oil contacts. By the timeShemane was 12 she knew her dad was foolingaround; she'd go through his things and findletters from girls, girls' names in his addressbook and rubbers in his billfold. She told Jurgenshe told him just about everything because heliked to listen to her--that her dad had married 
Gladys because she was ditsy and loved all kindsof cocktails, loved to dance and drive to HotSprings to gamble.

Shemane said, "She misses her social lifeless and less. I’m thankful she knows enough 
to sedate herself. Mom can feel mellow 
whenever she wants.” 

Shemane was surprised Jurgen had nevertried reefer. He liked it, grinning and talkingmore, becoming less and less 


German each time he came, telling her howmuch he liked America and wanted to visit 
Detroit again after the war. He said you couldride the streetcar from the fairgrounds all theway downtown to the river for seven cents, andtake the ferry to Canada for a nickel. He lovedto read. He loved scotch whisky. He toldShemane he loved her and maybe he did,
though a lot of guys had said they loved her.
She told Jurgen she never tried to vamp hercustomers; she’d be herself, the nice polite girlnextdoor-
type, like this was the first time shewas ever in bed naked with a guy and a littlenervous but still anxious to please. "I'd say. Doyou like it when I do this? Very innocent.
Like it honey, they loved all my tricks.” She 
told Jurgen about Teddy Ritz, an honest-to-
God gangster who'd set her up with dates andtake her back to his bed after, because she hadbeen with rich guys, gentlemen, and Teddywould ask what they talked about and if she hadlearned anything he could use.”

She asked Jurgen what being in NorthAfrica had been like. He said, “The best part?
Being with Erwin Rommel, feeling his energy.
It was exciting to watch him.” He thoughtabout North Africa and said, “Otherwise it wasarmor in the desert, all that metal painted thecolor of sand. Metal you didn’t want to touch.
And at night you froze to death.”

She could tell he liked the she way shewas herself with him in bed, not using any of 


her tricky moves on him and made him wear arubber. He asked her if it was necessary and shesaid, "Trust me," Making love she would openher eyes and see him staring at her, very seriousabout it, and she would smile and see his facerelax and everything would be all right. Henever offered to pay her; she could tell it neverentered his mind. 

The phone rang, on the secretary betweenthe two front windows. 

"Teddy," her mom said. "What do you 
bet?" 

Shemane let the phone ring a few timesbefore going over to pick it up. She said,
"Teddy?" and listened and said, “you're the onlyone that calls." Three times during the past fewdays. Her mom was smoking a cigarette nowwatching Shemane, hearing her say, “I read thepaper, Teddy. We get two every day of the weekand I read them, I keep up with the war and Ihaven't seen anything about—“ Now she was 
listening again. Now she was saying, "Yeah, buthow do you know it's true?" He had been tellingher about Warsaw, where his people were fromoriginally--Teddy's grandfather with a storethat sold musical instruments in the front half 
and the granfather’s brother repaired shoes inthe back--telling her what the Germans hadbeen doing to the Jews for almost ten years,
awful things, Teddy learning about it fromsomeone who was there and wrote to him. 
What Shemane couldn't understand, why he 


was telling her all this. She was saying now,
"You are? When?" Now she was listening. Nowshe was saying, "Where are you?" soundingsurprised.

Her mom picked up the cigarette holderand said, "Sweetie, it's out again. How come itdoesn’t stay lit?"

Shemane returned to the sofa and sat 
down. She finished her martini before lightingthe joint for her mom.

"Teddy’s coming.”

Here?" 

"For a visit. He's in Tulsa. Every time hecalls he tells me what the Germans are doing tothe Jews." 

“I never did understand,” her mom said,
"what your father had against them.

"Did you know any Jews?"

“I’m not sure, I must know some.”

"But Teddy never visits, you know, makessocial calls. 
He goes somewhere, it's about business. Youknow what I think?" 

"Did you know," her mom said, "IrvingBerlin wrote 'AnyBonds Today'? I'm sure he's Jewish."

Shemane went back to the kitchen to 
pour another martini. The front doorbell rang,
then again while she was adding olives andwondering who it was. Tony Antonelli or CarlWebster? Not Teddy, he'd still be in Tulsa oron his way. She hoped it might be Carl. It 


would be fun to try some of the old stuff onhim. Shemane walked out to the 
living room in time to see her mom opening thefront door to a soldier who was introducinghimself, now looking past her into the house atShemane coming to the sofa with her martini.

She heard him say, "Shemane? How youdoing? Rememberme? PFC Larry Davidson, Remember thatpecan farm across the river? You stopped and Icame over to your car, that Lincoln Zephyr youwere driving?" Yeah, Larry--she rememberedhim, his overseas cap cocked over one eye andthe carbine slung over his shoulder. She 
remembered asking him if he was friends withany of the POWs and Larry saying, "Are younuts? Why would I want a Nazi for a friend?"
It was the first time she had thought of thosenice German boys working on farms aroundhere as Nazis. 

She was surprised Larry hadn't stoppedby before this. He wasn't her first choice, but hewas company and her mom seemed glad to seehim, so she waved at him to come in.

"Larry, what're you drinking, hon?" 

* 

Teddy Ritz was making the trip in thecomfort of his Packard touring car, ninetythousand miles on it. Teddy, in his blackchesterfield had the back seat to himself. 


His two hired hands were in front, theTedesco brothers, Salvatore and Frank, knownas Tutti and Frankie Bones. They both werewearing shirts and ties with their dark suits andfelt hats straight on their heads, both with thebrims snapped down on their eyes.

Teddy was telling them how the 
Germans were sending sixthousand Jews a day to Treblinka, the deathcamp only forty miles from Warsaw. "TheKrauts announce they're giving each person aloaf of bread for the trip. So these peoplestarving to death think well, if they’re feeding usthey’re not gonna kill us, right? Grasping atstraws. They make the trip to the concentrationcamp and end up in the gas chamber screaming.
Some the Krauts save to shoot and dump themin a pit. You imagine living there," Teddy said,
"seeing this going on every day? Wonderingwhen your time is coming?"

He watched the Tedesco brothers shake 
their heads. No, they couldn't imagine it.
Frankie Bones, the one not driving, turned hishead to say to Teddy, "I don't think I ever heardof that many people getting knocked off onpurpose at the same time. St. Valentine's Day,
how many was that, seven?"

What Teddy loved about the Tedescobrothers, before coming to Kansas City theywere members of Abe Bernstein’s Purple Gangin Detroit, during Prohibition. The Purpleswere a Jewish gang that hijacked liquor coming 


across the river from Canada and always shotthe crew bringing it in. Al Capone tried to setup a base in Detroit and they told him, "Theriver belongs to us." They did do business withhim, sold him booze and supplied him withgunmen, the guys Al meant when he said, “Getme Detroit.” 

Teddy asked the Tedesco brothers if they 
were ever in The Little Jewish Navy, thespeedboat fleet operating on the Detroit River.
They said no, they never went in for haulingliquor. Frankie Bones said, "We take it overonce it's been hauled." They were strong-armguys, enforcers going back twenty years youcould hire today. Tell them what you wanteddone, they agreed, you had a deal. They didn'tneed stories about Germans exterminating Jewsto give them a reason; you offered five grandapiece to come down to Oklahoma and do ajob. 

Tutti and Frankie Bones. Teddy askedthem, you guys say you're Jewish?" They saidabsolutely. Teddy had never heard of anyonewith an Italian name pretending to be Jewishfor any reason. But they were, they were Jewson their mother's side, Diane Levine; she livedon Hastings and got to know Joe Tedesco fromdown the street. 

Whatever they were, guinea or Jew, wasokay with Teddy. They said they'd do the job.

The Packard turned off the main 
highway into Okmulgee and Teddy said, “It's 


on the corner of Seventh, the Parkinson Hotel.
We have three rooms under the name David E. 
Davis, who at one time cooked the best whiskeyin the state of Missourah." 

Tutti said, "Here's Seventh we're coming 
to." 

"You guys check in," Teddy said. "1’mgonna take the car and go see somebody." 

* 

They moved the newspapers off the sofaso PFC Larry Davidson could sit between themwhile Shemane showed him how to hold the 
lighter over the bowl of the pipe as she drew onit. She said in a strangled voice, "You see what Idid?" handing him the pipe, a little briar she'dhad forever and held the light for him.

Now Larry was coughing and choking.
Shemane's mom took the pipe and the lighterand drew herself a good hit while he choked.
She told Shemane to give Larry the cigarette,
you didn't get as big a jolt. Shemane said tohim, “Here, take a sip,” bringing his martini tohis mouth. She was good at tending to men,
seeing to their ease, soothing them, saying toLarry, "That's it, baby, sip it. Another little sip.
Now take a breath, ahhhh.”

“I’m surprised,” her mom said. I thinkwe've introduced him to things he’s never hadbefore. Can you imagine,” her mom said,
hugging Larry's arm against her green velvet 


frock, “a big boy like Larry's never had a 
martini?" 

"He's looking better," Shamane said,
touching his cheek.

“Baby, you feel all right?"

"Loosen his tie,” her mom said, “and takehis cap off.” 

**** 

”Teddy didn't arrive till an hour and ahalf later. 
By then Larry had learned how to smoke amarijuana cigarette and was sipping his thirdmartini straight up, with four olives likeShemane's. Larry had never felt so at ease, sohip to the jive as he did with Shemane and hermom, the mom not looking that much olderthan her daughter and was filled out more. Hesaid, "You know you can tell things about aperson by the kind of car they drive? And the 
color?" 

Shemane said, “Really?”

"I saw you in that green Lincoln Zephyr,
I said to myself, there’s a girl has seen theelephant, knows her way around. I bet shewouldn't mind going to Hot Springs someweekend.” 

Shemane said, “Hon, where’re you from?"

"West Memphis, Arkansas." 

**** 


What Teddy heard coming in was 
Shemane saying, "You poor thing." The doorwasn't all the way closed. Teddy pushed it openand was looking at the three of them on thesofa, Shemane holding the hand of the GI nextto her, the guy lounged back in the cushions.
Shemane looked this way and dropped the handand jumped up glad to see him, always, fromthe time he took her out of that house and theygot to know each other. Teddy smiled at hercoming over. She always made him smile.

He kissed Shemane on the mouth, wentover to the sofa to kiss her mom on the cheek 
and shake hands with PFC Larry Davidson,
who didn't get up.

Teddy had no idea what the guy wasdoing here and didn't care.

Larry was grinning now, saying to Teddy,
“Are you one of the Ritz Brothers? I bet you 
get asked that a lot, huh?”

Teddy said to Shemane, "Make me adrink, a manhattan," and followed her to thekitchen. She started to tell about Larry, howhe'd stopped by-


Teddy said, "I don't care about Larry,
anything you have to say. I want to meet thisKraut friend of yours, Jurgen."

Shemane held up pouring the vermouth.

"You'll have to wait till he escapes."

"When'll that be?" 

"Who knows? He was just here." 


"If you can't get him to bust out, I'll haveto visit 
him," Teddy said. "I want to see the campanyway--take a look at these Krauts living likekings.”

