Johnnie (10 page)

Janssen barked an order and two untouched guardsmen came gingerly forward. More gingerly they took Johnnie’s arms. He released his arms. “I’m not aiming to get shot,” he told Magda, “but I don’t want no panty-waists helping me to walk. Which way?”

“Upstairs,” she said.

The two guards walked behind him. Janssen was behind them. Magda and the gun brought up the rear. Johnnie might have made a run for it but he preferred to keep whole. He was perfectly certain she’d be able to shoot crooked as well as straight, and the openwork banisters wouldn’t be any protection. On the third floor she marched him to the door at the back. Janssen opened it. The room was small, evidently Theo’s from the large framed photograph of the squirt looking chinlessly soulful at his crossed knee and a cigarette. Johnnie had always meant to have his picture taken that way for the kid sister but he’d never had the nerve. He was glad of it now.

Janssen stepped ahead to open the closet door. At the back of the closet he slid away the wall. Johnnie whistled. He’d never actually believed that anyone had trick houses like that. New York City was all that it was cracked up to be. Beyond the opening was another staircase. Janssen went ahead to the hidden fourth floor. The corridor was dark until Janssen pulled on a small overhead light. There were only closed doors visible and there wasn’t any velvet carpeting on the floor.

Magda waited while Janssen turned the knob on the door at the front. He pulled another overhead light. It was a little dinky room. Four old kitchen chairs, a battered table with a burned-down candle in a broken candle holder, nothing else in it. Johnnie’s mouth set. Must be the torture chamber. Where nobody could possibly hear you, nobody could see you. The only window was a small triangular attic one at the front. It wasn’t big enough to crawl out of even if you felt like gymnastics.

Magda ordered, “Tie him up.”

The guards looked at Janssen. Janssen looked at the guards. All turned hesitantly to Magda.

She frowned. “You’re not still afraid, are you? I have the gun. Tie him up.”

“What with?” Janssen asked.

While Magda was gathering fury Johnnie plopped down on one of the chairs. The guards jumped at the sound. He explained, “My feet hurt.”

Magda shouted, “With what! Idiots! Cretins!” She gathered more breath. “Nuts! Go get a rope. Get wire. Get anything. Go. I’ll watch him. Go. GO!”

They went fast. They clattered down the steps. Magda sighed. “Can you imagine such fools?” Without turning she pushed a chair far across the room from Johnnie, sat down, laid the gun on her crossed knee. “If you move I’ll shoot you.”

“I won’t move. Can I smoke?”

“If there’s a trick to it, I’ll shoot you.”

“There’s no trick.” He lit a cigarette. There wasn’t. He just wanted a smoke, that was all.

“I suppose you think I should shoot you now?”

“Oh no!” he reassured her.

“Dorp would. Or Otto. It would be safer. But I’ve never killed anyone yet.”

Johnnie swallowed hard. He hoped she wouldn’t start tonight. She seemed to be considering it.

“That’s one reason. More important, if anything should happen I don’t want a murder pinned on me.”

“I should hope not,” Johnnie agreed weakly.

“There’s always the problem of getting rid of the body and we haven’t time for that now. Although it isn’t much of a problem.”

He gulped. “Maybe it wouldn’t be if I were just John Brown back home in Texas but I’m not.”

Her gun jumped into her hand. “Just who are you, Johnnie Brown from Texas? Where did Trudy find you?” Her lip curled. “And why?”

He’d been warned to keep quiet but he was too mad now to worry about that. And too scared. Well, not exactly scared but he didn’t feel very safe at the moment. “She didn’t find me. I came here to see Herr Dorp. For a good reason. And I better get out of here safe too. I’m important. I’m Private John Brown. I live in Uncle Sam’s house. If anything happens to me—” He swallowed the lump. “If anything should happen to me, he’d find me.”

“Not if I got rid of you, Johnnie,” she said with certainty.

“That’s what you think. He’d have a million M.P.’s out looking for me. They’d find me. Don’t you think they wouldn’t. They’d find me whatever you did and they’d find you, too.”

She laughed. “You’re really quite stuff, Johnnie. I wouldn’t want to shoot you. It’s too bad you don’t like me better. We might have had some fun. Don’t you like me at all?”

His tongue was thick. “You’re mighty pretty.”

She laughed lazily. “Is that the best you can do?” Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you prefer blondes.”

He knew better than to irritate her. She was twirling the gun. “Oh no, ma’am,” he vowed. “I like blondes and brunettes. And redheads.”

