Garden Of Beasts

A hundred dollars buys a hell of a lot of detective work but throughout the voyage the mate had heard of nothing – until this morning, when he’d interrupted Paul’s sparring match with the Olympian to tell him that some of the crew had been talking about this porter, Heinsler. He was always skulking around, never spent time with fellow crew members and – weirdest of all – would start spouting hooey about the Nazis and Hitler at the drop of a hat.

Alarmed, Paul tracked down Heinsler and found him on the top deck, hunched over his radio.

“Did he send anything?” Manielli now asked.

“Not this morning. I came up the stairs behind him and saw him setting the radio up. He didn’t have time to send more than a few letters. But he might’ve been transmitting all week.”

Manielli glanced down at the radio. “Probably not with that. The range is only a few miles… What does he know?”

“Ask him, ” Paul said.

“So, fella, what’s your game?”

The bald man remained silent.

Paul leaned forward. “Spill.”

Heinsler gave an eerie smile. He turned to Manielli. “I heard you talking. I know what you’re up to. But they’ll stop you.”

“Who put you up to this? The bund?”

Heinsler scoffed. “Nobody put me up to anything.” He was no longer cringing. He said with breathless devotion, “I’m loyal to the New Germany. I love the Führer and I’d do anything for him and the Party. And people like you-”

“Oh, can it,” Manielli muttered. “What do you mean, you heard us?”

Heinsler didn’t answer. He smiled smugly and looked out the porthole.

Paul said, “He heard you and Avery? What were you saying?”

The lieutenant looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. We went over the plan a couple of times. Just talking it through. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Brother, not in your cabin?” Paul snapped. “You should’ve been up on deck where you could see if anybody was around.”

“I didn’t think anybody’d be listening,” the lieutenant said defensively.

A trail of clues a mile wide…

“What’re you going to do with him?”

“I’ll talk to Avery. There’s a brig on board. I guess we’ll stow him there until we figure something out.”

“Could we get him to the consulate in Hamburg?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But…” He fell silent, frowning. “What’s that smell?”

Paul too frowned. A sudden, bittersweet scent filled the cabin.

“No!”

Heinsler was falling back on the pillow, eyes rolling up in his sockets, bits of white foam filling the corner of his mouth. His body was convulsing horribly.

The scent was of almond.

“Cyanide,” Manielli whispered. He ran to the porthole and opened it wide.

Paul took a pillowcase and carefully wiped the man’s mouth, fished inside for the capsule. But he pulled out only a few shards of glass. It had shattered completely. He was dead by the time Paul turned back from the basin with a glass of water to wash the poison out of his mouth.

“He killed himself,” Manielli whispered manically, staring with wide eyes. “Just… Right there. He killed himself.”

Paul thought angrily: And there goes a chance to find out anything more.

The lieutenant stared at the body, shaken. “This’s a jam all right. Oh, brother…”

“Go tell Avery.”

But Manielli seemed paralyzed.

Paul took him firmly by the arm. “Vince… tell Avery. You listening to me?”

“What?… Oh, sure. Andy. I’ll tell him. Yeah.” The lieutenant stepped outside.

A few dumbbells from the gymnasium tied to the waist would be heavy enough to sink the body in the ocean but the porthole here was only eight inches across. And the Manhattan ’s corridors were now filling with passengers getting ready to disembark; there was no way to get him out through the interior of the ship. They’d have to wait. Paul tucked the body under the blankets and turned its head aside, as if Heinsler were asleep, then washed his own hands carefully in the tiny basin to make sure all the traces of poison were off.

Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and Paul let Manielli back inside.

“Andy’s contacting Gordon. It’s midnight in D.C. but he’ll track him down.” He couldn’t stop staring at the body. Finally the lieutenant asked Paul, “You’re packed? Ready to go?”

“Will be, after I change.” He glanced down at his athletic shirt and shorts.

“Do that. Then go up top. Andy said we don’t want things to look bum, you disappearing and this guy too, then his supervisor can’t find him. We’ll meet you on the port side, main deck, in a half hour.”

With a last glance toward Heinsler’s body, Paul picked up his suitcase and shaving kit and headed down to the shower room.

After washing and shaving he dressed in a white shirt and gray fla

He thought about the man who’d just killed himself. He’d never understood that, suicide. The look in the man’s eyes gave a clue, Paul supposed. That fanatic’s shine. Heinsler reminded him of something he’d read recently, and after a moment he recalled: the people suckered in by the revivalist minister in Elmer Gantry, that popular Sinclair Lewis book.

I love the Führer and I’d do anything for him and the Party…

Sure, it was nuts that a man would just take his own life like that. But what was more unsettling was what it told Paul about the gray strip of land he was now gazing at. How many people there had this same deadly passion? People like Dutch Schultz and Siegel were dangerous, but you could understand them. What this man had done, that look in his eyes, the breathless devotion… well, they were nuts, way out of kilter. Paul’d never been up against anyone like that.

His thoughts were interrupted as he looked to his side and noticed a well-built young Negro walking toward him. He wore a thin blue Olympic team jacket and shorts, revealing powerful legs.

They nodded greetings.

“Excuse me, sir,” the man said softly. “How you doing there?”

“Fine,” Paul answered. “Yourself?”

“Love the morning air. Lot cleaner than in Cleveland or New York.” They looked over the water. “Saw you sparring earlier. You pro?”

“An old man like me? Just do it for the exercise.”

“I’m Jesse.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I know who you are,” Paul said. “The Buckeye Bullet from Ohio State.” They shook hands. Paul introduced himself. Despite the shock of what had happened in his cabin, he couldn’t stop gri

“I don’t mind it one bit, no, sir,” Jesse Owens said. “Just, I’m always surprised people keep up so close with what I do. Just ru

“I’ve been around,” Paul said evasively. He wondered if Owens knew something about what’d happened to Heinsler. Had he overheard them? Or seen Paul grab the man on the top deck by the smokestack? But he decided the athlete would’ve been more troubled if that had been the case. It seemed he had something else in mind. Paul nodded toward the deck behind them. “This is the biggest damn gym I’ve ever seen. You like it?”

“I’m glad for the chance to train but a track shouldn’t move. And it definitely shouldn’t rock up and down like we were doing a few days ago. Give me dirt or cinders any day.”

Paul said, “So. That’s our boxer I was up against.”

“That’s right. Nice fellow. I spoke to him some.”

“He’s good,” Paul said without much enthusiasm.