It all came back to my beautiful aircraft. Should I just give Floyd and his stolen German equipment up to the Sheriff now, or should I try to get out there tonight and warn him and his parents?
“Vernon?” prompted Doc Milliken gently.
I lied to two honest men who were trying to help both me and their country. I prayed the ghost of the real Captain Markowicz would forgive me. “No, sir, I can’t imagine what they would want with me or Dad.”
Perhaps the unpleasant Mrs. Sigurdsen in the library was a Nazi agent. That would certainly explain where my envelope went.
I talked with Sheriff Hauptmann and Doc Milliken a while longer, about the weather and football at Kansas State — the things people say to each other when they have run out of purpose but don’t know how to walk away. Every word was a struggle.
Generally, I tried not to lie to people. For one, I wasn’t very good at it. Every time I opened my mouth to those two, the whole story threatened to pop out, about Floyd and the Battle of the Bulge, about the Nazi “Report on the Arctic Expedition for Secret Contact,” and airplanes frozen into the Arctic ice, and the unbelievable machine sitting in Mr. Bellamy’s barn on top of Dad’s old Mack stake bed. The truth strained to escape my grasp and soar upward into the world.
I couldn’t afford to tell them, not yet. I was worried about the Bellamys. Even though Mr. Bellamy didn’t like me very much any more, I still liked him. I’ve always had a soft spot for old people. They’ve tried so hard in life, and for their reward they get ground back into dust. The world owed old people better than most of them ever get.
I owed my father better than I gave him.
I begged out of our conversation after a few minutes.
“Gentlemen,” I finally said, “I need to be getting along. It’s been a terrible day for me.”
“Of course, son,” said Sheriff Hauptmann. “You’re worried sick about your dad, I’m sure.”
“Doc, can I borrow your car?”
“Why?” he asked. “You only live two blocks from here.”
This was a reasonable question. “I want to go out to Dad’s place and check on things,” I said. “It’s dark, and that’s a long walk. The Augusta police are holding my Hudson as evidence in the assault on Dad.” I suspected that Chief Davis had seized the car as minor local protest against Sheriff Hauptmann getting involved in business in town, but either way just as inconvenient for me.
I still had no car.
Doc Milliken smiled. “The keys are in the Cadillac. I can drive Ruthie’s Dodge tomorrow if I need to go anywhere. Just get the car back to me by Monday morning. Without any dents, if you please, Vernon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
We all shook hands as if we were friends and neighbors instead of conspirators working at cross-purposes — for certainly that’s what I was. I bid Mrs. Milliken good night and walked outside.
The night air smelled of wood smoke and leaf mold. People joke about Kansas being like an ironing board, but eastern Kansas has rolling hills and lots of hardwood stands. West of Wichita, it’s what the movies show you. Around here, you could be in Missouri or Arkansas. It’s the edge of the Ozarks. Even with the lights in town, I could see plenty of stars in the cold sky, and voices rose and fell as a distant mutter.
Not a lot went on in Augusta, Kansas on a Saturday night. A few people scurried in and out of the Augusta Theatre, and Lehr’s restaurant had late hours for the highway traffic trying to make it on to Wichita. Otherwise people stayed home and listened to the radio. Or whatever it was that normal people did at home on Saturday nights.
I stopped and breathed in the smells and sounds of my town, pleased to be at rest for a moment, back in control of myself after a day of being pushed, pulled and frightened nearly out of my wits. Mom, Dad, the airplane, Floyd — they all receded into the peace of the night.
After a few minutes of communing with nature, I was ready to get on with my evening. For one thing, I was cold, still only in my work shirt and khakis.
The Cadillac was the first car I had ever driven with a radio in it. It was also the nicest car I had ever driven. It was 1941 Series 62 convertible, factory painted blue, from the last production year before the war. Doc Milliken had kept it up like showroom new, even gotten fresh tires somewhere. My poor Hudson still had the wartime civilian-issue bald tires almost everyone else had.
Doc Milliken had left the top on the Cadillac down, and I didn’t bother to put it up even though the night air was chilly. Nothing wrong with the heater, and I really enjoyed convertibles. I could just imagine cruising with a girl — maybe Lois if she decided to talk to me again — top down, the wind in our faces, sitting close to stay warm. A fellow could get a lot of going steady done with a fine ragtop like this.
I drove through quiet streets of Augusta and listened to radio talk about the United Nations — a new League of Nations that was being ratified into existence from the charter signed last summer in San Francisco. Overseas, Italians squabbled over their first post-war elections, while all the sections of occupied Germany were restless.
It was a wartime habit, obsessively listening to news.
As I headed east, towards El Dorado and the Bellamys’ place, I turned the radio back off and pretended that the Cadillac was mine, and Lois and I were driving to California on vacation. The muddy Kansas roads out near the Bellamys’ farm became the parkways of sunny southern California, lined with orange trees and eucalyptus. I had never seen a parkway, but I sure could imagine one, smelling like cough drops and drenched in endless sunlight.
The Bellamy house was dark as I drove up. The Willys pickup was back at my boarding house, while the Farm-All was parked out front near Mr. Bellamy’s old Ford coupe — which to the best of my knowledge hadn’t moved in years. The barn was closed up.
I parked Doc Milliken’s Cadillac. The night was clouding up and we had a new moon. I found a flashlight in the glove box, so I borrowed it and went into the house.
The old frame farmhouse was quiet. It was about ten in the evening, long after Floyd’s parents normally retired, but I had expected to find Floyd around. Not wanting to wake anyone up by lighting a fire or the oil lamps, I flicked on the flashlight and looked around the living room. I knew the place like I knew my own bed — spent a lot of nights out here over the years — but tonight was different. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but I imagined Nazis under every piece of furniture. Here in the quiet dark, the old house creaking in the cool night air, Sheriff Hauptmann’s descriptions of spy rings and the murder of Captain Markowicz made me nervous all over again. The calm I had felt in the car vanished like smoke in the wind.
Despite my newfound case of nerves, the living room seemed normal. I moved on into the dining room. A loose board by the door creaked under my weight and I froze. All I could hear besides the rough hiss of my own tight breathing was the wind rattling in the eaves of the house.
The flashlight deepened the sharp shadows around its bright cone of light. It was hard for me to tell what I was seeing. Mrs. Bellamy’s massive breakfront startled me, looming the darkness like a kommando on the prowl. I banged into an unseen side table, barking the shin on my lame leg. I sucked in my breath at the pain, stifling a yelp.
Darn it, I’d spent years of my life in this house, now I was stumbling like a burglar.
Covering the flashlight with my hand, I walked to the kitchen door, which was shut. I put my ear against it, listening for any kind of noise. I heard a slow creaking.