"Why would they let you visit?"

"I'll say I'm a good friend of his."

"I think you have to be related. Or you'rea writer." 

"Yeah--I'll say I'm doing a story for theStar." He saw Shemane roll her eyes and hesaid, "They have tours?”

"Hon, it's a prison camp." Shemanehanded him his manhattan. Teddy raised it,
took a sip and another, a good one. He said,
"You know who I bet could get me in?"

Shemane said, "Carl Webster?" 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Nine 

Teddy Ritz, White Slaver 

T
T
hey were driving back to Okmulgee in theChevy they’d been using, Carl at the

wheel this time. Gary knew Teddy Ritzhad called to see about getting in the POW camp, thencalled again to say he’d be staying at the ParkinsonHotel, but not under his own name. Gary asked Carlwhat name he was using. Carl said Teddy wouldn’t tell 
him. Gary said then how do we find him? And Carl 
said, Teddy? You kidding?

Carl said Teddy wanted to visit the camp to askJurgen Schrenk why the Germans were trying to kill allthe Jews. 

Gary thought of asking, Why were they? butsaid, "How's Teddy know about Jurgen?"

"Every time Jurgen escapes,” Carl said, “he stayswith Teddy's ex-girlfriend a few days, Shemane, one of 


Teddy’s girls in Kansas City. So we'll hear what Jurgenhas to say about the mass-murder of three-hundredthousand Jews, all the ones that lived in Warsaw takenout and shot or sent to the gas chamber. I checked withMcMahon, it's okay with him. He'd like to hear how aKraut explains the death camps.”

Gary thought of saying, I don't know whatyou're talking about.

But now Carl was saying, "McMahon wanted meto bring you along, you'll get to meet your first big-timegangster."

Now he had something he could ask. "If weknow Teddy Ritz is breaking the law, why isn't hedoing time?"

"On what charge?” Carl said. "He has strong-
arm guys with no brains do it for him. It's how you getto be big time in the business of crime, keep your handsclean." 

Now Gary was frowning, still confused.

"You respect this guy, what he does?"

Carl shook his head. "I get a kick out of talkingto him. Still, I’m gonna put him away, the time 
comes.” 

* 

Gary believed Carl should've told him beforethey left Tulsa, sat him down and laid out what wasgoing on and what they'd be doing. They got toOkmulgee and angled in next to a Packard in front ofthe Parkinson Hotel, Carl saying the car was Teddy's;
Louly had told him what to look for. 


They went inside, Carl walked up to the deskand held up his star for the manager to see. The badgeon her lapelsaid Maureen Whalen and under the name,
Manager. She was fifty and sturdy in her gray suit. Carlsaid, "Maureen, you have a guest wears a coat with avelvet collar, wears little glasses without frames, likes tochew gum and slicks his hair back with tonic?
Maureen, he doesn't get each hair laying where it'ssupposed to, you see his scalp.”

"Mr. Davis," Maureen said. "He has two menwith him under his name." 

"How would you describe them?"

"I'd have to say, as gangsters."

Carl said, "You aren't saying it 'cause I'm afederal officer, are you?"

"I first saw them it's what I thought."

"My wife said the same thing."

"The two came in and said, ‘Davis,’ signed thecard and took two of the rooms. Mr. Davis didn't come 
in till two hours later. He said, ‘Davis,’ and took his keyand went upstairs."

Gary watched Carl pat the manager's hand onthe counter and ask would she mind calling Mr. Davisto tell him 

Deputy Marshal Carl Webster was waiting in thelobby. "And tell him, please, I said I won't wait morethan five minutes.” He gave her hand another pat.

Gary saw it, Carl making the woman feel goodand the situation look easy. Gary watched her pick upthe phone and ask for the room. She said, "Mr. Davis?"
and repeated Carl's message. She said to Carl, "He'll beright down." 


He was, too, slipping on his coat with the velvetcollar as he came toward them saying, "I knew you'dfind me." 

Carl said, "Teddy Ritz, I want you to meet mypartner, Deputy Marshal Gary Marion.”

Teddy stuck out his hand not even looking atGary and gave him a cold-fish handshake. Now he wassaying, "I could use a girl's name and wear a dress,
you'd find me."

Carl said, "Where’re the two guys with you, Iwant to meet them." 

"They'll be down. They're my bodyguards.”

“I hear they’re gangsters."

"Who told you that?"

“My wife. She saw you and the two guys at theMayo. Teddy was frowning. “Louly,” Carl said. "Sheworked for you she was Kitty."

“The marine, Teddy said, “That’s who it was. Iknew her but I couldn't think of a name. Walked rightby me. The short time she worked at the club the 
young rich guys that came in loved her. She had a listof reasons she used, why she couldn't go to a hotel withthem. 'I have to work.' 'I get caught I'll be fired.’ ‘I haveto see my doctor about something.' Or, 'I fell off theroof this morning.’ She wanted to she could’ve made apile of money."

"Like Shemane,” Carl said.

"They were a lot alike," Teddy said, "they wereboth smart. The difference, Shemane didn't mindputting out for rich strangers, and Louly, Kitty as Iknew her, said no and that was it. That broad, I canbelieve she’s a marine.” 

"You gonna see Shemane?” 


"I already did. She said I’d have to wait for theKrautto escape if I wanted to talk to him. So I called 
you, see if you could get me in the camp."

Gary was having trouble again keeping up, 
Teddy talking about Carl's wife Louly, saying 
something about her falling off a roof.

Well, now the two guys Louly and the hotelmanager said were gangsters came along, their hatspulled down, wearing suits and ties, a couple of dudes,
but no coats. As they walked past one of them said toTeddy, "We gonna be at the cigar counter."

Carl watched them cross the lobby. He said toTeddy, "What're they here for?"

"I told you, they're for my personal protection.
They're brothers. The one that told me where they'regoing, that's Salvatore Tedesco. He's called Tutti,"
Teddy said. With a straight face, though watching himGary would've sworn he smiled, on and off, saying it.

Carl said, "Tutti?” He did grin making no 
attempt to hide it.
"The other one,” Teddy said, "is Frank 

Tedesco.” 

Carl was starting to grin, waiting.

"He's called Frankie Bones,” Teddy said, "butdon't ask me why."

"He's skinny," Carl said. "That could be it." Helooked toward the two standing at the cigar counterand said, "Hey," and they both turned. Carl said,
"Come here, I want to ask you something." Theylooked at Teddy.

Teddy motioned to them. "It's okay, this guy's afriend of mine. He just wants to ask you a question." 


Carl waited as they approached and stopped afew strides away. He took a step toward them saying,
"Frank, why they call you Frankie Bones? You get thename when you were a skinny kid?"

The guy didn't answer but kept staring at him.

Gary watched Carl turn to the other one, Carl'shat and the guy's hat even, the two facing each other.

"And they call you Tutti, huh? What's Tuttishort for Tutti Fruitty?"

Gary had an urge to get into this, move to theside and have an angle on the two concentrating onCarl, except Carl, what was he doing? Asking themwhere they got their nicknames. Yeah, but eye to eye,
waiting to see if they wanted to make something out ofit. Now he said, "Teddy won't need you two inside thecamp. There isn't anyone in there ever heard of him.
So what you could do," Carl said, "walk down the streetto Deering's drugstore and get yourselves a Tutti 
Fruitty ice cream cone." He waited while they stared athim, Carl giving them time to say something if theywanted to. After a moment he said, "My favorite'speach." Cool, not once raising his voice, or taking hiseyes off them. Gary had never seen anything like it.

Carl was saying to them now, "So I won't see you twoanymore, will I?" He waited for them to stare at him again, takingtheirtime,beforetheyturnedandwentoutofthehotel.

"Fellas tried that hard eye on you," Gary said.

"You’re known as a tough guy,” Carl said, "youhave to act like one. We're gonna use Teddy's car, soyou'll have the Chevy. I was thinking you keep an eyeon the two mutts. 

"Tutti and Frankie," Gary said, glancing atTeddy who seemed patient listening to them. 


Carl saying, "But I don't want you to mix it upwith them, okay? Or shoot them?"

Gary held back his grin and said with no 
expression, "'Less I have to," starting to pick up onCarl's style.

“No, forget Tutti and Frankie. What I want youto do,” Carl said, “is drive back to Tulsa and get Louly.”

Gary said, “But I don’t know your wife,”
sounding alarmed.

“She won’t hurt you,” Carl said. “She slept in 
this morning but wants to see the camp.” 

* 

Larry Davidson was waiting by the door to thecamp commander's office. As soon as he saw the 
marshal and Teddy Ritz coming along the hallway heopened the door to the office and held it for them,
expecting Teddy Ritz to make some remark about lastnight. 

No, what Teddy did was walk past him into theoffice and stick out his hand to Colonel Sellers standingbehind his desk. He was looking at Carl as he said, "I'mnot about to shake his hand so he can put it away. Idon't have your knack for acknowledging people I haveno respect for. I've seen enough of Mr. Ritz innewspapers and reading your book." He said, “PFCLarry Davidson," looking at him standing by the door,
"will show you around if you want and take you to seeJurgen.”

That was it. 

Larry said, "If you all want to come this way," ledthem outside and through the double main gates of the 


camp, each one in turn unlocked and opened to letthem walk in, and closed and locked behind them. Heheard Carl say to Teddy, "I guess Wesley isn't in favorof treating a Kansas City gangster like a guest. He wasin law enforcement twenty years before they gave himthis camp to run." Larry heard Teddy Ritz say, "Hethinks I'm a bum--tell him I’m a good citizen, I helpedget a haberdasher elected to the bench who's about tobecome the next Vice President of the United States. 
Harry S. Truman."

They walked into the street where the POWslived, only a few outside watching them, Larry sayingthe first rows of barracks were for enlisted men, thenext ones for noncoms, and the ones at the far end werefor officers. Larry said, "You see the three gun towersdown there? The athletic field's on the other side of the 
fence, where they play soccer. Sunday there’s a 
championship match, officers against noncoms.”

Larry told them these buildings they were 
passing now were messhalls, washrooms, latrines,
library, canteen and the officer’s club where they servedthree-two beer, and here was the rec hall, where theysaw movies and put on plays and even musicals, inGerman. 

Teddy said, "what's this place, a summer camp?"
He turned to Larry saying, “You passed out, you missedthe show last night, Gladys doing a peek-a-boo strip,
flashing her Charlies one at a time.”

Larrywantedtosay,Shemane'smom?Jesus.Buthe'd

just as soon not talkabout last night. He said, “Oh, and theyplay records on a juke box the camp got for them. You know whattheir favorite song is? BingCrosby's 'Don't Fence MeIn.'HonesttoGod." 


Carl said, "Larry, we want to see Jurgen." 

* 

Larry picked up the folding chair leaningagainst the wall, telling the guard on duty they'd needanother one of these while the guard unlocked thedoor. 

Carl said to Larry, “You gonna pat him down?”

Larry said oh, and had Teddy unbutton his coatand raise his arms. 

The overhead light came on as they entered the 
room. 