He remembered with a pang that redhead back on the campus. He’d meant to write to her. If he ever got out of this whole, he would write to her. He’d ask her for a picture. She was funny-looking with a turned up nose and freckles. He never wanted another sultry beauty pinned above his bed.

“Perhaps we might get together if you’re that versatile.”

“I’d like to,” he cried. He lied in his teeth. Well maybe not that bad but at the moment there was nothing he wanted less than playing games with any girl.

“Some other time,” she smiled.

Johnnie took the bull by the horns. “Just what are you going to do with me? You can’t leave me tied up here forever.”

“I could if I wished,” she said coolly. “But it might make the house smell.” She smiled wider. “Only a few days, Johnnie.”

“Few days!” He leaped up.

“Sit down,” she suggested, with the gun pointing smack at his middle.

He flopped. This was the worst news. “I can’t be gone that long. My pass is only good till Sunday morning. I have to be back in camp by four A.M.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be late, Johnnie.”

“But I can’t be late. I have to be there. Don’t you understand? I’m in the Army. What will my top sergeant say?” What wouldn’t he say.

“I’m so sorry,” she said lightly.

He glowered at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t throw that guy at you instead of at Dorp.”

“I thought you might be.”

He had to do something about this and quick. But that gun wasn’t fooling. Neither was Magda. He tried to reason with her. “Why do I have to stay here that long?”

“We must get Rudolph away.”

“But you’re going to do that tonight.”

“Not without the papers.”

Well, he could give her the papers. He could hand her the damn papers right this minute. The same two reasons held him back. One was Trudy’s nervousness about their contents. And she had a gun too. The other was what might happen to him if suddenly he did admit to having them. That wasn’t a pretty picture.

“You needn’t worry, Johnnie,” she said. “Of course you will have to explain to your top sergeant why you’re late for Sunday breakfast but nothing is going to happen to you.”

“No, nothing,” he groaned.

“You’ll be perfectly safe. It’s necessary that we tie you up so that you won’t gum the works but you won’t be hurt. Just as soon as possible you’ll turn up safe somewhere. By that time it won’t do you any good to bring back the Marines. We’ll all be gone.”

And he’d be trying to explain what looked like A.W.O.L. He’d be better off if she did shoot him. He stuck out his jaw. “I’d bring the Army if I came back not any Marines. But I wouldn’t come back here for a million dollars. Or for the biggest farm in Texas. You couldn’t pay me enough to come back here.” He shook his head. “You couldn’t let me go by tomorrow night if I promised to say nothing?”

“I’m afraid not.” She turned on the reappearing guards. “What did you do, knit it?”

They held what looked like a clothesline. “We had to wait for Trudy,” Janssen explained.

“And where was Trudy?” Magda was suspicious.

“Nobody knew,” Janssen said. “But I found her.”

Magda clutched the gun more firmly. “Where was she?”

“With His Highness.”

“Snip!”

“Well, she saw you with Ruprecht,” Johnnie reminded her.

She swung to the guards. “What are you waiting for? Tie him up!”

Johnnie didn’t make any false moves, not with that steel eyeball poking at him. He did offer one weak protest as his hands were lashed behind his back to the chair. “How’m I going to smoke with my hands tied? I won’t be able to smoke.”

“Won’t that be too bad?” She inspected the job unsmiling, nodded her head. “Janssen, we’ll go back down now. Post a man on this door.” She turned mocking eyes on Johnnie. “Hawg-tied, as you say in Texas, don’t you?” She bent down, kissed his mouth. “You are cute, you know.”

She didn’t look back at the color of his ears. Only four lonely walls knew they sizzled.

Hawg-tied. That was Johnnie. Those saps in the black suits didn’t have any muscles but they knew how to lash a man fast. If he were smart like Bill or tough like Hank he wouldn’t be in this stew. He’d be thinking right now of a way to get loose. He was thinking only he couldn’t think of a thing. What could any guy do tied to a chair in an attic bedroom? Yelling wouldn’t do any good. Or would it?

He opened his mouth and bellered, “Help! Murder! Police!”

It sounded pretty silly to be yelling all by yourself. It didn’t even sound loud. All that happened was that skimpy guy outside the door stuck his head in, took a look, and yapped, “You be quiet.” The guy had a rifle now. He pointed it ahead of him awkwardly when he barged in. He went right out again, banging the door after him.

That settled making a row. No one could possibly hear, no one but that dumb rookie outside. Even if sounds carried below, that bunch wouldn’t investigate.

