“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Denise Wilmington interrupted, “I need to go to the ladies’ room. Kathy, you want to come with me?”
Brubek’s wife nodded and the women walked off, clutching their purses and whispering their indictment of the hours their husbands worked. Either because of or in spite of the beer, Gus admired! the way his wife’s hips swayed, and he promised himself he’d do something about that when they.got back to their hotel room.
The young man in the denim jacket and his companion in the wind-breaker strode through the gasthaus foyer and into the dining room. They took in the scene quickly, leveled their weapons, and held down the triggers. Brubek and Wilmington tried to stand, but the bullets from the Uzis caught them and sent them sprawling over their dinner dishes. A few of the other gasthaus patrons were smarter; they ducked under their tables.
Denise Wilmington heard the shots and dropped her lipstick. She ran back into the dining area in time to catch a fatal burst from the windbreakered man’s machine pistol. The bullets punched red holes across her breasts. In her panic, it took Kathy Brubek a moment to pull up her panty hose and pull down her dress, and she fumbled with the latch of the stall for what seemed an eternity. She rushed into the dining room only after the man in the denim jacket and his partner were gone. Her screams followed the pair back to the sedan.
The man in the driver’s seat and his partner drove through the night. It was well past 4:00 in the morning when they took the back road into the military training area. With some effort they unloaded two bodies from the sedan’s trunk and buried them in shallow graves in the artillery impact area. At 7:00, the visiting American artillery unit began firing. Eight-inch high-explosive shells churned up the earth, the shrapnel fraying to bits the owners of the windbreaker, the denim jacket, and the mouse.
The two men thought the general would be pleased.
Liza Gunther sat across from her boyfriend in the front room of her apartment, flipping through the pages of a magazine just as loudly as she could. As Roosevelt Lawson lifted his eyes from his book, he could see she was pouting.
Oh hell, he thought. Why fight it?
“All right,” Lawson said gently. He put his book facedown on the arm of the chair to save his place. “We’ll go.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“Baby, you want to hit the Strasse, and Bill Wordsworth’ll wait. He’s been around for a while and I expect he'll be around for some time to come.” His eyes strolled over her, drinking in the way her curves filled out the tight dress. The poets might call her ravishing, seductive, perhaps even wanton, he thought. I’d say she’s a redheaded brick shithouse. “C’mon, put on some dancing clothes and let’s do it.”
She went to him, hips swaying as she walked. Liza straddled his legs, and sat lewdly on his lap. Her breasts were full, enticing, and mere inches from his face. He felt the smoothness of her skin as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“We never seem to go out anymore, Rosy,” she crooned wetly into his ear. “All you ever do is read. Don’t you like to dance with me anymore?” She shifted her weight so her crotch rubbed against his. “Don’t you like to be seen with me?”
“I said put on your dancing clothes, didn’t I?” With Liza’s hot body that close, the last thing on his mind was going out. But a night in Baumflecken’s discos and dance bars was what she wanted, even though Lawson felt somehow uneasy about a night on the town.
The country’s coming apart at the seams, he thought as, facing her, he put his arms around her waist and worked one hand up her back to the dress’s zipper. It’s not safe for her to be out with a GI, and a black one at that. A white German girl going with a black American man does more than just raise a few eyebrows these days. Maybe we could just stay here and party where it’s safe.
But Liza would have none of it. She popped off his lap, contorting one arm to zip up her dress. “I am in my dancing clothes. That can wait till we come home, Shautzie.” She smiled at him and left to get her coat.
They parked the car and were within sight of the disco when two German skinheads noticed them coming. The young men pushed away from the wall they’d been slouching against and planted themselves squarely in the couple’s path.
Lawson smelled trouble. He pulled on Liza’s arm in an effort to cross the street to bypass them, but the punks shifted to block their path. As they came forward, Rosy pushed Liza behind him.
“Why don’t you get off our streets, go back to Africa where you belong, and leave our women alone?”
Lawson held his ground. “Why don’t you two go on about your business and leave us alone.” It was not meant to be a question.
“Oh no, Herr Nigger, you are our business tonight.” Lawson heard a click and saw a switchblade gleam in the light from the streetlamp. The second skinhead pulled a club from under his jacket, and Lawson had only a second to notice that it was remarkably similar to those carried by the German polizei.
Two punks, Lawson snorted to himself, one with a knife, one with a club. Coming closer. Take the one with the knife first — knives can kill.
“Either of you two ever been to the South Side of Chicago?”
“Chicago? America? Nigger, you will wish you never left.”
“Boy, you got a lot to learn.” He faked toward the punk with the club, which brought the kid with the knife lunging forward. Lawson’s first kick caught the kid in the groin. The German doubled over, his knife cutting air. Rosy grabbed for the knife but missed, the kid recovering enough to come up slashing. The kid jabbed and Lawson dodged, again and again. They circled each other for several moments, each looking for an opening. Liza’s scream broke their concentration. The other skinhead was working her over with the club. Lawson started for her, and the kid with the knife slashed again. The blade cut through Rosy’s jacket, drawing blood.
Roosevelt Lawson had had enough. When the skinhead with the knife came on again, Lawson parried the blade and put all of his 198 pounds behind a punch to the kid’s throat, crushing the windpipe. The German’s body fell.
The punk with the club turned from battering Liza and swung at Rosy. Lawson grabbed the punk’s club arm in midswing and twisted it almost out of its socket. As the German howled in pain and rage, Lawson struck him in the midsection a half dozen times, each harder than the last, trying to smash through to the spine. Then, with one massive punch to the temple, Lawson sent the punk sprawling.
Liza was crying as he helped her up. Her face was a mess of blood, bruises, and black mascara, but she was moving. Liza’s eyes were wide with terror and pain as she and Lawson limped off together. The car’s close, thought Lawson, we’ll make it home. We’ll both be ugly and sore for a few days, but nothing’s broken. It’s over. We’ll make it.
He eased her into the passenger’s seat, and she lapsed into unconsciousness before he closed the door. Lawson walked, still a little unsteady, around to the driver’s side.
The man seemed to come from nowhere and was behind him before he knew it.
“Herr Sergeant.” The voice was flat and calm, but forceful. Lawson spun around, his fists up. The dim backstreet light and his swollen eyes wouldn’t let him make out the face clearly. “No, no more violence tonight, Herr Sergeant.” He motioned down with his head. Bad light and eyes or not, Lawson could s$e the gun. He lowered his fists, but only a little.