Teddy- said, "You call this solitary?"

Jurgen was standing against the wall facing them,
Jurgen in his shorts holding open a newspaper in thelight from the small window above him, a heavy screencovering the pane of glass. He said, "Carl,” and readfrom the paper, “'Barricaded Convicts Hold FourGuards As Hostages.' Listen to this. 'Twenty-fivehardened convicts, revolting against being quarteredwith Nazi saboteurs, were barricaded with four prisonguards tonight in the Atlanta federal penitentiary. '" Hesaid to Carl, "Are there German saboteurs in America?
I've never heard of any."

Carl said, "Jurgen, this is Teddy Ritz."

"Ah, the white slaver” Jurgen said smiling. "I'veheard all about you."

Teddy said, "You get a kick out of reading thenews?" 

Carl watched him bring a fold of newspaperfrom his inside coat pocket, a single page folded severaltimes. Opening the sheet Teddy said, "Tell me how 


you like this one," and read~ "'Hun General BaresAtrocity.' That's the headline. The story goes on to say,
'Major General Gilmar Mozer, former commandant atLublin, admitted in a signed statement that hundredsof thousands of prisoners, including women and 
children, were killed at the notorious Majdanekconcentration camp.'" Teddy's eyes raised to Jurgen.
"The prisoners were all Jews."

Jurgen said, "Yes? What do you want me to say?
I don't know anything about this. I haven't been toPoland in almost five years. Is that where you're from?"

"You guys kill me," Teddy said. "You're calledHuns because you're barbarians, you're butchers, butyou haven't been to Poland in five years. I wonder whoit was murdered all those people at Majdanek."

"SS," Jurgen said. "Gestapo. It's what they do."

"You know any of them?"

"I have a comrade here who's SS." 

"What's he prefer, shoot the women and kids orstuff them in a gas chamber?"
"He's never done that. Otto was a tank 
commander in North Africa." 
"It's somebody else. You and Otto won't have

anything to do with the murder of 3,000,000 people."

"Of course not." 

"But you won't do anything to stop it."

"How can I?" 

"Imaginebeingmarchedtoapityouhelpeddig,"Teddysaid, "knowing you're about to be shot in the back of the head andpushedintoit.Whatdoyouthinkthatwouldbelike?"

Carl stepped in. He said, "That's it," and tookTeddy by the arm to steer him out to the hall. In the 


doorway he looked back and said to Jurgen, "When do

you get out of here?"
"This is my final day."
"Watch yourself," Carl said. 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter Ten 

Gunnery Sgt. Louise Webster 

T
T
he Tedesco brothers walked along SixthStreet in Okmulgee looking for a car to

hot-wire and talking about Carl Webster, 
the guy Teddy called, "the famous Oklahoma 
gunslinger."

"You know what he was doing," Frankie said.
"Get us to take a swing at him, we're brought up forassaulting a federal officer. I came close, you know it? Ialmost popped him in the mouth."

"A guy you know packs," Tutti said, "you don'tgive him a reason to pull on you. We'll settle with Carl.
I want the guy as bad as you do."

They walked past cars one after another angleparked at the curb, they came to a '41 Pontiac andFrankie said, "You like this one?" 


"You want to get on the floor in there," Tuttisaid, your legs hanging out on the street, all the farmersstanding around watching you? Or you want to forgetabout a car and get something to eat?"

They came to the OK Cafe a few doors upSeventh, the place nearly empty at ten past eleven, andtook a booth in front to look out at the street. "I forgotit's Saturday," Tutti said, "why everybody's in town.
They stand around waiting for something to watch.”

"We have to do it tomorrow?" Frankie said. 
"What's the rush?" 

"Sunday," Tutti said, "they're all in the camp,
none of 'em off working.”

“They’re all here today, aren’t they?”

“Maurice is tied up, has to see his parole officer."

"I never met him," Frankie said. "How do weknow he won't choke?" 

"He's a little smart-aleck colored boy, Teddy sayshe’s a pro. Teddy tells Maurice to get us a gasolinetruck so we can fill up our cars. Maurice comes backwith a highway hauler, Texaco written across the tank.
The time I met him Maurice had swiped more 
different kinds of vehicles than any car booster doingtime at Jeff City. But you’re right, what’s the rush?”

"We put it off till the next Sunday," Frankie said,
"we have time to look the place over. I said to Teddy,
'Don't they have gun towers at this camp? Keep theKrauts from going over the fence?' He says it'll take 'emby surprise. I said to him, ‘You mean the guys in thegun towers are deaf? They won't hear the Thompsonsgoing off?' He says they'll see a U.S. army truck flyingby the camp, the star insignia on the door. It confusesthe guys in the towers. What's going on? That's one of 


ours. By the time they wake up we’re gone. I asked himwhere’re the trucks at. He said they’re the ones take theKrauts to work during the week. Sunday, they'll besitting in the motor pool not doing anything."

"I agreed do the job,” Frankie said, “but I want tosee the camp first, and not have to boost a car to do it."

Tutti was watching the waitress over at the 
counter: watched her pick up a cigarette to take a dragand then set it on the edge of an ashtray. Now she wascoming to their table, while Frank was saying, "I seethe Oklahoma gunslinger before tomorrow, he goes tothe front of the line." 

Tutti spotted her name tag. He said, "Norma,
you behaving yourself?"

"I'm trying to," Norma said. "What can I get youfellas, just coffee or you're ready for lunch?"

"Breakfast," Frankie said. "Eggs over easy, bacon,
fried potatoes, no grits."

"Gee, I'm sorry," Norma said, "but we stopserving breakfast at eleven."

"You don't have two eggs in the kitchen?"

"It's just how we do it," Norma said. "By eleven-
thirty there won't be an empty table. But we have aspecial today, loin pork chops and ‘scalloped potatoes.
Or the pot roast looks good, with carrots and oven-
brown potatoes?"

"I'll tell you what," Tutti said. "I'll have the porkchops and 'scalloped potatoes. My partner will havebacon and eggs over easy, fried potatoes but no grits.
You need to bring the manager over? You can do that ifyou want." 


Norma smiled, not showing any kind of strain.
She said, "Let me see if I can sweet-talk the cook,
okay?"

Tutti watched her walk back to the counter and 
pick up her cigarette. He said, "I wouldn’t mindchecking Norma out. Except I want to see this 
Shemane. Teddy says she misses him so much she getssmashed every night."

“Well, I sure need to see Carl again, get thattaken care of. Before or after the job, I don't care."

"You know what I think," Tutti said. "When thisjob's done, I don't see Teddy'll need Carl anymore andwon’t mind us taking him out. In other words, bepatient. Wait and see can we get paid for it." 

* 

Louly walked along the perimeter road outsidethe fence, looking at life in a POW camp: the rows ofbarracks across the yard where German prisoners werehanging up their wash. Gary Marion, staying close toher while Carl was with the colonel, said, "Any of theseKrauts yell at you and make remarks”--some werelooking this way, some even waved--"I'll see theyanswer for it." 

"They're guys," Louly said. "Don't worry about 
it." 

Getting Gary to talk on the ride down fromTulsa was like pulling teeth, until Louly said, 'Carl tellsme you were a rodeo bullrider," and that got him going.
Yeah, he had some hair-raising rides when he wascompeting. He told Louly you had to wrap the bull 


rope around the hand you were holding on with goodand tight.

"She comes loose on you, you're done." He toldher the bulls had to do their part; you got to draw onewas mean and tricky to be in the money.

After that Gary didn't say much and Louly didn'tknow what to ask him. Where he was from in Texas 
and did he have a girlfriend ...?

Louly looked out at the yard hearing Gary say,
"The hell you looking at?" to the German comingtoward them now. About five meters from the fence 
and smiling.

He said, “You must be Gunnery Sgt. LouiseWebster, You still teaching marines to shoot straight?”
He was wearing a uniform overcoat, open, and shortpants. 

"From the back seat of a Dauntless dive 
bomber," Louly said, "to shoot down any one-oh-ninesget on their tail. I'm Louly, not Louise, and if youknow who I am you must be Jurgen the escape artist."

Louly saw she was older than Jurgen by a fewyears. She had never thought of herself older thananyone. She watched him take a few steps towardthem. 

A voice through a bullhorn said, "Back awayfrom the fence.” 

Jurgen did as he was told, looking up at the guntower. He said to Louly, "They say it twice, and that'sall." 

"You tested them?" 

"No, I saw a man shot."

Gary got into it saying, “he looked up at the guntower and made what you'd call an obscene gesture." 


"He grabbed his crotch in a defiant way," Jurgensaid. "I just found out Carl’s married to a marine,”
Jurgen smiling at her. “What is it, seven years? Hedidn’t say if you had children."

"Carl said he didn't want to leave me a widow 
with a child to raise. In case somebody ever sneaked upbehind him with a pistol. You must know Virgil, youworked at his pecan farm, didn’t you? He told Carl not 
to worry about my ever being in want. I'd marry acouple of rich oilmen, one after another and be fixedfor life. Except I’d have to live in Maple Ridge with allthe Republicans.”

As she said it they heard Jurgen's name calledfrom out in the yard.

Jurgen turned and Louly looked through thefence to see Carl coming away from the main gate. He 
waved to her, then stopped and motioned Jurgen tocome out to him, and now they were in conversation,
Carl talking, Jurgen shaking his head. Jurgen talkingand Carl, Louly would bet, looking him in the eye.

She said, "They're serious," and had to thinkabout it because it surprised her.

Gary said, "I know they're talking about 
something." 

* 

The sauerkraut and ham for supper made Jurgenthink of Carl explaining why they were called Krauts.
He was already thinking of Carl in the yard thisafternoon asking him to name the ones who killedWilli Martz. 


Jurgen stood in front of the messhall waiting forOtto to finish supper and come out. Tell him Carl wasgetting tough, threatening in his own way, saying giveup the names and they would see he was protected.
Jurgen had to smile. He'd said, "Send me to anothercamp?" and shook his head. "You think they can’t getto me? There are Nazi fanatics in all the camps."

He saw Otto coming out, stopping to light acigarette, Otto in his SS uniform this evening, silvermedals and insignia on black. He walked past officersstanding about talking and came to Jurgen.

"Are we looking for each other?"

"Carl Webster," Jurgen said, "the marshal--"

"I know who he is." 

"He wants to know who killed Willi Martz. I 
don't tell him, the FBI will interrogate me for days,
wear me down. 

Otto said, "You're in a canoe on a furious 
river—“ 

"If I tell." 

“Now. Whether you tell or not. You're in thecanoe and you don't have a paddle."

Jurgen said, "Well, I can always swim."

"It's your only chance. The Committee is finallytired of you. They want to believe you're a spy for theAmericans, so they're going to test you." Otto 
motioned and they walked to a bench facing a flowergarden, the blooms withering as the weather turnedcold. 

Jurgen said, "Remember the red impatiens fillingthe bed? Except for the center where the white onesformed a swastika? It took them days to notice it. In 


their way they seem slow to catch on, but once they dothey come after you.”