Dick Tracy would have a piece of glass or a nail file hidden between his fingers to saw the rope. Johnnie didn’t. Superman would swell out his muscles and break the ropes. Johnnie tried that one. Well, he’d never claimed to be Superman. Jungle Jim would have a faithful friend crawling through the window to release him. Johnnie didn’t have a friend within thousands of miles except Bill and Hank and they were too busy cutting a rug at the Canteen to worry about their poor partner.

What would Bill do? Bill would never have shoved into a mess like this in the first place. He’d have reasoned that old Pudgey Dorp was a German professor not a Nazi. Only Johnnie wasn’t too sure yet about that. Dorp could be both. He acted like a Nazi. Plenty of those downstairs acted like Nazis. And those uniforms looked just like Nazi uniforms in the movies.

What would Hank have done? He’d have socked Dorp right there on the subway and he’d have told everybody in earshot why. He’d have a medal on his chest by now, not yards of clothesline.

The door clicked. Johnnie scowled at it. His eyes opened. Rudolph, the goon. All dressed up in a pearl gray suit with pin stripes, a lavender spotted tie, lavender hanky sticking out of his pocket. All sweet and perfumed. Probably not perfume, just the grease oiling down his black hair.

If this panty-waist had come up to make with the Nazi tricks, he, Johnnie, would hit him with chair, rope and all. But Rudolph hadn’t. His mouth was drooping open. “What does this mean?” he was complaining. “What are you doing?” He acted as if Johnnie had staged this only to annoy.

“I’m waiting for the expressman,” Johnnie replied.

“I don’t understand.”

“Cut yourself a piece of brain. You don’t think I tied myself up in a package, do you?”

“Who did?”

“The Damnazis,” Johnnie stated with emphasis.

He hadn’t expected Rudolph to take it this way. The goon’s face went pearlier than his suit. He cringed. “Nazis! Are they here?”

“What do you think? The place is full of those Nazi soldiers.”

“Oh,” cried Rudolph relieved. “Those aren’t Nazis. They’re the Rudamian guard. Maybe some of them had to join the S.S. when the Nazis marched in but they got away. They don’t belong any more. No one in Rudamia wants Hitler. They don’t like him. They’re going to throw him out.”

“They and who else? They couldn’t even throw me out, and I don’t live on top a mountain.”

Rudolph said, “At first you frightened me. I thought perhaps I had been tricked by the Nazis. I will not return and be one of their puppet rulers. They approached me time and again in Egypt and I just told them I will not be a puppet ruler. I shall return only as a rightful king of Rudamia to rule as I choose. No other way.” He finished his speech and was curious again. “But I still don’t see why you’re tied up here in this dreadful little room.”

“I tell you it was the Nazis.” Johnnie was using the old bean now. “You don’t think they’re here because they’ve fooled you. What do you know about Dorp?”

“Magda said—”

“Magda wants you to be king so she can be queen. She doesn’t want to wait till the war is over. She doesn’t care who she plays with so long as she gets to be queen.”

The prince was getting queasy again.

“Anyhow what does she know about Dorp? She’s a woman,” Johnnie said smoothly. “Maybe he’s fooled her too. But he doesn’t fool me. Talking German and Munich this, Munich that.” He demanded suddenly, “Who comes from Munich?”

“I won’t be made a fool of.” Rudolph shuddered. “But I’m afraid of Nazis. They’re brutes.”

“Now you’re jiving,” Johnnie complimented. “If you’ll just untie me, we’ll get out of here.”

“Get out?” Rudolph piped.

“Yeah. Get out. But quick.” He coaxed, “You want to get out, don’t you? You don’t want to be a Nazi puppet, you said so.”

“I want to be King of Rudamia,” said Rudolph simply.

“You won’t get to be King of Rudamia if the Nazis tie you up too and leave you here to starve to death.”

“Starve?” Rudolph faltered in falsetto.

“Starve,” said Johnnie grimly. “Now will you untie me?”

The goon still hesitated. “I don’t know whether I ought to. Whoever tied you up might not like it.”

“Well, you’d better,” Johnnie menaced. “You aren’t going to like it a bit when the police come and find my body up here and arrest all of you for murder. You’ll never get to be King of Rudamia then.”

“Police?” Rudolph’s face was as spotted as his tie.

“Sure, the police. Listen, I don’t know how they do it in Rudamia but over here if somebody gets killed the police come and they haul everybody down to headquarters”—he drew on his moving picture experience—“and they keep giving them the third degree with rubber hoses until they get a confession and then—” He decided he’d better cut before Rudolph fell flat on his face. He concluded, “So you’d better untie me so I can get both of us out of here before somebody gets killed.”