“No idea yet. But it’s bad, Tom. The Battle of the Bulge isn’t going the way the Krauts hoped-they’re getting their keisters kicked. And now they want to hit back. Hard.”
Payback…
The agent regarded his gold pocket watch, which would be a pretentious affectation on most anyone else, certainly an intelligence agent. For Murphy, though, it seemed completely natural. Indeed, to see him strap on a Timex would be out of place. His next accessory, too, was right at home in his sinewy hand: he took his 1911 Colt.45 from a desk drawer and eased back the slide to make sure the gun was loaded.
Murphy rose, pulled on his dark gray overcoat, and slipped the pistol into his pocket. He winked at his boss. “Time to go catch a spy. Stay close to that phone, boss. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need you.”
The two men were sitting on metal chairs upholstered in red vinyl at the Horn and Hardart automat on Forty-Second Street. The atmosphere was loud; voices and the collision of china reverberated off the glossy walls and the row upon row of small glass doors in the vending machines, behind which an abundance of food sat.
A sign on the table read:
HOW AN AUTOMAT WORKS
FIRST DROP YOUR NICKELS IN THE SLOT
THEN TURN THE KNOB
THE GLASS DOOR OPENS
LIFT THE DOOR AND HELP YOURSELF
Luca Cracco was eating pumpkin pie. The custard wasn’t bound with enough eggs, which were strictly rationed by the Office of Price Administration. He suspected gelatin as a substitute. Mamma mia… The OPA had also rationed butter and other fats since 1943. Margarine, too, was on the list. But lard had been okayed a year ago, in March of ’44. Cracco could tell, from the coating on the roof of his mouth, that, yes, pig fat was the shortening in the crust. With a pang, he remembered when he and his brother, Vincenzo, would stand at their mother’s hip on Saturday afternoon and watch her cut flour and butter into pastry dough. “Butter only,” she’d instructed gravely. Her son’s own output at his bakery was far less-and his income much smaller-because he refused to compromise.
Butter only…
The tall blonde man across from him was eating beef with broad noodles and burgundy sauce. Cracco had tried to talk him into H & H’s signature chicken pot pie, a New World original, but he was sticking to something he was more familiar with. A dish similar to what he might have at home. Like spaetzel, Cracco imagined. Heinrich Kohl, presently Hank Coleman, had just snuck into the country from Heidelberg, deep in the heart of Nazi Germany.
They sipped steaming coffee and ate in silence for a time. Kohl often looked around, though not, apparently, for threats. He simply seemed astonished at the variety and amount of food available here. The Fatherland was in the throes of crushing deprivation.
In whispered conversation that could not be overheard, Cracco asked about the man’s clandestine trip as a stowaway on the freighter that had brought him here just last night. About life in Germany as the Allies inched toward Berlin. About his career in the SS. Kohl corrected that he was Abwehr, regular German army, not the elite “protection squad.”
Kohl in turn inquired about the bakery business and Cracco’s wife and children.
Finally, Cracco leaned forward slightly and asked about Vincenzo. “Your brother is fine. He was captured near Monte Casino, when the Americans made their fourth offensive there. He was sent to a POW camp. But he managed to escape and made his way north-he knew that Italy would fall soon-and was not willing to let the war pass him by. He still wanted to do more.”
“Yes, yes, that’s my baby brother.”
Kohl continued. “He met with some people and expressed that sentiment. Word came to me, and I met with him. He said that you and he had been in touch and you expressed a passion about getting revenge for what had happened to your country. That you could be trusted completely.” The German ate a robust spoonful of noodles and sauce; the meat had disappeared first. “We contacted your handler, Geller, and he, you.” The handsome man looked down at the dish before Cracco. “Your pie?”
“Lard.” As if that explained it all. Which, of course, it did.
A laugh. “In the Fatherland, we would be lucky for lard.” He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, inhaled slowly, enjoying the sensation.
Cracco joined him. Terzo.
Kohl examined the Chesterfield. “At home, we make cigarettes from lettuce leaves. When we can find lettuce. And your country, Italy, is no better. Ah, what those bastards have done to her.” Then, a shrug. He smoked half the cigarette down, stubbed it out, and put the rest in his pocket. “The shipment will arrive this evening. You and I will pick it up.”
“Good, yes. But Geller tells me we have to be very careful. The ones we need to be particularly wary of are the FBI and the OSS, the intelligence service.”
“There is a specific threat?”
“It seems so. But he doesn’t know what, exactly.”
“Well, if this is to be my last meal, I’ll have another.” Kohl laughed and nodded at the empty bowl before him. “You would like some more pie, yes?”
Lard, thought Luca Cracco and shook his head.
After the late lunch, Heinrich Kohl vanished into the forever-migrating Midtown crowds. Gray and black greatcoats and fedoras for the men, overcoats and scarves for the women, some of whom wore trousers against the cold, though most were in cotton lisle stockings-which had replaced silk after the start of the war.
Luca Cracco descended beneath Grand Central Station and caught the subway shuttle for the trip of less than a mile to the Eighth Avenue IND line. He took a southbound train to West Fourth Street and walked to the bakery, which Violetta was closing up. It was a quarter to five and the shelves were nearly empty-only a few loaves remained. She would now return home. Beppe and Cristina were in the care of Mrs. Menotti, the woman who lived in the basement of their apartment building. A widow, she earned money by doing laundry and overseeing the children of the couples in the building who both worked, as many families now had to do.
Luca and Violetta had met ten years ago at the Piazza di Spagna, near the bottom of the famed steps. He had approached and asked if she knew which house the poet John Keats had lived in. He knew exactly which dwelling it was, but he was too shy to directly ask if the raven-haired beauty would have a cappuccino with him. Three years later, they were married. Now, they were both heavier than then, but she, in his opinion, was more beautiful. She was quiet on the whole but spoke her mind, often with a coy disarming smile. Cracco believed her to be the smarter of the couple; he was given to impulse. Luca was the artist, Violetta the businesswoman. And woe to any banker or tradesman who tried to take advantage.
He told her about Kohl and the meeting.
“You trust him?”
“Yes,” Cracco said. “Geller vouches for him. And I asked certain questions that only the real Kohl would know the answers to.” A smile. “And he asked me questions, too. I passed the test. The dance of spies.” He thought, as he often did: Who would have guessed, when he came to America-to avoid the looming war, for the sake of his future children-that he would become a soldier, after all.
“I need to get the truck.”
He could have gone directly to the parking lot from lunch with Kohl, but he’d wanted to stop by the bakery. And see his wife.
She nodded.
Nothing more was said of the assignment. They both knew its danger, both knew there was a chance he might not be coming back this evening. He now stepped forward and kissed her quickly on the mouth and told her he loved her. Violetta would not acknowledge even this glancing sentiment and turned away. But then she stopped and spun around and hugged him hard. She went into the backroom quickly. He wondered if she was crying.