"I agree," Otto said, “but the Americans aren'tour problem. I include myself because I've sieg heiledthose cast-iron Nazis for the last time. The Committee 
says to me, 'You're SS. See that you wear your uniformevery evening.' I can't tell them I feel like a toy soldieryou wind up and it goosesteps. They tell me I have togive you the name of a comrade has stopped coming totheir inspirational meetings, the ones that rave aboutthe Führer like a broken record. The only reason I go,
they open with a recording of 'Der BlombergerBaden-Weiller Marsch,' heavy, but always a favorite ofmine. They want you to execute this disgrace to hisuniform. Use a clothesline to string him up. Or your 
ingenuity, see if you can convince him he should 
commit suicide.” 

"This is the test? If I refuse--" 

"One of their apes will strangle you. So, youswim?" 

"Yes, I suppose--"

"Remember saying I should go with yousometime, your girlfriend will fix me up? I said if I everwent out with you it would be the time they'd quitacting like fools and shoot you? Now we're dead if westay here."

"When do you want to go?"

"Tonight," Otto said. "You understand, if we canescape it won't be for a few days this time, but for life. Isee this coming and I've been getting ready. I can putmy hands on civilian clothes, suits made from uniforms,
and I've looked at a way we can possibly get out-if youknow how to hot-wire a car. You know whenever we 


have a film in the evening, the one who shows it leaves

his truck behind the recreation hall." 

Jurgen said, "I think I can start the truck.

"Tonight They’re showing 'Louisiana Purchase’with Bob Hope and Vera Zorina.”

"I saw us walking out in our new suits,” Jurgensaid, “but driving out, yes, is the way to do it."

"You drive and do the talking," Otto said, "withyour American accent. I'm in the rear of the panel truckwith cans of film." 

"It's perfect," Jurgen said. “We can't go under thefence now, the guard I gave all the souvenirs to hasbeen transferred out.” 

"Also," Otto said, "and this is most important.
We write a letter, a statement, to your friend themarshal. We let him know it was the Committee who 
sent the apes to kill Willi Martz, and we list all theirnames. We say we have escaped, not to be free but toprotect ourselves. For if we remain here, or we'retransferred to another camp, it won't be long beforewe're dead. We both swear to the statement and signit." 

Jurgen was nodding as Otto said, "But how dowe see that your friend Carl gets it?"

"That's what I'm wondering," Jurgen said. "Butlet's get ready. We only have a few hours."

"Less than that," Otto said, and looked at hiswristwatch. "We have to hurry." 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter 11 

It ’s Up to You, Carl 

T
T
hey were behind the big recreationhall standing at the rear end of the

panel truck, in the dark, waitingfor "Louisiana Purchase" to finish, Jurgen in ablack suit cut from an extra-large SS uniform,
Otto Penzler wearing one tailored from basicWermacht gray-green. The suits were from awardrobe intended for a major escape the 
Committee was planning, all the way to 
Mexico. 

The film cans in the panel's load spacewere "Salute to the Marines," and "Dixie," and"Commandos Strike at Dawn," shown lastweek. Jurgen smiled remembering the howls oflaughter from the audience during the 


commando combat scenes. Now with 
"Louisiana Purchase” running, he would hearscattered laughter from the audience on BobHope's lines. When they cheered and whistledit meant Vera Zorina was on the screen in a 
dance number. "Dixie," was another Bob HopeDorothy Lamour movie.

"It's over," Otto said. "They're leaving."

"I'll wait a few minutes," Jurgen said,
"give the projectionist time to put the film backin the can and do whatever else he does.” 

He closed the rear door on Otto, insidenow curling himself among the film cans in hisgray-green suit. They both wore white shirtsand neckties once tan, now dyed in strangeshades of color, Otto's a dusty blue, Jurgen'sdeep red. He got in behind the wheel, came outfrom between barracks, waited for moviegoersto pass and turned onto the road that crossedthe yard to the main gate. 

* 

The guard on duty wore a helmet linerand sidearm. He came through the walking gatenext to the main one: came staring hard atJurgen.

"Where's Lloyd?"

"A reel broke on Vera Zorina and almost 
caused a riot. 

You didn't hear the Krauts booing? It wasright at the part it looks like the top of hercostume is coming open. You know who Imean, Vera Zorina? Lloyd got the picture 


running again, but he’s sending me to the movietheatre in town to get some splicing stuff. He 
want to put all of Vera back in before we leave."

"How come I didn't see you coming inwith Lloyd?"

"I was in back. 'Commandos Strike at 
Dawn' kept sliding against the rear door everytime Lloyd hit the gas. He swore and I laughed,
and he made me go back and sit on the can.

Listen, “Jurgen said, bringing a businessenvelope out

of his inside coat pocket, "I gotta hurryand get back, but before I forget, would you seethis is delivered sometime tomorrow? It doesn't 
have to be first thing, so don't break your neckto get it to him. Long as you don't forget."

The guard, a PFC, looked like a seriousyoung guy. He held the envelope in both handsto read Colonel Wesley Sellers and below thename, Commander Camp Deep Fork

"It's about movies?" 

What's coming up," Jurgen said. "Have toget the Colonel's okay." He waited for theguard to open the double main gates and said,
"Much obliged," on the way out.

They followed the back road that bridgedthe Deep Fork, barely a stream after hot 
summer months. Jurgen said to Otto in therearview mirror, "The man who owns this 
property is Carl Webster's father. He said Ishould see the river in the spring, at flood stage.
He said it keeps the weevils from eating hispecan trees." 


The outside mirror showed the camp'stower lights against a black sky.

Once they were in farmland following agravel road he told Otto to climb up front withhim. Otto said, "You keep making turns,
following roads--do you know where you'regoing?" Otto the tank killer sounding a littlenervous. 

Jurgen said, "The road of life, Otto, takesmany turns," Jurgen in a playful mood. "As wewander the countryside looking for Okmulgee. Ithink what we'll have to do is take the first train 
out of here, We’ll see if Shemane will pay forour fares, and give us a bit of spending money.”

They hadn't discussed this earlier, theidea of taking a train. Otto said, "But we havethis truck." 

"The projectionist comes out, looks 
around. 'Where's my truck?' They go to themain gate and hear the guard's story, they knowa POW took the truck. But we can't take it to 
Shemane's, so I thought we'd leave it 
somewhere in town." 

They came into Okmulgee from the westand moved along Sixth Street, Otto seeing mostof the storefronts dark at ten o'clock. He said,
"There are no beer halls open? This doesn't looklike our villages at home, does it?"

"It's what towns in the middle of 
America look like,” Jurgen said. “All of them.” 

* 


The moment Shemane opened the doorto Jurgen in his black suit and tie she knew thiswas the last time she'd see him. Still, she said,
"Well, look who's here. And you brought afriend." She called, "Mom?" and Gladys cameover with her hand extended and held high, incase the German officer wanted to kiss her 
hand; he didn't, but seemed pleased to meether. Gladys said they weren't expecting toentertain this evening but was delighted they'ddropped in. She took Otto by the arm to thekitchen asking what he'd like to drink, a 
martini? 

Otto said, "Really? Would you havebourbon?" 

Shemane watched Jurgen turn off thelamps in the living room. He came over to herstill at the front door and flicked the switch to 
turn off the porch light.

She said, "I'll never see you again, will I?"

He looked through the glass pane in thedoor to see empty pavement in the streetlight.

"I'm going to tell you again," Jurgen said,
"I'm in love with you. I don't want to leave, buthave no choice if I want to stay alive."

Shemane said, "You're afraid they'll shootyou? They won't even know you're gone till themorning."

"We stole a truck and left it in town." 

"You drove out of the camp? How?"

He said, "Wait," raising his hand, hisfingers touching her lips. "I don't have time toexplain. But, please, if you and your mother will 


go up to your rooms and put on your nightclothes, leave the lamp on by your bed--"

"How would they know it was you in thetruck?" 

"They don't. But when they tell Carl, andthey will

because he's still here, at his father's, Carlwill think of me right away."

It was almost 10:30. 

* 

Carl rang the bell at a quarter past eleven.

He turned to watch Gary Marion pull upbehind the Chevy in the street light, Garydriving an olive-drab sedan borrowed from thePOW camp motor pool. Now he was comingthis way and Carl motioned him to go aroundback. 

Shemane opened the door holding hersilk wrap closed, her blonde hair hanging acrossher eye like Veronica Lake. He waited for her 
to turn on the porch light.

“Carl...?" 

"I got you out of bed, didn't I?"

"I fell asleep reading Dawn Powell. I likeher, but she uses an awful lot of words the wayshe writes. Shemane yawned and said, "Momand I were up late last night."

He waited for her to ask him in, but shedidn't: He waited to hear what else she mightsay— 

"What's going on?"

"Jurgen's out again." 


She said, "He is?” sounding surprised.
“Are you sure?"

"A prisoner wearing a suit of clothes 
drove off in the truck that brings the movies.
He told a story at the gate and was out.”

She said, "You mean you think it mightbe Jurgen, or you want it believe it is.”

“I can see him doing it, talking his way 
out.” 

Shemane kept hold of her wrap, her fisttight in the red silk, not anything like the othernight, letting her jacket come open as she madetheir drinks. He stopped counting on Shemaneasking him in. Yawning again, covering hermouth and saying excuse me. She did look beat.

Still, he hesitated.

She said, "Are you looking for help orwhaT?" 

"Not if you haven't seen him."

"Wouldn’t I tell you if I did?” She said,
"Carl, I thought you and I were on the sameside when it comes to Jurgen. What do youwant to do, come in and look around the 
house?” 

“Not if you tell me he isn’t here.”

She said, “It’s up to you, Carl,” VeronicaLake in the dim foyer. “Do what you want.” 

* 

Carl stood with Gary by their cars, Garysaying he looked in the windows back there butdidn’t see anybody. “If he isn't here, it must besome other POW broke out." 


"I want to be sure," Carl said. "Park downthe street and keep your eyes on the house."

"What am I expecting to happen?"

"He's in the house or he's on his wayhere, or it was somebody else who escaped.”

“But something tells you he’s here, huh?
Is it your instinct or your years of experience?”

Carl said, “Gary, all we’re doing iscovering our butts. I’m going back to the camp.
Watch the house-- you see anyone go inside,
drive over to police headquarters and call me atthe camp. You see Shemane's Lincoln Zephyrdrive off--” Carl paused.

“Yeah?” 

“Follow it.” 

* 

They were in the sitting room now offShemane's bedroom, bourbon, a bowl of ice anda pitcher of lemonade Gladys said for whoeverwants a sour. It was time to straighten Jurgenout about leaving here on a train.

"I'd be glad to give you money for thefares," Shemane said, "but you know, cops, G-
men, somebody'll be watching the station andspot you. Your suits aren't bad consideringwhere they came from, but they're ... different.
They catch the eye 'cause they look like theywere in fashion about a hundred years ago."

Otto was relaxed in an easy chair after acouple of bourbons and didn't seem to carewhen they would get moving again. Jurgen 


sipped his drink and seemed calm, less hurriedthan before. 

