Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(36)



“Why don’t we all just palaver in the living room,” Johnson said, cupping her elbow firmly and steering her through the doorway.

Oh, this promised to be entertaining, Gideon thought, and took up the rocking chair opposite the sun-leached brown sofa, where Romy and Johnson had settled, his arm curved across the sofa’s camelback.

Moe plopped down on an old, moth-eaten footstool and scooted it closer to Johnson, as a court jester would draw closer to his king.

Arms akimbo, boots spread, McClellan remained standing, “This doesn’t take any long-winded jawing, Congressman. A ranch is no place for a lone woman and seven men. Find another gullible sponsor for your Artful Dodger – but, regardless, take her with you and out of my hair. Today.”

Johnson raised an antagonistic bushy brow at McClellan, and Gideon felt anxiety beading sweat beneath his arm pits. Something had to be done fast, before this got out of hand.

Of course, the grifter Romy rose to the occasion. The blink-blink of her lashes betrayed her nimble mind’s desperate search for a credible spiel. “The newsreels show Amelia Earhart and the men pilots working in close quarters. Dunna see why Duke and I canna, given time.”

“You are no Amelia Earhart.” This from Moe. “I say the Operation Texas washes its hands of her, Congressman, and let our Joint Committee care for its own.”

“Now just a minute,” Gideon heard himself saying. It seemed Moe was overly anxious to accommodate Johnson. Sure, Romy could finger Moe for blackmarketing, but then so could he himself. They three each stood to lose something if they started pointing fingers at one another. So, why was Moe suddenly singling her out for harassment?

“It seems to me, this can be worked out,” Gideon went on in his attorney’s persuasive voice. At least, worked out to his own advantage in the long run. “McClellan, you lost a cow, you claim.”

The rancher faced him off. “I don’t claim. I did.”

Gideon shifted his attention to Johnson. “Congressman, your family owns a cattle ranch known for its prized Herefords.” Then, he reverted to McClellan again. “What if, in exchange for keeping Romy Sonnenschein on at the S&S, McClellan, Congressman Johnson brings one of his prized bulls around to breed with one of your heifers?”

Gideon was banking on a strong hunch that the efficiency – and secrecy – of Operation Texas was vital to Johnson’s political ambitions and that he would be willing to compromise, if needed.

Johnson rubbed his lantern jaw. “Seems fair enough to me.” He turned those fiercely competitive eyes up to McClellan. “You good for it, cowboy?”

Hands braced low on his hips like pistols prepared to fire, mouth pressed flat and mustache drawn down, McClellan stared thoughtfully at the spur-scarred, plank floor. Gideon was counting on McClellan, too, having ambitions that he did not want to see burned on the pyre of his frustrations.

The rancher’s washed-out red shirt expanded with his indrawn breath and exhaling grunt. Beneath his hat brim, his baleful stare clamped on Romy.

The ends of her lips seesawed in a tremulous, imploring grin that cast its own peculiar charm. Her wistful, innocent expression – a sham.

“She’s out of here come next October,” he qualified.

At the year’s reprieve, a full-blown smile momentarily eased the strain on her fey features.

Johnson’s hands slapped his knees, and he unfolded to his lofty height, exceeded only by McClellan’s. “Then, I strongly suggest we all adjourn to the Sawdust Saloon to celebrate our agreement.”

A sweeping statement, Gideon thought, considering that neither Moe, nor McClellan, looked in particular celebratory moods. And despite her reprieve, Romy seemed uncommonly anxious. Did she know something he didn’t, something that could jeopardize their standings with the NYA?

When she went down the hall to collect her purse, he followed. Bracing a hand on the bedroom door frame, he demanded, “All right, what is wrong? Wasn’t this what you wanted? To stay on at the S&S?”

“Nothing, nothing is wrong.”

Her less than grateful attitude irritated him. “It beats going back to Germany.”

“Aye,” she said, her smile gritty, “especially if ye are a twin with the Angel of Death waiting with open arms to welcome you back to his lab at Sachsenhausen.”

Mein Gott.

§ § §

With its plethora of German and Czech beer gardens, the Hill Country music scene was drawing crowds from far and wide.

Romy had seen an array of performance sites in her short twenty-one years, but the town of Stonewall on the Pedernales captured her fancy.

The barn-like Sawdust Saloon was shouldered on either side by a taxidermy and a Texaco filling station, and backed by a limekiln. The honkytonk was the moving pictures’ Old West dance halls made manifest.

Swinging batwing doors admitted the would-be revelers to a two-story high, long room with but a scanty number of patrons that early in the evening. Falstaff Beer and Royal Crown Cola signs fought for wall space with six-foot steer horns and mounted deer and turkeys. Sawdust carpeted the cement floor, and the woodsy-dust scent filled her nostrils.

Along one side of the tin-topped building stretched a highly polished oak bar with a gleaming brass footrail. Standing ready nearby was a row of spittoons and a ledge of hooks from which towels were suspended for wiping beer suds from patron’s mustaches.

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