She smiled suggestively. People whooped and hollered. A couple of wolf whistles rang through the hall. “They are,” Peggy insisted. “They want to get rid of Social Security. They still want to do all the things they did that gave us the Depression. Want another dose?” She leered again. “Then vote for the grand old GOP!”
They gave her a big hand as she stepped away from the mike. She waved-she knew she’d earned it. The local politico who came up to introduce the next speaker wore an electric-green jacket with a big purple windowpane check. The hand-painted hula dancer on his scarlet tie was either voluptuous or built like a brick shithouse, depending on your attitude toward the language.
“It’s my great pleasure to present to you, ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed, as if announcing at a prize fight, “di-rect from Hollywood, California, that fine actor and good guy, Mis-ter George Raft!”
Raft didn’t especially look like a good guy. He looked more like the small-time hood he was supposed to have been before he got into acting. His shiny black silk shirt and knife-sharp lapels did nothing to lessen the impression.
He grinned out at the gathering. “I was gonna say I didn’t want to go on after Mrs. Druce, on account of she did such a great job there,” he began, and led a fresh round of applause for Peggy. Not surprisingly, she found herself liking him even if he did look like a hoodlum. When the clapping died down, Raft continued: “But I really don’t want to go on after Eddie Gryboski’s necktie. Ain’t that a beaut?”
Peggy laughed so hard, she almost wet her pants. She wasn’t the only one, and wondered how long it had been since the Masonic hall rocked with mirth like that. Gryboski stood up to show off the hula dancer again. The crowd cheered him. They cheered again when he sat down.
George Raft had a performer’s sense of timing, all right. He sensed just when to start his own speech. The audience was still happy after giving Eddie Gryboski a hand, but they were also ready to listen to whatever the marquee name had to say.
And Raft had plenty. Herb would have said that he tore the GOP a new one. He wouldn’t say what the new one was, not where Peggy could hear him, not unless he was extremely provoked and probably not then, either. It wasn’t that he thought she didn’t know or couldn’t figure it out. But he’d been taught not to cuss in front of women, a lesson no doubt driven home by a clout in the ear when he goofed.
The crowd ate it up. Well, no surprise there. They wouldn’t have come to this hall if they were America Firsters or other people with views like that. When Raft finished, he got a roar of applause. A big hand, yeah, but Peggy didn’t think it was much bigger than the one she’d earned for herself.
As things were breaking up, the actor came over to her and said, “I really meant what I said when I was working the crowd. You were great. You’ve done this a time or two before, I betcha.”
“Now that you mention it,” Peggy said, “yes.” They smiled at each other.
“Me, I haven’t done a whole lot of politicking. Never saw much point to it, not till the fighting started,” Raft said. “Maybe you could give me some pointers, like.”
Peggy blinked. “You’re kidding!” she blurted.
“Not me.” Raft shook his head and raised his right hand as if swearing an oath. “Nope, not me. How’s about you come up to my hotel room? We can talk about stuff there. I’ll call room service for a bottle of champagne on ice or somethin’. Help us relax while we talk, y’know?”
She laughed out loud. “Oh, I know all right, you wolf.” When he said talk, he meant screw. She spread the fingers of her left hand so the rock in her wedding ring flashed. “Thanks for asking, but no thanks.” How many women did he casually proposition? Quite a few, by his practiced ease. How many came across? Also quite a few, unless Peggy was all wet.
He laughed, too, also unabashed. “Can’t shoot a guy for trying.”
“Sure,” Peggy said. He’d been a gentleman about it, or as close to a gentleman as a guy who’d started out as a small-time hood could come. Getting asked never bothered Peggy. What bothered her were guys who didn’t understand when no meant no. George Raft plainly did. As he turned away-looking for someone else to try to charm-part of Peggy went Too bad.
Mail came to the Republican lines north and west of Madrid when it felt like coming. The Spaniards called that kind of thing manana. Vaclav Jezek looked down his blunt nose at such inefficiency. The Czech hated and feared his country’s German neighbors, but they’d rubbed off on him more than he realized.
Not that he ever got mail, anyway. The only people in the world who cared about him and weren’t in the Czech government-in-exile’s army lived in Nazi-occupied Prague. He hadn’t heard from family or friends since the war started. He had to hope they were all right.
The Spaniard who carried the burlap mail sack made a horrible hash of Benjamin Halevy’s name. But the Jew was used to Spaniards botching it. “Si, Senor. Estoy aqui,” he said. He’d learned a lot more Spanish than Vaclav had. Oh, he was a cunning linguist, all right.
“Here.” The Spaniard handed him an envelope with his name typed on it, and with a printed return address Vaclav couldn’t read upside down.
It wasn’t upside down for Halevy, of course. He whistled several tuneless notes. “Well, well. Isn’t that interesting?” he said. “I wonder what the Ministry of War wants with me.”
“The French Ministry of War?” Jezek asked in disbelief.
“No, of course not. The Paraguayan Ministry of War,” Benjamin Halevy answered tartly. Vaclav’s ears heated. Halevy pulled his bayonet off his belt and opened the letter with it. Letter opener, tin opener, candlestick … Those were all more common uses for the bayonet than sticking enemy soldiers. The Jew took out an official-looking-which is to say, typed on letterhead-letter.
“What’s it say?” Vaclav asked. If it was from the French military, it would be in French. Even if it weren’t upside down for him, he wouldn’t have been able to make much of it. German he could speak and read. He could swear in French, and order booze and food-and come on to the barmaid, too, if he was so inclined. But the written language was a closed book to him even if the book chanced to be open.
Instead of answering, or perhaps by way of answering, Halevy threw back his head and laughed as if he’d just heard the best dirty joke in the world. He laughed till tears cut clean tracks down his grimy cheeks. Speechless still, he held out the letter to Vaclav.
Vaclav pushed it back at him. “Just an asswipe to me,” he said impatiently. “You know I can’t make heads or tails of French.”
“Sorry. Oh, mon Dieu!” Halevy wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He started laughing again. Only half kidding, Vaclav made as if to slug him. Halevy took a deep breath, hiccuped, and made himself calm down by what seemed main force of will. He held out the letter once more. This time, though, he explained it, too: “The Ministry of War, in its infinite wisdom, desires to recall me for service in the Army of my patrie, the Republic of France.”
“You’re shitting me!”
“Could I make up such a thing?” Halevy shook his head, answering his own question. After a moment, Vaclav did the same thing. He didn’t believe it, either. The Jew went on, “I have a good imagination, sure, but not that good. It takes a government ministry to have an imagination that good.”
“But they waved bye-bye when you left,” Vaclav said. “They didn’t want you around after they cozied up to Hitler. You didn’t want to stick around after that, either.”
“You bet I didn’t,” Benjamin Halevy agreed. “But now I am recalled ‘to fight the Fascist foes of France.’ ” He waved the letter around. “That’s what it says here, anyway.”