When they were in the kitchen with thelights off they had watched Gary looking in thewindows and trying the locked door. As soon 
as Carl left, Shemane came out to the kitchenand into Jurgen's arms to press against him andfeel him holding her. "He wanted me to invitehim in. I said all right, if you don't believe me."
She said, "He, was a different guy this evening,
not so sure of himself." 

Now in the upstairs sitting room 
Shemane said, "You know I have a perfectlygood automobile."

Jurgen was shaking his head.

"Honey, I was thinking you could steal itand go where ever you want."

He stopped shaking his head.

"But the best way to do it is if I drive."

He said, "No, I won't permit it."

"Quit acting so German and listen, okay?
I drive. Mom and I are in front and you twohoodlums are in back, under a blanket we gothrough a town. If we’re stopped, I say youforced us to come along, we’re hostages. If that 
happens you’re on your own. No one can say wewent along for the ride. I was gonna say 'for thefun of it,' but I don't want too sound too sure ofmyself. Although I've been lucky my entire life.
So I will say it, I'm going for the fun of it. AndI'll bet my mom will too."

Gladys raised her glass. 


Otto said, "How much lemonade do youput in…?"

Gladys said, "Here, sugar," and made hima bourbon sour. 

Shemane said, "But where're we going?"

Jurgen said, "If you're serious--"

"Come on," Shemane said, "just tell mewhere you want to go.

"I was thinking," Gladys said, "rememberhow your dad

used to sit in the mineral baths with a 
drink and then play blackjack all night?"

"That's not a bad idea, Shemane said.”

“You know who runs the place? OwneyMadden, he used to

have the Cotton Club. I probably havefriends there I haven’t thought of in years." She 
was about to say Teddy loved to go forweekends, but she was looking at Jurgen andcaught herself.

Jurgen said, "What is this place you'retalking about?"

"Hot Springs," Shemane said, "over inArkansas." 

* 

After a while Gary U-turned the olive-
drab Ford sedan to park on the other side of thestreet. Looking at the outside mirror now, hisview was clear of trees and he could see the 
entire front of the house, even the light showingin an upstairs window. Once he adjusted the 


mirror he could look at it sitting low in the seat,
comfortable, motor idling to keep the heater on,
and that's what he did, he sat there staring atthe house. 

Was the Kraut in there or not? 

He could find out easy enough; heimagined taking charge of the situation and sawhimself on the porch ringing the bell. The dooropens. Gary says, "Excuse me, Sis,” and toucheshis hat as he walks in past her. She says, "Youcan't come in my house." In her nightgown youcan see through. Gary says, "Sweetheart"--heliked Sweetheart better than Sis--"Sweetheart,
you want to bring me the Kraut?" He opens hissuitcoat and draws his .38. "Or you want me togo get him?" Later on the newspaper reportersask her, "what was it he said to you when hecame in?" That was how you worked it. Get awitness to tell what you said and what you did.

He saw the car appear, coming down thedriveway past the house. It got him sitting upand now the house wasn't in the mirror. He 
started to crank the window down to adjust themirror—realized all he had to do was open thedoor and twist his head to look in that 
direction. He saw the Lincoln Zephyr goingaway from him, getting smaller, gone by thetime he got the army car turned around. 


Comfort to the Enemy
Chapter Twelve 


Jurgen and Otto on the Lam 

S
S
unday morning Carl got back to his dad’swhile they were having breakfast, Louly andVirgil, and Narcissa telling them about aschoolgirl complexion. They looked up and Virgil 
said, “You get him?” 

Carl, at the stove pouring a cup of coffee, shookhis head. He heard Louly say, ‘He got the phone calland flew out of the house. All he said was Jurgen’s out 
again. I yelled after him, ‘How do they know it’sJurgen?’ But he didn’t hear me.” She said to him now, 
“Was it Jurgen?”

“Jurgen and an SS major named Otto Penzler.
They went out wearing suits and ties, in a truck thatdelivers movies.” 

Louly said, “Not planning on coming back this 
time.” 


Narcissa had gone to the stove. She brought aplate of ham and eggs to Carl, at the table now. “I was 
telling them,” Narcissa said, “about this woman in anad with a balloon coming out of her mouth? It had on it 
what she was saying, like in comic strips. Nice-
looking woman. She saying, ‘Notice how many menpick wives with lovely school-girl complexions?’ Myquestion is, how do we notice it’s what guys arelooking for?”

“Or,” Virgil said, “are they looking for 
schoolgirls?”

Louly beat Narcissa about to speak with, “WhoI.D.’d Jurgen and the other guy?” looking at Carl.

“They did it themselves. On the way out theyleft an envelope for the camp commander, but the letterwas to me. They name who murdered Willi Martz andthe ones who ordered them to do it. But we didn’t see 
the letter until way later. They were having roll calls inall the barracks, see who was missing. But a lot of 
them playing games with us, not answering when theirnames were called, so we wouldn’t get a true count.
Jurgen didn’t answer, but three others in his barracksdidn’t either. Wesley said, ‘We’ll see how these smartguys like being confined to barracks a few days.’ He 
sent out guys to look for the truck and I left-—went toShemane’s thinking it could’ve been Jurgen who gotout. But she said, no, she hadn’t seen him.”

Louly said, “You took her word?”

“I left Gary to watch the house. Anybody comes, 
get to a phone and let me know. Shemane drives off in 
her Lincoln, follow her.” Carl looked at his watch. “I 
like to think that’s what Gary’s doing and he can’t stopto phone.”

Louly said, “When did you read the letter?” 


“It was sitting on Wesley’s desk while we’rewaiting on the roll calls. I thought of going back to 
Shemane’s...” 

“To question her again?”

“To check on Gary.”

“Why didn’t you search her house,” Louly said,
“while you were there? Why’re you so protective of 
her? What did you say, ‘Have you seen Jurgen?’ The 
whore says no, she hasn’t? What’d you do, thank her, 
tip your hat?”

“I trust her,” Carl said. “You ever meet her, 
make up your own mind. But you asked when did we 
read the letter. Wesley finally slit open the envelope, Ithink for something to do, looked at the sheet of paper,
typewritten, and handed it to me. I started reading, Istopped and started over and read it out loud to Wesleyand some of his officers there. Jurgen and Otto Penzlersay they had to get out or the hardliners would killthem, and they listed the names. They swear theseguys murdered Willi Martz, and that’s the best they cando at this time. If we lock up the suspects till after thewar, they’ll come back from wherever they are andtestify in court. Wesley was steamed up. He said, ‘Iwant those people out of my camp,’ the suspects, andmeant right now. But this was a Bureau case from the 
beginning, I was only helping out the Provost 
Marshal’s office.” Carl paused a moment. “It’s funny‘cause this afternoon I told Jurgen I’d throw him to theFBI he didn’t start talking to me. I called their Tulsa 
office, Wesley standing there watching me, and spoketo the supervisory agent, Bob Grispino-—we go deerhunting, the same guys every year. I told him we had 
Nazi homicide suspects for him. Grispo said he’drather wear down an arrogant Nazi and get him towhine, than shoot a 16-point buck from a mile away.” 


“It’s too bad,” Louly said, “you and Jurgen werebuddies. You could’ve put the FBI on him a long time 
ago.” 

“I never thought of him as a buddy.”

Louly said, “You didn’t think about a lot ofthings.”

He should never’ve mentioned going to 
Shemane’s. 

“Honey,” Carl said, “Wesley’s already laid intome for fraternizing with the enemy, being lax in myinvestigation, and for bringing a gangster to speak toone of his prisoners.” Carl felt Louly watching him 
finish his coffee. “Every word Wesley said was trueand I apologized to him.” Carl laid his napkin on the 
table and got up. He said, “If you all will excuse me,”
heading for the door, “I’m going to bed.”

He heard Louly say, “Isn’t my husband well-
mannered?” 

For the next few days he’d try not to mentionShemane. 

“Anyway,” Narcissa said, “you want a schoolgirlcomplexion so some guy will pick you? You have to 
wash your face with Palmolive soap.” 

* 

Maurice gathered up the Tedesco brothers in the’41 La Salle he stole when it was new and had kept it 
up. They put the cases with the sub-machine guns inthe trunk and got in back, the two like gangster cutoutsin their tight suits, hat brims snapped down on their 
eyes. Maurice had on a black overcoat with a furryblack collar from some animal he hoped wasn’t a cat.
Maurice loved this car. He’d squirt cologne around the 


interior to keep it smelling nice. The two guineas wereno sooner inside they were sniffing the air.

Heading west from Okmulgee Maurice wastelling them about last night: going out to Deep Fork tolook at the army trucks—-in the motor pool outside theprison yard-—and pick one still had the keys in it. See,
what he’d meant to do, ease the truck out of there andhide it in the pe-can trees down the road. But there was 
some kind of commotion going on, all the lights on inthe buildings, soldiers running around, the motor poolbusy, jeeps and trucks going out into the night...

Was Tutti interrupted him saying, “You had acolored girl in here last night, didn’t you?”

Frankie Bones said, “I can smell her.”

“It’s what I’m talking about,” Tutti said.

By now they were in the country, coming on tocars parked by a dinky white-frame church up ahead.
Maurice eased off the road and could hear the 
congregation now belting out a hymn, a lively bunch ofbelievers in there. He pulled in by the cars parkedaround the yard to wait for Teddy: Teddy’s idea tomeet here, see were there any last-minute questions,
Teddy not wanting to be anywhere near guns going off.
Maurice had a question: was the job still on? How theysuppose to shoot up the camp if they didn’t have a armytruck? 

* 

“What’s wrong with using the La Salle?” Teddy 
said. 

The four of them standing by his Packard whilechurch service was going on.

“Chicago-style,” Teddy said. “Drive past withthe Thompsons blazing away, the slugs tearing the 


fence into bits of metal, like shrapnel you’re throwingat the Krauts.” 

What Maurice saw were gun towers shooting at 
his La 

Salle. He said, “Boss, it cost you more to use my 
car.” 

“I’ll go two grand,” Teddy said. “It’ll be in the 
papers, but I want your estimate on the loss of life, howmany Krauts these guys nailed. I’ll be in Tulsa a few 
days -—call me at the Mayo.”

Tutti gave Maurice a shove. “Go wait in the 
car.” He had something for Teddy and said to him asMaurice walked off, “Me and Bones want to make youa deal. We split five grand to take out Mr. CarlWebster.” 

Teddy was looking toward the church, people inthere praising Jesus at the top of their lungs. He turned 
to Tutti. 

“You want to become famous,” Teddy said.
“Make a name for yourself, the guys who shot the HotKid.” 

“I got a name,” Tutti said. “What do you say a 
grand each?”

“You kidding me?” Teddy said. “You guys get 
the chance, you’ll do him for nothing.” 

* 

Maurice drove the back road past pecan grovesand oil wells, across the wooden bridge and throughbare trees for a mile or so and stopped as he came to thecleared, bulldozed area: 50 yards of open ground to thefence running along the east side of the camp, the fencewith bobbed wire on it and gun towers, six of them,
looking down at the yard. 


The Tedesco brothers, in back fitting 100-rounddrums to their Thompsons, both looked up at the yardand the rows of barracks, Tutti saying, “Where’severybody?”

There wasn’t a soul in the yard or anywherearound, all the barracks’ doors closed. Maurice said,
“Did all the Heinies escape on us or what?” He 
remembered now Teddy saying something about asoccer match and told the Tedescos, “I forgot, they allbe down at the atha-letic field this afternoon.” 

Except there wasn’t any noise coming fromdown there, nobody yelling. Maurice looked at the tar-
paper barracks again, row after row of them silent, likenobody was home.

Bones said, “Go up to the field there, check it 
out.” 

Maurice eased the La Salle out to open groundand turned right to follow the bare trace of a road thatcircled the camp, Maurice creeping his La Salle along,
15 miles an hour, and looking through the fence atevery building on the way to where they were supposedto be playing, a gray sky over it, Maurice wanting tosee some guys, some Heinies kicking a soccer ball ateach other, even sitting in the stands would be all right.

It wasn’t a bad day yet, but it didn’t look good.
Maurice cranked the wheel in reverse and got the carturned around. 

One of the gangsters said, “What’re you doing?”

Maurice said to the rearview mirror, “Theypulling something on us. They knew we coming and 
they ready.”

“Who you talking about, the Krauts?”

“The soldiers, man. They got a hundred and fifty 
of ‘em here. They in the barracks keeping the Heinies 
quiet. Waiting to see you gonna start it or not. Fire a 


burst, man, they come out shooting. The gun towers 

already have a bead on us.”

Bones said, “What’s he talking about?”

Tutti said, “He don’t want his car shot up.”

Maurice saw Bones roll down his window, andthe La Salle jumped off, tires squealing, kicking dust,
Maurice shifting through first and second, into highgoing 50 and swerved toward the road showing in thetrees. The gangsters were getting bounced around andswearing at him, Maurice kept his eyes narrowed on theroad, tore through the scraggly woods till he saw thebridge and slowed down and came to a stop. Maurice 
turned enough to look at the two guys sitting with theirmachine guns. He said, “I’ll tell you the truth, I been inthis kind of situation where they waiting for you. You 
see it’s gonna happen, man, you cut and run. We 
getting out of here, soon as I take a leak.”

Tutti and Bones watched him walk out on the 
bridge and turn to the railing. Bones said, “You believe 
this guy?”

Tutti said, “Don’t worry about it. We still gonna 
get paid.”

Bones unbuttoned his suitcoat to bring out a .38revolver. He rolled down the window and watched 
Maurice on the bridge relieving himself, buttoning hispants now before he turned and was facing the carwhen Bones shot him. It turned Maurice to grab hold 
of the railing. Bones shot him again and Maurice went 
down. 

Tutti said, “I thought you didn’t mind him.”

“We need a car,” Bones said, “we don’t need adriver. We got business with Teddy ... But first, I told 
you. I want to stop and see this Shemane.” 

* 


Louly turned the page in Life from “Hellcatnoses over on deck after landing with tail hook out oforder,” to the photo of a model “with one of thesmallest waists in Hollywood, 21 inches.” Loulysucked in her stomach. She looked up to see Carl come 
in the kitchen barefoot,
T-shirt hanging out of his pants. He looked over with a 
smile. Louly raised her eyebrows as if to say, Yes?
She heard him say to Virgil, “You need an extensionupstairs,” and his dad say, “You mean you need one.”
He handed Carl the phone saying, “It’s your pard.”
Virgil came over to the table to take a seat with Loulyand watch his boy.

“You still mad at him?” 

“I wasn’t mad.” 

“But you see that woman after him.”

“The kind she is?” 

Louly had said at breakfast what she thought ofShemane, calling her a whore.

“How come you see her on the prowl,” Virgilsaid, “but you blame Carl?”

She’d need time to answer that one, so she didn’tsay anything. They watched Carl hang up the phoneafter a few minutes and look over. 

“Gary, he ran out of gas. Followed the Lincoln 
to Henryetta, then east toward Checotah. But Garydidn’t check the gas gauge when he took the car,” Carlsaid. “They didn’t leave Okmulgee till four in themorning, so now it’s after five and there’s nobody onthe road. He’s out there a couple of hours before asheriff’s car picked him up. They went back to 
Henryetta to radio an all-points. But by this time he’s 
hours behind the Lincoln. 

”Louly said, “Who was in the car?” 


“Shemane.” Carl said her name and Louly didn’tjump up or throw anything at him. “He caught aglimpse of Shemane coming out the drive and whatlooked like her mom sitting in front. He couldn’t tell if 
anybody else was in the car. When he did speed up toget a close look, the Lincoln took off on him, gone.”

Louly said, “So they know they’re beingfollowed.” 

“I was them,” Virgil said, “I’d get over to Vianor Sallisaw fast as I could and head for the Cookson 
Hills. Best place in Oklahoma you want to hide out.”

Louly said, “Shemane in her high heels 
camping? If Jurgen and this other guy, Otto, are in thecar, I bet a dollar they’re on their way to Arkansas.”
She said to Carl, “Where’s Gary now?”

“At Shemane’s. He’s been waiting there since 
noon.” 

“Why didn’t he call you before this?”

“He’s been hoping she comes home so he cangive her the third degree. I told him if his car’s in front 
of the house, park in town by the OK Café and I’ll pickhim up. I wanttolookaroundthehouse,maybegetanideawheretheywent.”

Louly said, “So you’ll be at Shemane’s.”

“For a while,” Carl said. “You want to come? 


Comfort to the Enemy
Chapter Thirteen 


Shootout at Shemane’s 

S
S
unday, half past four in the 
afternoon, the Tedesco brothers

were on their way to Shemane’s:
Tutti driving Maurice’s La Salle, Bones in theback seat taking their Thompsons apart to fit inthe cases. “We get there,” Bones said, “openthe trunk and I’ll throw ‘em in.” 

Tutti thought they ought to wait. See 
Teddy first, before he left for Tulsa. Bones said 
uh-unh, Shemane first, Teddy when they gotaround to him. 

“I expected they’d chase after us,” Tuttisaid, “the gun towers watching every move wemade.” 

“Teddy said they get tourists all thetime,” Bones said, “wanting to see what a POW 


camp looks like. Point out the Krauts to their 
kids’ve never seen any before.”

Tutti said, “Tourists with a tommy gunsticking out the window?”

He didn’t feel good about looking forSeminole Avenue, spending this time inOkmulgee, dragging out their stay while thecolored boy Maurice was face down in thatshallow creek, his hairy coat spread open,
floating on the water. It was clear as day toTutti they shouldn’t ought to be here. But he 
wasn’t gonna argue with Bones. When Bones 
didn’t get his way he became ugly.

Tutti found Seminole, crept the La Salleat 10 miles an hour while he looked at house 
numbers, found the one Bones said was 
Shemane’s and pulled up in front, two 
stories, big enough to be a boarding house.
Tutti said, “You ready?”

“I told you,” Bones said, “open thegoddamn trunk and I’ll throw ‘em in.” 

* 

Gary said, “Why they doing that here?”

He stood a few feet away from the frontwindow. The time he started to edge closerCarl took hold of his arm. 

“They don’t need machine guns,” Carlsaid, “so this must be a social call. Theymight’ve known Shemane when she was 
Teddy’s girlfriend.”

Gary looked at Carl. “But isn’t anybody 
home. They’ll ring the bell a couple times and 
leave.” He said, “Won’t they?” 


Carl kept his gaze on the Tedescos 
standing by a La Salle he hadn’t seen before:
the brothers talking, the heavyset one, TuttiFruitty, nodding his head. Carl said to Gary,
“That’s what you want to do? Be quiet as a 
mouse till they go away? You don’t care to 
know what they want here?”

“If Teddy hired those guys,” Gary said,
“maybe he’s meeting them here.”

“I called his hotel,” Carl said. “He’d 
checked out, told them he had to be in Tulsa.”

Gary said, “Leaving his girlfriendShebang here by herself.”

“Shebang,” Carl said. “You know she 
charged you two bills for all night? Stay heretill they ring the bell, then go over and open thedoor.” 

“You want me to open it... Where’re 
you?” 

“I’m by the sofa.”

“I keep my hat on?”

Asking it since Carl wasn’t wearing his.

“Yeah, leave it on.”

“Show my star?”

“They know who you are.”

“I ask what they want?”

“I’ll start talking, you come back by thewindow, get an angle on them.” Carl turned his 
head to Gary. “You broke in the back door,
punched in one of the panes...?”

“That’s all, and reached in to unlock the 
door.” 

Carl watched the Tedescos comingtoward the porch in their suits buttoned up, hat 


brims snapped down. He said, “I have to run 

out to the kitchen.” 

The doorbell rang.

It rang again before Gary stepped over tothe door, opened it and stood looking at theTedesco brothers looking at him. That was all 
they did, looked at each other, till FrankieBones said, “You remember this boy?”

The other one, Tutti, said, ‘He’s the squirtTeddy says was a bullrider.”

It caused Gary to think: Damn right, hestrapped on to rodeo bulls that tried to kill him,
and said to these two in their dress-up suits,
“I’m here investigating a Breaking and 
Entering. What do you fellas want here?”

They didn’t answer. Both Tedescos were 
looking past Gary, so Gary turned enough to seeCarl by the sofa across the room, not evenlooking this way, getting a cigarette from a packon the cocktail table and lighting it, Carl withhis hat on, his suitcoat hanging open. 

* 

Carl said, “Step inside so my partner canclose the door.” He watched them pause on thestoop, Bones giving an aside to Tutti. “And you 
can tell me what you want here.” Now theycame in looking around the living room up tothe ceiling while they loosened their suitcoats,
got them to hang open.

Bones said, “Shemane upstairs?”

“She’s resting,” Carl said, “doesn’t wantto see anybody.” 


“You hear him?” Bones said. “She’s 
resting.”

“Between tricks, that’s what they do,”
Tutti said, and looked at Gary by the windowagain saying, “The squirt told us you’re lookingat a B and E. She upset about it? Bones’s got 
something he wants to show her.”

“Yes, I do,” Bones said, grinning buttrying not to.

“You stopped off and had a few,” Carlsaid, “but you were here before that, weren’tyou? Stood on the porch and realized you betternot ring the bell. She looks out, sees a couple ofbozos from Detroit she won’t open the door. So 
you went around back and busted in. But then 
you thought uh-oh, breaking in and entering thehouse wasn’t a good idea. It wouldn’t sit rightwith Shemane, and it could get you hard time atMcAlester. You’re thinking Shemane must’veheard the glass break in the kitchen door and itscared her to death. You don’t want to walk in 
on her and make a bad impression, so youdecide to go somewhere and have a drink, comeback and do it right this time. Ring the 
doorbell.” 

Carl watched the two gunmen glance ateach other wanting to know what was going onhere, Bones saying, “Where’d he get all that?”
And Tutti saying, “He’s the one’s scared, hecan’t shut up.”

“Now I’m wondering what you had inmind for Shemane,” Carl said and waited whilethey stared at him, Carl believing they’d alreadydecided how they’d play it. He said, “Youmutts gonna talk to me?” and glanced at Gary 


facing them from the front window, Gary’shands hanging free. “Tutti Fruitty and Mr.
Bones,” Carl said, “We can hand ‘em over onthe B and E, lock ‘em up till their hearing.”

Bones said, “This boy never shuts up,
does he?” 

“You want to arrest us,” Tutti said, “goahead and try. Otherwise we’re walking out.”

Carl said, “Who’s the car belong to?”

They didn’t bother to answer, movingnow in a lazy kind of way, turning to the door.

“The La Salle,” Carl said. “With the 
machine guns in the trunk.”

That stopped them.

Carl watched them get ready and comearound drawing their revolvers to see his .38pointed at them. He took Bones first, shot himthrough the heart and shot Tutti high in thechest and shot him again. By the time Gary hadpulled his gun the two were lying on thehardwood floor. 

“Most times when you’re late,” Carl saidto him, “you’re dead. And you were late.”

Gary, frowning, said, “I didn’t know whatyou were doing, egging them on like that,
getting them to pull their guns?”

This boy, Carl believed, was a long wayfrom becoming a hot kid. He said to Gary,
“When you know it’s gonna happen, you workit to happen when you want it to, while they’restill getting around to it.”

Gary was nodding, but still frowning ashe thought about it. He said, “But how’d youknow--” and stopped. The phone was ringing,
on the desk by the front window. 


Carl thanked God for this small blessingas he went over and picked up the phone. He 
said hello and waited, not hearing a sound. Hesaid, “I’m a friend of Shemane’s. I’m watchingthe house while she and her mom-—they savedup their gas stamps and are taking a motor trip.”

“Is that right?” It was Teddy Ritz. “You 
got fired from the marshals and now you’re awatchman?” He said, “Listen, there’s 
something I better tell you. Those two clowns 
from Detroit, they wanted me to pay ‘em to takeyou out.”

“How much?” 

“Five bills. I said, ‘You crazy? He’s a 
friend of mine.’ But here’s the thing, the wayyou antagonized them, I think they’d do it fornothing.”

“When did I antagonize them?”

“At the hotel, you called the one TuttiFruitty. Those guys, it doesn’t take much to set 
‘em off. So watch yourself.”

“I appreciate your telling me,” Carl said.
“They’re not your bodyguards anymore?”

“I let ‘em go.”

“Where’d they get the La Salle?”

Teddy took a moment to say, “A LaSalle?” 

“With machine guns in the trunk.”

“I have no idea what they’re doing now,”
Teddy said. “I’m worried about Shemane. 
Where you think she went?”

Carl said, “You tell her about Warsaw,
what the Krauts are doing to the Jews?”

“Everything. She says it’s only the SSand the Gestapo doing that.” 


“So she knows all the Krauts aren’t nice 
guys?”

“I convinced her.” 

“Then how come she took off at four this 
morning with two Krauts in the Lincoln?”

“You’re sure?” 

“Everything points to it.”

“Jurgen. Who’s the other one?” 

“Otto the SS officer.” 

“I’d like to meet him,” Teddy Said.
“With a baseball bat.” 

“He’s Jurgen’s buddy.”

“You put out a be-on-the-lookout-for?”

“This morning, an All-Points,” Carl said.
“It’s Sunday... But a green Lincoln Zephyr--”

“V-Twelve,” Teddy said, “I bought her 
that car. No, it shouldn’t be hard to spot.” He 
said, “You think Shemane goes for this Kraut?” 

* 

Eight o’clock Sunday morning Shemanepulled into the Eastwood Court-—“Cool andShady, Native stone cottages with radios,” and a“Popular-priced Cafe”-—two miles east of Ft.
Smith on highway 22. She said, “Everybodyup,” and told Jurgen and Otto and her mom,
“Here’s where we hide out till tomorrow. We 
lost the tail, whoever that was in the army car,
but you know he’s put out a bulletin on us. Hot 
Springs is only 120 miles, but four hourscreeping behind Sunday drivers. I think the 
chances are we’d get stopped.”

Jurgen said, “Have you done this 
before?” 


“I have friends,” Shemane said, “thishappens to all the time. I’m going to check us 
in. The rooms are two-fifty, do we need two orthree?” 

Shemane’s mom, sleepy-eyed, said,
“Why pay for a room we won’t use? Otto the 
SS officer shrugged, half asleep or pretending,
said something to Jurgen in German, andJurgen, smiling, said that Otto’s remark,
essentially was to agree to the arrangement.

“After I check us in,” Shemane said, “I’mgoing to hide the car.” 

* 

Shemane drove part of a mile back to Ft.
Smith to NORM’S ALL-NITE SERVICE and 
had to pound on the glass door with the heel of 
one of her spectators to rouse the grease 
monkey who came with an awful breath. 
Shemane handed him a 20-dollar bill and said 
she’d like her car put in the garage on a hoist,
all day. She said, “If it needs the oil changed,
go ahead. But if you tell one soul the car’s here,
or any cops that might come looking, I’ll haveyou killed.” Shemane smiled and patted thegrease monkey’s cheek.

They’d brought gin and bourbon andwhat you mixed with them. Shemane put it allin her mom and Otto’s room for their social 
gatherings and getting into heart to hearts. Sheand Jurgen could walk out any time they felt theneed. 


Shemane told Jurgen she loved him andliked him and was proud of him and she didn’teven know him. And he didn’t know her, whatshe thought about. Could he see her as a 
fugitive? That’s why she couldn’t count on himdown the road, though it wasn’t a bad idea.
Jurgen said they’d talk on the phone and writeletters. She said, “Then I’ll know where you 
are.” He said he trusted her, they could stay inclose touch until the war was finished, and ifthey still had-—

“The hots for each other,” Shemane said.

“I can come by your house--”

“If I don’t drag you in and rip yourclothes off we’ll have a nice visit, do somecatchin’ up. Either way, I have to take care of 
my mom.” Her mom sitting on the arm ofOtto’s chair, the only good one in the room,
giving him a sip of her martini and a drag offher cigarette, letting him put his nose to her skinto take in her scent-—Otto the SS 
major who hadn’t been this close to a womansince 
Benghazi. 

* 

Monday morning Shemane kissed Jurgentill his eyes opened, kissed him all over his faceand rolled out of bed. She gave Jurgen thepaper to look at car ads while she got dressed,
slipping a black v-neck sweater on over her bra.

“What one would you love to have?”

“I don’t see a Mercedes-Benz.” 


“Look at Rollie Regal Motors, the guywearing the toupee. He’s got a low-mileage ’41Studebaker 4-door with overdrive, radio andheater for 14 hundred.” 

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom’s loaded.”

Shemane walked to the dealership onGrand Avenue in her high heels that hurt likehell but were part of the show, once she wasseated next to Rollie Regal’s desk with her legscrossed. She told Rollie she’d buy that ’41Studebaker in a minute if it wasn’t so dear. 
Rollie said he could offer her a ’37 Studie for 
six-seventy-five. Shemane sighed, sitting withher coat open, and brought out a wad of billsfrom the v-neck of the black sweater, countedout 700 dollars on Rollie’s desk and sat back. 

“I have to keep enough to put down onthis house trailer I want, since I’m gonna beliving here a while, by myself. But I need a 
good car since I’ll be driving to Hot Springs toentertain at private parties. I’m an exotic 
dancer.” 

“Oh, is that right?” Rollie said. “How 
exotic are you exactly?”

“I get bare naked,” Shemane said. “Soon 
as I move into the trailer I can show you my act.
If you want.” 

* 

Shemane and her mom said longgoodbyes to their German fellas and watchedthem drive off in the ’41 Studebaker that cost 
Shemane six bills and some vamping, but not 


much. She said to her mom, “You think you’llsee Otto again?”

“Not in a million years,” her mom said.
“How about Jurgie?”

“Maybe,” Shemane said.

She gave the grease monkey anothertwenty, got the car and drove back to theEastwood Court, “Cool & Shady,” to get hermom and the provisions and the few clothesthey’d brought along, an outfit for Hot Springs.
She got out of the Lincoln at the same time thesheriff’s car turned into the court. 


Comfort to the EnemyChapter 14 - Conclusion 

Are You Going After Jurgen? 

S
S
hemane and her mom rode in the back seat 
of the U.S. government Chevrolet, two

polite FBI agents in front-—a marshaltrailing behind in the Lincoln Zephyr-—everybodygoing back to Tulsa but without much conversation.
Shemane was asked what she and her mother were 
doing in Ft. Smith. Shemane said, “We were on ourway to Hot Springs, hon.” She said, “You sure it’s me 
you’re looking for? All I do is dance bare naked.” It 
got the driver checking her out in the rearview mirrorand the other agent turning to ask Shemane, “Youactually dance without a stitch of clothes on?”

“I have nothing to hide,” Shemane said. 


* 

Here was the Tulsa marshal Bob McMahon with 
police and FBI reports and newspapers on his desk-headlines 
screaming HUNS ESCAPE POW CAMP!
And NAZI LOVE NEST REVEALED-—while Carl 
Webster stood at the map of America that covered awall, Carl looking at the spread of country between Ft.
Smith, Arkansas, and Detroit, way up north.

McMahon said, “You told the Okmulgee policethe Tedesco brothers broke into the Morrissey houselooking for Shemane, didn’t find anybody home andcame back later, when you and Gary Marion happenedto be in the house. You accused them of having acontract to take out Shemane? How’d you know that?”

“It’s how those scudders made their living.”

“They pulled on you and you shot them. I 
thought you got over wanting to use your weapon.
Gary says you egged them on.”

“He kept talking about shooting outlaws,” Carl 
said. “The time comes, all he does is watch. I tried to 
explain to Gary, when you know it’s about to happen,
you want to have something to say about it. What’ve 
you got him doing?”

“Court duty,” McMahon said, and moved on toTeddy Ritz. “The Bureau’s seeing him about theTedesco brothers, find out why he brought them toOkmulgee with Thompsons.”

“They haven’t figured that out?” Carl said. “I 
want to ask Teddy why the two mutts shot that kidMaurice and took his car. I asked Tutti and Frankie 


Bones where they got the La Salle with machine gunsin the trunk. That was when they drew on me.”

According to McMahon, Shemane planned tosue the paper for calling her home, where she took careof her mom, a “Nazi Love Nest.” She told the agentsshe only saw Jurgen once, when he came to the backdoor hungry, asked if she could spare something to eatand she thought he was a vagrant. She never laid eyeson the other one, Penzler, before they showed hismugshot. And no, she did not drive them to Ft. Smith.
Shemane said she was taking her mom to Hot Springsfor the baths, Gladys not having much pep lately. The 
agents thought the mother acted like she had a buzzon. Shemane said it was her mom’s arteries hardeningup on her.

With the newspapers all featuring the escape,
McMahon wondered if the two had a chance of getting 
away. 

“Jurgen’ll want to go to Detroit,” Carl said. “He 
told me his family has a lot of German friends there.
Every Sunday they’d go to a rathskeller called theDakota Inn and sing songs in German. Even knowingit’s the first place I’ll think of, I’m pretty sure he’ll headfor 
Detroit and hope to disappear.” Carl said, “You knowif agents checked the Ft. Smith car lots? I like the idea 
of Shemane buying Jurgen a car.”

“Nobody saw the two guys anywhere in town,”
McMahon said. “Not even at the motor court where 
the women stayed the night. There wasn’t one bit of 
evidence to place the escapees in Ft. Smith, the reportsays, ‘So Agents did not make an exhaustive search at 


this time.’ You’re the only one,” McMahon said, “whothinks the two guys were with Shemane.”

“She’s all they had,” Carl said. “I’m gonna seeher this afternoon, and I hope Teddy, before I takeLouly to the station. Her leave’s up tomorrow.”

“If the Bureau can’t locate the Germans,”
McMahon said, “I’m betting they’ll want you on the 
case. How would that set with you?”

Carl shrugged and McMahon took it as an 
answer. 

* 

The meeting of Louly and Shemane took placein the hotel coffee shop. Shemane looked up from her 
club sandwich to see a redheaded woman marine 
approaching, coming to her table, and Shemane said,
“You’re Carl Webster’s wife, aren’t you?”

“I’m Gunnery Sergeant Louly Webster. Yeah,
Carl’s my husband,” Louly said and touched her cheek.
“You’ve got some mayonaisse right here.” Shemane 
raised her napkin. Louly said, “The other cheek,” and 
sat down with her. 

“I’ve been reading about you and your love nest.”

“I’ve got a lawyer suing the paper.”

“You didn’t entertain Jurgen at your house?”

“When you were working at Teddy’s,” Shemanesaid, “did you ever strip?”

Louly shook her head. “Or take guys upstairs or 
meet them at hotels.” 

“Any my home wasn’t a love nest,” Shemane 
said. “I live there with my mom.” 


“Carl thinks you drove Jurgen and Otto to Ft.
Smith.” 

“He does, huh.”

“And bought them a car.”

“Is this Carl’s idea, get us to talk girl to girl?”

“I teach aerial gunnery and Carl goes afterfugitive felons. He doesn’t put me up to doing any 
spying for him. I did meet Jurgen once, at the camp.
We talked through the wire fence. I liked him right 
away. He has a good attitude and seems to maintainpretty well. The only thing Carl told me about you andJurgen, you said you cook for him once in a while andyou don’t even know how to cook.” Louly smiled. “He 
told me because it’s funny, what you said. Carl has told 
FBI agents he believes Jurgen visited your home everytime he escaped. Have your lawyer noodle that one.
Or you never dreamed he was a German prisoner of 
war. I can’t see you going to jail for being in love witha guy like Jurgen, even if he is a Kraut.”

She watched Shemane raise the cup to sip hertea, but there was no teapot on the table and the slightface Shemane made told Louly it was whiskey.
Shemane touched her napkin to her mouth and lookedat the trace of lipstick.

“What does Carl think will happen?”

“Carl lives by the marshal’s motto-—‘Let noguilty man escape’–-once he’s convinced the man hewants is guilty. Carl has his own sense of right andwrong-—and I’m starting to think the way he does, seethe situation as a gray area where you can justify whatyou’re doing or not doing, and tell yourself if it’s okay.”
Louly paused. “Is that booze in your cup? I ask it as a 


marine who’s been looking forward to a refreshment allafternoon.” 

“Let me fix you up,” Shemane said. She caughtthe waitress’s eye, raised her cup and nodded to includeLouly.

Louly was thinking about Carl. She said, “I’mnever sure what Carl’s gonna do, and I’ve been marriedto him seven years. I have a feeling he’d like to go afterJurgen, bring him back to testify at the trial. I’m 
talking about those six Nazis they’re holding.”

“I read about them,” Sheamne said. “Chargedwith murdering one of their own guys.”

“The federal prosecutor,” Louly said, “will needJurgen and Otto’s testimony to convict them, so there’sa nationwide manhunt going on right now. What’ll be 
interesting, if they ask Carl to get on their trail. He 
thinks they’ll go to Detroit, at least at first. I said, ‘But 
if you know he’ll go there, then he won’t.’ Carl said 
Detroit’s way bigger than Tulsa, two million people in 
a working-man’s town. We know they turn outmilitary vehicles, trucks, tanks, bombers, even boats,
landing craft. Carl said he’d like to see all that activity 
in one place.”

“He wants to go after Jurgen,” Shemane said.

“He wants Jurgen and Otto to tell on the superNazis, get them sent to Leavenworth to be hung by theneck. Carl said he’d vow to keep Jurgen safe till thewar’s over. Then you all can decide what you want to 
do.” 

“He said that? Really?” 


“‘Cause he thought I was jealous of you. He 
wanted to show he wasn’t interested in you in that way.
But he meant it, what he’d do.”

“Were you jealous?”

“Maybe a little. He seemed so protective of youand I got the wrong idea. The thing is,” Louly said, “Icame home on leave and in a week we had two gooddays together, beauties, but that’s all, two days...
Though it wasn’t bad at his dad’s house this time, foronce.” 

“Boy, you two have something really good, don’t 
you?” 

“We like to argue, but we can turn it off when we 
want. I guess ‘cause we’re dyin’ of love for each other.”

Sehamne said, “Wow.” 

* 

Carl walked in the coffee shop.

He saw Louly with Shemane, the redhead andthe blond looking like a couple of movie stars, talking,
raising their teacups to have a sip, mmmmm, puttingthe cups down, talking again, Louly reaching over topat Shemane’s hand... 

* 

By the time Carl saw Louly off and arrived at hisdad’s house it was coming on dark. They sat at the 
table by the windows across the back part of thekitchen, the chairs comfortable, with arms and pads on 


the seats; they could sniff Narcissa’s cooking while theytalked and sipped whiskey.

Carl said poor Louly’d be on the train all nightand most of tomorrow, the Frisco to Memphis and theSouthern line to Nashville, Chatanooga, down toAtlanta and over to the Marine Air Base at CherryPoint. “Day after tomorrow the sweet girl’s back toshowing jarheads how to shoot down Zekes.”

Virgil said, “Well, you seem contented for achange,” watching his boy sip on his bourbon. 
“Remember putting off marrying that girl and I saidyou were crazy?”

Narcissa turned from the range. “You said you’dbe after Louly yourself if I didn’t look so much likeDolores Del Rio. And you bet Dolores Del don’t evenknow how to cook. The nicest thing your dad ever said 
to me.” 

“Before she left,” Virgil said, “Louly get over thatsnit she was in? I don’t see she had a reason to be 
jealous of Shemane, Louly’s better looking any day ofthe week.” 

“Those newspaper pictures,” Narcissa said, “don’tdo a thing for Shemane.”

Carl said, “We’re driving to the station, Loulysays she’s starting to understand how I think. How I 
can talk to a man escaped from prison, still has 20 yearsto serve, wish him luck with his cotton and walk away.
Louly says, ‘Shemane’s a traitor to our country ‘causeshe happened to fall for Jurgen?’”

He was a hard worker,” Virgil said. “All those 
Huns, they put their backs to it. They’d swat more 


pecans, fill more bags’n any people I ever hired.” He 
said, “Tell me what happens to Shemane now.”

“I doubt she’ll be convicted of giving comfort toJurgen. She’s got a good lawyer.”

“You have to testify if she’s tried?”

“I’ll tell what I know about the situation. 
Shemane understands, she knows I’ve already told theFeds about it. But I’m pretty sure she’ll walk.”

“Now Teddy Ritz,” Virgil said, “who came totown with sub-machine guns. You know why?”

“Tell me,” Carl said.

“‘Cause you invited him.”

Carl frowned at his dad. “When’d I do that?” 

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Virgil said. “First, Iwant to hear what Teddy was doing with the machineguns.” 

* 

“Teddy said to me, ‘You haven’t figured it out?
The Tedescos wanted to drive by the camp, sweep theyard with the tommy guns and kill as many Krauts asthey could.’ He says it was strictly their idea. He 
brought them as bodyguards since he planned to visit aNazi camp.”

“Teddy being Jewish,” Virgil said.

“That’s what he meant. But he says it was the 
Tedescos’ idea to kill Germans.” 

“What would they have against the Huns?”

“Teddy says they’re Jews on their mother’s side, 
from a Jewish mob in Detroit, the Purple Gang.
Teddy says he happened to tell them, before they left 


Kansas City, what the Nazis were doing to the Jews inPoland and it must’ve worked them up and theybrought the Thompsons, which Teddy says he didn’tknow anything about. All he wanted to do was talk to 
a Nazi, ask him why they hate Jews. I said, ‘But whenthey drove by the camp there wasn’t anybody to shootat. You know why?’ Teddy says he wasn’t there. I told 
him the P.O.W.s were confined to barracks for 
screwing up the roll call the night before, to throw offthe count. This was after the two guys escaped. I said, 
‘You didn’t know why the yard was empty?’ He said, 
‘How could I? I told you, I wasn’t there.’”

“When did you talk to him?”

“This afternoon. I told him to expect the Feds 
before he checked out. Teddy puts on his innocent 
look—-‘Why? What did I do?’ They’ll throw the 
Tedescos at him till he’s groggy. He’ll start to defend 
the idea saying, ‘What’s wrong with shooting Krauts?
Isn’t that what we’re doing in the war?’ Carl said to his 
dad, “But you’re saying I invited him.”

“You got him pumped up. He should tell 
Shemane what the Huns are doing in Poland.”

“I meant call her on the phone.”

“But there’s a whole camp of Huns right here. It 
must’ve got him thinking, uh?”

Carl said, “He wants somebody put away’smessing with him, he sends a guy with a gun. He 
wants a yard full of Germans put away, he brings Tuttiand Frankie to do it, couple of mutts. One of them 
killed the colored kid and threw him in the river. Theygo to Shemane’s, Gary opens the door... I’ll have to talkto Gary, I see him, find out what he was thinking.” 


Virgil said, “You left out their breaking in, thefirst time they came to the house.”

“I’m gonna leave it out as much as I can.”

His dad took a moment, sipped his bourbon andsaid, “It was Gary busted the pane.”

It surprised Carl. He looked at Narcissa. 

Narcissa said, “He’s taking the Dale Carnegie 
course. Learn how to act like a grownup.”

Virgil said to his boy, “You tend to make friendsand influence people, Jurgen, Shemane, and get thingsgoing.”

Carl said, “You’re saying I started all this? Bybringing Teddy here?”

“And you aren’t through yet, are you? You going 
after Jurgen?”

“If they want me to. The first thing I’d do is findout what kind of car Shemane bought him.”

“You’re stuck on that idea,” Virgil said. “But if 
you work it, you’ll come up with the car, won’t you?
You remember—-you were 21 years old, you camehome from shooting Emmett Long the bank robberthrough the heart. You remember what I told you?”

“Do I remember,” Carl said, “I almost had ittattooed on my other arm. ‘God help us show-offs.’” 

The End